Fic: Scrambled (Supernatural) 3/3
Title: Scrambled
Prompt: Possession/Mind Control
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam, Dean, Cas
Pairing(s): Gen
Word Count: 1731
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never has been.
Warnings: None
Summary: A story about witches, brothers, and fire. And maybe a little amnesia thrown in for good measure.
They found Dean pouring over the card catalogue when they finally rounded the corner into the research room. He was focused on a box of cards and barely grunted when they came in. Sam glanced over his shoulder at what he was searching then went to work thumbing through the extensive catalogue for anything that sounded vaguely helpful.
Since he wasn’t familiar with the shelving system, he would hand Cas a card and keep digging. They ended up with a table laden with heavy books. Even looking at them made Sam’s eyes droop, but he pushed on.
They spent hours there. After the third with no luck, Sam finally gave in. “I need coffee,” he said, stretching back over the back of his chair.
Dean grunted, immersed in his own book. “Bring me a cup too.”
Sam frowned down at the book in front of him. He didn’t actually know where the kitchen was in relation to this room. He debated asking for help, but eventually just got up. It couldn’t be that hard to find. Dean found him a half hour later roaming down a hallway lined with closed doors on the opposite side from the kitchen.
“What are you doing down here? Get a magic brain wave?”
Sam turned to look at him. “Oh, um no. Kitchen?”
Dean paused, surprised. The pieces came together for him and he frowned. “Why didn’t you ask earlier?”
Sam shrugged. “I figured it couldn’t be that hard to find.”
Dean snorted. “Come on, this way.”
Together they made their way to the tiled room and, fueled and ready to work, they gathered back at their table.
~~~
It was an endless task. Book after book after file after journal after book. There were files on sorceresses. But they didn’t mention anything that sounded like what had happened to Sam. There were tombs of magic and books of shadows, but it was a tedious process. They were random amalgams of information and they had to be combed through. Sam’s eyes were burning by the time he finally had to give in and get up or risk nodding off over the top of his book.
Finally, sometime late into the night, Dean said, “I think I found something.”
At this point, they’d all uttered that same line at least a half dozen times apiece. Sam wandered over to lean wearily over his shoulder. It was written in something vaguely resembling Latin, but his tired brain couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Dean could though. He translated roughly. “A spell to link minds - for revenge or perspective.”
Sam snorted. Well, that might be something. “Does it say how to work it, or better yet, how to cancel out the magic?”
“Give me a minute,” he growled. “Translating bastardized Latin on the fly is a lot harder for the rest of us.”
“We were raised on Latin. Don’t tell me you’re getting rusty in your old age.”
“Whoever wrote this took their best guess at what Latin should look like and then drug it through the mud. Some of these words aren’t even real I don’t think.”
“Somehow, I think you’ll manage.”
“Shut up,” he muttered. “You’d think you’d be a little more adoring given that I’m trying to save your ass.”
“My hero.”
Dean leaned over the page. “What the fuck does herbellum mean?”
“Herba is plant. Bellum could be war I guess,” Sam supplied.
“So waring plants?”
Sam shrugged. “Dunno. Or it could be some dude named Herbel.”
Dean groaned. “I’m going to have to fucking translate this.”
“I know every language of man,” Cas volunteered.
“Right,” Dean said. “Angel. Could you?”
He slid the book across the table. Cas studied it for a long time before he finally pushed it back. “I don’t know what language that is.”
Dean dropped his head into his hands and palmed his eyes. He took a long breath in. Finally he said, “Okay. Sam, grab a pencil and a notebook. Let’s try to decipher some of this. Cas, keep working on your end in case this is a bust. But first, I need a stretch.”
He stood up and hobbled out. Sam watched him go. “He needs to sleep,” he said to the room at large.
“I doubt he will,” Cas said.
Sam blinked and turned back to the angel. “I know. But he does. We all do. Well, maybe not you, but I do.”
“Perhaps you both should take a break.”
Sam shook his head. “No, we’ve got to solve this before I can. And Dean won’t crash until I do.” He rummaged under the sprawl of papers and found the pad he’d been taking notes on. Setting it in his lap, he pulled the book closer and began working through the dense text.
Dean had been right. It was Latin. With a dabble in something vaguely Germanic and some pretend Latin to boot. He kept slogging.
He was about a third of the way down the page when Dean reappeared carrying coffee in steaming mugs. Sam could have hugged him if it wouldn’t have taken more effort to get out of his chair.
~~~
It took them three more hours to finally crack what the page said. Fortunately, it was something helpful. It held the recipe that had been used and the incantation. No counter spell, but those were easy enough to reverse engineer with their experience. They checked their solution nearly a dozen times, but finally, Sam snapped.
“Let’s just do this thing. I can’t do this much longer.”
Dean straightened up from his spot over the notebook. “Okay,” he croaked. He pointed to the makeshift alter they had made. “Stand behind that. When I tell you to, say the incantation.”
Sam took up his spot. He watched as Dean went about setting up the actual run. There were a handful of herbs that had to be burning when he said the spell. Dean crushed them up in a stone bowl. He lit a match and tossed it. A short streak of smoke began to rise. It smelled horribly burnt, like ashes. When the herbs had been lit for a good minute, Dean nodded and Sam read from his paper.
It was some sort of gobbledy gook that they had salvaged from the book. Dean had argued that they should translate it into proper Latin, or even English, but Sam figured it should stay in whatever it was written in. They’d just have to make their best guess and roll with it.
Sam finished reading and there was a horrible crushing feeling in his skull. He felt the jarring as his knees hit the floor, but he didn’t care about it because his head was going to split in half. It felt like something was squeezing him.
He could hear Dean yelling at him vaguely over his own cry of pain.
He felt heat rising around him. He was thrust back into that burning room. Someone was wailing in the distance. And suddenly there was something in front of him. It wasn’t a person. It was dark and shifting. In the crackling flames it seemed distorted and twisted. He jerked back as it reached for him. It was the thing that was wailing. It was screaming and he just wanted to run, but he could feel the flames climbing up the back of his shirt and the wall of fire behind him, blocking him into his place. He was going to have to do something and fast.
The smoke was getting to him. His world was narrowing in. The screaming went on and on and pierced through him. When the world finally went dark, it was a miracle. He let himself relax into it and just floated.
~~~
When he finally blinked awake, it was sudden. One minute he was out, the next he was aware. He thought something might have woken him, but he couldn’t place anything. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dean sprawled out across the same chair he appeared to have been sleeping in for the last week or so, passed out. He had a thin string of drool trailing down his cheek. Sam carefully rolled his head, afraid of moving too fast and waking him. Cas was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of him, reading a book.
Cas glanced up when he moved.
Sam smiled at him. “Hey,” he said.
Cas glanced at Dean, then set his book aside. “It’s good to see you awake.”
Sam’s smile slipped. “That bad?”
“Dean was worried you might not wake up this time.”
“I… I didn’t mean to.”
“You passed out right after the ritual.”
“Yeah. Turns out the sorceress wasn’t happy about being expelled.”
“You slept for several days.”
Sam huffed. “Again?”
“You do seem to have a knack for it.”
Sam snorted softly. “I don’t suppose you’ve managed to get him into a bed?”
“He didn’t want to leave you.”
Sam smiled to himself. “I know.” He yawned.
“Perhaps you should get a few more hours yourself.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed sleepily. He allowed himself to slip back into sleep. He had that comfortable bed after all.
~~~
It took another few weeks before he began to feel confident that he was going to get all his memories back. It was slow building, but he did eventually remember most events up to that hunt. Nothing about it actually ever came back.
When he woke up the next morning, he was surprised by the quiet. He hadn’t realized how much room the sorceress’s thoughts had been taking up in his head until she was gone. He had lain in the bed, watching the dust spiral in the light from his lamp and marveled in the fact that he couldn’t hear a thing. It was probably better than the three straight days of unconsciousness had been.
Sam wondered occasionally if there would ever be a way to be certain he got all his memories back. For several weeks, he kept finding little gaps that Dean had to fill in, mostly about that night.
He still had a handful that didn't really belong to him too. He would remember them at odd times. Passing the sign for the biggest can of beer made him think of a dorm room he never had and a roommate he couldn’t name. Dean said something about butterflies and Sam flipply responded in rote. Dean stared at him instead of laughing and Sam realized it wasn’t one of their inside jokes.
There were a dozen small things that Sam knew he shouldn’t have bouncing around in his brain, but he was alive and it was quiet in his head. He figured the rest would sort itself out.
<< Part 2 ~~ Master Post
Prompt: Possession/Mind Control
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam, Dean, Cas
Pairing(s): Gen
Word Count: 1731
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never has been.
Warnings: None
Summary: A story about witches, brothers, and fire. And maybe a little amnesia thrown in for good measure.
They found Dean pouring over the card catalogue when they finally rounded the corner into the research room. He was focused on a box of cards and barely grunted when they came in. Sam glanced over his shoulder at what he was searching then went to work thumbing through the extensive catalogue for anything that sounded vaguely helpful.
Since he wasn’t familiar with the shelving system, he would hand Cas a card and keep digging. They ended up with a table laden with heavy books. Even looking at them made Sam’s eyes droop, but he pushed on.
They spent hours there. After the third with no luck, Sam finally gave in. “I need coffee,” he said, stretching back over the back of his chair.
Dean grunted, immersed in his own book. “Bring me a cup too.”
Sam frowned down at the book in front of him. He didn’t actually know where the kitchen was in relation to this room. He debated asking for help, but eventually just got up. It couldn’t be that hard to find. Dean found him a half hour later roaming down a hallway lined with closed doors on the opposite side from the kitchen.
“What are you doing down here? Get a magic brain wave?”
Sam turned to look at him. “Oh, um no. Kitchen?”
Dean paused, surprised. The pieces came together for him and he frowned. “Why didn’t you ask earlier?”
Sam shrugged. “I figured it couldn’t be that hard to find.”
Dean snorted. “Come on, this way.”
Together they made their way to the tiled room and, fueled and ready to work, they gathered back at their table.
~~~
It was an endless task. Book after book after file after journal after book. There were files on sorceresses. But they didn’t mention anything that sounded like what had happened to Sam. There were tombs of magic and books of shadows, but it was a tedious process. They were random amalgams of information and they had to be combed through. Sam’s eyes were burning by the time he finally had to give in and get up or risk nodding off over the top of his book.
Finally, sometime late into the night, Dean said, “I think I found something.”
At this point, they’d all uttered that same line at least a half dozen times apiece. Sam wandered over to lean wearily over his shoulder. It was written in something vaguely resembling Latin, but his tired brain couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Dean could though. He translated roughly. “A spell to link minds - for revenge or perspective.”
Sam snorted. Well, that might be something. “Does it say how to work it, or better yet, how to cancel out the magic?”
“Give me a minute,” he growled. “Translating bastardized Latin on the fly is a lot harder for the rest of us.”
“We were raised on Latin. Don’t tell me you’re getting rusty in your old age.”
“Whoever wrote this took their best guess at what Latin should look like and then drug it through the mud. Some of these words aren’t even real I don’t think.”
“Somehow, I think you’ll manage.”
“Shut up,” he muttered. “You’d think you’d be a little more adoring given that I’m trying to save your ass.”
“My hero.”
Dean leaned over the page. “What the fuck does herbellum mean?”
“Herba is plant. Bellum could be war I guess,” Sam supplied.
“So waring plants?”
Sam shrugged. “Dunno. Or it could be some dude named Herbel.”
Dean groaned. “I’m going to have to fucking translate this.”
“I know every language of man,” Cas volunteered.
“Right,” Dean said. “Angel. Could you?”
He slid the book across the table. Cas studied it for a long time before he finally pushed it back. “I don’t know what language that is.”
Dean dropped his head into his hands and palmed his eyes. He took a long breath in. Finally he said, “Okay. Sam, grab a pencil and a notebook. Let’s try to decipher some of this. Cas, keep working on your end in case this is a bust. But first, I need a stretch.”
He stood up and hobbled out. Sam watched him go. “He needs to sleep,” he said to the room at large.
“I doubt he will,” Cas said.
Sam blinked and turned back to the angel. “I know. But he does. We all do. Well, maybe not you, but I do.”
“Perhaps you both should take a break.”
Sam shook his head. “No, we’ve got to solve this before I can. And Dean won’t crash until I do.” He rummaged under the sprawl of papers and found the pad he’d been taking notes on. Setting it in his lap, he pulled the book closer and began working through the dense text.
Dean had been right. It was Latin. With a dabble in something vaguely Germanic and some pretend Latin to boot. He kept slogging.
He was about a third of the way down the page when Dean reappeared carrying coffee in steaming mugs. Sam could have hugged him if it wouldn’t have taken more effort to get out of his chair.
~~~
It took them three more hours to finally crack what the page said. Fortunately, it was something helpful. It held the recipe that had been used and the incantation. No counter spell, but those were easy enough to reverse engineer with their experience. They checked their solution nearly a dozen times, but finally, Sam snapped.
“Let’s just do this thing. I can’t do this much longer.”
Dean straightened up from his spot over the notebook. “Okay,” he croaked. He pointed to the makeshift alter they had made. “Stand behind that. When I tell you to, say the incantation.”
Sam took up his spot. He watched as Dean went about setting up the actual run. There were a handful of herbs that had to be burning when he said the spell. Dean crushed them up in a stone bowl. He lit a match and tossed it. A short streak of smoke began to rise. It smelled horribly burnt, like ashes. When the herbs had been lit for a good minute, Dean nodded and Sam read from his paper.
It was some sort of gobbledy gook that they had salvaged from the book. Dean had argued that they should translate it into proper Latin, or even English, but Sam figured it should stay in whatever it was written in. They’d just have to make their best guess and roll with it.
Sam finished reading and there was a horrible crushing feeling in his skull. He felt the jarring as his knees hit the floor, but he didn’t care about it because his head was going to split in half. It felt like something was squeezing him.
He could hear Dean yelling at him vaguely over his own cry of pain.
He felt heat rising around him. He was thrust back into that burning room. Someone was wailing in the distance. And suddenly there was something in front of him. It wasn’t a person. It was dark and shifting. In the crackling flames it seemed distorted and twisted. He jerked back as it reached for him. It was the thing that was wailing. It was screaming and he just wanted to run, but he could feel the flames climbing up the back of his shirt and the wall of fire behind him, blocking him into his place. He was going to have to do something and fast.
The smoke was getting to him. His world was narrowing in. The screaming went on and on and pierced through him. When the world finally went dark, it was a miracle. He let himself relax into it and just floated.
~~~
When he finally blinked awake, it was sudden. One minute he was out, the next he was aware. He thought something might have woken him, but he couldn’t place anything. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dean sprawled out across the same chair he appeared to have been sleeping in for the last week or so, passed out. He had a thin string of drool trailing down his cheek. Sam carefully rolled his head, afraid of moving too fast and waking him. Cas was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of him, reading a book.
Cas glanced up when he moved.
Sam smiled at him. “Hey,” he said.
Cas glanced at Dean, then set his book aside. “It’s good to see you awake.”
Sam’s smile slipped. “That bad?”
“Dean was worried you might not wake up this time.”
“I… I didn’t mean to.”
“You passed out right after the ritual.”
“Yeah. Turns out the sorceress wasn’t happy about being expelled.”
“You slept for several days.”
Sam huffed. “Again?”
“You do seem to have a knack for it.”
Sam snorted softly. “I don’t suppose you’ve managed to get him into a bed?”
“He didn’t want to leave you.”
Sam smiled to himself. “I know.” He yawned.
“Perhaps you should get a few more hours yourself.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed sleepily. He allowed himself to slip back into sleep. He had that comfortable bed after all.
~~~
It took another few weeks before he began to feel confident that he was going to get all his memories back. It was slow building, but he did eventually remember most events up to that hunt. Nothing about it actually ever came back.
When he woke up the next morning, he was surprised by the quiet. He hadn’t realized how much room the sorceress’s thoughts had been taking up in his head until she was gone. He had lain in the bed, watching the dust spiral in the light from his lamp and marveled in the fact that he couldn’t hear a thing. It was probably better than the three straight days of unconsciousness had been.
Sam wondered occasionally if there would ever be a way to be certain he got all his memories back. For several weeks, he kept finding little gaps that Dean had to fill in, mostly about that night.
He still had a handful that didn't really belong to him too. He would remember them at odd times. Passing the sign for the biggest can of beer made him think of a dorm room he never had and a roommate he couldn’t name. Dean said something about butterflies and Sam flipply responded in rote. Dean stared at him instead of laughing and Sam realized it wasn’t one of their inside jokes.
There were a dozen small things that Sam knew he shouldn’t have bouncing around in his brain, but he was alive and it was quiet in his head. He figured the rest would sort itself out.
<< Part 2 ~~ Master Post