Black Feathers (John/OFC Dean/OFC, 2226 words, pg-rated)
Black Feathers
(John/OFC Dean/OFC, 2226 words, pg-rated, very mild non-con activity)
A raven, silence and John under the spell of a witch
One summer, John came to a small dusty town where the nights were pale blue and full of secrets. Though he only intended to stay for a week or so, he happened to meet a woman with hair the colour of Fall leaves and the gentle face of a Madonna. Her name was Grace and unbeknownst to John, she was a witch.
Grace fell deeply in love with John and tried to win him over by bringing him meals and mending his shirts. But John was still devoted to the memory of his dead wife and Grace soon realised she would never win his heart. So she used her witchcraft to enchant him, to bend his will to hers and to fill his head with nothing but ways to make her happy.
John fell under her spell and brought Grace home to live with him and his two sons. Dean and Sam were attractive young men, clever and bright, and Grace greatly looked forward to a life with the three Winchester men to serve her. But no sooner did the boys lay eyes on Grace than they knew what she had done to their father and they hated her for it.
"He's not yours," said Sam.
"And you're not our mom," said Dean.
They were careful to appear loving sons to Grace whenever John was present but as soon as he was gone, Dean and Sam would confront her and demand that she release John from the spell she had him under. Not a day passed that Grace didn't suffer their taunting and black looks. She grew more and more frustrated by it and her beauty began to fall away beneath the strain the two sons put her under.
Then on the same day that she discovered a single grey hair among her russet curls, she found Sam with a book that would teach him how to undo her magic. In a rage, she flew at him, hissing like a wildcat, and though Dean ran to shield his brother with his own body, it was too late.
Grace laid her hand on Sam and there came a dark fluttering to the house. Wind rushed through the room, snatching up the pages of Sam's studies like fallen leaves and stinging Dean's eyes. And when Dean could see again, he saw that his brother was gone and a black raven was in his place.
The raven took flight and battered its wings against the glass at the window, cawing frantically until Dean threw the window wide.
"What have you done?" Dean shouted. "What have you done?"
"What I had to," she told him. "For your father's sake. Now, the choice is yours, Dean. Love and obey me and we'll make your father smile again. Or go the same way as your brother."
Grace stroked Dean's cheek and tried to embrace him but he'd have none of it.
"Go to Hell, witch!" he screamed and ran out into the street, chasing after the black smudge on the sky that was his brother.
Dean ran until there was no more street, only the fields of waving corn and the sinking sun. He ran until he couldn't breathe anymore and he fell to his knees, sobbing helplessly for his lost brother. Wearied and desperate, Dean fell asleep and as he slept, he dreamt.
When the moon was high among the stars, gibbous and ghostly white, the raven landed in the branch of a nearby tree and called out.
"Dean! Dean, wake up and listen to me!"
Dean lifted his head, scarcely daring to believe he was hearing his brother's voice.
"Don't give up," said the raven. "There's a way to break her spell, to break all of her magic."
"How? Tell me what I have to do."
"If you can stay silent for one hundred days, all her magic will be gone. But you can't say a single word. Not for any reason. One hundred days."
One hundred days sounded like a lifetime to Dean but for his father and for his brother how could he refuse? So he nodded, took a breath and pressed his lips together. Then the raven flew from the branch and Dean was left alone.
He stayed outside all night and only when the sun was clear above did Dean return to the house. He hoped to find John beside himself with worry for his lost sons but Grace was a clever witch and John's mind was too clouded to even notice that Dean and Sam were missing.
When she saw Dean return, Grace took him by the shoulders and kissed his forehead and petted and fussed over him. She was surprised when he wouldn't speak to her, or to his father, but knew better than to push him. And Dean watched John whisper sweetness in Grace's ear before he left for work at the garage and though he hated her even more than ever, he kept silent.
One day moved into the next and a month passed while Dean remained mute and Grace grew more and more uneasy. Dean was a pretty young man with a charming nature and he'd been noticed by almost everyone in the town within the first few days of his arrival among them. So his sudden silence drew more than a few curious looks and they itched over Grace's skin.
Whenever they were together, while John slept dreamlessly, Grace would run her fingertips over Dean's unmoving lips. She'd cradle his face in her hands and kiss each freckle on his cheeks.
"Sweet boy, precious boy, talk to me. Aren't you angry with me? Don't you want to tell me how wicked I am and how you'll punish me? Talk to me."
And every time, Dean would take her wrists in his hands and put her away from him. He'd turn away and watch over his father's sleep. But he'd never speak a single word to her. She'd catch him sometimes at the window, watching the birds that swept like the waves of the sea over the dusk sky. She knew he was watching for his brother and the thought of it crept into her and would give her no rest.
So she thought to bring Dean to her as she had done John. If he wouldn't come willingly to her, she'd take his will away. She waited until the darkest hour of night and crept to his bedside. She laid her hand on his cheek while he slept and began to speak the words that would make him hers.
And she would have had him had it not been for the sudden beating of the raven's wings against the window. It shrieked and flung itself against the glass until Dean's eyes fluttered open and he saw what Grace was trying to do. And though he was horrified and threw her from his bed, he still wouldn't speak.
His silence went on and on and the curious looks from the townspeople became suspicious mutterings. When they walked down the street, John's arm about Grace and Dean a silent, sombre shadow behind them, people would watch and whisper.
"You have to do something, John," said Grace. "He's making them think I'm some kind of wicked stepmother. Please, John, talk to him. Don't let him hurt me anymore."
John's face went grim when he saw how unhappy Dean was making Grace. He couldn't see anything beyond her deceitful tears, not that one of his son's had stopped speaking or that the other was missing; he couldn't even see Mary's face anymore.
He went to Dean and spoke plainly to him.
"If you love me, you'll love Grace as your mother. You'll respect her and consider her wishes as my own. Now I want you to stop this stupid silence. You're upsetting Grace."
All his life, Dean had obeyed his father. Not a single command his father had given him had ever been disobeyed. But this was something Dean could not do for John. But he couldn't explain it either and his heart broke when he saw the hurt disappointment on John's face. He clutched at John's arm as John turned away but he couldn't say please or I'm sorry or just a little longer.
Still bitter that the raven had kept Dean from her, Grace delighted in Dean's distress. She shook her head and sighed and poured poison in John's ear.
"What kind of son won't do such a simple thing for his father?" she said. "What kind of son doesn't care when he hurts his father?"
Slowly but surely, John's heart turned cold to Dean until all he loved was Grace. When Dean stayed out in the fields, watching the sky while night crawled over him, John wouldn't call him in. While Dean grew pale and sad, John wouldn't look away from Grace's face. And Grace saw another chance to force Dean to surrender and speak or to drive him away once and for all.
One pale gold afternoon, she followed Dean into the field and pressed herself against him. She forced a kiss upon his mouth and brought his hands to her breasts. Wings whispered overhead and Dean pushed her away with such force that she fell to the ground. Stalks caught in her hair and scratched her legs. She waited until Dean had run from her then she tore at her skirt and stumbled towards the garage to find John.
"My God!" cried John when he saw her. "What happened? Who did this to you?"
He took her in his arms as she wept and shook.
"Dean," she whispered. "Dean did this."
That night, when Dean came in from the fields, John was there to meet him. He raised his shotgun to him and turned him away from the door.
"You're not welcome here. You're no son of mine."
There was no way for Dean to explain that it was all lies. He suffered his father's fury in wordless misery. Grace stood at John's side and clung to him, and victory burned in her eyes as Dean had no choice but to go back into the evening.
But Dean did not dare go too far. He couldn't leave John to the mercy of the witch. He passed a few nights sleeping on the ground but the family that lived across the street from John and Grace took pity on him and took him in, fed him and sheltered him. Grace would see him, sitting on their doorstep and watching her, the raven on his shoulder and his hatred so loud it made up for his silence.
She began to see the raven with Dean all too often. It seemed that now Dean was no longer forced to share a roof with Grace, the raven dared fly closer to the town. She'd hear its wings when she walked home from work in the dusk, its cawing would be the first thing she'd hear when she woke in the morning.
Until she could bear it no longer and she began to think on how she could rid herself of it. A wicked plan formed in her mind and on the night of the hundredth day after she turned Sam into the raven, Grace gave John his shotgun and told him to follow her to the fields. Dean was there, as she'd known he would be, and the raven was circling low above his head.
"See that bird?" she said to John. "Shoot it for me, darling. If you love me, shoot it."
So John lifted his gun and got the raven in his sights. And though it was still a few minutes short of the end of the hundredth day, when Dean saw his father aiming at the bird, his voice burst free from him.
"No!" he screamed.
A single word, enough to deflect his father's aim, but a word too soon, just a moment too soon. The bullet whipped through the air to nothing just as the moon nudged its way into the sky.
The raven squawked and then there were black feathers fluttering about Dean and his baby brother at his feet. Dean dropped to his side and he sobbed to see the feathers still piercing Sam's skin. He'd not held his voice for the full hundred days and as a result, some of Grace's magic lingered.
But it did not linger with John. The moment he saw his sons again, clinging to one another among the black fall of feathers, Grace's spell over him was broken and he saw clearly again. Her touch sickened him. The thought of how she had forced him to be disloyal to the memory of his wife made him furious. He seized her by the hair and dragged her to the Impala, and while Dean cradled Sam against him and tugged the last of the feathers gently from his body, John took her away and the witch was never seen or heard of again.
And when he returned, he held his sons and kissed their heads and they all were full of joy at being a family once more.
And though the Winchesters did not quite live happily ever after, Sam always kept a single black feather to remind himself of the time his brother went silent for one hundred days to save him.
~end
(John/OFC Dean/OFC, 2226 words, pg-rated, very mild non-con activity)
A raven, silence and John under the spell of a witch
One summer, John came to a small dusty town where the nights were pale blue and full of secrets. Though he only intended to stay for a week or so, he happened to meet a woman with hair the colour of Fall leaves and the gentle face of a Madonna. Her name was Grace and unbeknownst to John, she was a witch.
Grace fell deeply in love with John and tried to win him over by bringing him meals and mending his shirts. But John was still devoted to the memory of his dead wife and Grace soon realised she would never win his heart. So she used her witchcraft to enchant him, to bend his will to hers and to fill his head with nothing but ways to make her happy.
John fell under her spell and brought Grace home to live with him and his two sons. Dean and Sam were attractive young men, clever and bright, and Grace greatly looked forward to a life with the three Winchester men to serve her. But no sooner did the boys lay eyes on Grace than they knew what she had done to their father and they hated her for it.
"He's not yours," said Sam.
"And you're not our mom," said Dean.
They were careful to appear loving sons to Grace whenever John was present but as soon as he was gone, Dean and Sam would confront her and demand that she release John from the spell she had him under. Not a day passed that Grace didn't suffer their taunting and black looks. She grew more and more frustrated by it and her beauty began to fall away beneath the strain the two sons put her under.
Then on the same day that she discovered a single grey hair among her russet curls, she found Sam with a book that would teach him how to undo her magic. In a rage, she flew at him, hissing like a wildcat, and though Dean ran to shield his brother with his own body, it was too late.
Grace laid her hand on Sam and there came a dark fluttering to the house. Wind rushed through the room, snatching up the pages of Sam's studies like fallen leaves and stinging Dean's eyes. And when Dean could see again, he saw that his brother was gone and a black raven was in his place.
The raven took flight and battered its wings against the glass at the window, cawing frantically until Dean threw the window wide.
"What have you done?" Dean shouted. "What have you done?"
"What I had to," she told him. "For your father's sake. Now, the choice is yours, Dean. Love and obey me and we'll make your father smile again. Or go the same way as your brother."
Grace stroked Dean's cheek and tried to embrace him but he'd have none of it.
"Go to Hell, witch!" he screamed and ran out into the street, chasing after the black smudge on the sky that was his brother.
Dean ran until there was no more street, only the fields of waving corn and the sinking sun. He ran until he couldn't breathe anymore and he fell to his knees, sobbing helplessly for his lost brother. Wearied and desperate, Dean fell asleep and as he slept, he dreamt.
When the moon was high among the stars, gibbous and ghostly white, the raven landed in the branch of a nearby tree and called out.
"Dean! Dean, wake up and listen to me!"
Dean lifted his head, scarcely daring to believe he was hearing his brother's voice.
"Don't give up," said the raven. "There's a way to break her spell, to break all of her magic."
"How? Tell me what I have to do."
"If you can stay silent for one hundred days, all her magic will be gone. But you can't say a single word. Not for any reason. One hundred days."
One hundred days sounded like a lifetime to Dean but for his father and for his brother how could he refuse? So he nodded, took a breath and pressed his lips together. Then the raven flew from the branch and Dean was left alone.
He stayed outside all night and only when the sun was clear above did Dean return to the house. He hoped to find John beside himself with worry for his lost sons but Grace was a clever witch and John's mind was too clouded to even notice that Dean and Sam were missing.
When she saw Dean return, Grace took him by the shoulders and kissed his forehead and petted and fussed over him. She was surprised when he wouldn't speak to her, or to his father, but knew better than to push him. And Dean watched John whisper sweetness in Grace's ear before he left for work at the garage and though he hated her even more than ever, he kept silent.
One day moved into the next and a month passed while Dean remained mute and Grace grew more and more uneasy. Dean was a pretty young man with a charming nature and he'd been noticed by almost everyone in the town within the first few days of his arrival among them. So his sudden silence drew more than a few curious looks and they itched over Grace's skin.
Whenever they were together, while John slept dreamlessly, Grace would run her fingertips over Dean's unmoving lips. She'd cradle his face in her hands and kiss each freckle on his cheeks.
"Sweet boy, precious boy, talk to me. Aren't you angry with me? Don't you want to tell me how wicked I am and how you'll punish me? Talk to me."
And every time, Dean would take her wrists in his hands and put her away from him. He'd turn away and watch over his father's sleep. But he'd never speak a single word to her. She'd catch him sometimes at the window, watching the birds that swept like the waves of the sea over the dusk sky. She knew he was watching for his brother and the thought of it crept into her and would give her no rest.
So she thought to bring Dean to her as she had done John. If he wouldn't come willingly to her, she'd take his will away. She waited until the darkest hour of night and crept to his bedside. She laid her hand on his cheek while he slept and began to speak the words that would make him hers.
And she would have had him had it not been for the sudden beating of the raven's wings against the window. It shrieked and flung itself against the glass until Dean's eyes fluttered open and he saw what Grace was trying to do. And though he was horrified and threw her from his bed, he still wouldn't speak.
His silence went on and on and the curious looks from the townspeople became suspicious mutterings. When they walked down the street, John's arm about Grace and Dean a silent, sombre shadow behind them, people would watch and whisper.
"You have to do something, John," said Grace. "He's making them think I'm some kind of wicked stepmother. Please, John, talk to him. Don't let him hurt me anymore."
John's face went grim when he saw how unhappy Dean was making Grace. He couldn't see anything beyond her deceitful tears, not that one of his son's had stopped speaking or that the other was missing; he couldn't even see Mary's face anymore.
He went to Dean and spoke plainly to him.
"If you love me, you'll love Grace as your mother. You'll respect her and consider her wishes as my own. Now I want you to stop this stupid silence. You're upsetting Grace."
All his life, Dean had obeyed his father. Not a single command his father had given him had ever been disobeyed. But this was something Dean could not do for John. But he couldn't explain it either and his heart broke when he saw the hurt disappointment on John's face. He clutched at John's arm as John turned away but he couldn't say please or I'm sorry or just a little longer.
Still bitter that the raven had kept Dean from her, Grace delighted in Dean's distress. She shook her head and sighed and poured poison in John's ear.
"What kind of son won't do such a simple thing for his father?" she said. "What kind of son doesn't care when he hurts his father?"
Slowly but surely, John's heart turned cold to Dean until all he loved was Grace. When Dean stayed out in the fields, watching the sky while night crawled over him, John wouldn't call him in. While Dean grew pale and sad, John wouldn't look away from Grace's face. And Grace saw another chance to force Dean to surrender and speak or to drive him away once and for all.
One pale gold afternoon, she followed Dean into the field and pressed herself against him. She forced a kiss upon his mouth and brought his hands to her breasts. Wings whispered overhead and Dean pushed her away with such force that she fell to the ground. Stalks caught in her hair and scratched her legs. She waited until Dean had run from her then she tore at her skirt and stumbled towards the garage to find John.
"My God!" cried John when he saw her. "What happened? Who did this to you?"
He took her in his arms as she wept and shook.
"Dean," she whispered. "Dean did this."
That night, when Dean came in from the fields, John was there to meet him. He raised his shotgun to him and turned him away from the door.
"You're not welcome here. You're no son of mine."
There was no way for Dean to explain that it was all lies. He suffered his father's fury in wordless misery. Grace stood at John's side and clung to him, and victory burned in her eyes as Dean had no choice but to go back into the evening.
But Dean did not dare go too far. He couldn't leave John to the mercy of the witch. He passed a few nights sleeping on the ground but the family that lived across the street from John and Grace took pity on him and took him in, fed him and sheltered him. Grace would see him, sitting on their doorstep and watching her, the raven on his shoulder and his hatred so loud it made up for his silence.
She began to see the raven with Dean all too often. It seemed that now Dean was no longer forced to share a roof with Grace, the raven dared fly closer to the town. She'd hear its wings when she walked home from work in the dusk, its cawing would be the first thing she'd hear when she woke in the morning.
Until she could bear it no longer and she began to think on how she could rid herself of it. A wicked plan formed in her mind and on the night of the hundredth day after she turned Sam into the raven, Grace gave John his shotgun and told him to follow her to the fields. Dean was there, as she'd known he would be, and the raven was circling low above his head.
"See that bird?" she said to John. "Shoot it for me, darling. If you love me, shoot it."
So John lifted his gun and got the raven in his sights. And though it was still a few minutes short of the end of the hundredth day, when Dean saw his father aiming at the bird, his voice burst free from him.
"No!" he screamed.
A single word, enough to deflect his father's aim, but a word too soon, just a moment too soon. The bullet whipped through the air to nothing just as the moon nudged its way into the sky.
The raven squawked and then there were black feathers fluttering about Dean and his baby brother at his feet. Dean dropped to his side and he sobbed to see the feathers still piercing Sam's skin. He'd not held his voice for the full hundred days and as a result, some of Grace's magic lingered.
But it did not linger with John. The moment he saw his sons again, clinging to one another among the black fall of feathers, Grace's spell over him was broken and he saw clearly again. Her touch sickened him. The thought of how she had forced him to be disloyal to the memory of his wife made him furious. He seized her by the hair and dragged her to the Impala, and while Dean cradled Sam against him and tugged the last of the feathers gently from his body, John took her away and the witch was never seen or heard of again.
And when he returned, he held his sons and kissed their heads and they all were full of joy at being a family once more.
And though the Winchesters did not quite live happily ever after, Sam always kept a single black feather to remind himself of the time his brother went silent for one hundred days to save him.
~end