FIC: Body & Soul, Chapter 5
Title: Body & Soul, Chapter 5
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17 overall
Chapter 5:
Tripartite Soul, a play in three interlocking acts:
I. Psyche walks among the Spirits.
II. Eros fights with Reason.
III. Desire is her ruin.
Sam and Dean look at Mary as she stands before them. Staring at them with saddened, bedroom eyes, as if it pains her to say it.
"Sam, you must travel to the underworld and retrieve a box of beauty from Queen Persephone. Since this is the most difficult task, you shall have three days to complete it. Once again, your time will end at sunrise."
Sam looks up at Dean, jaw clenched in concentration as a plan forms in his head. But Mary continues.
"Dean, for three days you must remain in your chambers, high on Olympus. You cannot help him, nor can any other god or goddess or minor deity acting in your name. And to make sure of this, I will be watching Sam, the entire time."
Dean's jaw drops, and he pulls Sam up into a sitting position, his mouth against his ear, whispering quickly. "It's okay, it's okay Sam. You can do this." Panic in his voice contradicts his words, "You can do this, Sam. You're very clever. You're smart."
Sam's still exhausted, so he just nods his head, reaching up to hold Dean's arms against him, savoring a final embrace. The feel of Dean against his body. "I need to talk to you about my dream," he whispers.
"Dean, let's go," Mary says.
"Wait, just wait," Dean pleads. "Sam you're smart enough to figure it out, you're a student of the Academy and-"
"I had a horrible vision," Sam murmurs, "Athens crumbling beneath my feet."
"Dean," Mary sighs.
"I love you, Sam. No matter what." Dean says.
Mary snaps her fingers and the room goes black.
***
Sam wakes up a few hours later, on the floor of the temples. The priests are kneeling by his side, asking him if he requires some sort of charity. Sam sheepishly thanks them for the thought and leaves the temple, heading towards his home.
Volupta greets him at the door with an impatient mewl. Sam smirks, leans down to lift her up and she purrs in his arms. His head is still fuzzy from lack of sleep and the nightmares. He walks towards his bedroom and lies in bed, letting the steady rhythm of her breathing lull him back to sleep.
Ideas are swirling through his head. Dean as a human, him as a god. Everything he's learned, every way his life has changed, his eyes have opened.
You're smart… Gods don't dream… The Academy, Sam… Visions of the future… Your real strength of mind… The Academy…
Sam wakes in the afternoon, and says aloud: "The Academy! Of course!" He realizes what Dean was trying to tell him.
He needs to speak with the headmaster.
***
Dean hasn't been grounded like this since he was a child, after the Pyramus and Thisbe muck-up.
He's on full lockdown, doors and windows enchanted to prevent him from leaving without Mary being alerted. She even put poor little Anteros in a wire cage, enchanted so Dean cannot open it, nor can Anteros fly through the bars.
She's even "clipped" Dean's wings. Bound him up with strong bands of rubber that shrink and tighten the more he tries to stretch them.
He's got plenty to eat and drink. Scrolls to read and piles of arrows to fletch and organize. Still, he prefers sulking on his bed. Arms crossed and face set in a horrible scowl.
His expression breaks though, when the pudgy little owl flies in his window and settles atop his head. Dean laughs, and it digs it's claws into his scalp.
"Hey! That is not a nest!" Dean shouts, and reaches to shoo it off. The fluffy bird simply hops from his head to his hand, stares at him with wide, curious eyes and hoots.
"Sophia!" A gentle voice calls from his doorway. "I finally found you." Athena enters his chamber and clicks the door shut. She smiles at Dean. "Sophia was always rather fond of you, Dean. You two used to fly together when you were a baby. I think she misses that."
Dean sighs and strokes the downy feathers atop the little bird's head. "I'm afraid I won't be able to go flying with her anytime soon."
Athena sits on the edge of Dean's bed, and pats his shoulder. "Well, in lieu of that, may I tell you a story?"
Dean smirks. "Is this one of your stories that are really parables that I'm supposed to learn some deep, meaningful lesson from?"
"Yes."
"Do I have a choice?"
"Nope."
"Then, sure thing! I'd love a story," he says, cradling Sophia in the crook of his arms and sitting cross-legged. Athena clears her throat.
"Once, there was a fight among the goddesses of Olympus, one that I am ashamed to say I took part in. It was between your mother, myself, and my step-mother, Hera. We fought over which of the three of us was the most beautiful goddess. In order to resolve this dispute, a mortal prince was selected by Zeus to arbitrate. You may know him as Paris, of Troy.
"Paris could not decide who was lovelier based upon looks alone. So we, all three of us, tried to buy his vote. Each of us presented an offer in turn:
"Hera offered him power, all of Asia Minor as his kingdom.
"I offered him the gift of wisdom, to make him the smartest man in the world.
"Mary offered him the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. That woman just happened to be Helen, then-wife of Menelaus.
"Of course, you know the rest of that story. Paris chooses the girl. Paris steals the girl away. War breaks out for ten years of suffering and bloodshed. Heroes are forged on the battlefield and heroes fall in their prime. The Achaeans lose Achilles. Troy loses everything else. The gods fight amongst themselves, and join in the battle.
"Well, when all was said and done, when the battle was lost and won. I asked Mary why. Why did she do what she did, knowing full well that Helen was already married, of the pacts the other suitors made to protect hers and Menelaus' union, that Paris was gullible enough to accept the promise of the hand of any beautiful woman, not necessarily Helen's.
"And Mary shrugged, and said to me, 'I needed to win.'
"It was then that I realized that Mary was… different. Like you. She thinks differently then the other gods because she's not descended of the Titans like the rest of us. She was born of primal forces, ancient gods of Earth and Sky."
Dean interrupts, "So, what's that mean?"
"Think, Dean: Who would value beauty more then a love-goddess? For whom beauty, reputation, and aesthetics mean everything? What else, does Mary have besides her powers and her beauty?"
"She has me. She has my father."
"Exactly Dean, and now, a mortal threatens to take you away."
"What?! How can she think that I would ever leave her like that!?"
Athena stands, holds an arm out for Sophia to hop onto. "I wonder what she was like at your age? Wandering the lonely, empty world. The only one of her kind, no one else to share her life with."
Dean looks down. "She'll still have father."
Athena sighs. "I know what you're planning Dean. Don't." She opens the door and leaves.
"Could've just said that in the first damn place…" Dean grumbles.
***
The headmaster is rather surprised to see Sam bursting in on his meeting that afternoon. Especially since he's been absent from the Academy for quite a while.
"Samuel! What brings you here?" he asks.
Sam pauses and looks around the room, teachers and scholars and statesmen alike that have lectured in his classes have gathered at the headmaster's home. They sit around a long table in discussion, faces grim and determined. It's like some kind of think-tank.
"I'm sorry headmaster, am I interrupting?"
He nods. "A dear friend of ours has been imprisoned."
"The trial!" Sam slaps his forehead. He had planned with his classmates to go sit in support of the headmaster's friend. But everything that had happened with Dean had taken up all his time, and the trial just fell to the wayside of his mind.
"Yes, I'm afraid he's been found guilty. Condemned to execution."
"I'm so very sorry, headmaster." Sam bows his head in solace.
The headmaster touches his shoulder. "I'm sure he would want us to carry on, regardless. Now what was it that you wanted?"
Sam looks up. "I need to ask you about the story of Er."
"Yes Sam, what about it?"
"The part about a man, able to enter the underworld while still living? I need to know how that happened."
The headmaster furrows his brow, pulls Sam into a corridor. "I'm afraid I don't understand your question, Samuel. The story of Er is about making thoughtful choices and about the immortal life of the psy-"
"It is very, very important headmaster! I must know how it happened, all the story says is that Er went into battle, and was almost killed, then twelve days later he awoke on his funeral pyre before he was burned."
"Well, Sam that is how the story generally goes. Er was a soldier in the Athenian army, and was returned with the other fallen soldiers. His body healed itself, and he awoke to tell his story. Most of us take it that the underworld was a vision, Sam. It is a story to be taught and discussed, not to be taken literally."
Sam's face falls, "No, there had to be some way to-"
"But…"
"But?"
The headmaster sighs. "There is another version of the tale, older, more fantastical in nature. I don't really like to use it in my teachings because of it."
"Tell me! Please?!"
"First Sam, you must placate my curiosity, and answer me this: Why do you want know about mortals entering the underworld?"
Sam blinks a few times. "It's just, it means a lot to me, right now."
He takes Sam's hand in his own. Pats it reassuringly. "The dead are never really gone forever, Sam. That's what the story ultimately teaches us, the soul lives on. Who is it that you've lost?"
"My mother." It's the first thing Sam can think of.
"Your mother lives on, her soul shall seek out yours in the next lifetime."
"Just, tell me the story. Please?" Sam's feeling uncomfortable, thinking about a woman he's never even met, and yet whom he should feel so strongly for.
"Well, it begins like the other. Er, warrior of Athens in battle alongside his brothers and fellow soldiers. A blow is struck, and Er falls unconscious, clinging to life by a thread, though not dead. However, the field commanders mistakenly place Er amongst the fallen, and they being of higher status than most, are taken back to Athens for a state burial.
"They were placed in the royal tomb, where their bodies were adorned with sacred herbs, and as was sometimes done in those days, Er's body was covered in salt, at the request of his family. Little did they realize that the salt was what trapped Er's spirit inside his body, allowing him time to heal from injuries that would have otherwise killed him.
"What happened next, had to have been a fantastic set of circumstances. The moonlight pouring into the tomb, the salt and herbs in the air, on his body, blown about by the wind. And finally, the prayers of the priests. All these elements converging to allow a door to the spirit world to be opened. The priests prayed to Hermes to open the door, to allow Er and the others safe passage to the next realm. Er awakens at that moment, and he sees the spirit of one of his brothers, and cries out, running towards him, frightened by his surroundings. Er takes off after the spirit, not noticing that the body lies dead beside him.
"He witnesses the god, Hermes, beckoning the ghostly vision of his brother forward, through a strange-looking doorway. Er follows him through. All temples have these doorways, Sam. Normally, they do not lead to the beyond, just other parts of the temple. But when a spirit is ready to pass, it is said that Hermes will enchant the doorway, temporarily. Because Er was covered in the herbs and dressed like the dead, Hermes permit him passage. He even carried with him a coin for Charon's ferry and a piece of spice-cake for Cerberus."
"Wait, a spice-cake?" Sam interrupts, the headmaster laughs.
"In the old days, the legend goes that the Hell-Hound of Tartarus had an incurable sweet tooth," He explains. "And so, that is the story of how, some say, Er descended into the underworld. When he was ready to return, Hermes opened the doorway once again, and he went back to his tomb to rest from his journey. He woke the next morning on his funeral pyre, thankfully before it had been lit!"
"Wow… how do you know all this, headmaster?"
"In my youth, Sam, before I settled on academia, I studied to be a playwright. I read all the stories of Homer that I could get a hold of. I believe that through these stories, the ones that have stood the test of time, we can discover fundamental truths about the human condition."
***
Eos, goddess of dawn, is the next to drop by to see Dean. Her sunny smile hiding her heartache. She holds up the tiny cricket for him to see.
"Whatever happens, remember this: eternal life is no good without eternal youth!"
Dean nods and looks at the creature sitting in her palm, chirping.
***
Sam does his homework. He finds the scrolls detailing the burial rituals that would have been performed during Er's lifetime. He digs up the asphodel and the other herbs that would have been used, and dusts himself in rocksalt. Puts two coins in his pocket along with a small piece of spice-cake from the marketplace.
The next part is a lot more difficult for him to rationalize, but it makes sense. Where else would he find spirits just about to pass into the next realm, but at the temple of Asclepius? So he breaks in and swallows his discomfort, and tries to search for someone about to pass.
It's late at night, and he stands before a young girl, reading the prayers, asking the gods to grant her safe passage into the underworld. The moonlight shines in the room, illuminating what the sunlight hides.
He sees movement in the corner of his eye, a sliver of gray moving alongside the wall behind him. Sam turns to see the spirit of the girl, running down a corridor, and he takes off after her, dropping the prayer scrolls where he stands.
She's quick, and he pushes himself just to keep up with her silvery shadow. Following her down a staircase, deeper into the catacombs of the temple, until he sees her, heading for an ornate doorway. And that's when he casts out a handful of rocksalt.
She stops, unable to move forward into the doorway, almost crying out, but no sound escapes her ghostly gray mouth.
"I'm sorry," Sam says, pouring out the rest of the salt in a circle around her, trapping her within. "But I need to keep this doorway open long enough so I can return. I'll release you when I'm done, I swear." She stares at him with wide, curious eyes.
Hermes eyes him as he passes through the doorway, and begins to walk down the long stone staircase to the land of the dead.
"Funny, you don't look like a little dead girl."
"I'm big for my age." Sam smirks.
***
Apollo is just as long-winded as Athena, if not more so. Even taking it upon himself to sing the twenty-seven verses of the song the muses wrote about his mortal lover, Hyacinth. In rhyming couplets.
Dean buries his head in a pillow. "Mother sent you here to torture me, didn't she?"
Apollo ignores him, picking up his other lyre. "Now you really don't start to get it until you hear it in B-sharp…"
***
Charon tips his head to one side, and if he had eyes left in his empty, bony sockets, Sam knows he'd be giving him a discerning, curious look.
Sam bites his lips, he'd expected this, so he pays him double. Charon shrugs and allows him to step onto the ferry.
"I'm just gonna say, you are the tallest little dead girl I've ever seen."
Sam tries not to laugh.
"So whatcha here for kid? Finding a lost love and charmin' the big guy with a lyre? Visiting dead family members? Wrong turn down the river Styx?"
"Um, I'm here to see Persephone."
Charon snorts. "Good luck, kid. Lady's a few fires short of a furnace, know what I mean?"
Sam shrugs and looks ahead, down the Acheron, towards the piece of land in the distance. The closer the vessel approaches, the clearer the picture becomes.
The underworld has a lot of lines.
It's reminiscent of registration day at the Academy, the lines, the waiting, the filing and the bureaucracy. Sam steps ashore, and is immediately lost in the whirl of spirits passing in and out. Sam tries to find someone to help him, but Charon's already off the other way.
Sam finally gets through the initial chaos and finds wise, old Rhadamanthus sitting in judgment of the souls that approach his bench. Sam tries to ask him for help in finding Persephone, but all he does is tell Sam to go home.
"But please! I need to find her!" He pleads.
"Not yet dead, I cannot judge the entirety of your life if you're yet to finish living it. There's nothing I can do for you."
"She's expecting me! Just point me in the right direction and I'll-"
"Ferry's back that way."
"But-"
"Go. Home. Half-breed," Rhadamanthus growls. "Next!" A spirit pushes Sam away. He stumbles aside and kicks the ground.
Sam needs to think, he's been down here for so long his stomach is churning with hunger. He walks away from the crowd and reaches in his pocket for the spice-cake, just for a nibble. He knows better than to try and eat a piece of food from the gardens in the land of the dead.
Suddenly, there's a low howl that shakes the ground, and burns fear and terror into his heart. The wail is followed by a pounding sound, scuffling scraping noises against the earth that mark the appearance of Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades. Sam panics and tosses the cake aside, Cerberus goes charging after it.
A soft, airy voice calls out, "Here… boy…"
Sam turns around to face the young, dreamy-eyed goddess standing before him.
"Oh… It's you."
***
Zeus tells him that what he does with mortals is his own damn business, not his mother's. It makes Dean feel really good until he leans in and asks him if he'd like to go cruising sometime, eyebrows waggling suggestively. Dean needs a shower after that conversation.
***
Persephone really isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Sam realizes this when she goes digging in his pockets and takes out his last coin.
"Oooooh…" she coos, watching it glisten in the twilight.
"Hey, um I kinda need that. For the ride back."
"Can I have it?" She blinks and pockets it anyway.
"Well, actually, no. You need to give it back. I need it."
"Need what?"
"My coin? I need it back, can I have it?" Persephone ignores him and turns around to wander into a dark patch of garden. Sam stands there, gaping at her, but remembers that he still needs her to give him the box, so he swallows his frustrations back.
Sam jogs to catch up with her. "So, um do you know why I'm here?"
Persephone nods and tugs at a tree branch, pausing to pull all the leaves off. "Yeah, I've heard the story. You were sacrificed by your father, the King, to be married to a mysterious stranger. Who turned out to be the god of love in disguise."
"Um."
"So your jealous stepsisters conspired against you, to break the two of you apart by making you shine a lamp on your sleeping husband."
"Wait-"
"Revealing him to be the god, Eros, all along. He fell in love with you when Aphrodite, jealous of your beauty had sent Eros to make you fall in love with the ugliest man on earth. But he accidentally fell on one of his arrows and fell in love with you himself."
"Hold on!"
"And then, as Eros left, you fell on one of his arrows too. You should really be more careful."
"Hey!" Sam snaps.
"Hmmm?"
"That's not how it happened." Sam shakes his head.
"Really? Could've sworn…"
"Uh huh, didn't happen like that."
"The jealous stepsisters?"
"I'm an only child."
"No, no you've a brother, right?"
"No, I don't."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Sam laughs, "I'm pretty sure I'd know if I had a brother by now."
Persephone shrugs, her bedroom eyes drift down the side of the grassy hill. "Suit yourself…"
Sam sighs. "Now, about this box that Mary Aphrodite wants?" Only Persephone doesn't answer, she's faded into the rolling silvery mist.
"Oh… Great." Sam grumbles.
***
Hestia lectures Dean for three hours on the virtues of celibacy. Dean passes the time by drawing naked pictures of people on parchment and flashing them at her until she gets so flustered she has to go take a shower.
***
He follows the fog as it rolls over craggy hills and through dark gardens and forests. Eventually, he comes upon a strange, silken tent. It crisscrosses over the tallest trees, over the sky, obstructing what little light exists in the dark realm.
Below it, runs a silvery river, surrounded by whispy white spirits. They run, play and jump around and in the waters, drinking from the riverbed and lounging in the soft dewy grass. They don't look like the other gray ghosts Sam has encountered. They shine without any drab or dull color to their forms.
Perhaps they're a different kind of spirit, maybe of a higher rank in the underworld, and they could lead Sam to wherever Persephone keeps her treasures. Sam walks carefully down the hill, tiny droplets of dew flying up in his wake.
As he gets closer to the river, he notices the silk tenting more and more. Hovering overhead like a spider's web. Canopy of dew and threads. When Sam reaches the river, the spirits seem not to notice him. They laugh and skip about wordlessly, silently. But Sam can almost hear their joyous shouts on the precipice of his consciousness.
Then he sees her, lying in the dark reeds, letting her hand drift slowly in the water.
"Jess?!" Sam cries out, but she makes no motion to him. He kneels down and approaches her, puts his solid hand through her intangible shoulder. She turns to look up at him, smiling without abandon.
"Jess," he smiles back, "Funny running into you here?" He laughs and she stands, wordlessly, turns away from him and walks a straight line into the water, until she's covered, and her white-blond head disappears into the silvery depths.
Sam puzzles for a moment, and that's all he gets because next thing he knows, their arms are coming out of the water, somehow able to grab him, wrap around his clothes and hair and neck and pull him forward. Suddenly, Sam remembers something very important from the old stories about Hades' realm.
River of Lethe, river of forgetfulness.
Sam struggles against the hands, frees himself from one pair of arms, but it's like three more pairs take the place of the first. They pull him down to the ground, on his knees, and he's getting closer and closer to the water, closer to being pulled under.
There's no help, no Dean to swoop in to his rescue, only silver waters lapping closer and closer to his face. He can almost breath in the vapors, the tiny droplets skimming over the surface of the river. His mind starts to go blank…
"Hey!" A shout comes from behind, a familiar, scolding voice. "No! No! You let him go!"
The arms fall back into the water, and Persephone slaps the rest of them away. "Shoo! Bad psyche! Very bad psyche! You let him go!"
Sam tumbles back on the grass, and breathes in the cold air, feeling his head piece itself back together, everything's still there. It's cold, so cold all of a sudden, his breath is coming out in puffs of vapor and his teeth have started to chatter.
"Sorry about that, they get lonely down there, and they must've heard you talking. They can't talk back, but they love to listen."
"W-what are they?"
"The psyche of wicked souls. It takes longer to erase their memories because of their impurities. They've more weight to bear, more sins to answer for."
"And the others?" Sam looks across the water, at Jess playing with the other spirits.
"Purer souls, not much to answer for. They're almost ready to ascend-but that's not the point. You're late, Sam. They're waiting for you, c'mon."
"Who?"
Persephone clicks her teeth, "The fates, of course! You need to ask them about your visions."
***
Justice is the first one of Dean's visitors to really make a lick of sense, even through all her cryptic babble. She holds up her scales to Dean, and they tilt to one side.
"Your problem is balance. He is more human than god. You are more god than human."
"So, it's true? Ares isn't my sire?"
"No, and neither Hephaestus."
Dean narrows his eyes. "He's my father."
"I understand Dean, and I was not implying any filial allegiance to another. My point is that you have a human relative. It is hard to tell, when blood and ichor mix, all sorts of things can happen. The scales tip one way or another without a reason. You just happened to end up with the longer end of the stick in your case."
"So, what does it mean?"
"Asymmetry."
"Yeah, I got that part. How do I fix it? How can we be together?"
Justice cocks her head to one side. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question, Dean. The only way to correct the problem is to be together."
Dean jumps up, waving his arms. "Well what the fuck do you think I've been trying to do this whole damn time!?"
"Your differences cancel each other out. You are a god with human impulses, desires and feelings. He is a mortal with divine foresight, prophetic visions." Dean still doesn't understand until Justice sighs and says very clearly. "Yin and Yang, Dean. Not Yin and Yin. Two sames can't fulfill each other as the two interlocking parts can." Dean nods, finally understanding.
Justice turns to leave, but before she does she says, "We know what you're planning. Don't."
Dean looks at the knife on his side table.
***
"Hold on, you're saying I'm some kind of… Oracle?"
Clotho scoffs, pulling thread out of her spool. Sam is in awe of the sheer amount of threads they have. Now he realizes the silken canopy from before is actually just the overabundance of threads spun and woven by the three fates: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
"Oracle, falsifying snake," Clotho spits.
"Sibylla of nothing," Lachesis agrees.
"The high altitude and air pressure of the mountain she sits atop, combined with the natural gases that escape through cracks in the earth make her high. So she just spews out whatever hallucinations pop into her refried brain," Atropos explains.
"Bubbles in her brain," Clotho adds.
"Falsey-tongued greedy witch! Taking tribute in the name of fate! Ohhh I can't wait until Hades gets a hold of her, tosses her into the mouth of a beast, forever gnawed upon for all eternity." Lachesis wrings her bony hands.
"We're not exactly her biggest fans," Atropos finishes.
Sam nods. "But, you say my dreams-"
"Visions."
"Prophecies."
"Warnings"
Sam blinks. "Yeah, you're saying those are real?"
"Cronus did see his son, Zeus, destroy him in a dream."
"Acrisius, descendant of Zeus and Io, did see his grandson Perseus send him to his death."
"What they're saying is, even with a few drops of divine blood in your veins, you can cull the power of precognition in your dreams. Like Tiresias when blinded, his second sight was needed, and so it did manifest. You visions appear because there is a need for them. They warn you against the wrong choices."
"What am I supposed to do?" Sam asks quietly.
"Speak."
"Demand."
"We'll answer."
Persephone coughs. "Tell them your dreams, and they'll decipher it. They're in a giving mood right now, I wouldn't waste the opportunity."
"Okay, so the first dream? I see Dean in his room, (I think it's his room, I've never actually seen it but, something just tells me it's his room), and there's this knife. Big curvy blade, ancient writing on the handle, and he uses it to cut his wings off. There's all this blood and screaming, and then next, he's in my arms. I'm holding him and he's alive and we're happy, we're together and then a dagger flies through the air and kills him. Or if I miss the dagger? He drowns. If he doesn't drown? He burns or dies of some strange sickness. It always ends with his dead body, and I'm there, still holding him." Sam takes a deep breath.
The fates nod amongst themselves.
"Should you fail this task, Dean will become desperate," Clotho begins.
"Cut off his wings, use forbidden potions and magicks to become a human," Lachesis continues.
"And so it is fated, dead within a year," Atropos ends.
Sam swallows. "So the other dream, I've only had this once. I'm in Athens, or rather what's left of Athens, the ruins of the Academy. And I'm a god, but something's wrong with me, I'm not right and I think I've destroyed Athens, killed my father."
Clotho rubs her face. "It is both symbolic and literal. Should you succeed and become a god, it will happen."
"The delicate balance in you, between god and mortal, shall be tipped too far to one side."
"It's the death of everything you love, everything that makes you who you are. Your home, your family, your scholarly life. It is the death of your soul, for gods have none. They have no chance for life after their deaths."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "But, gods can't die?"
The fates laugh. "What do you think happens to gods?"
"When the humans stop believing in them?"
"Gods cease to be when there is no one worshipping them."
"So, Dean has no soul?" Sam asks.
"Dean is human, in parts."
"Mortal father, goddess mother."
"He is an embodiment of love, and shall exist so long as love wields the power it does over mankind. His mother existed before the age of humans, and so shall she exist after."
Sam looks down and swallows. "In summary, if I lose, Dean dies. If I win, I destroy myself, and everything else in the world I love."
"And die."
"Sort of."
"In a roundabout way, since you are your psyche."
Sam sighs, and Persephone pulls him out of the chamber slowly. "C'mon Sam, let's go somewhere less depressing…"
She leads him away from the chamber of the fates, and back outside to the twilight garden, Sam hangs his head.
"Sam, there's always a choice."
Sam looks up at Persephone, standing in the grass, wind blowing gently at her dress.
"Not for me."
Persephone covers her mouth. "No, no, no, Sam. Sometimes I'm wrong, I know. Things get tossed around in my head down here but-there is always a choice."
"Oh? What about you? Was it your choice when Hades kidnapped you? Huh?"
Persephone closes her eyes and shivers. "I have a box for you… somewhere…" She turns around and fades away into the distance again.
***
Erato, muse of lyrics comes to give Dean a reprieve from all the good advice everyone is trying to lay on him. They have a dirty limerick contest.
It's cut short when Hera storms in, clutching a peacock in her arms. She proceeds to tell the tale of Zeus' infidelity, of Io and her thousand-eyed servant, Argus. Then she launches into the Heracles story.
When she finally finishes and leaves, Erato cheers Dean by declaring a new contest. And they spend their time together making up dirty limericks about Hera.
***
Sam sits on the ground, cross-legged and watches the precessions of the purified souls as they leave for earth, and the incoming streams of dark gray souls as they just begin their journey through the underworld. He watches them as the masses are sorted and filed into neat little lines. More come and more leave every second. A never-ending stream of life and death and rebirth.
"She chose a pomegranate," a voice comes from nowhere, and Sam jumps.
Hades lifts off his helmet of invisibility, and appears from thin air, the lord of the underworld, King of the Dead. Sam scrambles to his feet as the imposing figure looks down at a rather skittish mortal.
"I gave her a choice. I told her to leave, or to have something to eat. She asked for a pomegranate, because she said orange bits would get stuck in her teeth. So I gave her that pomegranate, from my garden. She peeled it open and ate six seeds. The entire time she was in my realm, she ate not a single bite. Why only six seeds? Why not the whole thing? Why not only one? You, yourself have seen a god on the brink of starvation, and how little self-control they can exude. Why only six little seeds?"
Sam laughs, realizing. "Because there's always a choice."
"My wife is the embodiment of finding the happy medium. She is Queen of the Dead, she is goddess of spring and renewal. She keeps balanced, no matter what her mother says about me. I gave her a choice, and she chose to have both things she wanted. Not one or the other."
"So what am I choosing? Have Dean and have…"
Hades nods him on.
"And… have my soul?"
"We have a winner!" Persephone appears from the ether, handing over a golden treasure-box. "I'm s'posed to give this to you," she explains.
"Psyche, it means more than just 'soul' or 'breath', right?"
"It's spirit, soul, mind and self all wrapped into one. It is the certain qualia of you. What makes you like nobody else…" Persephone blinks and reaches into her pocket, "You're sure I can't have it?" She says, holding up his coin.
Sam quickly snatches the coin back before she changes her mind. He should turn and leave, but his curiosity gets the better of him.
"You're really happy here?" he asks her.
"Mother says I'm special. Says down here I'm held back, not myself. But I have my husband, I have my kingdom and I have my puppy… Hey, can I have that?" Persephone points at the golden box.
Sam quickly hides it behind his back and asks, "Have what?"
Hades laughs and puts his arm around Persephone. "You should probably get going. Lucidity isn't her strong suit, but hey, it's why I love her."
Sam thanks him and takes off for Charon's ferry.
"I got turned around again, didn't I?" Persephone bites her nails.
"Yes, dear. But it's okay, you helped him out a lot."
"So he really doesn't have a king for a father?"
"No, dear."
"Or wicked stepsisters?"
"No, dear."
"Or a brother?"
"…Pomegranate, dear?"
***
Dionysus gets Dean so damn drunk he can't think anymore. "Sam, who?" he cackles. And then his mirth turns somber.
He and Dionysus wail with each other, arms clasped, over loves lost. Sam's name is on Dean's lips as he drifts to sleep.
***
Sam takes the long winding staircase two steps at a time, the box clutched firmly to his chest. Though it's encrusted with gold and jewels, it feels lighter than air, and Sam is almost worried that it may fly away if he doesn't hold it closely.
He finally emerges in the Asclepiad temple, the spirit of the young girl still trapped in the circle of salt. He bends over and breaks the ring surrounding her, apologizes once again, and she quickly flits away, disappearing through the dark doorway, which promptly vanishes.
One glance at the window tells him there's still time, the sky still hangs dark blue, dawn only just about to creep in at the edges. But Sam's still on the other edge of Athens, and he has to get across town by sunrise.
***
Demeter brings him a nice herbal tea, for his hangover, and a pinch of her own homegrown wisdom. Or at least that's what she calls it.
She slips a few leaves into Anteros' cage and smiles at the little insect. Then turns to Dean and says, "My daughter, Persephone, is a beautiful, free spirit. But when in Hades' realm, she's a different person. Out of her natural element, the goddess of Spring in the dark, dank underworld becomes lost in her role as Queen of the Dead. Her head gets muddled, she can't think clearly, act the way she knows she should."
Demeter lifts Anteros' cage off the high shelf and brings it to Dean. "She is as she was made. Meant to be free on earth in sunshine. Not locked away in a dark cage. Neither is Sam, and neither are you. Self-imposed exile isn't the way. We know what you've been planning-"
There's a shout of disgust from outside Dean's room, followed by a chorus of cheers and applause.
"What was that?" Dean asks.
Demeter smiles, lifting the clasps to the cage, freeing Anteros who happily buzzes at Dean's side. "I think that was the sound of you winning."
Dean's eyes light up.
***
"You know," yellow-eyed Ares leans down to whisper in Mary's ear, "he's going to make it."
"I know." Mary says through gritted teeth as she stares at the vision of Sam in the viewing-orb. He's speeding through Western Athens, approaching the temple on foot.
"Cheer up, Mary, don't think of it as losing a son, think of it as gaining a son-in-law!"
"Ares…"
"Gosh, I wonder who'll walk Dean down the aisle? You or my brother… or me?"
"Ares!"
"Think Dean could get away with wearing white?"
"Aaaaaugh!" Mary screams and sends him flying out of the palace window. The other gods behind her stand up and cheer, but not for her actions. Sam has just crossed the threshold of the temple, and placed the golden box at the altar.
"No, no, no, NO!" She throws her diadem at the viewing-orb, shattering it. The other gods quickly leave the room. Except for Hephaestus, who slams down his drought of mead, and wipes his face.
"Mary!" he yells.
She stills, holding her arms to her body, head bowed in shame.
"Mary," he repeats softly, "It's over."
She nods.
"You can't win them all-"
"I needed to win," she turns to her husband, tears cracking her face. "I need Dean more than he does."
Hephaestus stands up on unsure legs. Rubs his face, and thinks about everything. About all the pieces of the puzzle.
"If you love your son half as much as you say you do? You'll go down there right now, and concede to the boy. Take Dean with you."
***
Sam places the golden box on the altar, and then just collapses on the ground. There's only an hour before sunrise, maybe a little more. He's made it with time to spare, he feels delirious, like laughing and crying at the same time. The stone floor is cool on his wearied back, his strained muscles. He closes his eyes for a moment.
When he opens them Dean's smiling face is looking down on him.
"How ya doin', champ?" he chirps.
Sam wants to laugh but it's too much effort, he's running on fumes and that final sprint to the temple took every last bit of his strength. All he can do is just whisper, "Dean…"
Dean crouches down, gently takes Sam in his arms and lifts him up. Sam rests a hand on his chest. "I was so worried, Sammy, should've known you would come through."
"Dean, I-"
Mary interrupts them, clearing her throat impatiently.
"Well, I suppose this is well-earned." She holds up a plate of ambrosia, and goblet of nectar.
"Food of the gods, Sam. It'll make you immortal, make you like me," Dean explains.
Sam's head spins as Dean walks closer to where Mary stands, carrying him towards the plate of food. Six seeds… Death of the psyche… The soul… Athens… Father.
Dean.
"Dean," he whispers, "Get me out of here, now."
Sam doesn't really have to explain or say anything else, the urgency in his breath, his shaking body, it's all Dean needs to understand. Dean spans open his wings and beats hard, blowing vases and trinkets to the ground, Mary herself falls back in his wake.
She worries her index finger between her teeth, and decides that now may be a good time to give Dean some space.
***
"So." Dean blinks.
"Yeah," Sam mumbles into his shoulder.
Dean sits with his back to the rock, as the waves churn below them. Sam sits by his side, leaning on him, still exhausted from everything. The sky stays blue, just as the sunrise threatens to come streaming light across the horizon.
"Well, that really does suck." Dean sighs, wrapping his arm around Sam.
"I believe it's what the Macedonians call a rock and a hard place," Sam says as he nuzzles in closer to Dean.
"You knew what I was planning, too."
"I didn't actually know, I just saw it in a vision."
"Mmmm hmmm," Dean worries his lip, "So I'd only have a year…"
Sam sits up and grabs Dean's face with both hands. "NO! Dean, you are not going to go through with it!"
"Well I won't let you become a god! I couldn't let that happen to you like you said." Dean cups Sam's chin.
"I know! I know! Rock and a hard place!" Sam falls forward into Dean. He holds Sam close, letting his weary body rest. Sam's eyes slip shut.
"We just have to," Sam yawns, "make do with the time we have together. Sure, you'll outlive me but… It's my choice, Dean. I wouldn't choose any life without you in it." Sam breathes heavy, nuzzling close to Dean until he nods off completely, soft snoring against Dean's chest.
Dean looks up as the sun breaks out against the clouds, chasing away the lingering blue darkness with powerful bursts of orange and yellow light. It dances across the water, and Dean feels illuminated in it's shine, the answer staring him right in the face.
Psyche.
***
Sam sleeps for most of the day, and wakes up in his own bed, Volupta purring at his feet and Dean sitting on his hips, hands on his chest, face bright.
"Psyche."
"Huh?" Sam mumbles.
"Psyche, Sam."
"Whookay-what?"
"Psyche! Mortal body," he points to Sam, "immortal spirit." Then he points to himself, "Immortal, divine, and most importantly, omniscient."
"Omni-wha?"
"All-seeing, as in: Hi Sam, I can see all."
"Well, I should hope so," Sam says, sitting up, leaning against the pillows at the head of the bed.
"I'll know it's you! I'll know because I can see your psyche, your individual essential self. You said you wouldn't choose a life without me in it. Well, and it's crazy Sam, crazy to even ask you this, but choose every life with me."
"Y'know, I really don't think I like it when you drink."
"I'm not drunk, Sam! I'm asking you to spend forever with me! What? Do you want it in writing? Formal declaration? Should I get down on one knee?"
"I want it in Greek, damn it! You're not making any sense!" Dean gets off of him, lies next to him, flat on his belly, wings in the air. Dean keeps his hand pressed to Sam's chest, right over his heart.
Sam sighs, Dean's so very lovely, and he's missed sharing his bed. Sam reaches over and lies on his side, touches a feathery joint, rubbing it gently. Dean closes his eyes and hums.
"I'm just saying, Sam," he murmurs, "that I'd love you in every life you lead. And if you'd let me be a part of it, I will."
Sam shifts closer to Dean, still rubbing his wing, bends down to kiss his shoulder. "But I won't remember you."
"I'll just have to jog your memory." Dean winks.
"What if I'm a different person?"
"Still you, still your soul."
"What if I come back different? What if I'm a bad person? A criminal or a tyrant? What if I'm a woman? Or an animal? Or if I die young or-"
"Sam! There's plenty of time to worry about the what-ifs."
"How will I know who you are?" Sam bites his lip. "What if I love another?"
"Then I'll stand aside." Dean touches his face. "It's a risk I'm willing to take, Sammy."
Sam twines Dean in his arms, pulls him up to rest on him, holds his body close. They kiss, tonguing each other open and moaning, deeper and deeper. Pressing their groins together, erections rubbing against one another.
Sam wraps his legs around Dean's waist, and lets Dean press gently into him, fingers slicked up with oil from the bedside table. Probing and stretching him, massaging. Sam feels Dean push into him, slowly. Throws his head back and groans, grabbing at Dean, hands pulling at his hair. Dean's mouth clamps down on his neck, sucking at the skin, teeth grazing and leaving gooseflesh in their wake.
Dean comes first, burying into Sam's tight heat, head falling into the dip of his chest. He snakes his hand down to Sam's hard cock, dripping and twitching with precome, begging for release. He strokes him off, hand still slick with oil and sweat. Sam moans in pleasure.
They fuck slowly, gently for what seems like hours, trading positions and orgasms. Long lingering kisses, and promises whispered between the two of them, planning out the rest of their lives.
Together.
***
John returns about a week later. He's not surprised to see both Sam and Lysias waiting for him in front of the house, hands clasped.
Sam hugs his father, takes in each and every new scar and bruise he's acquired on his journey. The necklace of what he can only assume are teeth and bones from his trophy kills. A new armor-plate forged from impenetrable boar-hide.
Lysias smiles and shakes the man's hand heartily, stepping out of the way so the travel-weary man can enter his home.
"So," John asks, seating himself, "did I miss anything?"
"Nah." Lysias shrugs.
"Nothing we couldn't handle." Sam quirks his mouth. "What we'd really love to hear, father, is what you've been doing? Tell us everything that's happened on the hunt and beyond."
"Y'mean what adventures you boys missed out on?" John says, sitting back in the chair just as Volupta decides to leap up into his lap. John puzzles. "We got a cat?"
"Uh, yeah…" Sam says.
John lifts the sleek, black animal up, appraises her. The almost metallic sheen of her shiny black coat. He smiles gruffly, and places her back in his lap, scratching behind her ears. "Reminds me of that trip down to Men-nefer when we were hunting those Nile river beasts. Always wanted one, nice call there, Sam."
Sam turns to Lysias and runs his fingers through his lover's hair. "Nice call D-uh-Lysias."
"Thanks, Sammy." Lysias looks at him, sharing words and touches across the distance they sit apart from one another.
John decides it's entirely too sweet of a moment that they're sharing, and at that moment launches into the first of many stories he tells that evening. This one is a particularly gory tale of how they slew and skinned the giant beast, followed by the biggest, bloodiest sacrificial feast he'd even seen.
All night John talks, and the boys slowly drift to sleep, leaning against one another.
***
Mary can't speak.
Hephaestus limps up behind her, watching the glowing image of her son, Sam, and the most certainly not deceased John Ventuscastra.
"Y'know, Athena's got these theories 'bout you, Mare. Your primitive ways, thoughts, instincts, abilities." He leans in close to her neck, "You don't got a damn's worth of a sense o' smell, dearest.
"And it's funny, because since Dean's father is human, and he obviously takes after you, he can't smell too good either, prob'ly worse than you. Can't smell the scent of ichor-immortal blood in Sam. When it was, painfully, obvious to all of us that he was half-god. And even more to the point, which god and which mortal they were."
"Mine… my son," Mary whispers.
"Sons. Brothers. Same mother," leaning even closer, he brushes her shoulder with his beard, "same father."
Mary gasps a little as his words tickle her ear.
"The true, real justice to this is: if Dean really were my son, he would've been able to tell who Sam was from the start."
"W-why didn't you say anything?! If not for me, then what about for Dean?" Mary turns to him, voice panicking.
"Hurting Dean isn't part of the deal. He's plenty happy not knowing, all the other gods know that. This, Mary, this is about you. This is for Troy. This is for Ares. But most of all?" Hephaestus sighs and leans back, almost-smile on his face.
"This? Is what you get for being unfaithful to me."
He limps away just as Mary collapses to the marble floor, weeping into her hands.
Nothing about love is fair.
***
Epilogue
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: NC-17 overall
Chapter 5:
Tripartite Soul, a play in three interlocking acts:
I. Psyche walks among the Spirits.
II. Eros fights with Reason.
III. Desire is her ruin.
Sam and Dean look at Mary as she stands before them. Staring at them with saddened, bedroom eyes, as if it pains her to say it.
"Sam, you must travel to the underworld and retrieve a box of beauty from Queen Persephone. Since this is the most difficult task, you shall have three days to complete it. Once again, your time will end at sunrise."
Sam looks up at Dean, jaw clenched in concentration as a plan forms in his head. But Mary continues.
"Dean, for three days you must remain in your chambers, high on Olympus. You cannot help him, nor can any other god or goddess or minor deity acting in your name. And to make sure of this, I will be watching Sam, the entire time."
Dean's jaw drops, and he pulls Sam up into a sitting position, his mouth against his ear, whispering quickly. "It's okay, it's okay Sam. You can do this." Panic in his voice contradicts his words, "You can do this, Sam. You're very clever. You're smart."
Sam's still exhausted, so he just nods his head, reaching up to hold Dean's arms against him, savoring a final embrace. The feel of Dean against his body. "I need to talk to you about my dream," he whispers.
"Dean, let's go," Mary says.
"Wait, just wait," Dean pleads. "Sam you're smart enough to figure it out, you're a student of the Academy and-"
"I had a horrible vision," Sam murmurs, "Athens crumbling beneath my feet."
"Dean," Mary sighs.
"I love you, Sam. No matter what." Dean says.
Mary snaps her fingers and the room goes black.
***
Sam wakes up a few hours later, on the floor of the temples. The priests are kneeling by his side, asking him if he requires some sort of charity. Sam sheepishly thanks them for the thought and leaves the temple, heading towards his home.
Volupta greets him at the door with an impatient mewl. Sam smirks, leans down to lift her up and she purrs in his arms. His head is still fuzzy from lack of sleep and the nightmares. He walks towards his bedroom and lies in bed, letting the steady rhythm of her breathing lull him back to sleep.
Ideas are swirling through his head. Dean as a human, him as a god. Everything he's learned, every way his life has changed, his eyes have opened.
You're smart… Gods don't dream… The Academy, Sam… Visions of the future… Your real strength of mind… The Academy…
Sam wakes in the afternoon, and says aloud: "The Academy! Of course!" He realizes what Dean was trying to tell him.
He needs to speak with the headmaster.
***
Dean hasn't been grounded like this since he was a child, after the Pyramus and Thisbe muck-up.
He's on full lockdown, doors and windows enchanted to prevent him from leaving without Mary being alerted. She even put poor little Anteros in a wire cage, enchanted so Dean cannot open it, nor can Anteros fly through the bars.
She's even "clipped" Dean's wings. Bound him up with strong bands of rubber that shrink and tighten the more he tries to stretch them.
He's got plenty to eat and drink. Scrolls to read and piles of arrows to fletch and organize. Still, he prefers sulking on his bed. Arms crossed and face set in a horrible scowl.
His expression breaks though, when the pudgy little owl flies in his window and settles atop his head. Dean laughs, and it digs it's claws into his scalp.
"Hey! That is not a nest!" Dean shouts, and reaches to shoo it off. The fluffy bird simply hops from his head to his hand, stares at him with wide, curious eyes and hoots.
"Sophia!" A gentle voice calls from his doorway. "I finally found you." Athena enters his chamber and clicks the door shut. She smiles at Dean. "Sophia was always rather fond of you, Dean. You two used to fly together when you were a baby. I think she misses that."
Dean sighs and strokes the downy feathers atop the little bird's head. "I'm afraid I won't be able to go flying with her anytime soon."
Athena sits on the edge of Dean's bed, and pats his shoulder. "Well, in lieu of that, may I tell you a story?"
Dean smirks. "Is this one of your stories that are really parables that I'm supposed to learn some deep, meaningful lesson from?"
"Yes."
"Do I have a choice?"
"Nope."
"Then, sure thing! I'd love a story," he says, cradling Sophia in the crook of his arms and sitting cross-legged. Athena clears her throat.
"Once, there was a fight among the goddesses of Olympus, one that I am ashamed to say I took part in. It was between your mother, myself, and my step-mother, Hera. We fought over which of the three of us was the most beautiful goddess. In order to resolve this dispute, a mortal prince was selected by Zeus to arbitrate. You may know him as Paris, of Troy.
"Paris could not decide who was lovelier based upon looks alone. So we, all three of us, tried to buy his vote. Each of us presented an offer in turn:
"Hera offered him power, all of Asia Minor as his kingdom.
"I offered him the gift of wisdom, to make him the smartest man in the world.
"Mary offered him the most beautiful woman in the world as his wife. That woman just happened to be Helen, then-wife of Menelaus.
"Of course, you know the rest of that story. Paris chooses the girl. Paris steals the girl away. War breaks out for ten years of suffering and bloodshed. Heroes are forged on the battlefield and heroes fall in their prime. The Achaeans lose Achilles. Troy loses everything else. The gods fight amongst themselves, and join in the battle.
"Well, when all was said and done, when the battle was lost and won. I asked Mary why. Why did she do what she did, knowing full well that Helen was already married, of the pacts the other suitors made to protect hers and Menelaus' union, that Paris was gullible enough to accept the promise of the hand of any beautiful woman, not necessarily Helen's.
"And Mary shrugged, and said to me, 'I needed to win.'
"It was then that I realized that Mary was… different. Like you. She thinks differently then the other gods because she's not descended of the Titans like the rest of us. She was born of primal forces, ancient gods of Earth and Sky."
Dean interrupts, "So, what's that mean?"
"Think, Dean: Who would value beauty more then a love-goddess? For whom beauty, reputation, and aesthetics mean everything? What else, does Mary have besides her powers and her beauty?"
"She has me. She has my father."
"Exactly Dean, and now, a mortal threatens to take you away."
"What?! How can she think that I would ever leave her like that!?"
Athena stands, holds an arm out for Sophia to hop onto. "I wonder what she was like at your age? Wandering the lonely, empty world. The only one of her kind, no one else to share her life with."
Dean looks down. "She'll still have father."
Athena sighs. "I know what you're planning Dean. Don't." She opens the door and leaves.
"Could've just said that in the first damn place…" Dean grumbles.
***
The headmaster is rather surprised to see Sam bursting in on his meeting that afternoon. Especially since he's been absent from the Academy for quite a while.
"Samuel! What brings you here?" he asks.
Sam pauses and looks around the room, teachers and scholars and statesmen alike that have lectured in his classes have gathered at the headmaster's home. They sit around a long table in discussion, faces grim and determined. It's like some kind of think-tank.
"I'm sorry headmaster, am I interrupting?"
He nods. "A dear friend of ours has been imprisoned."
"The trial!" Sam slaps his forehead. He had planned with his classmates to go sit in support of the headmaster's friend. But everything that had happened with Dean had taken up all his time, and the trial just fell to the wayside of his mind.
"Yes, I'm afraid he's been found guilty. Condemned to execution."
"I'm so very sorry, headmaster." Sam bows his head in solace.
The headmaster touches his shoulder. "I'm sure he would want us to carry on, regardless. Now what was it that you wanted?"
Sam looks up. "I need to ask you about the story of Er."
"Yes Sam, what about it?"
"The part about a man, able to enter the underworld while still living? I need to know how that happened."
The headmaster furrows his brow, pulls Sam into a corridor. "I'm afraid I don't understand your question, Samuel. The story of Er is about making thoughtful choices and about the immortal life of the psy-"
"It is very, very important headmaster! I must know how it happened, all the story says is that Er went into battle, and was almost killed, then twelve days later he awoke on his funeral pyre before he was burned."
"Well, Sam that is how the story generally goes. Er was a soldier in the Athenian army, and was returned with the other fallen soldiers. His body healed itself, and he awoke to tell his story. Most of us take it that the underworld was a vision, Sam. It is a story to be taught and discussed, not to be taken literally."
Sam's face falls, "No, there had to be some way to-"
"But…"
"But?"
The headmaster sighs. "There is another version of the tale, older, more fantastical in nature. I don't really like to use it in my teachings because of it."
"Tell me! Please?!"
"First Sam, you must placate my curiosity, and answer me this: Why do you want know about mortals entering the underworld?"
Sam blinks a few times. "It's just, it means a lot to me, right now."
He takes Sam's hand in his own. Pats it reassuringly. "The dead are never really gone forever, Sam. That's what the story ultimately teaches us, the soul lives on. Who is it that you've lost?"
"My mother." It's the first thing Sam can think of.
"Your mother lives on, her soul shall seek out yours in the next lifetime."
"Just, tell me the story. Please?" Sam's feeling uncomfortable, thinking about a woman he's never even met, and yet whom he should feel so strongly for.
"Well, it begins like the other. Er, warrior of Athens in battle alongside his brothers and fellow soldiers. A blow is struck, and Er falls unconscious, clinging to life by a thread, though not dead. However, the field commanders mistakenly place Er amongst the fallen, and they being of higher status than most, are taken back to Athens for a state burial.
"They were placed in the royal tomb, where their bodies were adorned with sacred herbs, and as was sometimes done in those days, Er's body was covered in salt, at the request of his family. Little did they realize that the salt was what trapped Er's spirit inside his body, allowing him time to heal from injuries that would have otherwise killed him.
"What happened next, had to have been a fantastic set of circumstances. The moonlight pouring into the tomb, the salt and herbs in the air, on his body, blown about by the wind. And finally, the prayers of the priests. All these elements converging to allow a door to the spirit world to be opened. The priests prayed to Hermes to open the door, to allow Er and the others safe passage to the next realm. Er awakens at that moment, and he sees the spirit of one of his brothers, and cries out, running towards him, frightened by his surroundings. Er takes off after the spirit, not noticing that the body lies dead beside him.
"He witnesses the god, Hermes, beckoning the ghostly vision of his brother forward, through a strange-looking doorway. Er follows him through. All temples have these doorways, Sam. Normally, they do not lead to the beyond, just other parts of the temple. But when a spirit is ready to pass, it is said that Hermes will enchant the doorway, temporarily. Because Er was covered in the herbs and dressed like the dead, Hermes permit him passage. He even carried with him a coin for Charon's ferry and a piece of spice-cake for Cerberus."
"Wait, a spice-cake?" Sam interrupts, the headmaster laughs.
"In the old days, the legend goes that the Hell-Hound of Tartarus had an incurable sweet tooth," He explains. "And so, that is the story of how, some say, Er descended into the underworld. When he was ready to return, Hermes opened the doorway once again, and he went back to his tomb to rest from his journey. He woke the next morning on his funeral pyre, thankfully before it had been lit!"
"Wow… how do you know all this, headmaster?"
"In my youth, Sam, before I settled on academia, I studied to be a playwright. I read all the stories of Homer that I could get a hold of. I believe that through these stories, the ones that have stood the test of time, we can discover fundamental truths about the human condition."
***
Eos, goddess of dawn, is the next to drop by to see Dean. Her sunny smile hiding her heartache. She holds up the tiny cricket for him to see.
"Whatever happens, remember this: eternal life is no good without eternal youth!"
Dean nods and looks at the creature sitting in her palm, chirping.
***
Sam does his homework. He finds the scrolls detailing the burial rituals that would have been performed during Er's lifetime. He digs up the asphodel and the other herbs that would have been used, and dusts himself in rocksalt. Puts two coins in his pocket along with a small piece of spice-cake from the marketplace.
The next part is a lot more difficult for him to rationalize, but it makes sense. Where else would he find spirits just about to pass into the next realm, but at the temple of Asclepius? So he breaks in and swallows his discomfort, and tries to search for someone about to pass.
It's late at night, and he stands before a young girl, reading the prayers, asking the gods to grant her safe passage into the underworld. The moonlight shines in the room, illuminating what the sunlight hides.
He sees movement in the corner of his eye, a sliver of gray moving alongside the wall behind him. Sam turns to see the spirit of the girl, running down a corridor, and he takes off after her, dropping the prayer scrolls where he stands.
She's quick, and he pushes himself just to keep up with her silvery shadow. Following her down a staircase, deeper into the catacombs of the temple, until he sees her, heading for an ornate doorway. And that's when he casts out a handful of rocksalt.
She stops, unable to move forward into the doorway, almost crying out, but no sound escapes her ghostly gray mouth.
"I'm sorry," Sam says, pouring out the rest of the salt in a circle around her, trapping her within. "But I need to keep this doorway open long enough so I can return. I'll release you when I'm done, I swear." She stares at him with wide, curious eyes.
Hermes eyes him as he passes through the doorway, and begins to walk down the long stone staircase to the land of the dead.
"Funny, you don't look like a little dead girl."
"I'm big for my age." Sam smirks.
***
Apollo is just as long-winded as Athena, if not more so. Even taking it upon himself to sing the twenty-seven verses of the song the muses wrote about his mortal lover, Hyacinth. In rhyming couplets.
Dean buries his head in a pillow. "Mother sent you here to torture me, didn't she?"
Apollo ignores him, picking up his other lyre. "Now you really don't start to get it until you hear it in B-sharp…"
***
Charon tips his head to one side, and if he had eyes left in his empty, bony sockets, Sam knows he'd be giving him a discerning, curious look.
Sam bites his lips, he'd expected this, so he pays him double. Charon shrugs and allows him to step onto the ferry.
"I'm just gonna say, you are the tallest little dead girl I've ever seen."
Sam tries not to laugh.
"So whatcha here for kid? Finding a lost love and charmin' the big guy with a lyre? Visiting dead family members? Wrong turn down the river Styx?"
"Um, I'm here to see Persephone."
Charon snorts. "Good luck, kid. Lady's a few fires short of a furnace, know what I mean?"
Sam shrugs and looks ahead, down the Acheron, towards the piece of land in the distance. The closer the vessel approaches, the clearer the picture becomes.
The underworld has a lot of lines.
It's reminiscent of registration day at the Academy, the lines, the waiting, the filing and the bureaucracy. Sam steps ashore, and is immediately lost in the whirl of spirits passing in and out. Sam tries to find someone to help him, but Charon's already off the other way.
Sam finally gets through the initial chaos and finds wise, old Rhadamanthus sitting in judgment of the souls that approach his bench. Sam tries to ask him for help in finding Persephone, but all he does is tell Sam to go home.
"But please! I need to find her!" He pleads.
"Not yet dead, I cannot judge the entirety of your life if you're yet to finish living it. There's nothing I can do for you."
"She's expecting me! Just point me in the right direction and I'll-"
"Ferry's back that way."
"But-"
"Go. Home. Half-breed," Rhadamanthus growls. "Next!" A spirit pushes Sam away. He stumbles aside and kicks the ground.
Sam needs to think, he's been down here for so long his stomach is churning with hunger. He walks away from the crowd and reaches in his pocket for the spice-cake, just for a nibble. He knows better than to try and eat a piece of food from the gardens in the land of the dead.
Suddenly, there's a low howl that shakes the ground, and burns fear and terror into his heart. The wail is followed by a pounding sound, scuffling scraping noises against the earth that mark the appearance of Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades. Sam panics and tosses the cake aside, Cerberus goes charging after it.
A soft, airy voice calls out, "Here… boy…"
Sam turns around to face the young, dreamy-eyed goddess standing before him.
"Oh… It's you."
***
Zeus tells him that what he does with mortals is his own damn business, not his mother's. It makes Dean feel really good until he leans in and asks him if he'd like to go cruising sometime, eyebrows waggling suggestively. Dean needs a shower after that conversation.
***
Persephone really isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Sam realizes this when she goes digging in his pockets and takes out his last coin.
"Oooooh…" she coos, watching it glisten in the twilight.
"Hey, um I kinda need that. For the ride back."
"Can I have it?" She blinks and pockets it anyway.
"Well, actually, no. You need to give it back. I need it."
"Need what?"
"My coin? I need it back, can I have it?" Persephone ignores him and turns around to wander into a dark patch of garden. Sam stands there, gaping at her, but remembers that he still needs her to give him the box, so he swallows his frustrations back.
Sam jogs to catch up with her. "So, um do you know why I'm here?"
Persephone nods and tugs at a tree branch, pausing to pull all the leaves off. "Yeah, I've heard the story. You were sacrificed by your father, the King, to be married to a mysterious stranger. Who turned out to be the god of love in disguise."
"Um."
"So your jealous stepsisters conspired against you, to break the two of you apart by making you shine a lamp on your sleeping husband."
"Wait-"
"Revealing him to be the god, Eros, all along. He fell in love with you when Aphrodite, jealous of your beauty had sent Eros to make you fall in love with the ugliest man on earth. But he accidentally fell on one of his arrows and fell in love with you himself."
"Hold on!"
"And then, as Eros left, you fell on one of his arrows too. You should really be more careful."
"Hey!" Sam snaps.
"Hmmm?"
"That's not how it happened." Sam shakes his head.
"Really? Could've sworn…"
"Uh huh, didn't happen like that."
"The jealous stepsisters?"
"I'm an only child."
"No, no you've a brother, right?"
"No, I don't."
"You sure?"
"Yeah," Sam laughs, "I'm pretty sure I'd know if I had a brother by now."
Persephone shrugs, her bedroom eyes drift down the side of the grassy hill. "Suit yourself…"
Sam sighs. "Now, about this box that Mary Aphrodite wants?" Only Persephone doesn't answer, she's faded into the rolling silvery mist.
"Oh… Great." Sam grumbles.
***
Hestia lectures Dean for three hours on the virtues of celibacy. Dean passes the time by drawing naked pictures of people on parchment and flashing them at her until she gets so flustered she has to go take a shower.
***
He follows the fog as it rolls over craggy hills and through dark gardens and forests. Eventually, he comes upon a strange, silken tent. It crisscrosses over the tallest trees, over the sky, obstructing what little light exists in the dark realm.
Below it, runs a silvery river, surrounded by whispy white spirits. They run, play and jump around and in the waters, drinking from the riverbed and lounging in the soft dewy grass. They don't look like the other gray ghosts Sam has encountered. They shine without any drab or dull color to their forms.
Perhaps they're a different kind of spirit, maybe of a higher rank in the underworld, and they could lead Sam to wherever Persephone keeps her treasures. Sam walks carefully down the hill, tiny droplets of dew flying up in his wake.
As he gets closer to the river, he notices the silk tenting more and more. Hovering overhead like a spider's web. Canopy of dew and threads. When Sam reaches the river, the spirits seem not to notice him. They laugh and skip about wordlessly, silently. But Sam can almost hear their joyous shouts on the precipice of his consciousness.
Then he sees her, lying in the dark reeds, letting her hand drift slowly in the water.
"Jess?!" Sam cries out, but she makes no motion to him. He kneels down and approaches her, puts his solid hand through her intangible shoulder. She turns to look up at him, smiling without abandon.
"Jess," he smiles back, "Funny running into you here?" He laughs and she stands, wordlessly, turns away from him and walks a straight line into the water, until she's covered, and her white-blond head disappears into the silvery depths.
Sam puzzles for a moment, and that's all he gets because next thing he knows, their arms are coming out of the water, somehow able to grab him, wrap around his clothes and hair and neck and pull him forward. Suddenly, Sam remembers something very important from the old stories about Hades' realm.
River of Lethe, river of forgetfulness.
Sam struggles against the hands, frees himself from one pair of arms, but it's like three more pairs take the place of the first. They pull him down to the ground, on his knees, and he's getting closer and closer to the water, closer to being pulled under.
There's no help, no Dean to swoop in to his rescue, only silver waters lapping closer and closer to his face. He can almost breath in the vapors, the tiny droplets skimming over the surface of the river. His mind starts to go blank…
"Hey!" A shout comes from behind, a familiar, scolding voice. "No! No! You let him go!"
The arms fall back into the water, and Persephone slaps the rest of them away. "Shoo! Bad psyche! Very bad psyche! You let him go!"
Sam tumbles back on the grass, and breathes in the cold air, feeling his head piece itself back together, everything's still there. It's cold, so cold all of a sudden, his breath is coming out in puffs of vapor and his teeth have started to chatter.
"Sorry about that, they get lonely down there, and they must've heard you talking. They can't talk back, but they love to listen."
"W-what are they?"
"The psyche of wicked souls. It takes longer to erase their memories because of their impurities. They've more weight to bear, more sins to answer for."
"And the others?" Sam looks across the water, at Jess playing with the other spirits.
"Purer souls, not much to answer for. They're almost ready to ascend-but that's not the point. You're late, Sam. They're waiting for you, c'mon."
"Who?"
Persephone clicks her teeth, "The fates, of course! You need to ask them about your visions."
***
Justice is the first one of Dean's visitors to really make a lick of sense, even through all her cryptic babble. She holds up her scales to Dean, and they tilt to one side.
"Your problem is balance. He is more human than god. You are more god than human."
"So, it's true? Ares isn't my sire?"
"No, and neither Hephaestus."
Dean narrows his eyes. "He's my father."
"I understand Dean, and I was not implying any filial allegiance to another. My point is that you have a human relative. It is hard to tell, when blood and ichor mix, all sorts of things can happen. The scales tip one way or another without a reason. You just happened to end up with the longer end of the stick in your case."
"So, what does it mean?"
"Asymmetry."
"Yeah, I got that part. How do I fix it? How can we be together?"
Justice cocks her head to one side. "I'm afraid I don't understand the question, Dean. The only way to correct the problem is to be together."
Dean jumps up, waving his arms. "Well what the fuck do you think I've been trying to do this whole damn time!?"
"Your differences cancel each other out. You are a god with human impulses, desires and feelings. He is a mortal with divine foresight, prophetic visions." Dean still doesn't understand until Justice sighs and says very clearly. "Yin and Yang, Dean. Not Yin and Yin. Two sames can't fulfill each other as the two interlocking parts can." Dean nods, finally understanding.
Justice turns to leave, but before she does she says, "We know what you're planning. Don't."
Dean looks at the knife on his side table.
***
"Hold on, you're saying I'm some kind of… Oracle?"
Clotho scoffs, pulling thread out of her spool. Sam is in awe of the sheer amount of threads they have. Now he realizes the silken canopy from before is actually just the overabundance of threads spun and woven by the three fates: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
"Oracle, falsifying snake," Clotho spits.
"Sibylla of nothing," Lachesis agrees.
"The high altitude and air pressure of the mountain she sits atop, combined with the natural gases that escape through cracks in the earth make her high. So she just spews out whatever hallucinations pop into her refried brain," Atropos explains.
"Bubbles in her brain," Clotho adds.
"Falsey-tongued greedy witch! Taking tribute in the name of fate! Ohhh I can't wait until Hades gets a hold of her, tosses her into the mouth of a beast, forever gnawed upon for all eternity." Lachesis wrings her bony hands.
"We're not exactly her biggest fans," Atropos finishes.
Sam nods. "But, you say my dreams-"
"Visions."
"Prophecies."
"Warnings"
Sam blinks. "Yeah, you're saying those are real?"
"Cronus did see his son, Zeus, destroy him in a dream."
"Acrisius, descendant of Zeus and Io, did see his grandson Perseus send him to his death."
"What they're saying is, even with a few drops of divine blood in your veins, you can cull the power of precognition in your dreams. Like Tiresias when blinded, his second sight was needed, and so it did manifest. You visions appear because there is a need for them. They warn you against the wrong choices."
"What am I supposed to do?" Sam asks quietly.
"Speak."
"Demand."
"We'll answer."
Persephone coughs. "Tell them your dreams, and they'll decipher it. They're in a giving mood right now, I wouldn't waste the opportunity."
"Okay, so the first dream? I see Dean in his room, (I think it's his room, I've never actually seen it but, something just tells me it's his room), and there's this knife. Big curvy blade, ancient writing on the handle, and he uses it to cut his wings off. There's all this blood and screaming, and then next, he's in my arms. I'm holding him and he's alive and we're happy, we're together and then a dagger flies through the air and kills him. Or if I miss the dagger? He drowns. If he doesn't drown? He burns or dies of some strange sickness. It always ends with his dead body, and I'm there, still holding him." Sam takes a deep breath.
The fates nod amongst themselves.
"Should you fail this task, Dean will become desperate," Clotho begins.
"Cut off his wings, use forbidden potions and magicks to become a human," Lachesis continues.
"And so it is fated, dead within a year," Atropos ends.
Sam swallows. "So the other dream, I've only had this once. I'm in Athens, or rather what's left of Athens, the ruins of the Academy. And I'm a god, but something's wrong with me, I'm not right and I think I've destroyed Athens, killed my father."
Clotho rubs her face. "It is both symbolic and literal. Should you succeed and become a god, it will happen."
"The delicate balance in you, between god and mortal, shall be tipped too far to one side."
"It's the death of everything you love, everything that makes you who you are. Your home, your family, your scholarly life. It is the death of your soul, for gods have none. They have no chance for life after their deaths."
Sam raises an eyebrow. "But, gods can't die?"
The fates laugh. "What do you think happens to gods?"
"When the humans stop believing in them?"
"Gods cease to be when there is no one worshipping them."
"So, Dean has no soul?" Sam asks.
"Dean is human, in parts."
"Mortal father, goddess mother."
"He is an embodiment of love, and shall exist so long as love wields the power it does over mankind. His mother existed before the age of humans, and so shall she exist after."
Sam looks down and swallows. "In summary, if I lose, Dean dies. If I win, I destroy myself, and everything else in the world I love."
"And die."
"Sort of."
"In a roundabout way, since you are your psyche."
Sam sighs, and Persephone pulls him out of the chamber slowly. "C'mon Sam, let's go somewhere less depressing…"
She leads him away from the chamber of the fates, and back outside to the twilight garden, Sam hangs his head.
"Sam, there's always a choice."
Sam looks up at Persephone, standing in the grass, wind blowing gently at her dress.
"Not for me."
Persephone covers her mouth. "No, no, no, Sam. Sometimes I'm wrong, I know. Things get tossed around in my head down here but-there is always a choice."
"Oh? What about you? Was it your choice when Hades kidnapped you? Huh?"
Persephone closes her eyes and shivers. "I have a box for you… somewhere…" She turns around and fades away into the distance again.
***
Erato, muse of lyrics comes to give Dean a reprieve from all the good advice everyone is trying to lay on him. They have a dirty limerick contest.
It's cut short when Hera storms in, clutching a peacock in her arms. She proceeds to tell the tale of Zeus' infidelity, of Io and her thousand-eyed servant, Argus. Then she launches into the Heracles story.
When she finally finishes and leaves, Erato cheers Dean by declaring a new contest. And they spend their time together making up dirty limericks about Hera.
***
Sam sits on the ground, cross-legged and watches the precessions of the purified souls as they leave for earth, and the incoming streams of dark gray souls as they just begin their journey through the underworld. He watches them as the masses are sorted and filed into neat little lines. More come and more leave every second. A never-ending stream of life and death and rebirth.
"She chose a pomegranate," a voice comes from nowhere, and Sam jumps.
Hades lifts off his helmet of invisibility, and appears from thin air, the lord of the underworld, King of the Dead. Sam scrambles to his feet as the imposing figure looks down at a rather skittish mortal.
"I gave her a choice. I told her to leave, or to have something to eat. She asked for a pomegranate, because she said orange bits would get stuck in her teeth. So I gave her that pomegranate, from my garden. She peeled it open and ate six seeds. The entire time she was in my realm, she ate not a single bite. Why only six seeds? Why not the whole thing? Why not only one? You, yourself have seen a god on the brink of starvation, and how little self-control they can exude. Why only six little seeds?"
Sam laughs, realizing. "Because there's always a choice."
"My wife is the embodiment of finding the happy medium. She is Queen of the Dead, she is goddess of spring and renewal. She keeps balanced, no matter what her mother says about me. I gave her a choice, and she chose to have both things she wanted. Not one or the other."
"So what am I choosing? Have Dean and have…"
Hades nods him on.
"And… have my soul?"
"We have a winner!" Persephone appears from the ether, handing over a golden treasure-box. "I'm s'posed to give this to you," she explains.
"Psyche, it means more than just 'soul' or 'breath', right?"
"It's spirit, soul, mind and self all wrapped into one. It is the certain qualia of you. What makes you like nobody else…" Persephone blinks and reaches into her pocket, "You're sure I can't have it?" She says, holding up his coin.
Sam quickly snatches the coin back before she changes her mind. He should turn and leave, but his curiosity gets the better of him.
"You're really happy here?" he asks her.
"Mother says I'm special. Says down here I'm held back, not myself. But I have my husband, I have my kingdom and I have my puppy… Hey, can I have that?" Persephone points at the golden box.
Sam quickly hides it behind his back and asks, "Have what?"
Hades laughs and puts his arm around Persephone. "You should probably get going. Lucidity isn't her strong suit, but hey, it's why I love her."
Sam thanks him and takes off for Charon's ferry.
"I got turned around again, didn't I?" Persephone bites her nails.
"Yes, dear. But it's okay, you helped him out a lot."
"So he really doesn't have a king for a father?"
"No, dear."
"Or wicked stepsisters?"
"No, dear."
"Or a brother?"
"…Pomegranate, dear?"
***
Dionysus gets Dean so damn drunk he can't think anymore. "Sam, who?" he cackles. And then his mirth turns somber.
He and Dionysus wail with each other, arms clasped, over loves lost. Sam's name is on Dean's lips as he drifts to sleep.
***
Sam takes the long winding staircase two steps at a time, the box clutched firmly to his chest. Though it's encrusted with gold and jewels, it feels lighter than air, and Sam is almost worried that it may fly away if he doesn't hold it closely.
He finally emerges in the Asclepiad temple, the spirit of the young girl still trapped in the circle of salt. He bends over and breaks the ring surrounding her, apologizes once again, and she quickly flits away, disappearing through the dark doorway, which promptly vanishes.
One glance at the window tells him there's still time, the sky still hangs dark blue, dawn only just about to creep in at the edges. But Sam's still on the other edge of Athens, and he has to get across town by sunrise.
***
Demeter brings him a nice herbal tea, for his hangover, and a pinch of her own homegrown wisdom. Or at least that's what she calls it.
She slips a few leaves into Anteros' cage and smiles at the little insect. Then turns to Dean and says, "My daughter, Persephone, is a beautiful, free spirit. But when in Hades' realm, she's a different person. Out of her natural element, the goddess of Spring in the dark, dank underworld becomes lost in her role as Queen of the Dead. Her head gets muddled, she can't think clearly, act the way she knows she should."
Demeter lifts Anteros' cage off the high shelf and brings it to Dean. "She is as she was made. Meant to be free on earth in sunshine. Not locked away in a dark cage. Neither is Sam, and neither are you. Self-imposed exile isn't the way. We know what you've been planning-"
There's a shout of disgust from outside Dean's room, followed by a chorus of cheers and applause.
"What was that?" Dean asks.
Demeter smiles, lifting the clasps to the cage, freeing Anteros who happily buzzes at Dean's side. "I think that was the sound of you winning."
Dean's eyes light up.
***
"You know," yellow-eyed Ares leans down to whisper in Mary's ear, "he's going to make it."
"I know." Mary says through gritted teeth as she stares at the vision of Sam in the viewing-orb. He's speeding through Western Athens, approaching the temple on foot.
"Cheer up, Mary, don't think of it as losing a son, think of it as gaining a son-in-law!"
"Ares…"
"Gosh, I wonder who'll walk Dean down the aisle? You or my brother… or me?"
"Ares!"
"Think Dean could get away with wearing white?"
"Aaaaaugh!" Mary screams and sends him flying out of the palace window. The other gods behind her stand up and cheer, but not for her actions. Sam has just crossed the threshold of the temple, and placed the golden box at the altar.
"No, no, no, NO!" She throws her diadem at the viewing-orb, shattering it. The other gods quickly leave the room. Except for Hephaestus, who slams down his drought of mead, and wipes his face.
"Mary!" he yells.
She stills, holding her arms to her body, head bowed in shame.
"Mary," he repeats softly, "It's over."
She nods.
"You can't win them all-"
"I needed to win," she turns to her husband, tears cracking her face. "I need Dean more than he does."
Hephaestus stands up on unsure legs. Rubs his face, and thinks about everything. About all the pieces of the puzzle.
"If you love your son half as much as you say you do? You'll go down there right now, and concede to the boy. Take Dean with you."
***
Sam places the golden box on the altar, and then just collapses on the ground. There's only an hour before sunrise, maybe a little more. He's made it with time to spare, he feels delirious, like laughing and crying at the same time. The stone floor is cool on his wearied back, his strained muscles. He closes his eyes for a moment.
When he opens them Dean's smiling face is looking down on him.
"How ya doin', champ?" he chirps.
Sam wants to laugh but it's too much effort, he's running on fumes and that final sprint to the temple took every last bit of his strength. All he can do is just whisper, "Dean…"
Dean crouches down, gently takes Sam in his arms and lifts him up. Sam rests a hand on his chest. "I was so worried, Sammy, should've known you would come through."
"Dean, I-"
Mary interrupts them, clearing her throat impatiently.
"Well, I suppose this is well-earned." She holds up a plate of ambrosia, and goblet of nectar.
"Food of the gods, Sam. It'll make you immortal, make you like me," Dean explains.
Sam's head spins as Dean walks closer to where Mary stands, carrying him towards the plate of food. Six seeds… Death of the psyche… The soul… Athens… Father.
Dean.
"Dean," he whispers, "Get me out of here, now."
Sam doesn't really have to explain or say anything else, the urgency in his breath, his shaking body, it's all Dean needs to understand. Dean spans open his wings and beats hard, blowing vases and trinkets to the ground, Mary herself falls back in his wake.
She worries her index finger between her teeth, and decides that now may be a good time to give Dean some space.
***
"So." Dean blinks.
"Yeah," Sam mumbles into his shoulder.
Dean sits with his back to the rock, as the waves churn below them. Sam sits by his side, leaning on him, still exhausted from everything. The sky stays blue, just as the sunrise threatens to come streaming light across the horizon.
"Well, that really does suck." Dean sighs, wrapping his arm around Sam.
"I believe it's what the Macedonians call a rock and a hard place," Sam says as he nuzzles in closer to Dean.
"You knew what I was planning, too."
"I didn't actually know, I just saw it in a vision."
"Mmmm hmmm," Dean worries his lip, "So I'd only have a year…"
Sam sits up and grabs Dean's face with both hands. "NO! Dean, you are not going to go through with it!"
"Well I won't let you become a god! I couldn't let that happen to you like you said." Dean cups Sam's chin.
"I know! I know! Rock and a hard place!" Sam falls forward into Dean. He holds Sam close, letting his weary body rest. Sam's eyes slip shut.
"We just have to," Sam yawns, "make do with the time we have together. Sure, you'll outlive me but… It's my choice, Dean. I wouldn't choose any life without you in it." Sam breathes heavy, nuzzling close to Dean until he nods off completely, soft snoring against Dean's chest.
Dean looks up as the sun breaks out against the clouds, chasing away the lingering blue darkness with powerful bursts of orange and yellow light. It dances across the water, and Dean feels illuminated in it's shine, the answer staring him right in the face.
Psyche.
***
Sam sleeps for most of the day, and wakes up in his own bed, Volupta purring at his feet and Dean sitting on his hips, hands on his chest, face bright.
"Psyche."
"Huh?" Sam mumbles.
"Psyche, Sam."
"Whookay-what?"
"Psyche! Mortal body," he points to Sam, "immortal spirit." Then he points to himself, "Immortal, divine, and most importantly, omniscient."
"Omni-wha?"
"All-seeing, as in: Hi Sam, I can see all."
"Well, I should hope so," Sam says, sitting up, leaning against the pillows at the head of the bed.
"I'll know it's you! I'll know because I can see your psyche, your individual essential self. You said you wouldn't choose a life without me in it. Well, and it's crazy Sam, crazy to even ask you this, but choose every life with me."
"Y'know, I really don't think I like it when you drink."
"I'm not drunk, Sam! I'm asking you to spend forever with me! What? Do you want it in writing? Formal declaration? Should I get down on one knee?"
"I want it in Greek, damn it! You're not making any sense!" Dean gets off of him, lies next to him, flat on his belly, wings in the air. Dean keeps his hand pressed to Sam's chest, right over his heart.
Sam sighs, Dean's so very lovely, and he's missed sharing his bed. Sam reaches over and lies on his side, touches a feathery joint, rubbing it gently. Dean closes his eyes and hums.
"I'm just saying, Sam," he murmurs, "that I'd love you in every life you lead. And if you'd let me be a part of it, I will."
Sam shifts closer to Dean, still rubbing his wing, bends down to kiss his shoulder. "But I won't remember you."
"I'll just have to jog your memory." Dean winks.
"What if I'm a different person?"
"Still you, still your soul."
"What if I come back different? What if I'm a bad person? A criminal or a tyrant? What if I'm a woman? Or an animal? Or if I die young or-"
"Sam! There's plenty of time to worry about the what-ifs."
"How will I know who you are?" Sam bites his lip. "What if I love another?"
"Then I'll stand aside." Dean touches his face. "It's a risk I'm willing to take, Sammy."
Sam twines Dean in his arms, pulls him up to rest on him, holds his body close. They kiss, tonguing each other open and moaning, deeper and deeper. Pressing their groins together, erections rubbing against one another.
Sam wraps his legs around Dean's waist, and lets Dean press gently into him, fingers slicked up with oil from the bedside table. Probing and stretching him, massaging. Sam feels Dean push into him, slowly. Throws his head back and groans, grabbing at Dean, hands pulling at his hair. Dean's mouth clamps down on his neck, sucking at the skin, teeth grazing and leaving gooseflesh in their wake.
Dean comes first, burying into Sam's tight heat, head falling into the dip of his chest. He snakes his hand down to Sam's hard cock, dripping and twitching with precome, begging for release. He strokes him off, hand still slick with oil and sweat. Sam moans in pleasure.
They fuck slowly, gently for what seems like hours, trading positions and orgasms. Long lingering kisses, and promises whispered between the two of them, planning out the rest of their lives.
Together.
***
John returns about a week later. He's not surprised to see both Sam and Lysias waiting for him in front of the house, hands clasped.
Sam hugs his father, takes in each and every new scar and bruise he's acquired on his journey. The necklace of what he can only assume are teeth and bones from his trophy kills. A new armor-plate forged from impenetrable boar-hide.
Lysias smiles and shakes the man's hand heartily, stepping out of the way so the travel-weary man can enter his home.
"So," John asks, seating himself, "did I miss anything?"
"Nah." Lysias shrugs.
"Nothing we couldn't handle." Sam quirks his mouth. "What we'd really love to hear, father, is what you've been doing? Tell us everything that's happened on the hunt and beyond."
"Y'mean what adventures you boys missed out on?" John says, sitting back in the chair just as Volupta decides to leap up into his lap. John puzzles. "We got a cat?"
"Uh, yeah…" Sam says.
John lifts the sleek, black animal up, appraises her. The almost metallic sheen of her shiny black coat. He smiles gruffly, and places her back in his lap, scratching behind her ears. "Reminds me of that trip down to Men-nefer when we were hunting those Nile river beasts. Always wanted one, nice call there, Sam."
Sam turns to Lysias and runs his fingers through his lover's hair. "Nice call D-uh-Lysias."
"Thanks, Sammy." Lysias looks at him, sharing words and touches across the distance they sit apart from one another.
John decides it's entirely too sweet of a moment that they're sharing, and at that moment launches into the first of many stories he tells that evening. This one is a particularly gory tale of how they slew and skinned the giant beast, followed by the biggest, bloodiest sacrificial feast he'd even seen.
All night John talks, and the boys slowly drift to sleep, leaning against one another.
***
Mary can't speak.
Hephaestus limps up behind her, watching the glowing image of her son, Sam, and the most certainly not deceased John Ventuscastra.
"Y'know, Athena's got these theories 'bout you, Mare. Your primitive ways, thoughts, instincts, abilities." He leans in close to her neck, "You don't got a damn's worth of a sense o' smell, dearest.
"And it's funny, because since Dean's father is human, and he obviously takes after you, he can't smell too good either, prob'ly worse than you. Can't smell the scent of ichor-immortal blood in Sam. When it was, painfully, obvious to all of us that he was half-god. And even more to the point, which god and which mortal they were."
"Mine… my son," Mary whispers.
"Sons. Brothers. Same mother," leaning even closer, he brushes her shoulder with his beard, "same father."
Mary gasps a little as his words tickle her ear.
"The true, real justice to this is: if Dean really were my son, he would've been able to tell who Sam was from the start."
"W-why didn't you say anything?! If not for me, then what about for Dean?" Mary turns to him, voice panicking.
"Hurting Dean isn't part of the deal. He's plenty happy not knowing, all the other gods know that. This, Mary, this is about you. This is for Troy. This is for Ares. But most of all?" Hephaestus sighs and leans back, almost-smile on his face.
"This? Is what you get for being unfaithful to me."
He limps away just as Mary collapses to the marble floor, weeping into her hands.
Nothing about love is fair.
***
Epilogue