The angels burned his mind's eye, their terrible faces modestly covered by wingtips that shone like swords in the sun, so bright that the dank abattoir seemed impenetrable when Sam's gaze passed over them. He stormed through the safety-glass doors.
Castiel glimmered distractingly on the wall, his human cloak puzzled, blood-smeared, and impaled like a carcass waiting to be portioned; his wings were disheveled, fluttering.
The demon Alastair stood proud, his bony human face fixed in a sneer of triumph, and beneath, taut-stretched vellum-skin flinched in fear. The flinch drew Sam close. The flinch stirred Sam's power until he thrummed with it, begged for Sam to prove himself worthy. Sam loosed his power and let it boil out through his fingers, let it slam the demon against the grubby brick.
The human face spat and snarled in defiance. The smooth white vellum-face cringed and warped, eyeless, voiceless, guileless. Sam poured pain into it, listening to the words of the human mask and watching red burns mar the inner face, and exulted. This was power. This was payback.
Dean slumped on the floor against a pentagram of eight-by-eights and iron bands, wheezing through blood, and if Sam looked now, he knew he would see the Glasgow grin and shadowed eyes, the blood-caked nails and filed-sharp teeth, that had had him pulling his knife when they'd first reunited in that red hotel room. He wondered what Dean had seen, that had had him shoving Bobby back protectively and pulling a knife of his own, and knew that whatever had peeked out from under his skin that day would be a dozen times more vivid now.
They were monsters to each-other. But the blood put Sam past caring, and with a twist of Sam's monstrous claws, Alastair's true face crumbled to ash.
Filled: 'Till We Have Faces
Date: 2013-02-04 12:11 am (UTC)Castiel glimmered distractingly on the wall, his human cloak puzzled, blood-smeared, and impaled like a carcass waiting to be portioned; his wings were disheveled, fluttering.
The demon Alastair stood proud, his bony human face fixed in a sneer of triumph, and beneath, taut-stretched vellum-skin flinched in fear. The flinch drew Sam close. The flinch stirred Sam's power until he thrummed with it, begged for Sam to prove himself worthy. Sam loosed his power and let it boil out through his fingers, let it slam the demon against the grubby brick.
The human face spat and snarled in defiance. The smooth white vellum-face cringed and warped, eyeless, voiceless, guileless. Sam poured pain into it, listening to the words of the human mask and watching red burns mar the inner face, and exulted. This was power. This was payback.
Dean slumped on the floor against a pentagram of eight-by-eights and iron bands, wheezing through blood, and if Sam looked now, he knew he would see the Glasgow grin and shadowed eyes, the blood-caked nails and filed-sharp teeth, that had had him pulling his knife when they'd first reunited in that red hotel room. He wondered what Dean had seen, that had had him shoving Bobby back protectively and pulling a knife of his own, and knew that whatever had peeked out from under his skin that day would be a dozen times more vivid now.
They were monsters to each-other. But the blood put Sam past caring, and with a twist of Sam's monstrous claws, Alastair's true face crumbled to ash.