The Prevalence of Demons, Prologue
Jul. 8th, 2007 01:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onemuseleftTitle: The Prevalence of Demons
Fandom: Supernatural/Yu Yu Hakusho
Pairings: Gen
Warnings: Spoilers for the second season of Supernatural and general spoilers for Yu Yu Hakusho.
The Prevalence of Demons
After the three-hundredth and sixty-fifth day, Sam stops counting down and starts over fresh. This time he does not count the days his brother has left. Instead he counts each day that passes as one more day in which he has failed his brother and failed himself.
****
He has a plan, but it isn't one he can implement yet. He gives himself a year, another three hundred and sixty-five days, because if he hasn't found a solution by then, he probably never will. And if his only other choice is to abandon Dean's soul, then opening every hellmouth he can find and waiting for Dean to come to him is better than giving up.
John Winchester clawed his way out of hell with sheer determination. Sam knows that his brother is more than capable of doing the same. And if for some reason Dean can't come to him Sam is perfectly willing to climb in after him.
Dean always comes to Sam when Sam needs him. Some part of Sam doesn't believe that hell itself is enough to get in the way of that.
He doesn't stop to think about the consequences more than necessary. A year from now, when time has run out, then he'll worry about minimizing casualties and getting past Bobby and Ellen.
For now he researches and he hunts.
****
He kills when something puts itself in his path but doesn't go looking for it. His hunts now are for texts and documents. He seeks out witches and crones and women who have a reputation for knowing the future. He hears his fortune from a half-dozen fakes, is warned off his path by a dozen genuine spell-casters and a deaf girl in Virginia Beach refuses to touch his hand because she can't stand the screaming she hears when he walks into her home. She is the most helpful by far, only because she doesn't tell him to give up.
****
On the one-hundredth and fourteenth day of his new countdown, Ellen puts herself in his way.
In less than four months, Sam has lost some of his edge – or gained a sharper one, he isn’t sure which – so he has to check himself from pulling a gun on her.
She's sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala when he walks out of a diner outside Williamsburg, VA. He's only put the deaf seer behind him by about ninety minutes, and he's raw with yet another failure. Ellen watches him through the windshield and Sam curses Bobby heartily, because there are only three keys to the Impala in existence and they buried Dean with his.
****
"Your brother's going to get you killed," the girl said. Her intonation was flat and her volume a little too loud, but if Sam hadn't been told she was deaf, he probably wouldn't have noticed right off.
Sam didn't know what to say to that – he hadn't so much as introduced himself, asked her a single question – but her use of the future tense makes his throat burn. It's not any kind of a guarantee and Sam recognizes that, but his brother has been dead for almost four months and Sam is starting to grasp at straws.
"I wish I could help you," the girl said, "I honestly do. But this is so far beyond me."
It is, honestly, the most reassuring thing anyone has told him since he started his search.
****
The driver's side door opens with just a little squeak and Sam makes a mental note to oil the hinges. He slides into the driver's seat. "Ellen," he says agreeably. "Long time."
She tips her head at him but doesn't say any of the things he's expecting her to. He's expecting to hear Bobby's worried about you, Jo's worried about you, I'm worried about you. He's expecting to hear Come back with me, or We need to talk or even Dean wouldn't want this which is one hundred percent true but Sam has done a great many things Dean didn't want already; the greatest of which was walking away from his brother. Sam isn't going to walk away from Dean now, not again, even if his bother is dead.
Ellen hands him a disposable cell phone, a map and small cedar box with rough characters carved into all six sides. "There's a woman who may be able to help. She's something of a phantom – not many in our line of work even know her name and it took me this long to get a message to her. But she knows more about demons than God himself and if there's a way to beat this, she'll know it."
The characters in the box are kanji, carved by hand and sloppily – someone getting the job done and not overly concerned with appearance. Sam vaguely recognizes a ward against demons and the familiar flare of worry burns his gut, but the box opens easily for him.
The box is empty. Ellen shrugs. "Don't ask me," she says. "Just keep it with you."
"Who is she?" Sam asks, because an empty box and a cell phone is more than he had before.
"They call her Genkai," Ellen says. "And she's not going to come to you."
****
Fandom: Supernatural/Yu Yu Hakusho
Pairings: Gen
Warnings: Spoilers for the second season of Supernatural and general spoilers for Yu Yu Hakusho.
The Prevalence of Demons
After the three-hundredth and sixty-fifth day, Sam stops counting down and starts over fresh. This time he does not count the days his brother has left. Instead he counts each day that passes as one more day in which he has failed his brother and failed himself.
****
He has a plan, but it isn't one he can implement yet. He gives himself a year, another three hundred and sixty-five days, because if he hasn't found a solution by then, he probably never will. And if his only other choice is to abandon Dean's soul, then opening every hellmouth he can find and waiting for Dean to come to him is better than giving up.
John Winchester clawed his way out of hell with sheer determination. Sam knows that his brother is more than capable of doing the same. And if for some reason Dean can't come to him Sam is perfectly willing to climb in after him.
Dean always comes to Sam when Sam needs him. Some part of Sam doesn't believe that hell itself is enough to get in the way of that.
He doesn't stop to think about the consequences more than necessary. A year from now, when time has run out, then he'll worry about minimizing casualties and getting past Bobby and Ellen.
For now he researches and he hunts.
****
He kills when something puts itself in his path but doesn't go looking for it. His hunts now are for texts and documents. He seeks out witches and crones and women who have a reputation for knowing the future. He hears his fortune from a half-dozen fakes, is warned off his path by a dozen genuine spell-casters and a deaf girl in Virginia Beach refuses to touch his hand because she can't stand the screaming she hears when he walks into her home. She is the most helpful by far, only because she doesn't tell him to give up.
****
On the one-hundredth and fourteenth day of his new countdown, Ellen puts herself in his way.
In less than four months, Sam has lost some of his edge – or gained a sharper one, he isn’t sure which – so he has to check himself from pulling a gun on her.
She's sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala when he walks out of a diner outside Williamsburg, VA. He's only put the deaf seer behind him by about ninety minutes, and he's raw with yet another failure. Ellen watches him through the windshield and Sam curses Bobby heartily, because there are only three keys to the Impala in existence and they buried Dean with his.
****
"Your brother's going to get you killed," the girl said. Her intonation was flat and her volume a little too loud, but if Sam hadn't been told she was deaf, he probably wouldn't have noticed right off.
Sam didn't know what to say to that – he hadn't so much as introduced himself, asked her a single question – but her use of the future tense makes his throat burn. It's not any kind of a guarantee and Sam recognizes that, but his brother has been dead for almost four months and Sam is starting to grasp at straws.
"I wish I could help you," the girl said, "I honestly do. But this is so far beyond me."
It is, honestly, the most reassuring thing anyone has told him since he started his search.
****
The driver's side door opens with just a little squeak and Sam makes a mental note to oil the hinges. He slides into the driver's seat. "Ellen," he says agreeably. "Long time."
She tips her head at him but doesn't say any of the things he's expecting her to. He's expecting to hear Bobby's worried about you, Jo's worried about you, I'm worried about you. He's expecting to hear Come back with me, or We need to talk or even Dean wouldn't want this which is one hundred percent true but Sam has done a great many things Dean didn't want already; the greatest of which was walking away from his brother. Sam isn't going to walk away from Dean now, not again, even if his bother is dead.
Ellen hands him a disposable cell phone, a map and small cedar box with rough characters carved into all six sides. "There's a woman who may be able to help. She's something of a phantom – not many in our line of work even know her name and it took me this long to get a message to her. But she knows more about demons than God himself and if there's a way to beat this, she'll know it."
The characters in the box are kanji, carved by hand and sloppily – someone getting the job done and not overly concerned with appearance. Sam vaguely recognizes a ward against demons and the familiar flare of worry burns his gut, but the box opens easily for him.
The box is empty. Ellen shrugs. "Don't ask me," she says. "Just keep it with you."
"Who is she?" Sam asks, because an empty box and a cell phone is more than he had before.
"They call her Genkai," Ellen says. "And she's not going to come to you."
****
