DEVOUR x SPN crossover fic!
Sep. 18th, 2008 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fannishlissHAPPY SEASON 4 PREMIERE DAY, EVERYBODY!
Please consider reading my DEVOUR crossover. That movie made no sense, but my story does. You might even understand (or even like!) the movie a little more after reading my story. And Jensen is really pretty! so you KNOW you want to like it.
SPOILERS for Devour, and for Supernatural thru s3 finale only: the story tells what happened next. As a Devour Crossover I'm SURE it's AU from season 4.
Rating: adult. My story is not wincest, brotherly love only, but is rated ADULT due to content from the movie.
Disclaimer: Bits of dialogue and situations taken from Devour and Supernatural. This is a fanfiction; no copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made. Comments will be my only reward, so please let me know what you thought.
Wordcount: 4200
Summary: Jake Gray's life is hell. And it's the hell that was built for Dean Winchester.
Keep your head down, hold your tongue,
break free
)(
Every kid stuck in his hometown running the hamster wheel feels like his life is a nightmare and tries to break free. Jake Gray is no exception to this rule.
Jake tries to look on the bright side. He’s always been good with his hands. He can build a wheelchair ramp, pitch a baseball, or repair a laptop circuitboard with equal facility. Even hunting, holding a rifle, gutting an animal, it comes to him naturally. But he’s not so good with the inside of his own head. Flashes of violence. Visions of horror. Suspended bodies, twisting and dripping with blood. Voices screaming in his head, sometimes his own voice, screaming a name he doesn't recognize.
Jake knows that something is wrong. Like his vision of murdering Rev. Moore, bashing his head in, then turning on his parents, half the people he knew (his miserable, pathetic, so-called friends, so self-destructive that they would turn on themselves on or him in an instant), and all the crazy shit that came into his head: he just wants to kill all those evil sons of bitches, or at least he wants to go down swinging.
Jake’s friends are pathetic, miserable. Looking into Dakota’s eyes is like looking into a well of blackness. Fucking up into her, when she takes him so abruptly, is almost completely devoid of pleasure, the awkwardness of the position distracts him from the slick grip on his dick that yanks an orgasm out of him. He blinks in confusion, feeling guilty and wrong, even before she levels her accusations and leaves. What exactly are they to each other?
Looking into Conrad’s eyes is like looking into another pool, the red on red of a pool of flames. Disgust and despair draw Conrad down too, and he only says, man, you can’t fight it.
Jake tries to break free. He holds Connie back from an idiotic confrontation, takes the gun and throws it out into the lake. He stands there on the pier for the longest time, hearing a whisper of lost boys... was that Conrad’s voice, from childhood, saying “come play with me?” and why does the gun feel so comforting in his hands? He pitches it out into the lake with determination. Yet somehow Uncle Ross still finds it with Conrad’s things.
Jake tries to break free. His job is satisfying, work well done, saving people from their own bad computers. He likes that look on the face of the pretty girl, Marisol, when he deftly reaches in and pulls out the shard of red wax. “You saved my life,” she says, and he feels the warmth of triumph, if only for a second.
The bastard he works for knifes him (his pay is docked), and twists the knife (he’s fired), and twists it again (he’s out two weeks pay), and twists it one more motherfucking time (you wrecked my store, you punk!) before Jake grabs the knife in his own hands and desperately feints back. It’s a small feeling of revenge, a small satisfaction, and it leaves him feeling dirtier inside than a petty revenge should. Like he’s given in somehow. Like he’s been tricked into some kind of agreement, where he might come out on top for a while, but ultimately he’ll be the loser.
Jake tries to break free when he sees that vision of the guy setting a house full of people on fire. He runs outside and tackles the guy. This feels right; this is familiar. Take the bastard down—he’s not even particularly shocked when the guy warps into some twisted creature, then vanishes, leaving him back where he was before he took the reins. He did his best – it seems like he was just about to win – but he can’t break free.
The vision in the basement, killing his dad, cutting off his own tongue – it doesn’t even seem real. Jake can’t wrap his mind around it really: his life is a nightmare, yet so much of the horror seems fabricated, fake; it fades away from him, simply passes from his mind. He goes to visit his mom; she’s so gentle. He loves her so much. He’s given up so much for her. What son wouldn’t? And Marisol sees that, she strokes him for it. Yes, you’re good to your mother, she says, you’re protected by a higher power. It doesn’t feel right, Jake thinks, with the world crumbling around him. First Connie dies, then Dakota, and Jake is in shock but he thinks that their deaths were inevitable. They were miserable losers, just like him. What does he have to live for?
But Marisol is there, with a light in her eyes that’s different from the tortures that extinguished his friends. It’s a light when she looks at him that tells him she thinks he’s special. He wants to belong to her, to be that special thing he thinks she sees. For Marisol, Jake can break free. He thinks.
After Uncle Ross dies, Jake goes a little crazy. He starts piecing things together – first the tattoo artist, then the guy with the dead wife, and then the link to Kater. This whole Pathway thing isn’t even real, it’s just a setup Kater’s made specifically to reel him in.
But that’s crazy talk, isnt’ it? Jake’s starting to see things more and more. Now he’s having conversations with his dead, miserable friends. They come back to talk to him, just a little bit grayer, just a little more miserable than before. He sees reflections of fire in their dead, dead eyes.
Jake tries to break free. He struggles with Kater, can’t accept what Kater is telling him. Jake knows there’s always been a gap between him and his parents. He can see the gentleness in his mom, the helplessness in his dad, and he knows he’s so much stronger than that. If he is pathetic (which he is) he is still so much more than his parents have been.
Then the story begins to unwind, to unspool. It’s like his life keeps rewriting itself. Jake tries to break free.
Kathy was his mom: he knows in his heart that gentle press of a hand against his cheek. It fills him with longing, with a love so strong, a desire so overwhelming to just kneel, one more time, wrapped up in the loving arms of his mother. But he can’t have that, he can’t break free.
Reality warps again and he finds himself face to face with the dead Anne Kilton. She reaches out to touch his face with the gentle touch of a mother. But instead of comfort, her touch brings torment, confusion. She leads him to a clearing, and he sees the blood dripping into the chalice.
He tries to break free but he can’t. He has to look up. He sees his mother, his father, dangling, dead, bleeding out like pigs.
Rage, revulsion, horror, grief. He howls with it.
The woman, Anne Kilton, regards him with something like sympathy. But then she recovers her youth and she is Marisol.
Mother? Marisol.... Mari... mother?
Jake shakes his head, tries to break free.
He hears a whisper begin in the back of his head.
“If you kill yourself in a dream, you wake up. You gotta wake up, man. I’m pretty sure about this, I mean, like 90% sure, this must be a dream. Come on, man up!”
The voice sounds like his, but not exactly. The voice of the Pathway, yeah, that had been his voice too – he figures the devil can mock whoever she likes-- but this voice is different. Strong. Determined.
Jake doesn’t know, though. He’s been trying so hard to break free. Is killing himself the answer? That can’t be right, can it? Wouldn’t killing the devil be better?
Jake falls to his knees, begging forgiveness. He’s got to break free. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, he hadn’t meant to kill Kater – it was like instinct took over and he just threw the guy like he’d been training for it all his life.
He doesn’t want to kill Marisol, with her kind, kind eyes, but he can’t become the thing she wants to see. It’s twisted. He’s not a demon. If he can’t break free, at least he’ll go down swinging.
His hand, like he knows what he’s doing, deftly wraps around the antler. He manipulates it into position on the ground behind him. He thrusts up, and with deadly precision, he impales her on it.
“Gonna start throwing holy water?” He hears an incredulous voice, and he can’t tell who said it.
“Demons are real,” says old man Moore, and he knows it’s true.
But the antler doesn’t do the trick.
Jake realizes he can’t break free this way. That antler was already sacrificed to the devil-- consecrated to her, so how could it hurt her? With a look of profound regret, Marisol shifts form again, and pours the obscene chalice, his loving parents’ blood, down Jake’s throat.
Jake tries, but he can’t break free. His body revolts at the congealing liquid, it burbles out of his mouth, but the horror is just too much. When next he opens his eyes, he’s bound and carted away as a monster.
This isn’t right. I’m not a monster. This is a nightmare. This is how she makes me pay for wanting to stay human. Please, Sam, help me.
Jake tries, but he can’t break free.
)(
Locked doors. Large men. Deadening doses delivered in pills. He swallows, dull. Wraps his own arms around himself like a strait jacket. Tries to touch no one, doesn’t want the flashes of brutalities and violations that have made the other men here what they are. What he is. Monsters.
Everyone is dead: his friends are dead, his parents murdered. He knows now who brought him into this world. Monster. He longs for the touch of a gentle hand; grips himself fiercely in a strait jacket hold: his right hand digs into the meat of his side, his left hand claws convulsively at his shoulder. Terror, rage – let the drugs do their work, flatten him out. He holds himself together. He doesn’t want to kill again. Monster.
Two of the large men are buddies. One thinks it’s a good idea to poke him because the other says he’s noticed Jake doesn’t like to be touched. Jake keeps his head down; he knows how to hold his tongue. He’s all held together. Then one of the men pokes him. The man is a monster. Not just blackened by his glee at others’ torments – Jake can see now, what he really is. There’s a twisting mass there, just under the skin, just like with Kater. Jake can’t second guess. There’s no other choice. Even though he doesn’t want to kill, he unleashes. Drives the heel of his hand with the force of all his terror into the man’s nose at a sharp upward angle.
Everybody sees it, the blood splatters everywhere, but the man walks away, plays it down. But Jake knows the blow drove bone fragments deep into the man's brain. Something worse is driving the man – something under orders only to watch. So Marisol hasn’t left him alone to rot, quite the opposite. Her minions are here, watching. As long as he keeps his head down, she’ll let him live. After all, who’s the monster here?
Another day, some time later, a new man comes. He’s not the buddy of the other guy.
When Jake sees the new man, something inside him turns, like a plant tracking the sun. Jake longs for the touch of a gentle hand. Marisol’s gone, everyone is dead. But at least he's still alive – remember the plan? His heart is still beating (even if Marisol never had one) and something inside him yearns. He dares to look up.
His eyes dart furtive toward the new large man. Lounging at the door in a loose parade rest, the man looks back. Carelessly, it seems, he gazes back at Jake.
And even though they haven’t touched, Jake is flooded with images.
--the man has a gun on him, and full of hatred, blasts him in the chest. He’s blown through a wall and it stings like hell. The man towers over him, face twisted in rage, repeatedly pulls the trigger on an empty gun.
--the man has a gun on him, and full of hatred, shoots him in the shoulder. He falls into the water, passes out as he pulls himself onto a dock.
--the man is punching him in the face, snarling with glee and hatred. He takes it anyway for love of the man.
So much hatred. The rage and urge to rend boil up, but the terror doesn’t win out this time. Jake won’t look away. He knows there’s something more:
--the man is dying, right there in his arms.
--the man is dead, and he’s crying so hard.
--the man is alive, and he did the right thing. He clasps his brother tight, so relieved, so full of love.
Jake recoils, but he won’t look away. He sees the love in the man’s eyes now, recognition, desperation. The love inside him responds to the plea in the new man’s eyes, so strong it rends him, tearing away at his rage and the blackness that boils inside.
He has to look away. He’s panting, still holding himself together. He shudders to his feet, moves to the water cooler, unwinds himself long enough to pour a tiny cupful of water, drink. He hazards a glance at the new man, who’s looking a different way now, as relaxed and vigilant as before.
But he glances back at Jake a little while later, and almost imperceptibly, nods.
Later that night, Jake is awakened by a noise. He’s afraid. He’s off his bed, and in the corner, crouched, defensive.
“Dean!” someone whispers.
It’s the man, the one who loves him. But who is Dean? Jake keeps his head down.
“Dean, three days, ok? Not tonight, not tomorrow night, not the night after. The third night, we’re gone. Ok?”
Jake holds his tongue.
The next day, Jake palms his meds. He's dull and tame so no one checks.
The second day, and Jake feels different when he wakes. A little clearer. He can think. He pretends to be just the same, shuffles through his day, keeping his grip locked tight around himself. In the evening, after lockdown, he tests his strength, coordination. It’ll do. As the meds clear his system, he’s shaking a little, things are a little too sharp and bright, but one more day, and they’re gone. The man said.
The third day passes slow as molasses. Jake huddles in on himself, pressed into a far corner of the big room. He’s always particularly hated that room, the hideous green industrial paint, the shadows from high windows stretching across the room like chains. He feels like that room is a torture designed just for him. He rocks himself a little, only slightly feigning. The meds are nearly out of him, and everything grates.
“Having a bad day, sugar?” Jake keeps his head down; it’s the buddy of the guy he killed who had walked away. This could be bad. Jake holds his tongue.
He feels the bad finger, pressing in. What is it with the poking. Jake shrinks away, but the images are there. The roiling, smoky blackness, suffocating everything, and somewhere deep inside, another man screaming to be let out. Please, somebody, get me out!
Jake curls tighter, head tucked down. Today’s the third day. He drools a little, plays dead.
Another poke, and the rage boils up in Jake, but it’s not as strong as it was before. The man loves him. Tonight they’re gone. Jake keeps his head down. The man at the door calls a name, voice sharp. The monster goes away.
After lockdown he tries to rest, but his mind won’t relax all the way into sleep.
It’s late, very late, when the man finally comes. Jake hears a key in the lock and the man comes in. He doesn’t say a word, just reaches out his hand.
Cautiously, Jake reaches out and takes it. He doesn’t know what to expect—
Sam is sobbing with grief and despair, and Dean seems to fall and fall -- and then the hooks catch him --
But the horror lasts only for a second, driven out by the love in the man’s gentle touch. He grips tightly and follows on silent feet.
)(
They’re driving now, a real sweet black car, and Sam, that’s his rescuer, is talking nonstop.
“I didn’t even know it was you at first. I was just doing the job. Satanic rituals, man found steeped in his parents’ blood, I thought it was just another demonic possession. Then when I hit town and started seeing the pictures, I thought it was some kind of trick. Thank god you were placed in a hospital instead of maximum security.”
“Yeah,” Jake parroted, “thank god.”
“Marisol’s a sweet girl, I never would have got you out if not...”
Jake froze in his seat.
“Marisol?”
“Yeah, man... I don’t know how much you remember.” Sam glanced sideways at him, but kept his attention on the road.
“Not much, you know. It’s all a blur.” Jake wondered just what Sam would tell him.
“Well, after the arrest you were pretty incoherent, and you were blaming Marisol for everything. But she told the police about how Kilton had killed Kater to get the fortune you’d inherit, but then you wouldn’t go along, so he framed you for your adopted parents’ death. The DA went after Kilton, because of his previous record, but you had to be committed.”
“But I...” Jake muttered, and he felt the tears welling up. He swallowed, “but Marisol lied. I did kill Kater. I didn’t mean to, but that was all me.”
Sam frowned, nodded, “I guess she lied to protect you, Dean. She seems pretty stuck on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s waiting for you back at the motel.”
“What?” Jake panicked. “No, no. No, no, no. You gotta keep her away from me, please. Just please, man, please.” Jake was rocking again, with his arms twisted around himself.
Sam was alarmed by the sudden outburst. He guided the car to a spot off the road, and turned off the engine.
“I gotta admit, Dean, there’s a lot of holes. I mean, how are you even here? But you’re more worried about Marisol than anything? That doesn’t make sense.”
Jake looked up. Tears were falling now. He hadn’t really cried in the hospital, too drugged out to do more than sleep and shuffle about. Now that the meds were out of his system, the grief at his parents’ death was coming back.
“It wasn’t Kilton, man – at least it wasn’t Paul. It was Anne Kilton that killed my parents. And Anne Kilton is really Marisol. And Marisol,” with every little tidbit he revealed, Jake’s voice got a little louder and a little more hysterical, “Marisol’s not my girlfriend. She’s my mother, and she’s the devil.”
Sam gazed at him blankly, then burst out laughing.
“The devil? What do you mean, ‘the devil’?”
“Just that, Sam,” Jake said miserably. “Please, please keep her away from me. Those guards at the hospital were working for her, and they were some kind of monsters.”
Jake didn’t expect Sam to believe him, but Sam turned the tables.
“Monsters? Those were demons, Dean, you know that. They knew who you were, they knew who I was, and I’m sure they weren’t working for Marisol. Besides, Marisol’s no demon. I Cristo’d her the second I tracked her down. No reaction.”
“Then I’m just as crazy as everyone thinks, cause I saw that shit with my own eyes. Plus, my name’s not Dean, it’s Jake. Thanks for the rescue, but I’m not going anywhere near Marisol.”
Jake hated himself when he saw the worry that put on Sam’s face. Sam had stood there next to that guard for three days, even knowing the guard was a monster, and he’d broken Jake out, even though it wasn’t jail, still it wasn’t something you do lightly. And Jake knew they were connected somehow, knew it had to do with this guy named Dean, Sam’s brother, the one he really loved.
Sam made a face with his mouth pinched small and his eyes wide and sorrowful. Then again he reached out and took Jake’s hand. “We’ll figure this out, man, I swear it.”
Despite Jake’s terror, Sam called Marisol and told her they wouldn’t be meeting her. In a rushed voice he blamed the delay on pursuers and hung up, and they found another place to spend the night. They got a room with two queens and Sam took the bed nearest the door. Jake was asleep as soon as he hit the bed.
It didn’t seem like any time had passed before his eyes snapped open.
The first hint of dawn showed in the crack between the heavy motel drapes and Sam had left the bathroom light on, so the room was not pitch black. Someone was in the room with them, but Sam slept peacefully on.
Jake was frozen in place. He hardly dared breathe. The presence moved closer and he felt a light touch on his face. He braced himself for an onslaught of horror.
But no. The touch was gentle, loving. He opened his eyes and knew himself. It was Mary, his mother, Mary Winchester.
“Mom?” Dean said, like a little boy again.
“Yes, Dean. It’s mom,” she said, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
“I don’t understand, Mom. Why did you kill...”
Mary touched his lips. “sh,” she said, “just listen, and I’ll explain everything. Do you remember what I used to tell you at bedtime?”
“That angels were watching over me...” Dean whispered.
“That’s right, sweetheart. And they were. I was, even though you never knew it. This life Sam rescued you from, it was all a shell. A diabolical plan to turn you demon. A hell on earth – a kind of hybrid training ground.“
Mary paused. “Jake Gray was never fully real. He was only a placeholder, a blank slate, ready for your soul when the demons won it. They slipped your soul into that life and Jake became a lot of who you were. The demons killed all those people to drive you bit by bit into despair, to make you into the monster they wanted. But they didn’t count on a traitor in their midst.”
“A traitor? Aren’t all the demons liars and traitors?” Dean said with a wry twist to his mouth.
“A traitor to demons, Dean. A repentant sinner. Me.”
Mary was limned by the early light, but her inner peace glowed strongest, tinged by a hint of sorrow.
“A repentant sinner? What’d you do, smoke a little grass in college?”
“No, Dean,” Mary said. “I was a demon, and I repented. I was meant to do work on earth but my repentance annoyed Azazel. I was young, no match for his power. I’m so sorry I left you alone.”
Dean was speechless. He opened and closed his mouth, like a fish.
“I got a second chance to intercede, to save you from the life of Jake Gray. His parents tried so hard to save that baby, but it was wrong inside--perfect, but hollow--until you came along. You were so strong, so bright. Even when they showed you my old form, you weren’t afraid.”
“Oh, I was plenty afraid all right. You one fugly mama,” Dean quipped, then shyly glanced up through his lashes.
She went on. “The demons slipped up—they didn’t take into account that Jake’s parents would willingly die for their son, praying for his safety, that he be made whole. They had crossed satanists, they knew a little bit about innocent blood and sacrifice. Their prayers worked.”
Mary gently stroked Dean’s cheek, smiling with love and a bit of humor. “You’re free again, Dean – and not only with residual powers of perception, but four years younger than you were when you died.”
Sam slept on, and the room grew lighter.
“What now?” Dean asked.
“We fight on,” Mary said. “It’s not easy, but we’ve got work to do.”
Dean looked up at her, filling his eyes with his mother. Not a phantasm, not a trick or a genie’s lie. His mother, the angel watching over him all along.
“Can you stay with us?”
“I’m not sure. My human form has been gone for so long – and the work I needed to do for Jake – for you – is done. You and Sam will be fine, sweetheart. I am so proud of you both.”
Dean hugged his mom, and she rocked him a little. He seemed to doze in the warmth of her embrace and then Sam was rousing him awake.
“Um, Jake? it’s been light for a while. We gotta get moving.”
Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and opened his eyes. “Bitch,” he said, “it’s Dean.”
Sam’s eyes grew round with surprise and joy.
“Jerk!” he exclaimed, and squashed Dean under 190 pounds of little brother.
finis
Please consider reading my DEVOUR crossover. That movie made no sense, but my story does. You might even understand (or even like!) the movie a little more after reading my story. And Jensen is really pretty! so you KNOW you want to like it.
SPOILERS for Devour, and for Supernatural thru s3 finale only: the story tells what happened next. As a Devour Crossover I'm SURE it's AU from season 4.
Rating: adult. My story is not wincest, brotherly love only, but is rated ADULT due to content from the movie.
Disclaimer: Bits of dialogue and situations taken from Devour and Supernatural. This is a fanfiction; no copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made. Comments will be my only reward, so please let me know what you thought.
Wordcount: 4200
Summary: Jake Gray's life is hell. And it's the hell that was built for Dean Winchester.
Keep your head down, hold your tongue,
break free
)(
Every kid stuck in his hometown running the hamster wheel feels like his life is a nightmare and tries to break free. Jake Gray is no exception to this rule.
Jake tries to look on the bright side. He’s always been good with his hands. He can build a wheelchair ramp, pitch a baseball, or repair a laptop circuitboard with equal facility. Even hunting, holding a rifle, gutting an animal, it comes to him naturally. But he’s not so good with the inside of his own head. Flashes of violence. Visions of horror. Suspended bodies, twisting and dripping with blood. Voices screaming in his head, sometimes his own voice, screaming a name he doesn't recognize.
Jake knows that something is wrong. Like his vision of murdering Rev. Moore, bashing his head in, then turning on his parents, half the people he knew (his miserable, pathetic, so-called friends, so self-destructive that they would turn on themselves on or him in an instant), and all the crazy shit that came into his head: he just wants to kill all those evil sons of bitches, or at least he wants to go down swinging.
Jake’s friends are pathetic, miserable. Looking into Dakota’s eyes is like looking into a well of blackness. Fucking up into her, when she takes him so abruptly, is almost completely devoid of pleasure, the awkwardness of the position distracts him from the slick grip on his dick that yanks an orgasm out of him. He blinks in confusion, feeling guilty and wrong, even before she levels her accusations and leaves. What exactly are they to each other?
Looking into Conrad’s eyes is like looking into another pool, the red on red of a pool of flames. Disgust and despair draw Conrad down too, and he only says, man, you can’t fight it.
Jake tries to break free. He holds Connie back from an idiotic confrontation, takes the gun and throws it out into the lake. He stands there on the pier for the longest time, hearing a whisper of lost boys... was that Conrad’s voice, from childhood, saying “come play with me?” and why does the gun feel so comforting in his hands? He pitches it out into the lake with determination. Yet somehow Uncle Ross still finds it with Conrad’s things.
Jake tries to break free. His job is satisfying, work well done, saving people from their own bad computers. He likes that look on the face of the pretty girl, Marisol, when he deftly reaches in and pulls out the shard of red wax. “You saved my life,” she says, and he feels the warmth of triumph, if only for a second.
The bastard he works for knifes him (his pay is docked), and twists the knife (he’s fired), and twists it again (he’s out two weeks pay), and twists it one more motherfucking time (you wrecked my store, you punk!) before Jake grabs the knife in his own hands and desperately feints back. It’s a small feeling of revenge, a small satisfaction, and it leaves him feeling dirtier inside than a petty revenge should. Like he’s given in somehow. Like he’s been tricked into some kind of agreement, where he might come out on top for a while, but ultimately he’ll be the loser.
Jake tries to break free when he sees that vision of the guy setting a house full of people on fire. He runs outside and tackles the guy. This feels right; this is familiar. Take the bastard down—he’s not even particularly shocked when the guy warps into some twisted creature, then vanishes, leaving him back where he was before he took the reins. He did his best – it seems like he was just about to win – but he can’t break free.
The vision in the basement, killing his dad, cutting off his own tongue – it doesn’t even seem real. Jake can’t wrap his mind around it really: his life is a nightmare, yet so much of the horror seems fabricated, fake; it fades away from him, simply passes from his mind. He goes to visit his mom; she’s so gentle. He loves her so much. He’s given up so much for her. What son wouldn’t? And Marisol sees that, she strokes him for it. Yes, you’re good to your mother, she says, you’re protected by a higher power. It doesn’t feel right, Jake thinks, with the world crumbling around him. First Connie dies, then Dakota, and Jake is in shock but he thinks that their deaths were inevitable. They were miserable losers, just like him. What does he have to live for?
But Marisol is there, with a light in her eyes that’s different from the tortures that extinguished his friends. It’s a light when she looks at him that tells him she thinks he’s special. He wants to belong to her, to be that special thing he thinks she sees. For Marisol, Jake can break free. He thinks.
After Uncle Ross dies, Jake goes a little crazy. He starts piecing things together – first the tattoo artist, then the guy with the dead wife, and then the link to Kater. This whole Pathway thing isn’t even real, it’s just a setup Kater’s made specifically to reel him in.
But that’s crazy talk, isnt’ it? Jake’s starting to see things more and more. Now he’s having conversations with his dead, miserable friends. They come back to talk to him, just a little bit grayer, just a little more miserable than before. He sees reflections of fire in their dead, dead eyes.
Jake tries to break free. He struggles with Kater, can’t accept what Kater is telling him. Jake knows there’s always been a gap between him and his parents. He can see the gentleness in his mom, the helplessness in his dad, and he knows he’s so much stronger than that. If he is pathetic (which he is) he is still so much more than his parents have been.
Then the story begins to unwind, to unspool. It’s like his life keeps rewriting itself. Jake tries to break free.
Kathy was his mom: he knows in his heart that gentle press of a hand against his cheek. It fills him with longing, with a love so strong, a desire so overwhelming to just kneel, one more time, wrapped up in the loving arms of his mother. But he can’t have that, he can’t break free.
Reality warps again and he finds himself face to face with the dead Anne Kilton. She reaches out to touch his face with the gentle touch of a mother. But instead of comfort, her touch brings torment, confusion. She leads him to a clearing, and he sees the blood dripping into the chalice.
He tries to break free but he can’t. He has to look up. He sees his mother, his father, dangling, dead, bleeding out like pigs.
Rage, revulsion, horror, grief. He howls with it.
The woman, Anne Kilton, regards him with something like sympathy. But then she recovers her youth and she is Marisol.
Mother? Marisol.... Mari... mother?
Jake shakes his head, tries to break free.
He hears a whisper begin in the back of his head.
“If you kill yourself in a dream, you wake up. You gotta wake up, man. I’m pretty sure about this, I mean, like 90% sure, this must be a dream. Come on, man up!”
The voice sounds like his, but not exactly. The voice of the Pathway, yeah, that had been his voice too – he figures the devil can mock whoever she likes-- but this voice is different. Strong. Determined.
Jake doesn’t know, though. He’s been trying so hard to break free. Is killing himself the answer? That can’t be right, can it? Wouldn’t killing the devil be better?
Jake falls to his knees, begging forgiveness. He’s got to break free. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, he hadn’t meant to kill Kater – it was like instinct took over and he just threw the guy like he’d been training for it all his life.
He doesn’t want to kill Marisol, with her kind, kind eyes, but he can’t become the thing she wants to see. It’s twisted. He’s not a demon. If he can’t break free, at least he’ll go down swinging.
His hand, like he knows what he’s doing, deftly wraps around the antler. He manipulates it into position on the ground behind him. He thrusts up, and with deadly precision, he impales her on it.
“Gonna start throwing holy water?” He hears an incredulous voice, and he can’t tell who said it.
“Demons are real,” says old man Moore, and he knows it’s true.
But the antler doesn’t do the trick.
Jake realizes he can’t break free this way. That antler was already sacrificed to the devil-- consecrated to her, so how could it hurt her? With a look of profound regret, Marisol shifts form again, and pours the obscene chalice, his loving parents’ blood, down Jake’s throat.
Jake tries, but he can’t break free. His body revolts at the congealing liquid, it burbles out of his mouth, but the horror is just too much. When next he opens his eyes, he’s bound and carted away as a monster.
This isn’t right. I’m not a monster. This is a nightmare. This is how she makes me pay for wanting to stay human. Please, Sam, help me.
Jake tries, but he can’t break free.
)(
Locked doors. Large men. Deadening doses delivered in pills. He swallows, dull. Wraps his own arms around himself like a strait jacket. Tries to touch no one, doesn’t want the flashes of brutalities and violations that have made the other men here what they are. What he is. Monsters.
Everyone is dead: his friends are dead, his parents murdered. He knows now who brought him into this world. Monster. He longs for the touch of a gentle hand; grips himself fiercely in a strait jacket hold: his right hand digs into the meat of his side, his left hand claws convulsively at his shoulder. Terror, rage – let the drugs do their work, flatten him out. He holds himself together. He doesn’t want to kill again. Monster.
Two of the large men are buddies. One thinks it’s a good idea to poke him because the other says he’s noticed Jake doesn’t like to be touched. Jake keeps his head down; he knows how to hold his tongue. He’s all held together. Then one of the men pokes him. The man is a monster. Not just blackened by his glee at others’ torments – Jake can see now, what he really is. There’s a twisting mass there, just under the skin, just like with Kater. Jake can’t second guess. There’s no other choice. Even though he doesn’t want to kill, he unleashes. Drives the heel of his hand with the force of all his terror into the man’s nose at a sharp upward angle.
Everybody sees it, the blood splatters everywhere, but the man walks away, plays it down. But Jake knows the blow drove bone fragments deep into the man's brain. Something worse is driving the man – something under orders only to watch. So Marisol hasn’t left him alone to rot, quite the opposite. Her minions are here, watching. As long as he keeps his head down, she’ll let him live. After all, who’s the monster here?
Another day, some time later, a new man comes. He’s not the buddy of the other guy.
When Jake sees the new man, something inside him turns, like a plant tracking the sun. Jake longs for the touch of a gentle hand. Marisol’s gone, everyone is dead. But at least he's still alive – remember the plan? His heart is still beating (even if Marisol never had one) and something inside him yearns. He dares to look up.
His eyes dart furtive toward the new large man. Lounging at the door in a loose parade rest, the man looks back. Carelessly, it seems, he gazes back at Jake.
And even though they haven’t touched, Jake is flooded with images.
--the man has a gun on him, and full of hatred, blasts him in the chest. He’s blown through a wall and it stings like hell. The man towers over him, face twisted in rage, repeatedly pulls the trigger on an empty gun.
--the man has a gun on him, and full of hatred, shoots him in the shoulder. He falls into the water, passes out as he pulls himself onto a dock.
--the man is punching him in the face, snarling with glee and hatred. He takes it anyway for love of the man.
So much hatred. The rage and urge to rend boil up, but the terror doesn’t win out this time. Jake won’t look away. He knows there’s something more:
--the man is dying, right there in his arms.
--the man is dead, and he’s crying so hard.
--the man is alive, and he did the right thing. He clasps his brother tight, so relieved, so full of love.
Jake recoils, but he won’t look away. He sees the love in the man’s eyes now, recognition, desperation. The love inside him responds to the plea in the new man’s eyes, so strong it rends him, tearing away at his rage and the blackness that boils inside.
He has to look away. He’s panting, still holding himself together. He shudders to his feet, moves to the water cooler, unwinds himself long enough to pour a tiny cupful of water, drink. He hazards a glance at the new man, who’s looking a different way now, as relaxed and vigilant as before.
But he glances back at Jake a little while later, and almost imperceptibly, nods.
Later that night, Jake is awakened by a noise. He’s afraid. He’s off his bed, and in the corner, crouched, defensive.
“Dean!” someone whispers.
It’s the man, the one who loves him. But who is Dean? Jake keeps his head down.
“Dean, three days, ok? Not tonight, not tomorrow night, not the night after. The third night, we’re gone. Ok?”
Jake holds his tongue.
The next day, Jake palms his meds. He's dull and tame so no one checks.
The second day, and Jake feels different when he wakes. A little clearer. He can think. He pretends to be just the same, shuffles through his day, keeping his grip locked tight around himself. In the evening, after lockdown, he tests his strength, coordination. It’ll do. As the meds clear his system, he’s shaking a little, things are a little too sharp and bright, but one more day, and they’re gone. The man said.
The third day passes slow as molasses. Jake huddles in on himself, pressed into a far corner of the big room. He’s always particularly hated that room, the hideous green industrial paint, the shadows from high windows stretching across the room like chains. He feels like that room is a torture designed just for him. He rocks himself a little, only slightly feigning. The meds are nearly out of him, and everything grates.
“Having a bad day, sugar?” Jake keeps his head down; it’s the buddy of the guy he killed who had walked away. This could be bad. Jake holds his tongue.
He feels the bad finger, pressing in. What is it with the poking. Jake shrinks away, but the images are there. The roiling, smoky blackness, suffocating everything, and somewhere deep inside, another man screaming to be let out. Please, somebody, get me out!
Jake curls tighter, head tucked down. Today’s the third day. He drools a little, plays dead.
Another poke, and the rage boils up in Jake, but it’s not as strong as it was before. The man loves him. Tonight they’re gone. Jake keeps his head down. The man at the door calls a name, voice sharp. The monster goes away.
After lockdown he tries to rest, but his mind won’t relax all the way into sleep.
It’s late, very late, when the man finally comes. Jake hears a key in the lock and the man comes in. He doesn’t say a word, just reaches out his hand.
Cautiously, Jake reaches out and takes it. He doesn’t know what to expect—
Sam is sobbing with grief and despair, and Dean seems to fall and fall -- and then the hooks catch him --
But the horror lasts only for a second, driven out by the love in the man’s gentle touch. He grips tightly and follows on silent feet.
)(
They’re driving now, a real sweet black car, and Sam, that’s his rescuer, is talking nonstop.
“I didn’t even know it was you at first. I was just doing the job. Satanic rituals, man found steeped in his parents’ blood, I thought it was just another demonic possession. Then when I hit town and started seeing the pictures, I thought it was some kind of trick. Thank god you were placed in a hospital instead of maximum security.”
“Yeah,” Jake parroted, “thank god.”
“Marisol’s a sweet girl, I never would have got you out if not...”
Jake froze in his seat.
“Marisol?”
“Yeah, man... I don’t know how much you remember.” Sam glanced sideways at him, but kept his attention on the road.
“Not much, you know. It’s all a blur.” Jake wondered just what Sam would tell him.
“Well, after the arrest you were pretty incoherent, and you were blaming Marisol for everything. But she told the police about how Kilton had killed Kater to get the fortune you’d inherit, but then you wouldn’t go along, so he framed you for your adopted parents’ death. The DA went after Kilton, because of his previous record, but you had to be committed.”
“But I...” Jake muttered, and he felt the tears welling up. He swallowed, “but Marisol lied. I did kill Kater. I didn’t mean to, but that was all me.”
Sam frowned, nodded, “I guess she lied to protect you, Dean. She seems pretty stuck on you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s waiting for you back at the motel.”
“What?” Jake panicked. “No, no. No, no, no. You gotta keep her away from me, please. Just please, man, please.” Jake was rocking again, with his arms twisted around himself.
Sam was alarmed by the sudden outburst. He guided the car to a spot off the road, and turned off the engine.
“I gotta admit, Dean, there’s a lot of holes. I mean, how are you even here? But you’re more worried about Marisol than anything? That doesn’t make sense.”
Jake looked up. Tears were falling now. He hadn’t really cried in the hospital, too drugged out to do more than sleep and shuffle about. Now that the meds were out of his system, the grief at his parents’ death was coming back.
“It wasn’t Kilton, man – at least it wasn’t Paul. It was Anne Kilton that killed my parents. And Anne Kilton is really Marisol. And Marisol,” with every little tidbit he revealed, Jake’s voice got a little louder and a little more hysterical, “Marisol’s not my girlfriend. She’s my mother, and she’s the devil.”
Sam gazed at him blankly, then burst out laughing.
“The devil? What do you mean, ‘the devil’?”
“Just that, Sam,” Jake said miserably. “Please, please keep her away from me. Those guards at the hospital were working for her, and they were some kind of monsters.”
Jake didn’t expect Sam to believe him, but Sam turned the tables.
“Monsters? Those were demons, Dean, you know that. They knew who you were, they knew who I was, and I’m sure they weren’t working for Marisol. Besides, Marisol’s no demon. I Cristo’d her the second I tracked her down. No reaction.”
“Then I’m just as crazy as everyone thinks, cause I saw that shit with my own eyes. Plus, my name’s not Dean, it’s Jake. Thanks for the rescue, but I’m not going anywhere near Marisol.”
Jake hated himself when he saw the worry that put on Sam’s face. Sam had stood there next to that guard for three days, even knowing the guard was a monster, and he’d broken Jake out, even though it wasn’t jail, still it wasn’t something you do lightly. And Jake knew they were connected somehow, knew it had to do with this guy named Dean, Sam’s brother, the one he really loved.
Sam made a face with his mouth pinched small and his eyes wide and sorrowful. Then again he reached out and took Jake’s hand. “We’ll figure this out, man, I swear it.”
Despite Jake’s terror, Sam called Marisol and told her they wouldn’t be meeting her. In a rushed voice he blamed the delay on pursuers and hung up, and they found another place to spend the night. They got a room with two queens and Sam took the bed nearest the door. Jake was asleep as soon as he hit the bed.
It didn’t seem like any time had passed before his eyes snapped open.
The first hint of dawn showed in the crack between the heavy motel drapes and Sam had left the bathroom light on, so the room was not pitch black. Someone was in the room with them, but Sam slept peacefully on.
Jake was frozen in place. He hardly dared breathe. The presence moved closer and he felt a light touch on his face. He braced himself for an onslaught of horror.
But no. The touch was gentle, loving. He opened his eyes and knew himself. It was Mary, his mother, Mary Winchester.
“Mom?” Dean said, like a little boy again.
“Yes, Dean. It’s mom,” she said, and tears slipped down her cheeks.
“I don’t understand, Mom. Why did you kill...”
Mary touched his lips. “sh,” she said, “just listen, and I’ll explain everything. Do you remember what I used to tell you at bedtime?”
“That angels were watching over me...” Dean whispered.
“That’s right, sweetheart. And they were. I was, even though you never knew it. This life Sam rescued you from, it was all a shell. A diabolical plan to turn you demon. A hell on earth – a kind of hybrid training ground.“
Mary paused. “Jake Gray was never fully real. He was only a placeholder, a blank slate, ready for your soul when the demons won it. They slipped your soul into that life and Jake became a lot of who you were. The demons killed all those people to drive you bit by bit into despair, to make you into the monster they wanted. But they didn’t count on a traitor in their midst.”
“A traitor? Aren’t all the demons liars and traitors?” Dean said with a wry twist to his mouth.
“A traitor to demons, Dean. A repentant sinner. Me.”
Mary was limned by the early light, but her inner peace glowed strongest, tinged by a hint of sorrow.
“A repentant sinner? What’d you do, smoke a little grass in college?”
“No, Dean,” Mary said. “I was a demon, and I repented. I was meant to do work on earth but my repentance annoyed Azazel. I was young, no match for his power. I’m so sorry I left you alone.”
Dean was speechless. He opened and closed his mouth, like a fish.
“I got a second chance to intercede, to save you from the life of Jake Gray. His parents tried so hard to save that baby, but it was wrong inside--perfect, but hollow--until you came along. You were so strong, so bright. Even when they showed you my old form, you weren’t afraid.”
“Oh, I was plenty afraid all right. You one fugly mama,” Dean quipped, then shyly glanced up through his lashes.
She went on. “The demons slipped up—they didn’t take into account that Jake’s parents would willingly die for their son, praying for his safety, that he be made whole. They had crossed satanists, they knew a little bit about innocent blood and sacrifice. Their prayers worked.”
Mary gently stroked Dean’s cheek, smiling with love and a bit of humor. “You’re free again, Dean – and not only with residual powers of perception, but four years younger than you were when you died.”
Sam slept on, and the room grew lighter.
“What now?” Dean asked.
“We fight on,” Mary said. “It’s not easy, but we’ve got work to do.”
Dean looked up at her, filling his eyes with his mother. Not a phantasm, not a trick or a genie’s lie. His mother, the angel watching over him all along.
“Can you stay with us?”
“I’m not sure. My human form has been gone for so long – and the work I needed to do for Jake – for you – is done. You and Sam will be fine, sweetheart. I am so proud of you both.”
Dean hugged his mom, and she rocked him a little. He seemed to doze in the warmth of her embrace and then Sam was rousing him awake.
“Um, Jake? it’s been light for a while. We gotta get moving.”
Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and opened his eyes. “Bitch,” he said, “it’s Dean.”
Sam’s eyes grew round with surprise and joy.
“Jerk!” he exclaimed, and squashed Dean under 190 pounds of little brother.
finis
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-02 09:54 am (UTC)So creepy. Like being inside someone else’s skin and feeling all twisted up and uncomfortable. A sort of shivery, wrong delight.
And serious, serious love for how amazingly inventive this is! Something I never would have thought up – but man, it worked brilliantly.
So I’m kinda stunned. I just loved this. *happy sigh* Really inspired.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-02 01:59 pm (UTC)I really started to write this in my head as soon as I saw the movie the first time. I knew Sammy would break Jake out, and that Jake was really Dean, but I couldn't tell why Jake was Dean until this summer. Hiatus brought everything together!
There's not a lot of demand out there for Devour fic--- but I'm really glad it worked for you!
no subject
Date: 2008-12-11 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-11 03:23 am (UTC)thanks for commenting!
Re: Spn/Devour crossover
Date: 2010-01-04 09:24 pm (UTC)I also didn't love Devour, but I had a good time trying to figure it out and make it work. I don't know if it's that Jensen is such a good actor, or just that he is SO attractive, but I like to watch movies with him in them. (I still haven't sought out his Jason Teague on Smallville, or his Dark Angel work, but I'm tempted....).
The other things I love about Devour are its incestuous ties to spn -- like, that Jake's boss was the Comic Book Store owner in Monster at the End of this book -- or that pier out onto the lake, which I'm pretty sure is the same from Dead in the Water. ... and then again the little weird things, like Jensen's own real Dad playing his Dad, and his uncle being named Ross (his middle name). what a crazy, mixed up project to find yourself in the middle of. How awful that it got a better video release than Ten Inch Hero, which was so much better!!