A/N1: Two years ago I started writing this story, the third part of my series, House of Cards. And then I got distracted by, well, by all sorts of things; like writing for the Virtual Season, organising and writing in a round robin and the dreaded RL. This story got put on the backburner but it wouldn't ever quite leave me alone. I had this image, back when I first started it, of the final scene in my head in glorious technicolour, surround sound, smell-o-vision. The works, in short, and I never managed to forget it.
Maybe because it took so long, but I've really enjoyed writing this story, and really love where it ended up taking the boys to get to that final scene. Posting this though, I'm a little nervous. So much has happened to our favourite characters in the last season-and-a-half since this is set, there've been so many revelations and changes, this almost feels 'old school', even though it's set mid-S4.
Wow. I'm waffling again. Shutting up now.
Enjoy the show!
A/N2: This chapter is a brief recap of the first two stories, State of Grace and The Darkness Before The Dawn. Since it's been soooo long...
Full summary:
With angels and demons out to get them, the brothers just need somewhere to hole up, time to heal and the small town of Devil's Shores, Texas seems the perfect place to lose themselves in. But if it wasn't for bad luck, they wouldn't have no luck at all, and soon Sam and Dean find themselves in the middle of a fight for the town. Alone, against impossible odds, they're faced with choices that might damn them forever, or save one of the last seals - and the world.
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THEN
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1996
John Winchester leaves his sons behind in Litchfield, Maine, while he hunts a pack of revenants. A biker gang who now call themselves The Immortals, the walking undead have haunted the back roads of the Eastern states for a century or more, preying on the isolated and the forgotten people who live and travel there. Tracking them through Connecticut and Pennsylvania, John kills the pack off, one by one until he confronts the final member of The Immortals, only to come face to face with his worst nightmare. The monsters he's hunting have found his family.
In Litchfield, Dean is struggling to keep Sammy and himself off the radar. Out of money and out of time, they finally start squatting in an abandoned house until one day, they're confronted by three bikers. Unnaturally fast and strong, the eldest boy is no match for them and they're quickly taken captive in the cellar of their temporary home. The three revenants are hungry for revenge, promising to turn Sammy into one of their own.
John arrives in time to save his boys, but one Immortal escapes.
2008
Twelve years after the events in Litchfield, Maine, Dean and Sam have forgotten about The Immortals, but the last surviving member of the original gang hasn't forgotten about them. A chance meeting in a bar leads to a desperate hunt for his brother as Sam is forced to relive the terrifying events that took place. With Bobby Singer's help, he finds Dean back in Litchfield but his brother is badly injured, physically and emotionally broken.
Healing is slow but day by day, the brothers find their feet, until what should have been a routine hunt ends in near-fatal disaster – with consequences that reach far beyond anything either of them could understand. With Dean slowly slipping away again, Sam is faced with a terrible choice and makes one final, desperate bid to save his brother's life. Summoning a loa, a Haitian god of the dead, it warns him that saving Dean could change everything, for both of them but Sam begs the Ghede to bring his brother back.
In an apparently miraculous recovery, it heals the hunter and the brothers hit the road before anyone can start asking questions. Needing to get back to something approaching normal, they find a hunt in Minnesota, where people have been turning up brutally battered to death on the shores of Thief lake. Finding the monster is easier than killing it though, and things look grim for the Winchesters once again, until an eerie power uses Dean to drain the life out of the monster and Sam is left wondering just what the Ghede meant when it warned him that saving his brother might change them both.