A/N: This is very dark to start out with, but it'll lighten up as we go along. Also, it'll better-fit the summary past the prologue here. This just sets everything up. Slash (in subsequent chapters), and the usual disclaimers apply. It's very AU. I'd love to hear what you think.

Prologue: Forgetting
June 2014

"They're dangerous," she whispered against his chest. "They stole your totem."

Bray held her close, rested his cheek in her soft-honey hair. "Yes, they did, darlin," he said. "They did, but we've got them now, haven't we? We'll get it back."

"We have to make them see they're wrong." Her small arms wrapped around him like vices. "We have to show them the truth. Lift the blinders from their eyes and show them that we're going to rebirth the universe in fire."

Her words threaded through his mind the same way, wrapping him in glorious sunshine warmth and bright purpose.

"We'll show them," he said, beaming down at her.

She was the light, the very beating heart of this universe, the essence of everything good and pure in it distilled down to one tiny, perfect slip of a woman who seemed to weigh less than the air around her.

He'd destroyed whole worlds for her, plucked their rotting hearts out of the coldness of space and devoured them whole, clearing out the decay and making way for new growth.

But now his universe had shrunk down to this tiny moment: a small, old wooden porch on a forgotten planet. Warm spring breeze carrying the scent of green trees and deep soil and muddy river, insects droning and buzzing, sky a faultless blue.

The old boards under his rocking chair squeaked.

He paid them no mind.

The small porch was crowded this afternoon: four of their followers, the best of them, standing with guns pointed straight and true at two battered, kneeling men.

These two men, they'd ambushed him three worlds ago, and they'd taken his totem.

They said it made him too dangerous.

It: a small metal disc that gave him the raw energy he needed to devour worlds whole.

Them: one man in an all-black suit, the other in a blood-spattered white shirt and ripped jeans, both shaggy-haired and blue-eyed, their hands bound behind them, bruised and beaten.

They said it made him too dangerous, having all that power, and they'd ambushed him three worlds ago to steal it. The feral-eyed man in white had held Abigail while the cold-eyed man in black had held an old metal knife to her throat.

The lady or the totem.

They didn't understand.

They were cowards, ignorant of Abigail's glory, and blinded by their own darkness, their own salivating monsters. They couldn't see that only by clearing away the diseased, rotting underbelly of the universe could there ever be room for new growth.

Change.

Dangerous men, though, and no one - no one - knew that better than Bray.

They'd made him.

Mother and father.

"Misguided, both of you," he said to them, lifting his cheek from Abigail's hair. "Lost in the dark. Too blind to see the path of salvation I've set at your feet. We're the redeemers, she and I. It's you, with all your wars and the monsters you hide from the daylight, who are the destroyers. You're driven by lust for power and disarray, and greed for blood, just like all the other lost souls. You're the disease. We're the cure. If you'd just follow us, if you'd give me my power back, you could follow us as we cleared out all the sick and dying, the immorality and corruption, all the decay, and led the way to a new promised land."

"Promised land my ass," Mama said. Even kneeling and beaten he wasn't still, shoulders swaying back and forth like they were caught in the breeze. "You just want an excuse to eat more planets. Which, not to be a dick or anything, but you're looking a little chubby there, Bray. Those gas giants are going straight to your gut. Gonna have to watch that. You got your dad's metabolism."

Daddy shot Mama a dirty look. "Did you just call me fat?"

Mama's swollen mouth twitched. "Nope. I mean, you do kinda got a little shed built over your tools, but I don't mind." He turned his attention back to Bray. "So when the fuck did you get so, like, melodramatic about shit, anyway?"

"That he gets from you," Daddy said before Bray could answer.

Mama glared at him. "The fuck he does!"

"If you so much as stub your toe, you act like you've damaged a vital organ."

"Well, that shit hurts!"

"Yes, but the way you bang on about it, you'd think you were dying."

"STOP IT!" Abigail suddenly shrieked at them, her tiny voice splitting the air like a sharp thunder-crack. "STOP IT NOW!"

She didn't speak up often, but when she did, the whole world stopped to listen.

He tucked her head back down against his shoulder and adjusted her in his lap, his little light in her pretty white sun dress.

The old boards squeaked under the chair as he rocked with her, and for a few heartbeats, it was the only sound.

Their men straightened up behind Mama and Daddy, the guns they'd let start to drift down once again aimed at the back of Mama and Daddy's heads.

Bray chuckled. "Look at you. BIckering like children. So convinced you've won. So blind to what you've lost."

"You're not getting that totem back, Bray," Mama said quietly, strange blue eyes gone cold as Daddy's. "I won't tell you where I put it."

"Oh, I don't need it," Bray drawled. He rocked just a bit faster. "I can spread Abigail's good news without it. People will suffer and die for your short-sightedness, but-"

"They'd die anyway," Daddy said. "This isn't about redemption and you bloody know it. This is some fool's errand to impress a girl." He shook his hair off of his face. "You're the misguided one here, sunshine. You can't see how deeply she's got her claws in you - how she's using you. She wants your totem, not you. She wants the power so she can destroy everything. She doesn't give a damn about saving anything."

"That's not true," Abigail whispered. She clutched Bray's flowered shirt like it was keeping her from drowning, her blue-sky eyes wide and bright. "I want to save them. We have to save them. I need you to help me."

"I know," he soothed her, brushing a kiss across her forehead. "I know. They're the users, the liars. They think I can't see them for the monsters they really are, but believe me, I do. You showed me." He lifted his eyes to his parents. "You and people like you are the disease. We're the cure."

"Yeah, well," Mama said, "good fuckin' luck. You think the Ministry is gonna sit by and let you 'cure the disease' by blowing everything fucking apart? Fuck no. What's gonna happen - soon - is they're gonna send a dozen Fleet Warhawks to blow your shuttle right out of space. And then what? You'll be dead, and your little bitch there will float off and find somebody else to haunt, and it'll fucking start all over again." He pushed to his feet. "Bray. Fucking listen to me for once in your life. She isn't what you think she is. She's-"

"LIAR!" Abigail howled.

Harper stepped forward and smashed the butt of his gun across Mama's back. Mama stumbled and fell. Without hands to catch himself, he landed on his face, the old wood scraping it raw.

Bray set Abigail down and crawled out of his chair to lean over him. "Give me back my totem, Mama. I don't wanna have to hurt you and Daddy, but I will. Oh I will."

"Fuck you," Mama snarled, lunging again. "You're not getting your totem."

Bray caught him, held him off. It was like holding a live wire, the way Mama twisted and lunged and fought, but he was injured and Bray was stronger.

"Let him go!" Daddy thundered. He twitched forward, but froze when Rowan pressed the rifle barrel to his head.

The blank sheep's mask Rowan wore was a stark contrast to the twisted rage on Daddy's face.

Off to one side, Abigail watched, her hands folded neat and prim in front of her. "Hurt them," she whispered. "Make them see how much they've hurt you. They have to see."

Bray shoved Mama down, rose, and walked back into the old house.

His brother Daniel was still unconscious on the floor, and Bray signaled for Paul, who'd been watching over him, to carry him outside. Paul, bald-headed giant of a man, picked Daniel up and brought him outside, dumping him unceremoniously in front of Bray's rocking chair.

Abigail drifted over, curious as a child. Bray gently shooed her away. He lifted a foot and settled it on the back of Daniel's neck, just below the clot of bloody hair.

Grinned as he watched the color drain out of his parents' faces. Now he had their attention. Mama had pulled himself back up to his knees by Daddy. "What the fuck did you do to him?"

"An eye for an eye, Mama," Bray answered. "You stole my totem. I stole your firstborn. Give it back to me, and you can have him. I'd rather it not come to this - am I not my brother's keeper? - but you're not listening."

"No," Daddy said. "It's you who isn't bloody listening. We know what it is she wants you to do. 'Purify' the universe. It's a pretty way of saying burn it to the ground and piss on its ashes. That's what she wants. She doesn't want to save it. She's-"

"LIES!" Abigail screamed again. Her tiny hands covered her ears. "Oh, the lies, they cut me so, Bray! Wicked, wicked men. They hurt me! They hurt me! Stop them! Hurt them. Hurt them."

"Misguided fools. Lost sheep. I'm trying to show you the way." Bray reared back and kicked Daniel in the side. Daniel didn't stir. "Give. Me. My. Totem." He punctuated each word with a kick.

Daniel groaned faintly.

Mama growled again, wildcat on the attack, and surged forward, only to have Rowan snag him by the back of his tee shirt and fling him down onto the rotting old porch. "You hurt him, I'll fuckin' kill you!" he snarled. "He didn't do anything! Fucking let him go. Let me go!"

"Give me my totem," Bray shouted, angry and desperate. He couldn't fail her. Couldn't. Not now. "Give me my totem."

"No!"

"Bray!" Daddy thundered. "Bray, look at yourself! Bloody look at what you're doing! That's your brother. You're killing your brother. Your brother who's done nothing but try to help you. The only one who never gave up on you. Look at him."

Bray stopped, blinking down at himself. At his brother.

It was Daniel from whom Bray had gotten the idea to grow the beard.

He'd idolized his brother, once.

Before.

But Daniel had betrayed him, too.

Abigail's soft hand closed around his. Warmth flooding his mind like a June kiss. "They're making you do it. Just remember that, Bray. They're making you hurt him because they won't open their eyes to the truth."

"No we're not," Daddy said. "It's her. She's using you. She's making you. She's going to burn you down along with everything else. You'll have killed us - your family - and you'll die alone with nothing. She's the lie."

"You're the lie," Abigail spat at him. "You threw him away because you didn't understand what he was. I do. He's the voice that'll deliver hope of salvation. Give him his totem."

"No." Mama sat back on his heels and looked tiredly up at them. One eye had begun to swell shut. Blood trickled down his cheek. "That's enough. I mean, I'm all for blowing shit up and causing as much trouble as I can, but not on the scale you're talking. I can't. So no. That's it. You can't have it. If that means you kill us and Fleet blows you outta the sky, so be it. Do whatever you gotta do, but you better do it yourself. And you fucking better look us and your brother in the eye when you do it. Don't be a pussy."

Daddy scooted closer to Mama until they were pressed shoulder to shoulder, a rare show of solidarity. Surprising warmth in his smile. "Well put." He turned back to Bray, and the smile faded. "No more of this nonsense, Bray. She's a liar and she's going to get you killed, but if you can't see that - if you won't listen, if you harm your brother - then I suppose all I can do is wash my hands of you."

Bray cajoled.

Bray demanded.

Bray tried again and again to get the totem's location out of them.

Mama and Daddy remained silent, refusing to talk even after Harper and Rowan hit them both again, refusing even after big Paul picked Daniel up and slammed him down onto the porch again and again.

He made Harper and Rowan hold their heads up so they couldn't look away.

Birds cried overhead. Insects reeped and droned, and clouds thickened against the sweltering sky as the afternoon stretched its way into the evening.

It was Abigail, who'd crawled into the rocking chair to watch it all play out, who finally stopped it.

She touched Bray's hand as he stood panting over his very beaten parents.

They weren't dead, either of them, but neither one was really conscious anymore.

Abigail said, "If they won't tell us where they hid that totem, we'll just go find the shaman and make him give us another." She smiled and touched her forehead. "I'm so silly. I should have thought of that before."

As he looked down over the wreckage, Bray felt a momentary anger. "Abigail-"

She squeezed his hand. Warmth in his mind again cocooning him. "They had this coming for what they did to you. In fact," she added, stepping forward, "they deserve more. For all the lies they've told you about me. For all the lies they told you." Her little feet left bloody footprints as she crossed over to where Mama and Daddy lay. "They haven't suffered near enough." She crouched down near Mama's now-dislocated shoulder. "They hurt you so bad, Bray. They took everything from you. We should take everything from them."

Bray wiped damp hands on his shirt. "I thought we were gonna try to save them, darlin."

"We will," she said. "We take everything so they'll know what suffering really is. We'll make them humble. Make them crawl on their bellies until they're ready to beg us to show them the way out of the dark. And while they're learning how to crawl, we'll go ahead to light the way."

"How?" he asked.

He knew, though; she couldn't pull thoughts out of people's minds, but she could put them in.

She'd done it to some of their followers.

Never to him, though, he was sure.

Her hands began to glow faint white - a much fainter white than they used to. She touched Mama's bloody forehead. HIs one good eye was open and it turned toward the light. He mouthed the word, "Bitch."

Abigail's face twisted as she pressed down. "We make them remember what isn't true. Make them forget what is. Remember pain, forget happiness. Remember suffering, forget hope. Remember-" Mama's hand shot up and wrapped around her throat.

Harper, who'd been leaning against one of the porch's rotting pillars, stepped forward and stomped Mama's arm.

Bones snapped.

Mama was still.

Abigail's china doll face twisted.

"Forget," she whispered. "And remember."

Somewhere outside a bird screamed.

Bray shuddered.

Forget.

xXx

July 12, 2014
Colorado

Goddamn parachute cord snapped off, and now Seth was in free-fall, ten thousand feet above the drop zone and everything rushing up to him in a kind sickening fast-motion blur.

Fuck, he was going to die.

"Dead. Alive. Dead. Alive."

Seth's eyes snapped open - not so much awoken as thrown out of his dreams.

He took a deep breath, relieved, as both a sense of place and the realization that he was safe washed over him.

Moonlit dark in a cramped Colorado hotel room, and it was hot.

The little window AC unit didn't do much more than stir the air like a wood spoon in a pot of boiling soup, and not a breath of breeze drifted in from the open windows.

Sweating and uneasy all over, Seth lifted his head from Roman's damp, too-warm chest and looked around.

The other bed was empty, but that was hardly a surprise.

Dean rarely slept these days, and, sure enough, he was awake, and doing what he usually did in the middle of the night: sitting in a chair next to the window, knees pulled up to his chest, staring out at the night, chewing his nails and mumbling under his breath.

The full moon's shine made his white tee shirt appear to glow, winked off his earring, and illuminated the tear tracks on his cheeks. "He's dead," he was saying. "No, he's alive. No, dead. Alive. Dead. No, alive."

Six weeks ago, he'd been captured and spent a day as a hostage to some very strange people.

Whatever they'd done to him, they'd really done to him, and now he wasn't the same.

It was like his mind had been torn in half, snapped right down the middle.

Seth sighed softly.

Roman's strong arms tightened around him.

I know, baby.

Saying anything right now would probably just trigger another rage attack, and they both knew it.

Not much they could do but leave Dean to his tears and his self-inflicted war by night, and hope peace would find him in the morning,

It did, sometimes; he'd crawl into the too-small bed with them and they'd have sleepy morning sex while the sun came up, just like they used to, and Seth could convince himself that today would be the day that things would slot back into the groove.

Never did, though, exactly.

xXx
July 12, 2014
New York City

William Regal set the empty beer bottle down on the gravestone.

Bit of gallows humor, he supposed, but he didn't doubt the gesture would be appreciated.

Cheap American beer.

Better than flowers.

Regal had quit drinking the year Dean had been murdered, but every year, to mark the anniversary, he went to the bar where they'd met and bought one bottle, which he poured out - rubbish beer, even by American standards - in the bathroom and smuggled out the door.

The cemetery's maintenance crew would, of course, find it in the morning and toss it away, but for a night, at least, it would stand in tribute.

Fingers ghosting over granite still warm from the day's heat, and Regal was struck, as he always was, by the stark simplicity of this headstone compared to the others around it. Most had intricate designs, hobbies and loves memorialized in stone, quotes and Bible passages there to try to encapsulate the essence of the person buried underneath.

This was merely a gray granite rectangle with a name and two dates.

No frills.

Dean would have appreciated that, too.

For all his eccentricities, he lived his life without them.

Of course, he'd died young enough - been murdered young enough - he hadn't had time to acquire many.

Regal knelt on the soft grass. Fussed with the beer bottle to make sure the label was facing just-so.

Light from the moon filled it.

He could feel tears on his cheeks, but he didn't bother to wipe them away.

Dead, his mind whispered at him. Still dead. Always dead. And you're still alive. Alone.

He touched the inscription again, tracing the letters AMBROSE with two fingers.

"Damn you," he said softly, "for leaving me alone. You're still dead and I'm still alive. I think I hate you for that. I shouldn't, but there it is.

"I want to forget I ever knew you, you rotten bastard, but dammit, I still love you.

"Why won't you let me go?"

He waited in the cemetery's warm summer dark, surrounded by the dead, for an answer he knew wasn't coming.

Eventually, he rose, straightened his rumpled suit, and made his way home.

xXx

A/N: Like I said, this turned out a lot darker than I expected, but it's not a death fic. It's honestly more of a crack fic gone serious, and I hope this wasn't too hard to follow.

Hats off to you if you figured out who Bray's "Mama" and "Daddy" are, by the by. I don't know why, but that idea kind of tickled me. (It's nuts, but this whole effed-up story is.) Yes, Bray's "Mama" is a man. This will be a thing that is explained later.

Thanks for reading!