Written for comment_fic on livejournal
for 'Past Lives' Day on comment_fic
Prompt: John/anyone, Salem Witch Trials
John was a righteous man. He knew that about himself. But evil was everywhere, and he had to be vigilant always.
Sometimes evil came in the form of something beautiful. Like Dean Proctor, the candlemaker. His ravishing eyes, long eyelashes, smooth skin on a strong body. His tongue, strong and slow, like a serpent's tongue would probably be. Dean had made John do things, become things, that were not righteous.
John wept after his nighttime visits to the candlemaker, and he tore at his hair, wondering how he could be so depraved, how he could lose such a battle to the weakness of the flesh. He tore off his shirt and flagellated himself with his horsewhip, but the pain and the blood couldn't ever make John feel clean.
The worst part was that Dean didn't think it was wrong. Like the devil himself, Dean just smiled after and said, "I love you, John. We're connected, you and me. Nothing wrong with it."
John knew that Dean was turning him into a monster. Around Dean, he stopped being the upright man of self-control and gentility. He became a brute, demanding and agressive. But Dean, always the tempter, would tell him, "Oh, I love it when you make me obey."
Then one night, after John felt so guilty he had almost whipped himself unconscious, he suddenly realized how Dean was doing it. How Dean was leading him down this dark and terrible path. It wasn't that John was weak.
Dean was a witch.
And since Dean had never been to shy about making jest of the local authorities, soon enough the town agreed with John. Although they never learned his reasons.
As the flames started to lick at Dean's feet, in the last minute before Dean started shrieking with the pain of being burned at the stake to a cheering and righteous audience, Dean saw John standing there, watching, infuriatingly calm.
"John! Why? Why would you do this?"
"You're going to hell, Dean. It's where your kind belongs."
"Is that what you need? You need me to go to hell for you John? Well if there's any justice in the world, you'll do the same." Dean spoke no more then, as his screams took over and the crowd cheered.
John watched until the end, relieved that his burden had been lifted. But Dean's last words had stayed with him, like a stone in the bottom of his stomach. But John was a righteous man; he carried on, and did his best to put evil things out of his mind.
Note: (Okay, so in Salem they didn't actually burn them. But it's AU)