Title: Switch
author: Roony
rating: T
disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
summary: A convicted killer John once put away uses dark magic to switch bodies with Sam.
A/N: hey guys, it's me! Hey, I've been kicking this idea around, finally ready to start writing it. And I wanted to get it out there before anyone else did it before me. yeah, I'm a selfish bitch like that. Anyone reading 'Blood', I am NOT abandoning you! I'll do both of these, damn it!
Author Warning: I have NOT seen this week's episode, so whatever was revealed, whatever priceless information it had, I didn't get. THEREFORE: if a part of this plot doesn't flow with things, sorry. I didn't know. Don't complain please. and whatever you do, DON'T tell me what happens! I wanna wait till I see the episode myself, okay?
All right, so, without further ado:
Chapter One: Dreams
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
First it was just a strong tug, but it quickly escalated into something far more violent. He was being torn away by some dark, shapeless entity. It hurt like hell, like his skin was being ripped off. He tried to hold on, tried to stay…
But it was too strong; it took him and he was being carried away. Everything around him was dark. He looked around for his older brother, his protector, to come and save him. To bring him back.
But Dean never came. In fact, he got the sense that Dean couldn't come. He was all alone. All alone in the dark.
And it still felt wrong. Unnatural, almost.
Suddenly, out of the vague shadows, a mirror appeared. He looked into it, and saw his frightened reflection. But al of a sudden, the reflection began to melt together, deforming the image. Wondering what was wrong with the mirror, Sam put a hand up his face, and screamed in horror at what he felt. There was nothing wrong with the mirror; his face was melting like wax!
Sam grabbed and clawed at his face trying to reform his features. His mouth was no longer physically present, yet somehow he was still managing to scream.
Over his screams, a constant, taunting chant rang out in the darkness:
"One like you."
"One like you."
"One like you."
Sam sat up in bed, a hand covering his face to keep himself from screaming outside of the dream. He looked around, suddenly unaware of his surroundings. It was a motel room, just like all of the ones he'd been staying in for the past few months. There were the duffel bags, tossed carelessly about the room, the laptop set on the small table by the curtained window. And there, as Sam saw when he looked to his left, was Dean, sleeping on the opposite bed.
Everything was fine.
And yet Sam couldn't help the urge to go into the small bathroom and check his face to make sure it wasn't still melting. He swallowed and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and shivered under the sheen of sweat that now covered his body.
"Jesus," he breathed quietly.
The nightmare had terrified him, but Sam was actually a little surprised. It hadn't been as gory as some of his dreams of Jessica's death. Not much had really even happened in the dream; most of the terror had just come from the feelings that it had brought. The sensation of being taken away (from what he really had no idea) had felt the worst, nearly unbearable.
Sam wondered where the nightmare had come from; its effect was too strong for it to be dismissed as a mere dream. And it definitely wasn't a memory, so… Sam felt a chill go up his spine as he came to the last option: one of his 'premonitions'. He didn't like calling them that, but in his opinion, it sounded a lot better than Dean's nickname, 'the shining'.
The nightmare had to have been a warning then. But a warning of what, exactly?
He tried to recall those last words, chanted over and over again…
"One like you."
What did that mean? Sam recalled the last time he'd had a premonition. It had been connected to Max, who'd turned out to have powers like he did. Was that was 'one like you' meant? Someone with powers like him?
But the dreams that had led him to Max had come with little pieces of knowledge to go along with them, like where to go and when. This one had just left Sam shaking with a near overwhelming sense of foreboding and fear. The basic message had been: something bad's going to happen. That wasn't exactly helpful.
He looked over at the small digital clock on the nightstand. It was about five in the morning. He fell back onto the lumpy mattress with newfound exhaustion. They'd just gotten into town around midnight. The brothers had recently finished up some ghost hunting in aptly named Tombstone, Arizona. They were currently heading north, set for Nevada.
Sam thought that just going back to sleep was all he could do right now. At the same time, however, sleeping was the last thing he wanted to do right now. He didn't want to have the dream again; it had just been too much. Then he considered the idea that maybe if he had the dream again, he could get more hints as to what the dream was warning him about.
So, with a heavy sigh, he fell back onto the mothball-smelling sheets. His body felt completely worn out, but his mind refused to relax. The rush from the dream was still going strong. Sam rolled over onto his side and tried to sleep, at the same time suppressing the fear of having the dream again.
He walked down the stark concrete hallway, escorted with a guard on each side. He had to degradingly shuffle along in shackles. A steel door appeared at the end of the hallway and he knew where it led. But he didn't stop or resist. He walked on, head held high.
As he approached, the door opened, seemingly of its own accord. He didn't hesitate to walk through. He already knew what wason the other side. And there it was: a gurney, the straps open and waiting for him.
Suddenly, everything flashes forward, and he wason the gurney, strapped down. The curtains of the windows surrounding himare opened, and the faces of the witnesses are now all around him. He recognizes a few from the trial. The D.A., the assistant D.A., and his own lawyer (bitch, he thinks with a smirk). A few family members of the 'victims' are there too. And a reporter…yes, the one from CNN. The one who interviewed him earlier…
A sudden sting in his arm.
And then everything goes very cold. He can't move.
His breathing suddenly stops. He fights, or tries to, but it's useless.He can hear his heart pounding with fear. But the poison starts to takeeffect and he can hear with horror as it slows... Slower and slower, each beat telling him how close it is to stopping. Finally, it stops.
Then everything goes black and he dies. It's a horrible feeling, dying. He's always boasted that he doesn't fear death, but that's a big fat fucking lie. Of course he fears death; who in their right mind doesn't?
The feeling is overwhelming, this death. He feels very small, like a child again. He hates it. But he's too pathetic to do anything. He curls up and whimpers. He feels an unbearable misery.
Wake up….wake up….wake up!
Victor Gavin slowly opened his eyes. The whitewash ceiling of his cell greeted him blankly. His back was killing him and he rolled over to try and get more comfortable, but it was in vain. Not much money is put into a prison's mattresses, and certainly not for those on death row.
He ran a hand through his close-cropped red hair as he sat up, giving up on the bed completely. He swung his legs over his small bed and sat with his feet flat on the floor, his hands on his knees. He closed his blue eyes and took a deep breath, trying to reach a relaxed state. He focused on the dream, trying to go through it like a film, frame-by-frame. Any thing he saw, touched, heard, smelled, and even tasted in the dream is gone through with a mental fine-tooth comb. When he'd gone over it once, and then again just to be sure, he opened his eyes and slowly leaves the meditative state.
It was the same, exactly the same as the others. He realized that he can no longer deny it; he's running out of time. The Forces had been sending him warnings. He had heeded them, but he'd taken his time. He'd relied too much on their power and generosity. But now it's clear: he has to act. He can no longer sit back and wait.
"No more fucking around," he announced quietly to his small cell.
Sam and Dean sat across from each other in a small donut shop, each drinking coffee. Dean was scanning the local paper while Sam trying to get as much caffeine into his system as fast as he could. He had been unsuccessful at his attempt to get back to sleep; he'd also failed to completely shake the gloomy shadow the premonition had cast on him. So now he felt miserable and exhausted. Not a good combination.
He hadn't yet told Dean about the dream. Firstly because he didn't want to worry his older brother, and also because he didn't feel much of a point to it. He had gotten nothing out of the dream except this shitty feeling and the idea that in the future, something bad was going to happen. So what else was new? Bad stuff happened to the Winchester boys everyday. You didn't have to have 'the shining' to figure out that more unfortunate things were going to befall them.
"Hey, this is pretty interesting," Dean announced, handing Sam the paper.
Sam scanned the headlines. " 'New firehouse finished'…'High School Wins State Football Championship'…" He raised a questioning eyebrow at Dean who shook his head in annoyance.
"Bottom left, idiot."
Sam followed his brother's directions and raised his eyebrows at the specifically interesting article. It read in bold print: 'Local Cat Has Litter of Rattlesnakes'.
"Huh. I didn't know the Enquirer had issues all the way out here," Sam remarked dryly.
Dean rolled his eyes in annoyance, snatching the paper back. "Drink your coffee and wake up already," he snapped. He bit into his donut and chewed it, then promptly spit it out. "Ugh! That's rock-hard!" He picked up the donut and tossed it onto the table. There was a rather disturbing 'clunk' as the stale pastry hit the wooden surface.
Sam raised an eyebrow at the donut, which sat innocently on the table where Dean had tossed it. Sam looked up at Dean and smirked. "Now that is weird."
"Shut up," Dean growled, but lovingly. Then he suddenly got all serious, and Sam knew that Dean was going to keep pressing the cat and snakes thing. Dean had slipped right into hunter mode. "Look, Sammy…"
"Sam," the younger brother said out of habit.
Dean continued without pause, "Cats giving birth to snakes is an evil omen."
Sam nearly choked on his coffee. Okay, now noway this was a coincidence. Last night he has a new nightmare warning and the next day he and Dean find an article about an evil omen? Not good.
"Evil omen of what?"
"Evil omen of…evil…" Dean faltered with a shrug. "I dunno, could mean anything. The point is that it's bad."
"Okay, well, how do we now the story's legit?" Sam asked pointedly.
"Well, let's go find out," Dean said taking the paper and his coffee as he got up and headed for the door.
Victor Gavin entered the chapel, to guards on the exterior of the door and about ten positioned on the interior room. The pews were laid out before him, dotted with praying inmates. Some were on their knees, others were reading quietly from the Bible. Off to the side, a few of the Muslim inmates read from the Q'uran and prayed as well. Victor's eyes scanned the scene with a mocking glint in his eyes. His gaze fell on the small crucifix nailed to the whitewashed wall directly in front of him. To that, Victor gave a low chuckle.
At this, a couple of the worshipers in the pews turned to look at him, and their faces were immediately sour. Gavin was not welcome in general, but here was where he found the most hostility. But in one face he didn't find hate. That of a young white man whose head was nearly bald, a thin layer of blonde peach fuzz covering it. Upon becoming aware of Gavin's presence, he rose and walked quietly over to Gavin.
"Did you do as I told you?" Gavin asked as he started to head to the rear left of the chapel.
"Yeah," the younger inmate replied bluntly in a strong Texan accent.
Gavin smiled chillingly in satisfaction. "Finally," he breathed. He glanced over at the young, blank faced inmate. "You're gonna be thanked for this, Tucker. Rest assured."
"Yeah," Tucker replied just as indifferently as before, if not more so.
Now Gavin paused, looking at Tucker rather suspiciously. Tucker stared right back, neither passively nor defiantly. He just stared, like he didn't care about Gavin at all.
"You know, Tucker, I get the feeling that you think I'm crazy," Gavin stated. There was no anger in his voice. But there was smugness and amusement.
"No," Tucker replied with the slight shake of the head.
"But you don't believe in my power, do you?" Gavin asked lightly, apparently already knowing the answer.
Tucker looked straight at him, and finally some emotion and life seemed to be in his brown eyes. "I don't believe in much of anything anymore, Vic," he replied.
Gavin smirked at him and clapped him on the shoulder. "Well, you just watch, Tucker," he advised shrewdly. They started to walk again. Gavin was the one who was actually paying attention to where they were going; Tucker's eyes had gone sort of dead again, just glancing at Gavin as he spoke. "You're gonna be in for a big surprise soon…" He gave a grin to himself at the twisted thoughts running through his twisted head. "This prison…this country…this whole frickin' world is in for a real big one…" he proclaimed wistfully.
so what do you think? Like it? Yeah, I know, too soon to tell. Reviews are VERY appreciated!