prompt
The Legend of Sam Winchester:
Revered, feared, long gone or just tearing up earth? Write something about how other hunters/demons/angels talk about Sam behind his back. It can be during his time as a hunter, as boy king, as a special child...
Essentially: What do demons & hunters write about Sam on bathroom walls? :D
Challenge: It's all from someone else's POV, never from Sam's.
The stories were all wrong, Ella thought.
She'd only been in the hunting community for three years and she knew plenty about the Winchesters. The stories that circulated around them were just as mythical as the brothers were - all rumors and speculation. The only true, known fact was that you didn't touch them, you didn't even look at one of them wrong, or you might find yourself at the end of the other's blade. That was the only thing that was proven, or could be proven, since the Winchesters never showed up at any sort of hunter gathering and their father had never been willing to share much about them when he was alive.
There was one other proven fact as well, but no one was willing to talk about that for fear of it coming true. The hunting community was perfectly happy to stick to the original stories, where Dean was all witty remarks and fiery glares and Sam was the bold, clever law student with the smile like sunlight. They didn't want to think about what Sam was - the ones who did, and had acted on it… well, everyone knew what had happened to Gordon Walker. For the few hunters that did meet Sam Winchester, it was enough to focus on Sam's kind words and soft smile and ignore the dark thing they knew ran through his veins.
It worked backwards for Ella. She knew enough about Sam that she was positive she'd be safe with him no matter what blood he had; so when she met him, and hunted with him, and the only thing she felt was rising anxiety and fear, it left her confused. His hand was too familiar around a blade, movements too fluid, and it felt far too right to see him standing over the corpse of a vampire, blood dripping from the blade in his hand and pooling around his feet. And his smile when he said goodbye was downright unsettling; it was tilted wrong, and it didn't quite reach his eyes - or if it did, it was a thin film over the real feelings and Ella wasn't sure she wanted to know what was underneath.
Sam Winchester reminded her of an old Bible verse - the book of Daniel, she thought. Daniel had been having visions, and he said that he saw four beasts in his vision. "The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it." (Daniel 7:4). She didn't know why he reminded her of that verse, but she didn't like it and she knew that she'd never try working with Sam Winchester again if she could help it.
/
Ella knew the stories were wrong, but she wasn't quite sure exactly how wrong.
She wasn't sure until now, as Sam stood in front of her and that smile of his was now razor-sharp, unsettlingly familiar. This time, the smile reached his eyes - it reached his eyes that burned molten gold, and it reached his power, which flowed like honey over her skin, slow and suffocating and leaving her helpless as he took a step forward.
Her breaths came short and she felt panic setting in, thrashing uselessly against her invisible silken bonds, tears welling up quickly. Sam's smile faded and he tilted his head, thumb brushing lightly over her cheek to wipe away the first tear. His eyes flicked to her and gold was all she could see, that horrifying burning shade, before she felt something weaving in her mind, gently pushing down the rising fear and panic.
Ella's eyes widened in horror, but even that was pushed down, and she was not-panicking; her breaths were calmed down and she was still, though her mind was racing with a torrent of fresh fear. Absently, she thought she was very much like a mouse being played with by a cat, and that thought set her mind off again because the mouse almost never survived.
Sam's voice was soft, slipping like honey between her defenses, and dammit, she'd only worked with the Winchesters once but there was something about Sam that was naturally calming; he knew how to get what he wanted. She found herself relaxing even without the heavy, threatening slide of his power over her emotions. "Shh," he whispered. "We're not even at the best part yet. I can't have you panicking on me, now can I?"
That set off not-alarm in Ella's mind, thoughts flipping back online even as his power slid over her body, pulling her heart rate down and her breathing steady. He smiled at her and she almost relaxed, before she felt her heart rate drop lower. Her eyes widened as she felt her air being cut off - or, not cut off exactly, because she could still breathe, but she couldn't get any air in when she did.
"It's interesting what you learn in college," Sam said quietly. Ella could barely hear him over her body's desperate attempts to kick to survival mode; her breathing was forced steady even as her heart rate kept dropping, a few beats every second, and her thoughts were running wild and panicked. Sam kept going.
"I took a medical course at Stanford. Didn't teach me much for my law degree, I simply thought it'd be interesting. And oh, it was," he said, turning to her, a small smile on his face, eyes still burning that unholy gold. He walked forward. "Do you know what it taught me?" he asked.
Ella was unable to reply, because her heart rate was still dropping and she was still not-panicking, but Sam kept going anyway, voice as soft as ever, even as her vision blurred around her as the dizziness set in and her muscles weakened from her place pinned against the wall.
"The lowest heart rate ever recorded was 26 beats per minute," he said. "Anything below that is most likely fatal, and if it's not, well…" He smiled. "I can easily make it that way."
Ella wondered what heart rate she was at right now, to which Sam replied and she flinched at his abruptness.
"45 beats per minute. Not quite there, but we have time, don't we?" he asked, and Ella suddenly saw him clearly. She knew why he reminded her of that Bible verse from the book of Daniels; she took the time to analyze it even as she felt her heart rate dropping steadily and somewhere in her mind she was still panicking.
The verse said that the beast had lost its wings, but Ella doubted that. She saw the wings now, shadowy and night-black, rising from Sam's back and flaring outward in a bid for freedom. The stories said that Sam was bold, willing to flee from his family to attend law school, but Ella saw nothing of the boldness in his wings now. They were flared outward in a challenge, a dare to anyone who came close to try to take him down. They were dangerous, not bold, matching his sharp eyes and the seemingly calm drag of his power over her body.
She saw the lion in him too, but he had never left the predatory gait behind. He was still a lion prowling on four legs, the unholy gold in his eyes coloring his fur, mind sharp with the knowledge of what he was and how to use it. Sam may have been the youngest brother, but he was never anything less than Dean was. He was more, more than Dean had ever been or could ever be; he was all gold fire and keen intelligence, with a smile that had never been like sunlight, but was more like a knife that you didn't know was sharp until you'd already cut yourself on it and were bleeding.
Ella realized this, and then she realized that Sam must have numbed the pain, because suddenly he was two steps in front of her and speaking deceptively softly.
"Where do you think you'll go in the afterlife?" he asked, that smile-like-a-knife on his face again. "I'd prefer for you to go to Hell - that mind of yours is very interesting and I'd be happy to have all of eternity to pick through it, but I can't choose where you go. That'll be all up to you."
He turned towards her again from where he'd turned around and paced away, now walking quickly forward until he was two steps away from her. "So, Ella, have you been good?"
She didn't have a chance to give any indication of replying before she felt the heavy, honeyed slide of his power vanish and the full weight of her imminent heart failure slammed into her. She was breathing fast, too fast now, because she was panicking and about to die and her body was panicking too; she couldn't get enough air in, and holy fuck organ failure hurt, white-hot pain flaring throughout her entire body from where she was still pinned. Black danced at the edges of her vision, rapidly closing in, and then her vision burned gold, unholy gold, as Sam's voice filtered distantly in from the outside.
"Guess we'll have to find out," he said.
Ella's last sight was of burning gold, and her last thought was that the stories were all wrong.