voodoo_buddha (voodoo_buddha) wrote in crsvr_fics, @ 2008-04-04 20:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | dark tower (stephen king), supernatural |
Title: Hunters and Gunslingers
Rating: M (just to be safe)
Summery: Sam and Dean meet the KaTet of Nineteen and Ninety-Nine.
Warnings: Language and some gore.
Pairings: Eddie/Susannah, Jake/Dani
Fandoms: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King and Supernatural. I mangaged to sneak in Firefly/Serenity too.
Disclaimer - Everything you recognize belongs to its respective owners (i.e. not me). Anything you don't recognize, probably still doesn't belong to me.
"Here." Sam says, handing the open journal over.
"Walk-ins? What the hell are Walk-ins?"
"No one knows. Not for sure, anyways."
"You know, when I asked you 'Where next?' I was thinking a simple exorcism, Sammy."
Sam just rolls his eyes and angles his lap top so Dean can see the screen.
"That's just gross," Dean says glancing at the picture, "Guy looks like a nuclear holocaust survivor."
Sam closes down the window showing the deformed and sore ridden man, and then pulls up another. Dean stares at the next picture for a long time before saying, "Is that a beak? What is that? Some sort of reverse Harpy?"
Sam pulls the computer back and starts typing furiously.
"The popular theory seems to be that they're aliens."
"Sam, we deal in ghost and vampires and stuff. You know, the shit fantasy-fiction is made of. Not sci-fi."
"It's one of the last entries in Dad's journal. We should at least check it out."
"Fine. Where to then?"
"Stoneham, Maine."
"Maine?!"
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The two brothers lucked out almost immediately. They'd introduced themselves as paranormal investigators at the local pharmacy. An older woman, Irene Tasenbaum, had given them an address and told them to speak to the man who lived there. They'd pulled into the private driveway to find a man sitting out in a lawn chair smiling at them.
"One of these days I'm going to learn to trust a pre-cog when she tells me I'm going to have guests." they heard him say as they climbed out of the car.
"You must be the Winchester boys." The man got up and walked towards them.
The brothers exchanged a glance before Sam said, "You were expecting us?"
"No," the man grinned, "I just like sitting out in my yard messing with everyone who pulls in.
"Come on inside. Suz made a peach cobbler for you."
The brothers exchanged another look before following him up the ramp into the lakeside home.
"I'm Eddie Dean, by the way," he offered as they entered the house, "My wife should be... Ah, here she is."
An older black woman rolled in to the front room on a wheel chair. Her hair was streaked with gray and her legs were amputated from just above the knees.
"You must be Sam and Dean. It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Susannah." She offered her hand. Sam winced slightly when she crush his fingers in her grip. Dean, taking a cue from his little brother's discomfort, grasped the woman's fingers lightly and kissed the back of her hand while offering a roguish grin.
"Bes' be careful, child," her cultured voice became an almost stereo-typical southern negro patois, "I already got me a man." Her dark chocolate eyes glittered with amusement.
"You're here about the Walk-ins?" She asked, educated accent back in place.
"Yes, ma'am." Dean answered.
"We were told to come here and speak with your husband." Sam said, holding his injured hand gingerly against his chest.
"Well, come into the kitchen. I've some coffee and a cobbler."
Once they were seated at the kitchen table with a plate of dessert and a cup of coffee, Eddie turned to the brothers, "Have you ever heard of Stephen King?"
"The writer?" Sam asked.
"Who hasn't?" Dean replied.
"Doesn't he live around here?" Sam again.
"Just across the lake." Susannah nodded towards the window over the sink and the dark water beyond.
"Have you ever read 'The Dark Tower' series?" Eddie asked. Sam shook his head.
"I read 'Carrie' once." Dean offered.
"This would have been a whole lot easier if you'd read that series." Eddie smirked.
"Why? What's that got to do with the Walk-ins?" Dean asked around a mouthful of cobbler.
"Everything." Susannah replied.
"Jake will be here before too long and we can palaver. Until then, enjoy the cobbler. It's the best this side of the Mason-Dixon line." Eddie grinned.
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After twenty minutes of conversation, the brothers had learned almost nothing about their hosts other than the fact the Susannah was older than her husband, they were filthy rich, and they weren't fazed by the supernatural.
"We've seen and done thing not even you can imagine." had been Eddie's explanation.
Eventually, they heard the thing they'd all been waiting for; the front door slamming home and a cry of, "I told you to call me on my cell when they showed!"
A second later, a tall, lean man in khakis strode into the room.
"Hello," he said to the brothers as he shook their hands, "I'm Jake Chambers. It's nice to meet you."
"What have you told them?" he asked the table's other two occupants.
"Nothing. We were waiting for you." Susannah replied.
"Yeah. You knew old long, tall, and ugly before we did. It's your tale to start." Eddie smirked.
Jake sat down heavily and rubbed at his face.
"Eddie here said it best when he called Roland a 'Tower-Junkie'." Jake gives an almost bitter laugh.
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At first, the brothers argued with Jakes story; refused to believe, but Susannah shut them up quickly.
"You two have slain vampires and exorcised ghosts, yet you refuse our tale?"
When Jake's story came to an end, Sam couldn't help but blurt out, "You died twice?!"
"Three times actually, but we'll get there soon."
Eddie took the story up from there, then Susannah. Eventually all three of them were speaking; correcting and adding on to each others telling.
Eddie stopped talking when he was shot in the head and Jake when he was run over. It was long past dark when Susannah told them about passing through the door.
"Did Roland make it to his tower?" Sam asked.
"As obsessive as he was? Of course he reached it." Eddie smirked.
"And?" Sam questioned.
"And, you'll have to read the series," Eddie grinned, "I've got an extra copy you can have."
"Don't tell me you actually believe this crap!" Dean blurted out.
"I don't know. Maybe." Sam sighed.
"They're claiming to be characters from a book!" Dean hissed.
"Seven actually." Jake smiled.
"We can prove it to you, if you'd like." Susannah offered.
"How? Are you going to take us over to Stephen King's place and have him confirm it?" Dean shot.
"God, no. The first time he meet one of us, he nearly had a heart attack; the second time, he'd just been hit by a van." Eddie laughed bitterly this time. Sam looked over at Jake who was eyeing the table sadly.
"River Tam, the girl who told us you were coming, told us something else." Susannah said.
"You two came here to see a Walk-in, and you will." Jake clarified.
Eddie pushed his chair away from the table abruptly and stood. Four sets of eyes watched him as he walked out of the room. When he returned, a bare minute later, he carried an old, well-oiled holster in one hand. In the other was an antique revolver with a sandal-wood grip.
"You coming with us?" he asked the man he'd claimed as a brother.
"No. I have to get back to Dani and Roland."
"Give my nephew a big kiss for me."
"Of course," Jake smiled as he stood, "It was nice meeting you two. Maybe we'll see each other again." He shook the brothers' hands before making his exit.
"What about you, Suz?" Eddie turned to his wife.
"You're the Dinah of this little ka-tet. It's your duty. I had enough of death years ago."
Eddie turned to the brothers, "Looks like it's just the three of us. Follow me."
"Where are we going?" Sam asked curiously as he and Dean rose from their seats.
"Cara Laughs." Eddie answered with a cryptic smile.
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They saw it long before they actually reached number 19 Turtleback Lane; a brilliant blue-white light in the distance.
"What the hell was that?!" Dean yelled from the passenger side seat of Eddie's Ford.
"What did it look like?" the older man asked absently.
"Like a man with a pig's head."
"Taheen," Eddie said, "I'm amazed they're so thick. This doorway hasn't been open in almost four years.
"First time I came here, I saw a butterfly with a human face."
"Doorway?" Sam asked from the backseat.
"Transdimensional portal, really." Eddie answered.
Soon they saw little spots of light breaking away from the larger one; birds and insects that were definitely not of this world.
Twenty-four hours ago the two brothers might have claimed to have seen everything, and now they sit in a stranger's car, mouths agape. As they pulled into the driveway, the brothers could only stare at the point of light.
"Somethin, ain't it?" Eddie said in a deep Maine dialect they would have believed natural if they hadn't just spent hours listening to him speak in a Brooklyn accent.
Dozens of figures milled about the light. Some where what Eddie had called Taheen, but the rest looked human beneath their pulsing sores and wispy-thin hair.
Eddie opened his door and got out of the car without turning it off. As the brothers sat staring, the older man walked to his trunk and after opening it, pulled out his gun and holster. When it was strapped low to his hip, the revolver within easy reach of his right hand, Eddie motioned for his companions to get out of the car. Once outside, they stood behind him, flanking either side.
Dean felt naked without the armory in his trunk. He only had a small caliber pistol loaded with silver bullets strapped to his right ankle and a small silver knife on his left. Sam was too busy resisting the seductive pull of the portal to realize he might be in danger. It was Eddie yelling that brought them out of their thoughts.
"Come forth, ye Children of Roderick, ye spoiled, ye lost, and make your bow before me, Edward, son of Roland, of the Line of Eld!" he shouted in a loud, clear voice that Sam imagined might have belong to kings. Not even Dean could reconcile the man that stood before them now with the one who had laughed and grinned just minutes earlier.
Most of the creatures fled at Eddie's words, but five slowly walked towards him and knelt in the dirt, hands fisted against their foreheads. They, all of them, seemed tragically beautiful in the cold, harsh glow with their bloody wounds and crusty, pus-covered sores. Even the stench of disease and rotting flesh was bearable.
"Hile, Edward of the Eld." they each said, lapping over one another.
A child, no more than seven by size, whose sex was hidden beneath layers of dirt, turned up its face to look at Eddie with an expression of awe and gratitude.
"Might I have some sigul, Sai?" the pathetic little creature asked, tears running freely down its face and making tracks in the grime on its cheeks.
"Aye," Eddie said, pulling out his yellow-handled revolver. He showed it to the child and then to the other four. They all looked at him like a savior or a legend form the long-lost past. From what he'd told Sam and Dean, he was a little of both.
Standing before the dirty naked woman kneeling farthest right, Eddie asked, "Would'ee have peace at the end of your course, thou Child of Roderick? Would'ee have the peace of the clearing?"
"Aye, Gunslinger. I would." she answered, looking Eddie full in the face with the eye that wasn't swollen shut and leaking blood.
Neither brother saw Eddies hand move. It would have been easy to believe the loud report had come from thunder if the gun that was suddenly in Eddie's hand, held loosely next to his right thigh, wasn't emitting a thin trail of smoke.
The woman was slumped on the ground, a charred and bloody hole between her eyes before Dean managed to gasp, "What the..."
"Why'd you do that?" Sam yelled, "She wasn't doing anything!" Eddie ignored him and moved on the next person.
He went through the line, asking the same question and receiving the same answer before shooting each between the eyes. The dirt was muddy with blood and brain matter by the time he reached the last person, the child who'd asked for a sign.
"Would'ee tell these two where it is ye hail from?" Eddie asked gently after the child had responded to his question.
"An' then ye'll send me on to the clearing?"
"Aye, child."
The kid turned to the brothers and, in a high, squeaky voice spoke, "End World. Thunderclap."
"Thankee." and Eddie pulled the trigger one last time.
He turned to the brothers, face drawn and grim, far older than the forty-three he claimed.
"Do you believe?" he asked.
"Why?" Sam sighed sadly.
"I was doing them a favor," at Sam's shocked look, he continued, "They were what Roland used to call slow-mutants; inbreed and already dying of radiation poisoning. It might have been days. It might have been years. I saved them the suffering and they knew it.
"Do you believe?"
"Yeah, man. I believe." Dean croaked. Sam nodded weakly.
"Good," Eddie said, "Then let's vacate. The Rod's kids always given me the screaming heebie-jeebies and I've got some stuff at the house for you."
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Back in the Impala parked in the Deans' driveway, Eddie handed over a stack of books and a card.
"For the sake of time, we didn't tell you everything, so read the books," Eddie nodded towards the pile of hard covers resting on the floor board between Sam's feet, "When you're ready, contact the woman on that card."
"'Marian Odetta Carver'," Dean read aloud, "'Tet Corporation? President?' Are you shitting me?"
"Not in the least," Eddie grinned, "She's a slave-driver, but she'll treat you right and pay you well for doing basically what you're doing now."
"Ghost hunters with corporate sponsorship. Now I've heard everything." Dean smirked.
"Not even close." Eddie laughed.
"Your father did some work for her a few years back and she's looking forward to meeting you two."
"Really? Dad worked for this Carver woman?" Sam asked, eyes ablaze.
"Yeah," Eddie said, slapping the roof of the car and standing up, "Well, goodbye boys. Long days and pleasant nights."
'Bye,' is on the tips of Sam's tongue but to his surprise what comes out is, "And may you have twice the number."
Eddie shoots Sam a smile that drops twenty years off his face before he walks away.
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As soon as he walks into their bedroom, Susannah rolls over and turns on the lamp.
"So?" she asks before her husband can utter one of his cheeky comments.
"That Dean kid reminds me of myself at his age," Eddie grins as he toes off his boots, "And Sam's every bit as sensitive as Jake."
"Marian told me that John, their father, reminded her of Roland a bit."
"Guess all they're missing is you then."
"You don't think Marian..."
"Susannah Odetta Dean, no one can compare to you. Not even someone with your name. You are completely unique." Eddie smiles.
"You always know jus' what to say." Susannah smiles back, "Come 'ere an' kiss me, white-boy."
"My pleasure."
"Mine, too."
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It's nearing on dawn and they're rumbling down the highway looking for a cheap motel where they can find some sleep when Sam turns on the overhead light and digs through the pile of books. He flips to the first chapter of 'The Gunslinger', the thinnest tome in the stack by far.
'The man in black fled across the desert,' he reads, 'and the gunslinger followed.'