ultraviolet9a | Innocence (The Immortals)

>> Innocence (The Immortals)

TITLE: Innocence (The Immortals).

AUTHOR:

ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: None I can think of. Possibly some generic for season one, but by now most must have seen it.

GENRE: Gen. Humour.

CHARACTERS: Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester and two more characters

theladyscribe let me play with.

SUMMARY: “Never? Like, ever?” Dean asks. To say he is shocked is an understatement.

RATING: Easy on the rating. Just has the occasional cuss. PG13.

FEEDBACK: Dude…duh.
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of it. Any really. Most of it belongs to Kripke, and some of it belongs to

theladyscribe who let me play in her Greekverse.

NOTE: In order to get this, you’ve got to read The Immortals by

theladyscribe. It’s well-crafted and damn original as a concept so it’s worth the read. I just had a strange idea through my head when I read it and told her about it and she prompted me to write it. So. It’s for her really. Cuz she let me play in her sandbox (and did all the beta. :) ).

“Never? Like, ever?” Dean asks. To say he is shocked is an understatement. Artie sighs. Centuries ago it would not have been a problem, but that is the modern world for you. And it is all Paul’s fault really. It really is. Because younger brothers sometimes follow the footsteps of their older siblings without even realizing it. And since Artie had chosen Dean as a champion, Paul had had the inspiration that Sam should be his. Not champion exactly, but his protégé.

“He has visions,” Paul had said. “I grant the gift of foresight. And he can hold his own.”

And Artie had agreed because she knew that Dean’s welfare depended on Sam’s state of being, and if Paul looked after Sam it would be easier for her to look after Dean. And all would be happy. She had however not agreed that Paul should experiment with Sam’s abilities. Because the boy was strong. And Paul was not the source of Sam’s abilities, and what Paul had forgotten was that a river has water on both ends.

And Sam had somehow known that they were different when Paul approached him and then the Winchester boys tracked them down and confronted them.

She and her brother were either getting sloppy or too confident. Or perhaps…perhaps part of them wanted their true identity revealed even for a little while. So it had.

And it had not come as a shock to the boys. Not a big one at least.

At the moment, her brother, radiant even at the shaded table of the pub, was talking to Sam. Explaining to him yet again who the Leto twins really were. Giving advice on Sam’s abilities.

Artie and Dean had chosen the bar, never losing sight of their siblings, but leaving them enough space for vision-talking.

And dammit, why did John give the boys a classical education, too? Why really?

“Like never?” Dean says again.

“No.”

“What, you’re saving it up for your wedding night?”

Eons have taught her patience, and he is her champion after all. She chose him.

“I am not going to get married,” she replies. “I am a hunter.”

“Career woman? Trust me, Aphrodite got the better end of the deal then,” Dean says and immediately shuts his mouth.

Artie’s eyes turn from grey to silver. It is not the silver colour of the same-named ore, it is the silver the moonlight has as it falls through the night, and if any mortal ever had any doubt about who or what she is, showing her true eyes always dispels it. Like now. A feeling of satisfaction creeps over her as she sees Dean swallow.

Dean raises his palms as peace offering.

“I meant no disrespect,” he says. “If you are who you say you are, you know that.”

Her eyes slowly turn back to a normal grey.

“I know,” she says. Her voice is clipped.

“But surely you must have had offers,” Dean says. “You’re too beautiful not to.”

Artie looks at him thoughtfully. Maybe he is trying to appease her, or maybe he is mocking her, but what she sees is wide-eyed innocence. He means every word and means nothing else by it.

She shrugs.

“I did. But it is a matter of choice. This is who I am.”

“And how old are you again?” Dean asks.

“I have killed mortals for less than that,” Artie says, her eyes still grey as she smiles.

“Yeah, but you like me,” Dean grins. He is looking at her the way Paul sometimes does when a Seer is giving a particularly clever and ambivalent prophecy he did not expect, and Artie is willing to swear on the cold dark waters of the River Styx that Dean is not shocked by the fact that she is one of the twelve Olympian Gods, but he is shocked by the fact that she is millennia old and…well…she is a virgin. Something about that fact shakes his fundamental belief in the rightness of things, and he eyes her from head to toe in quick, almost concealed sweeps thoughtfully.

“Do not even think it,” Artie says.

“Think what?” he asks blinking, but the flutter of his eyelids this time is not innocent, no matter how hard he tries.

“That which you are thinking, Dean,” Artie says again. One of her fingers wraps around one curl of her black cascading hair. Dean’s eyes follow the movement, then he looks again at her and shifts smoothly (and wisely) from charm to curiosity.

“Aren’t you tired of it?” he asks. “Of not getting any? I mean you are drop dead gorgeous.”

“Dean,” she says. “Shut up.”

“Though lacking in manners.”

“Or I shall kill you on the spot and to Hades with champions.”

“I can see how that puts a stump in your social life.”

She has to smile. She cannot help it.

“Aren’t you lonely?” Dean asks.

“I have got my brother.”

Dean blinks. Rapidly for a few times. And Artie does not need to read his mind to know what he is thinking; all things that date back to royalty and older years bear the element of incest, so he should not be surprised, but this is…

Artie rolls her eyes.

“For company,” she says. “Company, Dean.”

“Oh. Oh. I knew that,” he says recovering with surprising speed. “Cause I mean, I got my brother too and I love him to bits, but I’m not even going there.”

Artie shrugs. Glances again at her own brother and his new protégé. Dean follows her eyes.

“But your brother isn’t a…a…”

“Virgin,” Artie says. “You can say the word, Dean, it is not going to bite you. And no, he is not. He is actually anything but that.”

“Then why are you…a…a…”

“Virgin?” she shrugs. “I do not know. It is part of my nature. Like the true aim of my bow. Maybe it is for balance.”

“So if you got any you’d stop being a goddess or a hunter? Because I mean, Xena, the warrior princess got a lot of action. And she kicked ass.”

“No. I just would not be who I am.” She shrugs and shudders. “And please, do not mention her again. That fictional creature maimed our mythology.”

“That bad, huh?”

She rolls her eyes again.

“You have no idea.”

Dean is looking at her, but not straight on. And there are questions and innuendos she can see forming in the back of his mind, and pure curiosity hidden in more layers of questions (and she can see the word masturbation cross his mind more than once now that she is reading him) but he is wise and keeps his mouth shut. The clouds change shape. Good boy.

“You think your brother is going to help Sammy?” Dean asks, and Artie knows that the whole virginity issue has been filed, referenced and put away neatly, much to her relief.

She nods.

“We will both be looking after you,” she says. She does not say there will be troubles ahead. She does not say there will be heartache. She does not say I wish I could change your destiny. She does not say we will be looking at you really, not after you, because there is only so much interfering we are allowed to do.

“You are our champions and protégés,” she says. “You are special. And I wish you all the good fortune in the world.”

Dean nods slightly.

“Ah,” he says. “This is goodbye then, isn’t it?”

She nods.

“Will we see you again?” he asks.

“Even when you do, it will not matter,” she replies. “Gods are not made for mortals. In a few hours the memory of us will fade away and you will continue life as you have always known it. We will make sure of it.”

He looks like a little boy.

“It is for your own good,” she says. Dean shrugs.

“I know. Only, having an actual goddess watching my back is… way cool. Especially when the goddess’ back is worth watching too. No offence meant, yet again.”

Artie smiles. This is part of what makes Dean Winchester the warrior he is.

“The way your mind works makes me wonder if the said sister was right that you should be her champion,” she says.

“You mean Aphrodite? So what happened?” Dean asks. She grins at him and suddenly feels completely human, the veneer of that humanity reflected in Dean’s eyes.

“I saw you first.”

****

Later that evening, before the memories thin and fade to nothingness like morning fog in a midday sun, the Winchester brothers lie on their beds talking.

“Paul said that the knowledge he offered me on visions will stay with me, even after our memories of the two of them fade.”

“That’s good, Sammy,” Dean says. He doesn’t sound too pleased, though.

“What’s bothering you, Dean?” he says. “Because I know something is.”

Dean crosses his hands over his stomach as he lies on his back. The ceiling is kind of faded but that’s not what he thinks about.

“Dean?”

He turns his head to Sam.

“It’s nothing really,” he says, but there is a whine in his voice. “It’s just that… I mean, I really admire Artemis, but dammit, Sam, I could have been Aphrodite’s champion. Aphrodite’s!”

“And instead you are the Virgin Huntress’ champion,” Sam says.

“Yeah,” Dean replies quietly.

A wistful silence passes and then suddenly Sam erupts into laughter. Dean throws a pillow at him, knowing that it won’t shut him up, and somehow the discussion of gods turns into a pillow fight, and lots of laughter.

Then they fall asleep, the Winchester brothers, watched by Demons and Gods alike. By morning the encounter with the gods will seem like just a dream. And life will continue as always.

-The End.

SIDENOTE: theladyscribe wrote this beautiful (serious) fic, and then I came and it somehow evolved into…eh…less seriousness. So don’t heed me. But she did declare it canon in her verse, so for that I'm all whee! and fuzzy.