The Engineer and the Moonbeam Bright
Jul. 14th, 2007 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ultraviolet9a>>The Engineer and the Moonbeam Bright
TITLE: The Engineer and the Moonbeam Bright
AUTHOR: ultraviolet9a
SPOILER: General spoilers for both seasons, majors for the season 2 finale.
ultraviolet9aSPOILER: General spoilers for both seasons, majors for the season 2 finale.
GENRE: Gen.
CHARACTERS: Ash, OCs, Ellen, Jo. (Sam and Dean Winchester)
SUMMARY: Didn’t you ever wonder what Ash’s story is? And what the hell happened at the…*mumblemumblespoilerforseason2finale*?
RATING: R
FEEDBACK: Dude…duh.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own them. It makes me sad, but I get to play with them, so that’s alright.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own them. It makes me sad, but I get to play with them, so that’s alright.
NOTE: Ash fascinates me. Also? I thought I’d do something different for prompt nr 9 in found_fic_spn instead of the urge to use it for the…uhm…usual suspects.
found_fic_spn instead of the urge to use it for the…uhm…usual suspects..::::.
Most people think Ash is like driftwood. No roots, no history. Ash is Ash, like a Roadhouse fixture, same way there are tables and chairs and bottles.
They don’t know. He doesn’t tell them. It wasn’t always this way.
.::::.
“I’m scared, Ash,” she sniffles. She’s got summer freckles now paling in the autumn, a soft green bow holding her hair back.
“What are you scared of, moonbeam bright?”
“The dark.”
They should have gotten back. Now it’s just their bikes and endless pedalling till they reach home. He’s not afraid of the shadows. Won’t be, not till he finds his way stumbling out of puberty.
“Nothing that can hurt us,” he says. “I promise.”
He doesn’t know.
.::::.
They don’t mess with him at the Roadhouse. Not because Ellen is going to make sure they’ll never find their way back again. Not just, anyway.
Ash can hold his own. It’s not that he’s good at punching. Most of his hits fall blindly and furiously. It’s just that he never backs down. Like tackling a tough Math problem, he attacks on all sides at the same time and won’t let go like a Piranha’s teeth in flesh that can only cut, not disentangle.
He’s had his nose broken and two ribs. A couple of stitches. The Board decided that no matter how intelligent he was, his behaviour didn’t fit MIT patterns. He flipped them on his way out. Told them that the world held patterns they wouldn’t even dream of.
First weeks in the Roadhouse, blood dripping down his nose, he dragged himself to his feet yet again. Spit out blood and a whole speech about patterns, design, probability. What Ellen heard was numbness welcoming pain.
She carried him carefully to the guest room and wiped him clean. Took his boots off and let him sleep it off and the next morning she made him breakfast and didn’t say anything else. She knew.
.::::.
“I can’t sleep,” Addie whispers, tucking herself next to him. He wraps his stick-thin arms around her.
“You scared of the first day in school?”
She nods. Her hair tickles his nose.
“Well, don’t be. I’ll be there too, remember? First day for me too.”
“You won’t leave me alone, will you?
“I’ll never leave you, silly.”
“I’ll never leave you, dufus.”
His fingers find her ribs and tickle. She giggles, then relaxes against him. He knows the drill. They always share the lines.
“The Sandman’s coming in his train of cars…”
“With moonbeam windows and his stream of stars…”
“So hush you little ones and have no fear…”
”The man-in-the-moon he is the engineer…”
”The railroad track tis a moonbeam bright
That leads right up into the starry night…”
“So put on you 'jamas and say your prayers.”
The room is dark. He thinks he can hear crickets chirp. Can feel her breath on him.
“Nighty, moonbeam bright.”
“Nighty, engineer.”
He’s already drifting to sleep when he hears her ask “Do prayers really work, Ash?”
He thinks he mumbles yes, but he’s not sure if that happened or if it was just a dream.
.::::.
World is like a binary code, Ash thinks. Everything sharing a dual pattern: light dark, day night, good evil. Ash Addie.
Grief Booze.
.::::.
“It’s me, Ash,” Addie says. She cuddles up next to him, all slender ballet limbs. Her hair falls dark blonde on her face, same colour his gets when it’s wet, all ruffled up now that the pigtails are loose. Her hand reaches palm open on his forehead, her cheek on his. She feels blessedly cool and he sighs with relief. He’s burning. Has been with fever for a couple of days. He doesn’t mind not going to school, but he hates sitting still.
“You’re cool,” he sighs. He wants to drift to sleep. “You shouldn’t be here. I’m sick.”
“I know,” she says.
“I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I won’t get sick, engineer. You’ll get better.”
“Go back to your bed, Addie.”
“I’m just going to stay here a while more, ok? Don’t die, ok?”
“You can’t die of flu, silly,” he whispers. Her skin on his is soothing. His eyelids feel heavy.
“People die of everything,” she says. He thinks she’s about to cry but she’s already sleeping.
.::::.
He’s stark naked when the Winchesters hit on his badass door. He likes being naked. There’s a feeling of freedom to it, some sort of purity not all people understand. They mistake it for not fitting in, which is another thing Ash can do so well, except he doesn’t. Oddly enough, he fits in everywhere, because he’s so different that it goes out the opposite side of the spectrum.
He’s always been comfortable in his own skin –and the turn of phrase brings shivers on his flesh and tears to his eyes. Always found a niche where he could settle down and be Ash.
Except, it wasn’t always Ash. It had always been Ash and Addie.
He puts his pants on. Realizes how it’s always been Sam and Dean.
Smiles longingly. Helps them.
He would help them even if Ellen didn’t want to.
He wishes they could stay longer, long enough for him to look at them, at the small tell tale signs of people who have known each other almost all of their lives.
Wants to tell them how much more symbiotic it is when life didn’t happen without the other.
.::::.
Addie’s pretty. Real pretty, with her golden hair and her deep green eyes and her dancer’s lithe body. Ash can be more goofy than handsome, but he’s sweet. And he’s smart. Freakishly smart. Addie never gets maths the way he does, but she’s got a different sort of intelligence, an intelligence at saying the right words at the right time to people who need them, as if she knows that they do.
Like that time Tommy tried to kill himself with his daddy’s shot gun and she had gone to his garage and stayed with him and his finger was tight on the trigger and the barrel on his throat and just sat and talked to him. She was all alone, just a girl with her sneakers and jeans and bright T-shirts, sitting near Tommy, with his zits and his belly and his hormones and his parents’ divorce. And the shadows.
If he’d pulled the trigger, his brains would have been scattered all over her marking her like coloured rain and Ash feels his body clench in nervousness. He was hanging out with his buddies and his Addie was talking to a guy with a gun under his throat.
“We were just talking,” she says. “He was just scared.”
“Scared of what, Addie? Why did you go there to begin with?”
“He was different when we got back from Christmas break, that’s all.”
And Ash can’t say anything to that, because that’s the way Addie is. Noticing people, even guys like Tommy, crawling at the bottom of the school food chain.
Ash doesn’t do that. Maths and physics are so clear, but deciphering people isn’t half as fun. The only people he can read this well are mum and dad and Addie. She feels like a mirror and she feels like a shelter, she feels like everything all at once and his chest aches because he loves her so much, and his chest aches because he knows she loves him back. Even when she keeps the bathroom to herself for hours, even when he’s the one bitching to her because Elsie isn’t putting out, even when she’s cranky cuz she’s PMSing….
They shared their first dreams in the same womb. They never stopped sharing, one part of each forever carried by the other.
She could never fool Ash. Her eyes are dark.
“Addie, what’s wrong? What’s wrong, baby?”
Her palms rub her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know. I just think…I just think something’s coming.”
“Moonbeam, come on,” he says and his arm slings over her shoulders. “Everything’s alright.”
She doesn’t say anything as she walks in the library and then Elsie comes and kisses him and everything is full of light, but at the back of his mind he’s still thinking of how cold Addie’s skin is.
.::::.
They say that people stumble on their destiny. His nameless saviour told him about a place where he could talk. And be believed.
So Ash stumbled on the Roadhouse. He stayed. Ellen smells like mum and Jo snuggles up to him like Addie.
Sometimes (especially after he’s dreaming) and Jo isn’t there, he’ll just crawl in her bed. First time she thought he was jumping her bones (and he still got the pain in the nose to prove it) but then she understood. No sex, nothing of the sort, just her holding him or him holding her and in the dark he can pretend that the hair tickling his nose is Addie’s. But he’s too smart. Illusion doesn’t last any longer than seconds, and he doesn’t force it.
This is home now. Sometimes he borrows a truck and drives off and neither Ellen nor Jo ask, though they know. Here, he belongs. Here he doesn’t feel like half of him is torn away and burnt out.
.::::.
Ash really wants to go on the camping trip. It’ll be him and Alex and Jimmy and Jimmy’s uncle who’s a park ranger. Dad knows Jimmy’s uncle and he would have joined them too, except he had to work. Mum looks at him dubiously, but dad waves it off, saying that it’s a great experience for a boy to go camping and fishing and it’s only the weekend for crying out loud and Alex and Jimmy had gone lots of times before and it wasn’t as if they’d be going alone.
Addie is eavesdropping from the stairs. She’s pale.
“Why can’t I come with you?” she asks.
“It’s a boy thing,” Ash says. He wants to scoff at girls, but mum and Addie are girls and he doesn’t scoff at them. Loves them too much for that.
“We’ve never been apart for this long,” she whispers.
“It’s only for a weekend…come on, Addie, don’t give me grief. What’s your problem?”
There’s a big fat tear trailing down her cheek.
“The dark,” she says. “The monsters.”
He rolls his eyes. He can’t help it. He’s still young, the right age for comic books and being grossed out by girls (give him a few years) and having profound discussions about who’s cooler, Batman or Spiderman. But Ash is a math and physics genius even at this age. And his mind is way too rational for childhood fears.
“Come on, Addie,” he says. “Dad says that our own fear creates monsters. You know there are no monsters.”
“You’re wrong,” she whispers. “Even if fear creates them, they’re real.”
He sighs. Takes her by the hand.
“Come on,” he says. He drags her up to their bedroom, rummages on his cluttered desk for a piece of paper and a pen.
Dear God (he writes), help my sister from monsters.
She reads it. He doesn’t have to explain his logic, how if fear creates them, faith can make them go away. They’re twins. She knows him the way nobody else can. She loves him the way nobody else can. She trusts him the way nobody else can.
Addie wraps her arms around his neck and holds him for a long time. Then she tucks the note neatly under her pillow.
“Thank you,” she says.
Addie always has faith in him.
And the camping trip turns out to be great.
.::::.
“Oh my god,” he says. “oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god.”
There’s blood splattered everywhere. The smell is thick enough to drown every other acrid scent out.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god.”
Mum’s head is leaning back against the chair, a second big bloody smile carved on her throat. His mind can’t process it.
“No no no no no no no.”
He moves through rooms he can’t recognize as his mind falls in shock, almost stumbles over his father’s upturned body.
“Nonononono, pleasegod,pleasegod,nononono.”
Running throughout the whole house, bloody palm prints everywhere till he stops dead in his tracks. He never understood how the world can stop, but it does now.
“Addie?” he whispers. There’s hope in his voice, relief at looking at her back, standing upright in front of a window.
“Addie?” he says again. “Are you alright?” There’s blood all over her. Addie turns. The world moves only to crumble.
“Nononono,” he says again and he thinks he’s screaming. “Nononono, Addie what did you do what did you do Addie what did you do!”
He keeps saying it over and over again but the image has already burnt itself on his retina, the knife glinting in her hands, the smile, the blood dripping down her mouth.
“Nononono” he says, stumbling back as she approaches because this can’t be her, can’t be his moonbeam bright, can’t be his Addie, not with that smile and that butcher knife and the stance that says Killer.
Knife hits him hard. And he still loves her so much, too much to fight back.
Last thing he remembers are her dark eyes.
.::::.
Most people drink to forget. Ash drinks to remember.
He misses Addie like hell. He’s always happy to see her, but it takes years before he can dream of her without a knife.
Then he doesn’t dream of her at all, because he’s too busy monitoring the yellow eyed demon’s activity. A demon ripping families apart…he can’t have that.
He doesn’t have Addie, but he’ll do everything he can so that Sam and Dean don’t go through the same shit.
When the same shit starts to escalate, he falls asleep over an open map. He dreams of Addie.
She’s holding a knife again, only this time she carves a pentalpha on her naked belly.
Ash wakes up with a gasp and suddenly the map is not just a map but a key.
.::::.
They say that all that is gold does not glitter nor all those who wander are lost.
Well. Not all of them anyway.
Ash can name at least ten who are. He suspects he’s one of them. He’s not sure if that’s the gold or the lost he’s talking about, but he doesn’t think that really matters.
What matters is that he’s just learned to walk the earth again cut in half without feeling as if he’s going to fall. That he’s given up hope and pain and has just acceptance and a new target, that fun feels like real fun, not something forced and hazy. That being intelligent is not something he should feel guilty about anymore, even if he didn’t help him save his twin sister.
He’s had guys throw multiplications he calculates in his head and then spit out at them to the general wonder. He’s never wrong. He gets money that way (not that he really needs it), sometimes a cell phone, sometimes even a watch, like the one he’s wearing, last night’s bet.
It’s been months since Jo left, but he still calls her up and hears her voice.
He knows loss. He’s had it. Jo isn’t one of them. Jo is merely wandering. He thinks maybe in a few years he’ll be ready to do the wandering himself.
.::::.
His calculations are right, Ash knows that. He’s not wrong. He’s got that tingly sense at the back of his head, same sensation when he cracked difficult science problems years back, same sensation when he does math in his head.
He puts the map folded in the vault, calls up the Winchesters.
Then he turns back to his makeshift computer to check out his patented monitor system when he feels his mouth slowly unhinging.
There’s a message typed on the screen.
He doesn’t doubt it. He knows better now. He’s learnt.
He’s got to go.
He writes a quick note addressed to Ellen and the Winchesters, ignores the men asking if his ass caught fire and just asks to borrow a ride.
He’s got to go.
Old Jeremy is there (they call him Old Yeller cuz he seems to bark all the time). He’s got a good, sturdy truck.
Jeremy looks at him as if he’s insane.
“Come on, man,” Ash says. “I’ll even give you your watch back. And I’ll have Ellen erase your tab debts. Please, man. Come on. I’ll have it back by tomorrow, I promise.”
He doesn’t know if it’s a promise he will keep. The important thing is that Jeremy (who’s planned on sticking around for a couple of days anyway, and besides, Ash has fixed his laptop a number of times) believes him. He tosses him the keys as Ash throws him the watch.
Ash leaves.
.::::.
It takes him three hours with the gas pedal nailed down till he reaches the private clinic. He doesn’t know how his note will be burnt down along with the Roadhouse. He doesn’t know how the Roadhouse will burn down with everyone that was in it. He doesn’t know how he could have been still in there.
The only thing he can think of is the ghost message typed on his screen. The only thing he can think of is Addie.
He had never been alone. From the day of his conception he shared space with her. As babies, mum said whenever one cried the other would too, even if they were in separate rooms. They’d go hand in hand in school. They shared everything, as if they were conjoint, not mere twins. Ash and Addie. Addie and Ash. Couldn’t have one without the other.
Then…then Ash was alone.
Now his heart is thudding as he enters the room.
Noise of the respirator always reminded him of Darth Vader. Tubes stuck through her arms, feeding her body. She’s slimmed down even more over the years, muscles atrophying, despite the daily massages. He’s cut her long hair just under her ears, because it’s easier to comb. Same colour, one shade darker than his, same punch in his gut whenever he sees her, same itch on the scars her knife carved on him. His moonbeam bright.
First weeks she was in a coma he would tell her the same story again, of the Engineer and the moonbeam bright, hoping that the familiar cadence would awaken her shattered brain. There was a time, when despair and grief over his wrecked family had taken their toll, and logic didn’t work. When fear gripped him and he wondered if maybe that’s why she didn’t wake up. It was unreasonable, but he never called her moonbeam again. Never sung her the lullaby. She still wouldn’t wake up.
The hunter who saved Ash’s life couldn’t have known that the demon had already broken Addie. When black smoke poured out of her, her body collapsed. Her brain collapsed. Comatose. So many years.
Then there were seven words on his screen.
Dear God,
Help my brother from monsters.
Ash passes his fingers through her hair, kisses her forehead.
Then tosses the Ouija board on the floor.
“Come on, Addie,” he says, feeling his throat close up with hope. “Talk to me.”
On the monitors, something quickens.
-The End
SIDENOTE: I was trying to make the deadline. All mistakes are mine. I love Ash, as is obvious and I have no idea how Addie got in the picture, but it’s so, so very tempting to write a sequel, because I like Addie.
Also, I didn’t keep a time line but mixed it up on purpose, cuz memories are like that, fucked up and…hazy. I do hope that it did make sense in the end.
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-13 11:31 pm (UTC)I love your Ash so much. Ash, and Addie, and all the details, creepy & beautiful, weaving this world together.
The explanation of the watch schtick! Addie saving Ash! I hope it will redeem her, or something :(
Hope you will write that sequel.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:49 am (UTC)Writing canon characters that don't have a background is fun. Gives you all kinds of freedom.
And...it wasn't Addie's fault, you know. The way I saw it it wasn't about redemption it was about loving her brother and saving him. Wasn't her fault if she was possessed. Though, of course, yeah, the guilt trip...she'll have it. You're right.
Got a lot of plot donkeys to feed. Now the sequel has added itself up. *facepalm*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:52 am (UTC)Thank you for reading! (and seconding the motion)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 02:21 am (UTC)A totally compelling and believable back-story and you managed to give me blurry eyes at the end there, at the message on his screen.
You little genius you!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:54 am (UTC)*hugs* I'm so happy the backstory worked. And yei for blurry eyes!!! (what? You look hot in them, i'm sure. So.)
Thank you, sweetie!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 03:24 am (UTC)Also, I loved this bit:
Except, it wasn’t always Ash. It had always been Ash and Addie.
He puts his pants on. Realizes how it’s always been Sam and Dean.
Hurty in a good way, you know?
Nice job! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:55 am (UTC)I'm happy it was goodwayhurty. Heh.
Thank you.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 05:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 01:40 pm (UTC)This was shiver-inducing and in a very good way! Loves it!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 07:26 pm (UTC)He wishes they could stay longer, long enough for him to look at them, at the small tell tale signs of people who have known each other almost all of their lives.
Tying it right to our boys, that quiet comfort he takes in them because he knows what it's like to know somone like that... it's just so good.
Go team plot donkey!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:42 pm (UTC)(plot donkey is very cooperative lately. Hm.)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-14 08:31 pm (UTC)And also, SEQUEL is made of all things good...like bacon. Mmmmmm.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:43 pm (UTC)Mmmmm. Bacon. MMMMM. (I did background search on what happens after. I think it's safe to assume that there will be a sequel at some point. Yes. *facepalm*)
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 10:19 am (UTC)Thank you for writing.
Please can we have a sequel?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 12:16 pm (UTC)I was gutted when Ash was disposed of, so yay to you and all your yayness. The dreams, the map, and then the ghost message, and then the ending? THE ENDING?
I love it. Another fantastic ultraviolet streak down the racetrack, outta those barriers on sunken haunches and dripping pure obscure.
*watches you race through binoculars*
(um, in a non-creepy way) *headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:56 pm (UTC)I'm thrilled that you liked it so much! Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:11 pm (UTC)What a strange and sad concept, but I hope you do continue with it. I like Addie too, the little we see of her, and I love sibling stories, and I think Ash deserves someone of his own.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-16 06:33 am (UTC)And I adore you for keeping Ash alive!
*smishes Violet*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 12:59 pm (UTC)nice
Date: 2007-07-16 07:26 am (UTC)Re: nice
Date: 2007-07-17 12:59 pm (UTC)engineer
Date: 2007-07-16 02:56 pm (UTC)never really wondered what ash's story was, just like in the intro :) but i feel i know it now. really enjoyed the allusions to mathematical patterns and probability. i love that the language developed to study the natural is working for the supernatural here.
Re: engineer
Date: 2007-07-17 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-16 05:18 pm (UTC)I'm tearing up over here.
What Ellen heard was numbness welcoming pain.
Oh, dude...
Ash as one half of a broken binary is a killer image. I love when a story creates something completely new and makes the reader go, "Yes, of course! Why didn't I see it before!"
And then Addie, lovely Addie at the end. Ash's love for her makes her real and tangible.
Honestly, I think your best fic that I've read to date.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 01:02 pm (UTC)Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2007-07-16 06:39 pm (UTC)This should be included/referenced in the manifesto if the FUCK YOU KRIPKE YOU BETTER NOT HAVE REALLY KILLED ASH Club.
Creepy and clever and touching and...hopeful.
Great story, once again. :)
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 01:05 pm (UTC)Uhm. Yeah. *cough*
no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 01:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-21 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-23 04:05 am (UTC)And wouldn't it be something, about the watch, if Ash ... yanno?
Anyhow. Yeah. You hurt me so good. Gorgeous hurty piece. Darn you. ;-)
~ Erin
no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 04:13 pm (UTC)