#could icarus' wax and thread and feathers help pull the minotaur out

[the-barefoot-hatter]

if Ford thinks Icarus' problem was that he didn't flap hard enough... I wonder if Bill thinks about the Minotaur

[routinely-unamoosed-blog]

13x03 ~ Familiar Taste of Poison

Summary: Sam struggles to be on Maddie’s side as Dean continues torturing her, all the while Toni is becoming more of a bother.

Character(s): Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Maddie Rayner (OC), Toni Bevell

Word Count: 4,876

Warning(s): shit ton of angst, explicit language, mentions of the biggest bitch named toni, mentions of cas’ death that r really insulting to cas as a character but that’s just maddie being maddie so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One | Two

“Hey,” Dean muttered, his flannel opening a bit at the hem as he walked into the library.

Sam looked up from his lore book. His mind was somewhere else as his eyes drifted across the page, facts about birds being included on the list of monsters he and his brother would hunt. He was dumbfounded when nothing on the combination of a bird, or anything avian, and a human was mentioned.

He lifted his brow a bit higher than it was when Dean jerked his thumb back in the direction he came. “She’s awake,” he finally said after standing there for a solid minute.

The youngest Hunter cleared his throat and slowly closed his book. “O-okay. I’ll, uh, be there in a minute,” he said, voice dropping to barely a whisper. A lump had risen to his throat, and his gut twisted. He tried to talk—he begged, even pleaded—to his brother, and knock some sense into what he was doing with one of the greatest Hunters in the nation.

Kidnapping a Rayner was one thing, but Tasing her? Tying her up and putting her inside of the Impala’s trunk? He felt sick about it, and he could only make himself feel worse when he found himself comparing his brother to Toni; he had kept his mouth shut during the ride back. He went with the flow of things and just . . .  went with it.

“Dee?” His brother stopped in his tracks. Sam understood this game all too well; using nicknames was when he wanted to talk about something serious or get something off his chest.  Dean pivoted on his heel. Sam didn’t give his brother a chance to speak. “Don’t you think you’re . . . kinda emulating . . . you-know-who?”

Dean frowned. “Who are you . . .”

“I mean, come on. Tasing Mads? Tying her up and putting her inside the trunk? I can’t really find myself not relating to her a little bit.” Sam let his voice trail off. He felt his patience wearing thin, especially when the devil herself clicked her tongue in disagreement.

Toni sat in the war room, her elbow leaning on what appeared to be the southern coast of Argentina. Her fair hair was done in a neat bun parallel to her eyes on the back of her head, with a tan leather jacket accommodating a white undershirt and matching dress pants. Black flats completed the look, along with beige eyeshadow to bring out those stupid eyes.

She shook her head slightly. “You don’t like me, Samuel, but I get it. Maybe Maddie would enjoy the same activities we endured during our time together. Or, perhaps, once that strapping lad of a brother leaves, we could have some . . . alone time, hmm?”

Sam glanced over at her with a slight shudder, tears springing to his eyes when he saw the needle in her hand. He managed to keep his fear and anger under control, but the second his brother rolled his eyes and retreated down the hall, the Hunter jumped from his chair and dashed down the stone stairs. He stopped at the world map, bracing himself on it with both hands trembling and his fingers turning white. Anger made his face hard, with his upper lip twitching in irritation.

His veins rose along his skin. Toni glanced down at them and licked her lips to his disgust. Sam lifted his arm and pointed at her with a stiff hand. “Shut. Up. You’re not . . . real.”

Standing, Toni sauntered her way around the table at a slow and predatory pace. Her eyebrow was arched slightly, with her tongue set between her teeth. Maddie had done the same exact thing in the motel parking lot. He thought it was hot, but now? He felt disgusted for even considering the action as sexy on Maddie’s part.

He shook his head at Toni, pressing his thumb into his palm where his scar used to be from years ago.

It still worked. Toni flickered away with an eyeroll.

He was finally greeted with silence. He finally felt calm in what seemed like weeks, or months if he counted the tension between his brother and his estranged mother. He knew Toni would be back later, but Sam decided to embrace this moment of silence with open arms.

A hand ran through his hair as he sighed deeply, feeling hesitant when he stepped back into the library. His book, checked out from the local library when he couldn’t find anything bird related in the Bunker, lay closed on the nearest table closest to the steps. His hand reached out and scooped it up with ease, the book opening to the page he marked with a sticky-note.

His mind went directly to Maddie the second he laid eyes on a depiction of the Greek god Eros. A marble statue of the god was said to be of Pompeiian decent, one line said, and a blush ran to his cheeks when he read that Eros was, officially, the god of sexual desire and attraction.

Even mythology can predict his future. He shook his head and turned the page, only to be greeted by another mouthful of a paragraph of Eros. His jaw clenched. His cheeks burned with embarrassment, but he read on. One part of the paragraph quoted a Greek comic playwright named Aristophanes that detailed the birth of Eros:

“At the beginning, there was only Chaos, Night (Nyx), Darkness (Erebus), and the Abyss (Tartarus). Earth, the Air and Heaven had no existence. Firstly, black-winged Night laid a germless egg in the bosom of the infinite depths of Darkness, and from this, after the revolution of long ages, sprang the graceful Love (Eros) with his glittering golden wings, swift as the whirlwinds of the tempest. He mated in the deep Abyss with dark Chaos, winged like himself, and thus hatched forth our race, which was the first to see the light.”

Sam’s lips parted a bit, his brow furrowing in deep concentration. He turned the page again, reading more on winged humanoids in folklore and mythology. There was the Greek legend of Icarus, the son of an Athenian craftsman who built the famous Labyrinth in Crete. Icarus and his father, Daedalus, were imprisoned in the Labyrinth when King Minos’ daughter helped Theseus, the enemy of the king, defeat the Minotaur.

He knew this legend all too well. He was always a fan of mythology, even if it wasn’t relevant to a case. Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings using wax, feathers and a thread given to them from Ariadne,  King Minos’ daughter. Escaping the Labyrinth, Daedalus instructed Icarus to not fly too low above the Mediterranean Sea or to not fly too high, for the Sun would melt the wax. Icarus disregarded his father’s advice and flew too close to the Sun, whose rays melted the wax and sent Icarus to his death.

The thought of death made his mind wander. He thought about how iron and silver were the two number one things that monsters could be killed, but he remembered seeing an iron ring on Maddie’s middle finger. Plus, not to mention, the angel sword she wields must be made of iron or silver, so she couldn’t be killed by either of those elements.

Maybe it’s not a mythological thing, he thought and shut the book. He stood from his chair and stalked to the staircase, hustling down them and jogging to his bedroom. He rushed past the closed dungeon door, not even taking a glance at it. He was worried about what Dean was doing to Maddie, but he was paranoid now that Dean would do worse if he didn’t get what he wanted.

Sam ignored Toni’s figure on his bed. Her jacket was off, and with that revealed her bare arms from the shoulder down. He hated to admit that her arms looked quite nice despite her age.

He blushed slightly when she crawled to the end of the bed at yet another predatory pace, her fingers wrapping around the footboard. Her hair fell from over her shoulder to rest above her breast.

Her hand reached for him when he finally found his tablet. He unplugged it from its charger atop his dresser. Toni’s fingers gripped his sleeve and tugged him closer to the bed, her other hand trailing up his chest. Sam clenched his fists with his jaw hinging forward in protest.

He knew she was trying to reel him in. She was trying so damn hard to make him fall for her again.

He shoved himself away and left the room, pressing his thumb into his palm as he did so. He heard the strained flickering behind him; he didn’t look over his shoulder. He felt her, though. He felt her presence looming over him from behind even though she was massively short compared to his monstrous height.

He ignored her again. He turned the corner and stopped in front of the dungeon door. It was the only thing that kept him away from Maddie. His heart tugged at what Dean was doing, and it tugged even harder when he heard her groaning inside.

Sam dug deep inside himself to find the courage to open the damn door. His hand shook as he turned the lever, the gears inside of the eighty-two-year-old door groaning in protest as it slowly opened. It was quite heavy, in his opinion, but he found it easier to open each time he did it. His daily workout routines were paying off, both on and off the job.

The bookcases were closed. Chains rattling echoed in the large room, with the combination of old books and blood making Sam’s eyes water. He blinked and shook his head. His hand trembled even more now when he reached out and pulled open the two bookcases, revealing a pissed-off Dean and a bloodied Maddie.

The first thing he noticed about her was the giant scar running from the center of her forehead to her jawline. It was a wide wound that was bleeding profusely, with thick trails of blood dripping into her lap and on the floor. Her left cheek was slashed, as well, as were both her arms. A dried pool of blood soaked her shirt in the stomach area; her shoulders were bleeding with large X’s carved into them.

How is she alive? he thought.

Dean set down a machete that was covered from tip to heel with blood. His hands were turning pink and crimson with new and dried blood.

The tray next to him, mocking the youngest Winchester’s former demise with Toni, was filled with instruments of torture. He shifted on his feet uncomfortably and cleared his throat, toying with the tablet as he swept his eyes over Maddie and the table.

Turning, his brother looked up at him. Suddenly Dean’s face lit up a bit, and that darkness in his eyes was gone. It disturbed Sam more than when Dee had the Mark of Cain, or when he was a demon. Eye wrinkles creased in the corners of his brother’s eyes, a characteristic that the women of the world couldn’t resist.

“Hey, Sammy,” he said with happiness in his voice.

Sam cast a concerned glance Maddie’s way. Her shirt and jeans were in pieces. Both items of clothing were covered in blood, with her lap being the most covered from the scar on her face. What alarmed him the most was how still she sat.

He shifted on his feet and showed Dean the screen. “Maybe she isn’t anything, Dean,” he muttered, pain cracking his voice. His gut churned the second he saw her like this. It pained him to see her tortured to a pulp and barely breathing while chained to a chair in a place unfamiliar to her. The least Dean could do was loosen the bonds, but even he knew that was a horrible idea.

His mind sent off alarms in his head. when he thought about what would happen if she got free. She’d kill us both, that’s for sure, he thought with a dizzying wave of uneasiness.

Maddie’s head lifted a bit. Sam’s jaw clenched when her shoulders rolled and her head lifted itself up to stare at the ceiling. The chains behind her rattled quite loudly when she began to struggle, her teeth baring and a snarl leaving her lips. She glanced behind her at her bonds and stared up at Dean with death in her eyes.

“Are the chains necessary, Dean, or are they here to satisfy your kinks?” she spat, a taunting arch of an eyebrow clearly setting the Hunter off. Sam fought a snicker on his part and managed to keep it on the inside.

Dean stepped over after he retrieved a dagger smaller than the machete. Sam’s gut churned the closer his brother got to her and tensed when Dee grabbed Maddie’s jaw in his hand and rested the tip of the blade on her chest. He chuckled to Sam’s dismay. The eldest Hunter’s head lifted a bit as if narrowing his eyes and twisted the blade on the surface of Maddie’s skin. Her face contorted to a slight grimace, but her expression remained taunting.

“I’m gonna ask you once and once only,” Dean spat, voice dripping with venom, “what are you?”

Maddie let out a devilish chuckle that mocked Dean’s. Sam felt a pang of regret for just standing there and not doing something, for the angel killer’s next words would haunt him forever: “Your questions can kiss my ass, Dean.” Dean’s hand flew between her side and right arm, his fingers grabbing the reinforced steel chains and pinning them to her wrist. Hissing filled the dungeon, mixed with Maddie’s pained grunts and profane threats she spewed at him. Sam shifted on his feet, fists clenched at his sides, and forced himself to not grab Dean and throw him across the room.

“Dean,” he said quietly, voice deeper than usual with emotion. Dean ignored him and grabbed the dagger from the tray and stabbed the blade into her leg. Flesh squished and blood boiled to the surface, pooling over her leg and dripping to the floor. A violent scream burst from Maddie’s throat, with the chains rattling loudly in the dungeon.

Bile rose in Sam’s throat. Toni stood behind the chair, an arm draping on Maddie’s shoulder. She was dressed in the same outfit as earlier, this time a blowtorch replacing the needle she had held. His jaw clenched when it turned on, which made him jump to his dismay, and told himself this wasn’t real.

This isn’t real, he thought when Toni placed the nozzle of the torch directly on Maddie’s scar.

Before he knew it, Sam was barreling down the hall towards his room. A wave of coolness slammed into the back of his head as he bent over the sink and vomited, his eyes squeezing shut. He remained there, arms braced on the sides of the sink, until nothing but stomach acid came up.

His throat burned, his mouth hurt. He shuddered and coughed, hoping and praying nothing else would come up. He rested his forehead on his arm, turning the sink on and washing his vomit down the drain.

When he looked up, a single tear slipped from his eye when, in the mirror, Toni stood behind him. A soft smile was on her face as they stared at each other for what seemed like forever. Those crystal pools haunted him both in and out of sleep, and today marks the eighth day he hasn’t slept a full night without nightmares.

She took a step forward. Another tear slipped, another drop of his dignity falling with it. His soul felt weak inside of him; it cowered in the corner when Toni stalked her way closer to him. He watched her in the mirror, his entire body shaking when her ice cold hands wrapped around his frame. He closed his eyes and shuddered in front of the sink.

“I missed you,” she purred, resting her head on his shoulder, hands snaking around his chest. He shook in her grasp, with tears dripping into the sink. “You know, Sam . . . I know you enjoyed our little fling together. How you groaned my name? I’d—”

Sam grabbed the glass sitting beneath the mirror and hurled it across the room over Toni’s head, with her figure fading away like smoke as he screamed, “Leave me alone!”

He stood there with his chest heaving in anger. He ran his hand through his hair and blinked, squeezing shut his eyes and opening them wide as the room swayed beneath his feet. Voices added to his dizziness, with most of them being different things Toni had spoken to him during his time with her.

Sometimes objects in his room flickered to things in the farmhouse. His duffle bag on his bed changed to cow prods, and his stash of ammunition flickered to needles and drugs of various sizes and doses. The voices grew in volume.

Toni’s degrading words and taunts rose to shouts, with moments of Ms. Watt carving into him flashing across his eyes.

The last thing he remembered was falling to the concrete floor.

It took him about five weeks to finally gather the courage to go back into the dungeon. He had busied himself with research sessions and bidaily jogs to the store, where he would stock up on whatever things the Bunker needed: beer, food, ingredients for his “disgusting and nasty” protein shakes, as described by his wonderful brother; and over-the-counter sleeping pills.

He drove himself to insomnia as the weeks crawled on without sleep. He had kept his lack of sleep from his brother, of course, claiming he had stayed up too late doing research for various or sparse cases; last week, there was a werewolf in Elkhorn, Nebraska, that took only four days to finish.

Dean had found him unconscious in his bedroom. Apparently, he had passed out from lack of sleep, and Sam even suffered a concussion from slamming his head on the floor. His brother said he needed stitches, but it didn’t take long for his memory to come back.

It didn’t take long for him to remember Maddie was still here.

Maddie’s screams slipped their way beneath his door. He flinched when her screams suddenly stopped. He slammed shut his book. It was a lore book on Chupacabra, and everything he’d read went out the window as he hurled himself off his bed and opened the door.

It took a while to make it to the dungeon. Even though he and his brother had been living there for almost five years, he still found himself becoming lost and continuing straight when he should’ve turned the corner.

Toni appeared next to him, her shoulder leaning on the wall next to the door. Sam ignored her, as per usual, as he stepped inside. The dungeon was consumed in darkness, save for the domes of yellow given off by the lights above him. His head shook in irritation when the soft clacks of Toni’s heels sounded seconds later.

The bookcases were closed suspiciously. It was obviously Dean’s very poor way of covering something up that happened to Mads, and it didn’t take long for Sam to realize how quiet it was in the musty room. It was too quiet, in his opinion, and as he made his way toward the bookcases, Toni couldn’t help but commentate.

“Quiet like you,” she whispered.

“Screw you,” Sam replied, his hands reaching out and wrapping around the shelf’s iron case. He gave the two rolling bookshelves a good tug, and the doors opened, sending a wave of pale light to shine on his lower body and on Toni’s entire, fictional and completely nonexistent body.

Maddie sat in the chair with her head bowed, her chest never rising and falling. A piece of duct tape was positioned over her lips, with her head wound bleeding more than he’d seen it earlier. It seemed like her knees were cut and bleeding to beyond restoration, but it looked like her wounds from weeks ago were already healing.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” Toni quipped with intrigue. Sam’s heart twisted with disgust as Toni made her way to Maddie, stopping and admiring the damage on the Hunter’s body. “Beautiful handiwork.”

He ran over when he saw the machete embedded into her shoulder, keeping the right side of her body pinned to the chair.

Sam fell to a kneeling position, his hands immediately going to cradle her head. His hands stopped, however, and instead went to check her pulse. Her skin was cold beneath his, and a tear came to his eye when her pulse was deemed faint.

Her head snapped up and muffled screams filled the room. Her eyes were wide as ever, scanning his face for the apparent darkness she had witnessed with Dean. Sam clutched her face and rubbed his thumbs along her jaw, quietly shushing her as she struggled and screamed. His heart tugged.

“Hey. Hey, Mads,” he whispered, “Maddie. Maddie! Listen to me, okay? I’m not here to hurt you. Promise. Just lemme take this off and I can help you. Okay? Do you trust me?”

She quieted a bit. Her chest heaved and shone with sweat, soft grunts leaving her sealed mouth. Her head lolled when she lifted it up, to which Sam grabbed the sides of her neck and held her head up with his thumbs. His heart thundered in his chest as he shook her to try and keep her alive or conscious; he couldn’t tell if she was hyperventilating, passing out or dying.

Finally, she nodded and allowed him to pry the duct tape off her lips. Her breath shuddered and she shook in the chair. When Sam went to get a grip on the machete, she shook her head and let her head fall back slightly with exhaustion.

It took her a few seconds to find words. Seeing her so exhausted from fighting the pain Dean had caused her made him feel gross. For once in his life, he could relate to Rayner. For obvious reasons, the Rayner bloodline couldn’t necessarily be deemed as relatable, but now? He never felt so complete with Maddie.

He waited for her to speak, and once she did, his tormentor snickered next to him.

“Leave it in. I-I don’t him to think you’re . . .  he-helping me.” Maddie’s voice was beyond raspy, possibly from her five weeks’ worth of torture on his brother’s part. The thought of Dean made Sam tense and glance over his shoulder, thankful he didn’t see his brother.

Toni paced around Maddie and stopped at her side, legs bending so she could be level with the angel Hunter. Sam took his hands from Maddie’s head and pressed his thumb into his palm as hard as he could, grunting when Toni’s figure simply flickered like a television losing its signal for a few moments. Instead, he focused on Maddie. She was his number one priority at the moment, and at any time, Dean could return from his break. It pained Sam to know that he had a ticking time bomb in his hands, plus a hallucinogenic Toni Bevell weaseling into his life like Lucifer did.

Least you’re not with him, he thought. He felt a little better after that thought came and went, but the glare from the Woman of Letters made him resist making eye contact with her.

“The question is, Samuel, would you rather be with me or Lucifer? After all, you were tortured by him, so what makes you think I’m any better?” Toni’s voice annoyed him, and this accent in a pantsuit bitch made him want to punch a wall. He ignored her; it was the only thing he could do without looking insane. Sam clenched his jaw as he stared at Maddie. Her eyes, he realized, were struggling to stay open. He looked at the machete, which was probably the only thing that was keeping her from bleeding out.

He looked up at the second door not far from Maddie’s chair. If he could get her out of the chair without severing any major organs, he could have her in a motel a few miles away in less than an hour. An hour could save her life, he thought. His hand lifted to grab the machete, but he knew Maddie would start bleeding the second he moved the weapon.

Praying that Toni would go away out of annoyance, he waited until Maddie returned her gaze to him. Tears were in her eyes, and Sam’s soul felt crushed. She was scared—horrified was a better word—and in serious pain, possibly thinking that he was here to hurt her. He wanted to yell at her that he was here to help, but even he knew she’d think that was bullshit.

“Maddie. No, no, no, hey. Hey, Mads. Stay awake for me, okay?” Her head was bobbing up and down, and he knew it wasn’t long until she lost consciousness. Her lips barely moved as she looked up at him through her drooping lashes. “I’m so tired . . .” Her voice was barely a whisper, either, and it broke his heart. Just seeing her like this broken, defeated woman who didn’t deserve any of this.

Sam bowed his head, lips scrunching to the side in thought. His brow furrowed, too, and the idea that hatched in his brain went burning to the ground when the door opened behind him, and Dean’s halted footsteps stopped.

“Sam.” Dean’s voice was deep with confusion and slight anger. “What’re you doing?”

Mads lifted her head as much as she could with a groan, the flesh around the machete squishing around. More blood oozed from the wound and dripped to the floor. The chains rattling filled the silence that wrapped its arms around the Hunters. Dean held his knife, twirling it on his fingertip nonchalantly.

Sam’s jaw clenched tightly when Maddie spoke. “Bet you wish Castiel could zap on in and heal me. Brand new slate for a brand new session, huh?” She drew in a sharp breath as if wincing and continued. “Ooh. Hold on. That’s right. He’s dead as a doornail.”

Dean stormed over and placed the dagger’s tip on her chin. Sam moved to push him away, but his brother’s other hand reached into the back of his pants and took out his pistol, cocking and raising it to Sam’s head without looking away from Maddie.

“Don’t even, Sam.”

“Course, I’m not saying that you wish he was here. You want him here, need him here. Is that right? That longing, depressive feeling that’s been eating at you for weeks is simply delicious, in my opinion. The greatest Hunter in the nation had his precious little boyfriend put down like a dog. But, alas. If only I were the one who made that killing stab, my life would be so much brighter.” He was shocked Dean didn’t end her right then and there. What happened, however, was his big brother grabbing the machete and twisting it clockwise, sending a fountain of blood to lightly spray from the wound.

Instead of screaming, Maddie let out a maniacal chuckle. “Y’know, the little bastard deserved it. Fucking up the world for one measly human, rebelling against his superiors for one measly human. Almost killing seven billion people for Dean Winchester.

“I wonder how it feels to have the love of your life taken from you so tragically, so soon,” she continued, her voice cracking and dipping as she spoke. “But, I guess he died knowing you didn’t love him. Bet he never got the chance to say, either, considering his little problems he had to deal with. His family never accepted him—his true family, might I add—and everybody talking about him like he was nothing but a piece of shit walking this earth. Oh, wait! He still is, even in death. I sleep great at night, by the way, knowing that he died without a purpose. Guess he’ll always be the one who got away, huh, Dean?”

Sam stared at her in horror. Tears were in his eyes at the degrading and shocking words that this woman just said about his friend, but he wasn’t prepared for the bone-rattling punch that Dean threw, Maddie’s head whipping back and going limp as she slumped to the side, unresponsive. When her chest rose and fell, a sigh of relief left both Hunters.

The younger Hunter stared awkwardly at his brother. Dean’s knuckles were bleeding and cracked, but apparently, he didn’t care. When Dee exhaled sharply, Sam cleared his throat. “Why don’t I take a stab at her? Y-you need a break, anyway.”

Dean turned and stared at him like he had said that Dad was alive and breathing. At first, he was confused, but then his brother shook his head and turned to leave. “Cut her tongue out next time,” Dean said over his shoulder as the door was opened. It creaked closed faster than Sam could unchain Mads and carry her towards the door.