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Out of all the fields and disciplines of witchcraft, there were some that she vowed never to touch. Some taboos where even she, even the one who broke all the rules and stabbed all the backs she could, wouldn’t dare tread.
Necromancy was very much one of them. Rowena had delayed death, and prevented it, and come back from it and from the brink of it,
And she’d not ever raised something from it. Not ever used it to craft an empty shell of a slave, simple as it would be.
She believed in the sanctity of death, when it didn’t apply to her. In the natural progression, man to soul to demon, and back again, the things that could be achieved by way of the natural magicks.
Not this.
Never this.
The thing that had been Dean Winchester stared at her, blankly. Skin gone grave-pale, chest sunken in and eyes permanently watery and beyond bloodshot. Hair snow-white. With a collar round his neck and naught but a pair of baggy sweatpants that threatened to slip down from his boney hips if he stood to cover him.
It. He was an it, now, she didn’t have any other way to quantify it properly.
“Samuel,” The name was a soft, tired exhale, already promising nothing. Promising less than nothing.
And the only thing that giant of a man can manage is a hollowed out ‘please’ in reply. “You have to be able to do something,” He says, because they’ve always been able to do something. They’d died before, and he just had to hold out hope that this would be a repeat performance. A temporary setback, that he’d never really lose his brother, never again, that the months and months he’d spent searching hadn’t been a waste of time and that, in a few days, or a week, or a month, they’d be right back to hunting; same old same old. Nothing was ever permanent.
“His soul is-“
“My soul was damaged too,” Vehement, almost stubborn. His soul was broken and they fixed it. His soul was rent and torn in the cage over and over again and sometimes he still feels like he’s back there, but they fixed it. He’s held together with superglue and bandages, it feels like, but they managed it because they always mange. “And we fixed it. You have to fix it.”
She didn’t have to do anything, she wasn’t in the business of making favors, and even though in this instance she might want, “It’s not damaged. It’s…” She searched for the right word. Dean remained unmoving, unblinking. “Evaporated.”
“There has to be something-“
“The barest grains of a personality left, maybe, but- he’s not in Heaven, he’s not in Hell, he’s certainly not in the veil. Even if we do find all the scraps of him… Sam, I wouldn’t be able to put him back together. The best we can do is p-“
“Don’t.” Sam snapped. “Don’t say that. If- I’ll take him home.”
“He’s a- Samuel, he’s a glorified appliance. A slave, a shell, you can’t be serious.” Rowena’s shoulders dropped and her brows raised.
“Go.” Sam hooked his arms under his brother’s cold as ice arms, heaved him up to his feet. Dean dropped like a sack of bricks, right back to his knees.
Rowena watched on, for a moment. Watched Sam’s lower lip quiver, watched his brow crease and his chest spasm with a held-back sob.
“He responds to pet.” She spoke delicately. “The witch’s notes are in the tome, bound in purple. On the table. Best of luck to you.” She swept out, and Sam was left in an empty house.
His only company his own ragged breathing, the thudding of his own heart in his ears. Dean was disturbingly, terrifyingly silent.
“Say something.” Sam croaked. And then screwed his eyes shut, not bothering to stop the tears rolling fat and wet down his cheeks. “Pet.” His voice broke. “Say something, pet. Please.”
Dean blinked. It blinked, slowly, head raising as dull eyes slowly took in Sam. There was no glimmer of recognition. There was nothing.
Dean- it- it struggled for a moment, opening and closing its mouth in a pantomime of speech. Could force nothing out.
Judging by the jagged scabbed scars of a y-incision on its chest, it probably had no lungs. It looked distressed.
Bad pet can’t talk if it can’t talk then what will master do, it has to talk it has to talk it has to-
Dean, curled in a ball, clutching at the sides of his head and struggling to speak. This- thing in his brother’s body, the remains of his brother, trying to be human, and Sam was sobbing for all the ways it couldn’t.
——
“Get the book, please, pet. The red one with gold accents on the shelf.” Sam pointed.
Pet shuffled to its feet, quick as it could, and shambled brokenly to the shelf. It’s such a good pet, had been so so good recently, Master had been so kind. It wrapped fingers that wanted to refuse to comply around the spine of it, tucked the book against its chest and plodded back.
“Thank you. Good boy.” Master said after a moment, as if he’d forgotten what to say. Pet didn’t mind, all that much.
“Yeah- C’mere. Sit here with me, pet.”
Pet liked this new master. It could lay on the couch and rest it’s head in his lap, and he’ll scratch at its hair and it’s soft, and purpose.
Master sometimes makes these strange little muffled noises, it’s not pet’s job to judge. Or to think, too much.
Sam leans down and folds himself over Dean, holding him tight, warming his frigid skin. It’s what he has, it’s what he takes, because if he doesn’t have his brother he has nothing. He drags his fingers through Dean’s shock-white hair, and listens to the barest rumble of a purr in his still chest, and tells himself it’s enough. That it will be enough.