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ks-caster · 4 years

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Raise a Little Hell

Fandom: Supernatural

Characters: Dean, Amara (but little kid Amara, come on) Castiel, Sam

Notes: So when I was originally watching season... 11, right? With Amara as the big bad? I was so excited for there to be a highly supernatural little kid because Dean is GREAT with kids - I wanted him to accidentally adopt the tiny murder child. And then the show tried to ship them?? And I had a very bad day. And outlined This Thing.

A partial chapter and my outline are available under the cut. TW for mentions of torture/child abuse.

At first, Anny clung to Dean like everything in the world was poison and he was the antidote; burying her face in his flannel when he held her, and wrapping her fist in his jeans when he had to set her down. She didn’t respond to strangers’ attempts to engage her, going rigid with terror when the lady at the drive-thru leaned down to ask her what toy she wanted. For Sam and Cas, she would manage a jerky shake of her head, or a nod like a spasm in her neck. Mostly, she alternated between half sleeping, her head on Dean’s leg as he drove, and gluing herself under his arm, shaking so hard it looked like someone had put her on vibrate.

After four hours of straight highway, Sam finally noticed a pattern. Having nothing better to do with himself than stare out the window and constantly re-adjust his legs in an attempt to get comfortable in the back seat, one thing he found himself paying attention to was the weather outside the window. It was partially cloudy, so a couple of times per hour it would get dark, then light, then dark again. When the sun radiated down uninhibited, reflecting off of passing cars, Anny’s terror increased. When it was shrouded and darkness fell, she calmed down. When they made a pit stop, he rooted around in the trunk for a blanket, draping it gently over her when they started the evening portion of the drive, covering her head. She tensed at first, and Dean raised an eyebrow at him—randomly covering the face of a young trauma victim was uncharacteristic for his normally so tactful brother—but then a tiny hand emerged, pulling the edge of the fleece down further, and Dean’s eyes widened, understanding. He draped his arm gently over the blanked, rubbing soothing circles into her back. The comforting darkness lulled her to sleep, and she stayed that way until they reached that night’s motel, stirring only a little when Dean picked her up to carry her into the room. They tried to set her up in a nest of cushions on the couch, but once she realized that Dean was leaving, her eyes flew open, found him in the room and fixed on him. She didn’t try to stop him, but she was shuddering violently, and after about two minutes, he ran a tired hand through his hair, got up, and brought the pillows and comforter from his bed. “You ever make a blanket fort, kid?” he asked, knowing she hadn’t, knowing he wouldn’t get a response, just talking to talk. Dean, as it turned out, has not lost the skills that he and Sam had perfected in their motel-hopping childhood, and when Sam got out of the shower, he flashed a look at them that might have been envy. “You know you want one,” Dean muttered, and Sam grinned, the same memories running through his head as he settled down on the other bed and turned out the light. The only illumination in the room was from Sam’s Laptop, which Cas was using to amuse himself while he waited for the humans to sleep. Whatever Anny was, she did sleep, it seemed. When Dean groggily regained consciousness that morning, he was able to slip out of the fort and take a shower without disturbing her. It helped that she’d cocooned herself in blankets, a down pillow over her head to block out all traces of light. After he’d finished washing up, he emerged from the bathroom to find Anny awake and alert, but looking less terrified than he’d imagined she’d be if she regained consciousness while he wasn’t there. Cas was sitting on the floor, near enough to her to make casual conversation easy, but far enough that he wasn’t in her space. Dean was at an angle that he could see the laptop screen, covered in pictures of different species of bees. “And they communicate through dancing,” he was explaining, but as soon as he and Anny realized Dean was back in the room, they both looked up. “Like some wonderfully frisky ladies I’ve met,” Dean finished for him, grinning and moving some cushions so he could sit down and lace up his shoes. Anny’s small fingers found the hem of his shirt and lifted it a few inches, and she visibly relaxed when she saw that the wounds to his back were still gone. She dropped the fabric, looking a little sheepish, but Dean ruffled her hair gently. Sam was out for his morning run; Cas hopped up to sit on the vanity and kept narrating facts about bees while Dean gave Anny a bath; her first in he couldn’t imagine how long. The water went solid brown, they drained the tub, and then scrubbed her until it was brown again. Dean had kind of expected her to be freaked about being naked, but she didn’t seem to notice the difference. By the end of it, her hair was no longer muted brown, but a soft auburn. Granted, it was matted and frizzy beyond repair and would probably all have to be cut off, but once she was wrapped in towels and back on Dean’s lap, he was able to convince her to let Cas comb it out. If it hurt, she didn’t react. “Honeybees’ wings flap more than eleven-thousand times an hour,” he explained quietly. “That’s what makes the buzzing sound when they fly.” He set Sam’s comb down on the vanity, and Dean stood up, taking Anny with him. “Sleepy?” he asked as her damp head lolled against his shoulder. “Yeah, I break out in yawns when Cas monologues about bugs too,” he laughed. Anny frowned a little, eyes looking sad, and Dean backpedaled. “Well, I mean… I guess it’s interesting though. In a nerdy sort of way. Maybe you’re just smarter than me, and that’s why you enjoy it.” Anny’s forehead scrunched, and she cocked her head to one side, her confusion looking just like Cas’s. She didn’t have any other clothes, but Sam showed them how to make a dress out of a tied-up shirt, and once Dean was done laughing at him for the things he googled at 3am, they rolled up the sleeves of another one to make a jacket of sorts. “Now she looks like a Winchester,” Cas laughed, and it might have been Dean’s imagination, but he thought maybe she sat up a little bit straighter. The last six hours in the car went a little more smoothly; this time Dean offered Anny his leather jacket to block out the sun, and she curled up under it, but reached out a hand that he obligingly wrapped in his own. They were able to get her to eat decently at lunch—she’d been having trouble getting food down, but today she managed almost an entire waffle, slathered in honey. It probably helped that the way Cas describe the stuff, it sounded like some kind of divine miracle. Which, thinking about it, Dean supposed that it was. Anny regarded the bunker with the same tired disinterest she’d shown to every other new place so far; looking vaguely around, then taking a deep interest in Dean’s shirt collar. At least she wasn’t freaking out that she was underground again. She did, however, freak out when Sam started up the blender in the kitchen to make his freakin’ kale smoothie—as soon as the high-pitched whirring hit her ears, her whole body went rigid with terror.

Without missing a beat, Dean swept her up into his arms and headed away from the kitchen as fast as he could, getting as far as the garage before he could no longer hear the blender. He wasn’t sure if that was because they were out of hearing range or just because Sam’s smoothie was done. In any case, Anny began to calm down, and the tired look on her face almost looked like chagrin; like she realized she’d been upset over nothing and felt badly about it.

Outline (some parts of which may not make sense as I’ve redone it in parts since then:

May 2nd 2007, Jake Talley opened up Hell’s Gate, Dean Winchester sold his soul for his little brother’s life, and The Winchester family finally killed Azazel. However, unbeknownst to them, that particular Hell’s Gate sealed in something far older and more powerful than demons… A week or so later, a group of hikers find a newborn infant seemingly abandoned in the graveyard. She’s Caucasian, with startling green eyes and a fuzz of ink-black hair, and a funny-looking stork bite on her shoulder.

They try to take her to a safe haven drop off, but a witch is there to pick her up, claiming he’s an employee. He takes the infant with apparent professionalism, but once the hikers leave, he quickly sets it down in revulsion. He takes the baby back to his enclave where she is to be kept and controlled as she grows. Her human contact is limited—they don’t want her learning too much.

She is neglected and later abused, because the witches want to ensure that not only is her power under control, so is her mind. They want to ensure that she is perfectly broken, and answers only to them. They carve sigils into her ribs and tattoo them into her skin, but she heals at such a phenomenal rate that these all have to be reapplied every few months or they start to fade. This is quite a painful process for her, of course. They figure out that she's like a siren with her voice; no one can resist when she cries and she always communicates what she wants, but when they can't hear her she can't control them, so they put a shock collar on her. Consequently she never learns to speak.

They call her Amara, because it basically means “I’m sorry you were born.” They convince her that for the crime of existing and the danger she poses to the world, she deserves the way she is treated at their hands.

Shortly after Dean has the Mark of Cain removed, he is captured by the same coven of witches and tortured for information of some sort. They heal him every night when they are done with him so that they can go all out on him the next day. He is held in the dungeon of their conclave, and meets tiny, frightened Amara, who cannot speak and seems petrified of everyone, but in a “freeze up and accept punishment” kind of way. Naturally, this breaks Dean’s newly restored bleeding heart.

He tries to talk to her, but she just looks terrified at first. He notices she’s shivering and dressed in dirty rags, with no shoes or socks, and tells her she can borrow his coat, if she wants—he is chained to the wall and can’t reach it, but it’s lying unattended. After a little encouragement, she scurries across the room—giving him a wide berth—and gingerly takes the coat down from the table it was thrown on. She wraps up in it and almost smiles. He hears the tiny contented sigh she makes deep down in her throat, and his heart shatters again, wondering when the last time was that someone was kind to her.

The next day, Dean is tortured again—and he hears her whimpering and the sound of machines whirring from the next room. He asks about her, and one of the wizards tells him it is an abomination, that they have to seal its power up with tattooed-on sigils every solstice and equinox, otherwise it would destroy the world. He says they call it Amara because it means “bitterness” or “sorrow,” literally, “I’m sorry that you were born.”

When the wizards heal Dean and lock up for the night, Amara creeps back in, skin red and face pale. Dean feels sick to his stomach, thinking about what this child has endured. He wonders what kind of creature she could be that could possibly begin to justify this sort of behavior. He usually has a good sense about people, and he doesn’t sense any particular evil coming off of her. He offers her his coat again, and she takes it, but then notices that he’s shivering, and tries to come close enough to give it to him instead.

Dean of course refuses, and since she’s within arm’s reach, he gently eases the coat back around her shoulders. She immediately goes rigid, closing her eyes and biting her lip, expecting him to hurt her. Not wanting to startle her further, he doesn’t drop his hands like she burned him, but instead leaves one hand on her shoulder and gently takes her opposite hand with his own.

He tells her softly that he’s not going to hurt her, and marvels at how freezing her hand is, rubbing it very lightly with his thumb. Her face slowly relaxes, and she opens her eyes to stare in wonder at her hand in his. After a few minutes he releases her, and she freezes for a moment before skittering away and settling down for the night—but she’s closer than she was last night.

Cut to Sam and Cas trying to rescue Dean, obviously.

The third day, the wizards get really nasty, and Dean is extremely sore despite the healing by the time night comes. Amara comes closer still, looking at him with what he thinks is concern. He comments on her name, and how he doesn’t like it—it sounds mean. He asks if he can give her a new name—a cooler name. What about “Anarchy?” That’s a really cool name—it means chaos and freedom. “Anny” for short. She nods. She keeps scooting closer by little and little, until he invites her over. She is so small that when she hesitantly sits down next to him, he can reach around her and in front of her to cup each of her icicle feet in one of his hands. Once again, that little sigh of contentedness twists at his heart. When was the last time this child was warm? She leans into him, and eventually curls up and goes to sleep in his arms. He has flashbacks of when Sam—when he was very, very young—would sneak into Dean’s bed if something went bump in the night.

Cut to Sam and Cas again, getting close.

Dean resolves that when he escapes, he’s taking Anny with him. Whatever she is, she doesn’t deserve this. If she turns out to be dangerous later, then he’ll handle it. Day four of torture is the day they finally slip up—thinking he’s unconscious they go to transfer him from a table to a chair, and he lashes out and knocks them out before they can get a spell off. He steals their keys and runs around the corner to the alcove that basically serves as Anny’s bedroom. All she really has is a thin sleeping pad and a doll that she seems to have made out of wadded up rags. He tells her that they’re leaving—that he’s taking her away, and she panics, but he asks her to please, please trust him. She nods, still clearly terrified, and he sweeps her up into his arms, doll, jacket and all, and makes a run for it.

They get as far as the garage before they are spotted and stopped, but by then Sam and Cas have found the place, they hear the scuffle and Dean swearing, and they swoop in to the rescue. Anny is petrified of the new people at first, but Dean insists that they’re his family, and they won’t hurt her either. Cas heals Dean’s injuries and then tries to heal Anny’s but even though she saw him heal Dean, she’s immediately petrified and shrinks away from his attempt to touch her. Dean tries to convince her that Cas isn’t going to hurt her, but she curls up into a little shaking ball and won’t uncurl until Cas has backed off.

They take her back to the bunker, and Dean sits in the back with Anny in his lap while Sam drives—a mark of how much he’s bonded with this weird child. Once they arrive, Sam figures out how to get the collar off

#Beth's New Year's Cleaning Queue #free to a good home #Any and all parts available for general use with credit #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #supernatural #spn #tw child abuse #tw torture #we don't get to see any actual torture but we're told it's there

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