Supernatural: Dean's Witch Ch. 03

NOTE: To understand the dynamic and the story here, I strongly recommend starting with Chapters 1 & 2. Beyond that, I'll only say that, as someone with admitted addictions to both Supernatural and writing in general, I suppose I should have expected them to collide at some point, though I haven't written fanfiction in years. It was this idea that finally drew me to post a story on literotica, though, and I couldn't resist taking some of the ideas in varying directions. But of course, some ideas just beg to be explored fully... you'll see what I mean if you look into some of my other Literotica work, but for now, I hope you enjoy this series. I should state here that I have no affiliation with the show, but I've aimed to make my portrayals here as believable as possible. I hope you'll enjoy the result. Let me know what you think, and I'll work on getting to Chapter 4 as soon as I can if you should like the read you'll find below...

Sam knew perfectly well that what he was doing was a bad idea, but as had happened so many times in the past, he didn't particularly feel like he had a choice. It had been five weeks since he and Dean had left Calla's apartment and headed back to the bunker, and his conscience had been weighing on him about it. Worse, Dean was on a record-long bender that wasn't showing much sign of quitting—sure, he was getting sober enough to hunt, and debatably remaining sober enough to take his turns at the wheel when they were traveling, but beyond that? It was drinks and one-night stands, and grunts and denial when it came to any mention of the state of things. But it dated back to Calla, whether Dean was willing to admit it or not.

And meanwhile, Sam had kept the secret of the spell, which had made it impossible for him to push her out of his mind (or, for that matter, to forget about his brother's short-lived, hot-and-heavy relationship with her). And recently, it had gotten worse. A week ago, he'd decided to look at her university department's page to get her office phone number and give her a call—just to see how she sounded and hang up, or perhaps to actually have a quick conversation and rest the part of his brain that told him they'd left her in a rougher spot than they'd intended or realized... he hadn't decided which. The problem was, she hadn't been listed anymore. A call to the department had then offered the cherry on top of the amped-up worry, as an over-talkative secretary had been more than willing to tell a friendly police officer that Calla had first been spotty in showing up to school, and then given word that she was quitting entirely as soon as her responsibilities could be covered. Her last day had been two weeks ago.

Without any other recourse, Sam had tried to call her cell, also obtained from that same secretary, and gotten no answer. Now, he was climbing the stairs to her apartment in person. What he was going to say, he wasn't sure, but things didn't feel right—and, for some reason, he had a gut feeling that there was a ticking clock involved. Maybe it was Dean's spiral and drinking, or maybe it was his own imagination, but he couldn't shake the pit in his gut that said otherwise.

When she answered the door, though, he wished he'd checked in sooner. Like, even as soon as a week after they'd left. Over the five weeks since he'd last seen her, Calla had not only dropped out of school; she'd become someone he barely recognized. Her skin was glassy, as if she was ill, and her hair looked slick as if she hadn't been bothering to wash it quite often enough, or as if she had the flu, he amended the thought, given the look of her skin. But she also smelled of alcohol, and she'd lost weight—maybe ten or fifteen pounds, if he had to guess, based on the looseness of her jeans and the look of her face.

Calla had been halfway through deciding to break her dishes instead of pack them when the knock came, and it occurred to her for one drunken moment that she could throw the plate in her hand at the door, and that that might well scare off whoever was trying to bother her. She'd already scared off her so-called friends from school, and in a fashion that hadn't been much more friendly than that... but then, she'd feel like she needed to clean up the pieces, her landlord was such a decent guy. And she didn't want the hassle.

"What do you want?" Calla stepped back from the door, knowing she was staring at Sam as if he were an alien. What had she expected? Who? Well, not him... really, she'd been pretty sure she'd never see him again, and she wasn't nearly drunk enough to think of facing the Winchesters. She cast a look behind him—no Dean—and then went to the window. Reassuring herself that Dean wasn't outside either, though she knew he wouldn't be visible if he were waiting in the car, she turned back to Sam, who still hadn't answered her question, and finally she swallowed down the nerves that had risen at the sight of him. When he didn't say anything after another few seconds went by, she shrugged and headed back to the kitchen.

She'd been packing up dishes, into moving boxes, and had been thinking about opening another bottle of wine. Seeing Sam had changed the urge. She turned instead to her fridge and pulled out the bottle of vodka from her freezer, ignoring Sam as he closed her front door and took another step into her apartment; it wasn't like he could make her life worse at this point, she figured.

"I just... thought I should check in. See if you were okay," Sam said, watching her half-fill a tall glass with vodka before splashing cranberry juice overtop of it. "I guess that answers my question," he added.

"You want some?" she asked, taking a sip of the drink. He could judge her all he wanted, but she wasn't going to apologize for drinking in the middle of the day. Not to him, anyway, and not in what was still her apartment.

"No, I'm good, thanks." As Calla turned from him and focused on a box that lay open on the floor, Sam looked around and saw how much her space itself had changed. Most of the bookcases that had before been full of books and papers were empty, if they were there at all—two of the bookcases had themselves vanished. The television was also gone, as was much of the other furniture that had filled out the space, from the table that had stood near the door on to the entertainment center and the hutch that had stood near the kitchen and displayed her wine glasses, which now sat out on her kitchen island.

"What happened?"

Calla shook her head and downed the rest of the glass of vodka and cranberry that she'd only just poured. Standing to head back to the vodka for a re-fill, she was stopped short only by Sam, who'd somehow managed to slide in between her and the fridge, and stood there blocking her way.

"Move, Sam."

"So you can fall down drunk instead of answering my question? Forget it," he told her, suddenly feeling like he was talking to his brother instead of the sweet girl he'd met just a little over a month before.

"Fine. Fuck it," Calla answered.

It took only a moment for Sam to realize that she was moving toward the wine bottles stationed neatly by her toaster, but he moved to intercept her when he did and caught her elbows in his hands, holding her still in front of him. This close, he could smell both vodka and wine on her, and feel the weight she'd lost in her arms. He ammended his earlier thought—she might have lost twenty pounds. She was falling apart.

"Fuck off!" Calla growled, fighting against his grip. Like his brother, though, he had about a foot of height on her, and too much strength for her to match. After a moment of struggling and pulling against him, she stilled and glared up at him. "I swear to God I'll call the cops if you don't let me go."

"I'm not letting you go till you tell me what the hell happened, Calla. What is this? Did you get evicted or what?"

Instead of answering, Calla leaned back against his grip, trying again to pull away until he forced her backward, pushing her onto a stool so that she had her back to her island. "Tell. Me. What. Happened."

"What, so you and Dean can laugh about how you ruined a witch's life? Fine, I said it—you ruined my life," Calla spit out. "Now why don't you leave me to it so I can drink off what I've got left?"

Sam stared at her, hearing in her words that the stubbornness he'd been encountering was starting to die off, into anger and frustration. It wasn't ideal, but maybe it would get him somewhere. He dropped his hands from her elbows and took a step backward, watching her. She was breathing harder, gritting her teeth, and he figured she was either readying herself to attack him or else fighting back tears, if not both. She was also drunk, swaying where she sat.

Calla finally looked up, meeting Sam's eyes, and worked against acknowledging that he reminded her of Dean, who she was even now wondering about. Was he waiting outside in the Impala? She hated herself for wondering. She also pushed herself to ignore the fact that what she saw in Sam's face was made up of concern. "I want you to leave," she finally said quietly. "You've done enough, and I want you to leave."

From where he was, Sam looked around the apartment. It looked as dejected and tired as the girl sitting before him, and was musty with the smell of alcohol and closed air. Everything non-essential had been packed up or moved out... except for a single magnet and sheet of paper on the fridge. Before she could move to stop him, he'd stepped to it and grabbed it, turning away from her so that he could read it even as she demanded again, a new energy in her voice, that he get out.

Dear Calla,

It's come to our attention that you've lost your magic along with your mother. Unless you can prove to us otherwise, make necessary arrangements. You'll be picked up by car service on October 15^th and brought to the coven for safe- keeping. Please refrain from bringing more personal items than necessary and understand that this letter and the coming weeks are being extended to you as a courtesy to your mother and her legacy; no delay will be tolerated.

Respectfully,

The Westbrook Coven, 9/23

Sam re-read the letter and then turned around to face Calla, but found that she'd left the kitchen and retreated to her bedroom. There, he found her curled on her bed and crying.

* * * * *

Sam had given a lot of thought to what might happen at Calla's apartment—he'd had a three hour drive in getting there, after all. But, in his mind, the worst case scenarios had been far from what lay in front of him now; rock bottom worst, he'd expected that he'd find her in a pit of grief over her mother and her magic, or that he'd end up promising her he'd find a way to reverse the spell her mother had cast on her. He'd thought maybe she'd be love-sick over Dean because of her mother's spell, and had already started wondering how he'd begin looking into reversing it. But what that letter implied was something else entirely, and it seemed that the ticking clock he'd feared was counting down to a deadline that was just a few days away.

Back in her kitchen, pouring himself a drink at this point, he found himself doing what he'd promised himself he wouldn't do again—calling Rowena for help. And, for the hundred-gazillionth time, promising himself that one day he'd quit keeping secrets from his brother, now that he was again calling Rowena for help with a problem that his brother didn't even know existed, and was nevertheless at the center of.

"Sam, me boy, how are ye?" Rowena's Irish lilt greeted him, the purr in it jarring his nerves. True, he and Dean had managed to end up in a loosely held truce of live-and-let-live with her, if only out of necessity, but he'd just as soon have been done with her, forever.

"I need you to tell me what happens when a witch loses her magic," he said by way of greeting.

After a pause, Rowena repeated, "Loses her magic? Well, that's it, isn't it? What more is there to say?"

"What else happens? Say, if she' been part of a coven?" Sam pushed.

"What's this about, Sammy?"

"It doesn't matter, and it doesn't affect you—I just need to know. Are you going to help me or not?"

"And you'll owe me one, I suppose?"

Sam took a breath, wishing he could throttle her instead of playing nice. "A non-lethal, reasonable favor in return for information that's not going to cost you anything," he clarified. "Now what can you tell me?"

Rowena sighed, dramatically, but her voice was serious when it came back on the line. "It doesn't happen often, but when it does, the coven takes the witch in. That's it."

"That's it?" Sam growled. "What do you mean 'takes the witch in,' Rowena—I'm looking for answers, not more questions."

Sam could almost hear the witch shrugging on the other end of the phone, and he took a gulp of the beer he'd taken from Calla's fridge. Nothing could be more infuriating than a conversation with Rowena or Crowley.

"Look, Sammy boy, by the time a witch loses her magic, she's generally too old to care what happens to her. Being taken in by her coven is a matter of course, a matter of charity—like safety, or retirement. The witch still has the coven's secrets, and since it's assumed that a witch will safeguard her own secrets and her coven's with the help of her magic, that means the coven must step in and do the safeguarding if a witch loses her powers."

"So, what, we're talking like they move in with a member of the coven, like a landlord-renter or needy relative type of thing?"

"Mmm, more like a mistress-servant type of thing; a witch without her powers isn't anything, and she owes her coven her service, in return for their... care," Rowena finished. "But, it's a rare problem. Witches with covens are powerful enough that their powers don't fade unless they've taken ill or lost interest in them. A witch like that has little enough to live for anyway."

Sam gulped the rest of his beer down and took another from Calla's fridge, his mind spinning. "You're saying a witch who loses her power becomes a slave to her coven," he read between the lines.

"A crude way of putting it, in true Winchester fashion, but I suppose you'd see it like that."

"And if she refuses?"

Silence, and then... "She wouldn't. She couldn't, because the coven would find her and... take her in, as I said."

"But what if she's young—say, young enough to have a whole life ahead of her, with or without magic? What if she was only around the coven because her mother was in it?" he asked, his voice lowered even though Calla's bedroom door was still closed, as he'd left it.

"Sammy, what ever are you into?"

"Rowena, not now. Just answer the damned question."

"Well, it depends how young, I suppose. If she were ten or eleven, before she'd been allowed the real secrets of the coven, she'd probably be left to live her life outside of the coven with whoever would take her in. It would depend on age, and the coven would vote on it, but I've heard of it happening; trauma can shock the powers out of a witch who's only just begun to discover them, shutting them down so much so that they close themselves off to the beauty of them. A pity, but I've heard of it happening. Once a witch were older, though, and had been given any of the secrets... well, she'd be expected to come back to the coven and remain, the other witches being her mistresses after her powers were gone. It wouldn't happen naturally... but a spell cast by a stronger witch, outside of the coven, has been known to do it, cruel as it is. A witch like that, who's left without her powers, is a disgrace... she's got nothing but the coven then, should she want to bother living at all. And in a case like you're describing, it would be the same. A child brought up by a coven knows their secrets; she isn't forced to join as she matures, but if she lost her magic, she'd be bound to whatever coven she'd been closest to, her mother's or otherwise. Not a fate most witches would choose, obviously"

"Obviously," Sam echoed quietly.

"Well, if that's all, I must be going, but you'll have to fill me in on what you boys are into when time's permitting, my boy," she purred, and he nodded blankly into the phone as he heard the line go dead.

So what do we do now? he asked himself, his eyes flitting back to the note he'd left on the counter. He had no idea what came next. He went to the fridge for another beer and stared inside blankly—emptied of food practically, it was just another sign of what Calla clearly knew was coming. When he'd arrived, she'd already been clearing out, closing down her life.

There wasn't much choice, he realized. Ignoring the fact that he'd either have to call his brother to warn him, sooner than later, or else show up at their bunker with Calla in tow, unannounced, he set to work. Before anything else, he put on a pot of coffee, figuring that he and Calla would both need it. Letting her be, he then headed into her office area. Thankfully, there wasn't much to be seen, and he had a clear goal—before he left, he wanted to be one hundred percent certain that nothing in the apartment would point to his brother and thus suggest who she might have gone to for help. In short order, he'd pulled together her computer and the few remaining notebooks and journals that could obviously hold any hand-written notes. He was closing up a box of the material, having just searched the closet, when her voice came from the doorway.

"What the hell are you doing?" Calla asked. She'd thought Sam had left, but instead he was here, packing boxes for her? Watching him stumble for words, she couldn't even be angry, she was so confused and tired.

"Do you have a diary in your bedroom? Something where you would have written Dean's name?" Sam asked by way of answering, hefting the large box he'd just packed into his arms and bracing it against the wall, ready to carry it to the Impala already.

"Huh? No, I'm not a fucking teenager," Calla told him, her voice blank. "What are you doing with my stuff?"

Sam stared at her for a moment, running one hand back through his hair before answering. "You're gonna come with me; we'll help you figure this out. I'm gonna take this downstairs, and once you grab what you need, we'll head out. Today," he added, when she still stood frozen in front of him.

Calla shook her head and took a step back into her hallway as Sam made to move past her. Her mind was spinning. She'd thought he'd disappear after seeing that note, realizing what she was facing. Instead, he'd been packing up her notebooks, and her spell journals, preparing to help her evacuate. Considering who he was, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After he stepped outside with his box of goods, having told her again to pack what she needed, Calla moved into the kitchen instead and poured a tall glass of bourbon. She took this to the window, and waited, watching then as Sam left the building and stowed the cardboard box in the Impala's trunk before he turned back and headed inside again. For a moment, it occurred to her that she could lock him out or call the police to get rid of him—she had every right to—but she was still standing at the window and sipping from the glass in her hand when he came back inside.

Turning to him, she leaned her ass against the windowsill and tensed, one arm crossed against her abdomen, stiff, her other hand holding her drink braced above her chest and resting. "Why should I come with you?"

Sam moved to the kitchen instead of answering and pulled a coffee cup from a box, pouring the dark liquid he'd brewed to its rim before turning back to her. He was fighting the urge to get angry with her for continuing to drink, knowing it wouldn't do any good. "You have a choice?" he asked. "You wouldn't be trying to drink yourself into oblivion if you liked the idea of giving yourself up to the coven—from what I know, you've barely had any contact with them over the years, right? So it's not as if they're family. Dean and I can help."