LINK: Stocking stuffer #3 - Sisters of Mercy (False Comforts AU, Dean/Sam, NC17)

[maygra]

Sisters of Mercy
(A False Comforts Solstice interlude)
by Maygra

Dean/Sam, NC17, False Comforts AU (Schmoop + Angst = Schmangst?)

Note: I apologize in advance -- this is likely to be a bit confusing because there's a story (or two) between Altars of Stone and Wind and this one, which are largely stalled but cover the deal Sam and Dean make with the succubi (the mother of the shapeshifters) that leaves them no longer being hunted by the shifters trying to kill them but present them with a whole new set of problems. However, the succubi have their own sense of family loyalties much different from their half-human offspring.

Because I'm writing this out of order and for fun rather than as part of the longer plot, I'm reserving the right not to be bound by my own fanon. *g*

I further apologize for any errors. I didn't have this beta read because I'm going to be largely out of pocket until tomorrow but I wanted to make sure this stocking stuffer got posted before then. So, feel free to point out any error or if anyone has time to beta it for the final version, please drop me an email with your email address.

The characters and situations portrayed here are not mine, they belong to the WB. This is a fan authored work and no profit is being made. Please do not link to this story without appropriate warnings. Please do not archive this story without my permission.

(8,034 words)

Links are to my website

"It is now the time of grace, That we have desired;"

It is now the time of grace
That we have desired;
Let us devoutly return
Songs of rejoicing.

~Gaudete- 16th century Advent hymn.

Comments

[apieceofcake.livejournal.com]

Really enjoyed that, thank you and Happy Holidays :-)

[maygra.livejournal.com]

thank you so much. I hope your holidays were happy ones, and thank you very much for both reading and commenting.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

thank you, Valjean. I know it's been a long time coming...and the other hasn't been abandoned, just not being cooperative, so I'm glad I got this one out for the folks that have been waiting for a new chapter.

Blessings of the season on you.

[plutogirl10.livejournal.com]

God, I love your writing.

And Yes! schmangst is totally a word, I second it fully :D

[maygra.livejournal.com]

thank you so much, hon! I'm glad you liked it.

[ixchel55.livejournal.com]

You know, I adore the Second Sight series (hell, who am I kidding, I love all of your writing), but False Comfort has always been my favorite. I don't know, maybe it's the truly 'supernatural' aspect, the macabre and dark feeling to it that pulls me in. And then there's the relationship between Dean and Sam, the way it began out of necessity and then became so much more.

Whatever the reason, I was so happy to see this when I got home. What a wonderful stocking stuffer. They've all been wonderful, but this one is just so painfully delicious.

I hope you get past the block in this story, because this little taste just makes me what to know what's happened in between. In detail! How wonderfully fascinating it's going to be!

Merry Christmas, lady!

[maygra.livejournal.com]

thank you so, so much, Dawn. I'm very glad you liked it (especially since I think you were in on the initial discussions for this series.)

Happy new year, woman.

[sxeraven.livejournal.com]

Hiya! Merry Christmas!

Wanted to get you a note and let you know I loved this. What a great little gift for Christmas. :)

*hugs you*

I can't wait for the ones that are stalled. *L* This is beautiful... loving how Sam and Dean are bound together and apart at once... tied to the things they're out to kill and everything is all upside-down for them and they still only have each other. Loving.

*hugs more*

Merry Christmas!!!

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Thank you, sweetie! I'm so glad you liked it.

[tenillypo.livejournal.com]

Aw, False Comforts! It's strange that a universe that's so depressing gives me such warm fuzzies. *g* Now I'm even more excited to read the stories that come in between.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

LOL!! Well, we find our comfort where we may. Thank you so much!

[amalthia]

I got shivers reading this story, and I loved how the story played out. I love your False Comforts series, I think it's safe to say, it's in my top 3 list of Supernatural fics. Mostly because of the plot, the scope of this story, and the depth I feel for these characters. I love seeing how Sam and Dean started as regular brothers and because of circumstances beyond their control begin something and it becomes so much more important to them, so that when it's taken away it does hurt.

thanks for this wonderful story.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Thank you so very much. That means a lot to me. I'm really glad you liked it.

[gekizetsu.livejournal.com]

What always strikes me about this series is the deepness and darkness. And not 'hey there might be something behind the closet door' darkness but a stark, blunt darkness and the only thing holding them upright is each other. Wow.

>>there's a story (or two) between Altars of Stone and Wind and this one, which are largely stalled but cover the deal Sam and Dean make with the succubi (the mother of the shapeshifters) that leaves them no longer being hunted by the shifters trying to kill them but present them with a whole new set of problems.>>

You are NOT KIDDING. Having to hunt all of Dean's...offshoots down will be...I don't have a word. Look what you've done, I'm out of words. Oh, and shit, what if they DO run into something demonic?

>>I'm reserving the right not to be bound by my own fanon. >>

\m/

>>"You have to bring it back to me within the hour or I'll trap your sorry ass in there until you are screaming," she said after a moment, and held out the vial in her open palm.>>

Oh, boy. One of the (many) things you do so well: leave things open to the imagination and say all that needs to be said in one sentence.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Dean made a bad deal and he knows it but he was kind of desperate at the time. It's hard to make a good deal when the one you're dealing less has so much less to lose than you do.

Thank you muchly, Barb. I write stuff like this then go running back to Salvation for little light and optimism.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Two weeks. (And I entirely admit I may have confused myself. Initially, it's full moon when Yeva makes her deal with Dean. She only gives him until Sam is ready to travel or the new moon, whichever comes first.

When she makes the deal with Sam, it is the new moon or close to it and she gives him until the next full moon. Ostensibly what I meant to happen is that she would return every full moon and give them until the new moon...

But I may have confused myself (and since I didn't have it betaed it's entirley possible I did mess it up.)

So, yes, it's full moon to new with Sam -- anything else would be ocntinuous and she can't undo the whole thing.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

And yes, New moon is dark of the moon -- when it's not realy visible and full moon is when it's...well, full.*g*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_seraphina_/]

Oh Maygra! The False Comforts series was my first introduction to your wonderful writing and I gotta say, it still remains my favourite (although having said that, Out of This Darkness will probably go down in history as the fiction that affected me the most) so when I saw there was an update, i was all 'EEEEEEE. BEST XMAS EVA!!!!!!' and got to sit down and re-read the whole lot and damn, but it's just a freakin' good and gut-wrenching the second time over. Can't wait to read about how they go to where they are...you're killing me here but I am happily slain!
Much gratitude and a Happy New Year to you!

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you liked it. I now folks have been waiting (heck, I've been waiting!) and I didn't wnat another year to pass without at lest something in the series.

[modillian.livejournal.com]

AHAHAH. So. I have a story. I read the first in the series, a while ago, but I hadn't realized it was a series then, and thought it was one of those excellent trauma!fics that had a lovely ambiguous and challenging ending. Boy, was I ever wrong! And now I've discovered this newest update, yay! Will comment more helpfully after reading this update.

P.S. Schmangst needs to be used everywhere. It's its own category, yes!

[modillian.livejournal.com]

Ohyes, I'll be looking forward to the other installments in between. I think what's going on is pretty well-explained in this chapter alone, too. Also, the comment link appears to not be working, although I can reach this page if I remove the comment code part of it in the address.

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you. fixed the code.

[greenapricot.livejournal.com]

I really love this series. I printed out the last few parts of it so I could read it in the bath and, wow, it was great to read so much of it at once. I found myself totally sucked into their world to the point where when I finished it just before bed I ended up having False Comforts dreams. I really love it when a story can so that to me.

[angharadd.livejournal.com]

I've already read the whole series twice in the last several days (obsessed much? XD), and I'm enjoying it immensely. The plot, the porn, the plot unraveling through porn, perfect characterizations- it's like ten kinds of awesome.

I can only hope this series is not abandoned, though the already posted chapters do hold well as they are. But I still crave for more.

Thought this might entertain/interest you

[grackles.livejournal.com]

I recced this whole story arc to a couple of friends, mid-read, with this warning (hope you don't mind foul language):

Okay, I've read most of this now, and I'll tell you: MINDFUCK. If you've ever had an extended psychotic episode where you couldn't tell reality from what your brain was doing to fuck with you, this fic may bring back some not so fun memories. So trigger warning for that.

This better have a happy ending or I am beating someone to death. Don't worry, none of you. Some random person at Wal-Mart, perhaps.

Then there was some grousing between us about the missing parts, I hope you do write them at some point. This has been one of the fics that I have read that stuck with me, I found myself thinking about it during the day as I went about my business of cat-maintenance and clothes laundering.

Here's a conversation I had with a friend about it:

her: Okay, I got through the first three with some difficulty. But when I hit the fourth, I felt the need to draw diagrams just so I could keep the realities straight in my head. I can't believe this is unfinished!

me: I didn't have so much trouble with it, maybe because I've been in a similar state of mind. I just figured the point was that he COULDN'T tell, and you weren't really supposed to be able to do so all the time either.

Mostly it gave me unpleasant flashbacks to some not-so-fun times when I was never sure wtf was going on around me either. Although not often to THAT degree.

I liked how, every time Sam would figure out a way to reality-test for what was and wasn't real, the shifters would change their attack and invalidate it. Truly evil.

I mean, I've had some trouble with hallucinations, and either I just ignored them or figured out some way to get around the problem. He can't ignore his, that would get him killed, which is truly frightening to me. Then the lack of sleep has to be making them worse, so he's making his own which feed into the ones he's being given. What a freaking NIGHTMARE.

I wish she had given more info on exactly how they were tracking down the shapeshifters, that kind of confused me.

In the last story, something truly diabolical happens so that they can't even take comfort in each other. What a mindfuck this thing is.

The writing style made me think of Kathe Koja a little (if you're familiar with her).

Going back to the reality testing thing, I always had a person who I could tap on the shoulder and say, "Hey, is that real? Is someone pounding on the door or is that just me? Do you think the staff at the mental health clinic is fucking with me on purpose? Are we under police surveillance at the moment?" And they would tell me yes or no. Handy. With this story, neither of them know, so Sam is just adrift. And he CAN'T SLEEP OR IT GETS WORSE, and he doesn't even know if his reality tester is real or a hallucination. Freaking terrifying, I tell you. Jesus.

---

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in the mentally ill viewpoint (if you're not already) and my stamp of approval as such a person. :P

Great job capturing that whole state of mind, seriously. I was disturbed.

Re: Thought this might entertain/interest you

[grackles.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I should have given a TMI warning. More about me than you probably want to know! It was germane to the review though so I left it.

Seriously, if you are not familiar with paranoid states, you are a genius, and even if you are familiar (from school or whatever, I don't mean to imply anything about your mental state, and I'm not asking), you are amazing at expressing it.

Anyway, lalala, more review suddenly.

Re: Thought this might entertain/interest you

[maygra.livejournal.com]

I'm completely thrilled with your comment and vastly (if weirdly) reassured by your understanding of the delusional/exhausted state of mind I was describing. I'm really not familiar with paranoid or even delusional states first hand or even third hand -- about the closest I've come is post surgical anesthetic induced hallucinations (Which is more or less what I describe Sam having at Stanford).

And you are exactly right -- to some extent I didn't want the readers to be able to be sure. There are consistent clues to the state of illusion through all of it but they are pretty small and minor -- but consistent -- when Sam is in the middle of his dream state.

The tracking of the shapeshifters is a little more difficult to explain, (although it makes sense in my head, obviously) in that the fact that they can break into Sam's mind but not Dean's is the biggest factor. The idea being that holding together an entire other reality on a mental plane isn't easy, and they do it better in concert than alone. The first two sisters they encounter were using actual physical acts to enhance their ability to project reality into Sam's brain, projective stigmata or transfered trauma -- think of it like the theory behind voodoo dolls. Something has to represent the target.

So, in the reverse, when they break in, they leave trails. Sam's mind is overlaying a pattern of random landscapes but the orientations are fixed in his brain (he is a tracker by training) and much of what he cna do is in relation to Dean -- he is the faxed, slid state even in Sam's drams -- the rock, the tree...so he can, with enough minor details bleeding through, figure out where they are in a real landscape, streets and landmarks, and once he's found one, recognizies that link between it and him, he can back track it.

But if they aren't projecting, he has to work a little harder at it -- force himself into a dream state, but they all leave footprints, unique to themselves.

I'm not sure if that helps or not, but I hope so.

I really, really found your comments to be interesting and kind of thrilling. I may have squeaked a little in joy, because I get that it's confusing for most people, and I know the fascination with fugue and delusional states is mostly mine, so the fact that you think I actually captured some portion of what it's like to live and deal with that state on a continuous basis, really is very cool. Thank you.

[rule-number-7.livejournal.com]

Are 'For the Love of Mother-Not' and 'Whisper to a Scream' the stories between 'Altars of Stone and Wind' and 'Sisters of Mercy'? Also, will there ever be more to this story? I've just spent most of the day reading it and love it :D