![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runedgirlTitle: Fade To Black (Not While Your Hand’s In Mine) Ch 2/18
Author: runedgirl
Rating: NC17 soon – this chapter PG13
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/demon!Dean
Summary: The brother that Sam gets back isn’t the same, but Sam’s love is. Sam risks everything and leaves everyone he’s ever cared about behind in the desperate hope that the bond between him and Dean might just be strong enough to transcend what hell did to him.
Set post Season 3, seven months after Dean’s deal came due and written over the summer before it was AU, this story just kept writing itself and wouldn’t let go until it was an epic love story in every sense, eventually spanning five decades with enough twists and turns to make me dizzy.
Warning: Spoilers for S3 finale; some violence; Wincest (obviously)
Beta: Big thanks to K for caring enough to make awesome suggestions *hugs*
AN: Not a WIP – story is finished with 18 chapters and will be posted regularly. Feedback is adored and promptly savored. Posting two chapters this time – let me know what you think?
Sam doesn’t leave the warehouse for the next six hours, afraid to let the demon out of his sight, afraid to let Bobby have at him again. He knows that Bobby’s right, this isn’t Dean. But the past six months have been so fucking cold, so empty. Sam’s ashamed to admit it, but just looking at his brother’s face is enough right now. Especially when the demon sleeps, which apparently demons do a great deal when they haven’t had anything to eat and are fighting off bouts of holy water. So easy to imagine bright emerald green beneath the lush lashes, lazy curl of plush lips into a smile when he wakes and finds Sam there. Sam stretches out beside the painted circle, gets as close as he dares. So close he can count the freckles sprinkled over his brother’s sleeping face, listen to the familiar rhythm of his breathing. For weeks after Dean was gone, Sam couldn’t sleep without the sound that had soothed him to sleep most of his life, the steady reassurance that Dean was there beside him. Now he lays on his belly on the cold concrete and listens, drinks in everything he’s missed so much. He’s been wasting away without it. Without him.
The demon doesn’t rouse again, doesn’t lock his barren eyes to Sam’s and taunt him with Sam’s own twisted-dark fantasies. They’ve never gone there, not even when Dean’s time was running short and Sam’s desperation was spilling over. Not even those last few days, when fingers lingered on each other’s skin and the pulse at Sam’s wrist fluttered madly under his brother’s every touch, a craving so strong it felt like his heart would be wrenched right out of his chest with the wanting. Sam knows he wasn’t the only one who felt it, could see the mirrored longing in the way Dean’s eyes went dark, half-hidden by quickly downswept lashes. They never went there, mostly because Sam understood that Dean never could. Being his big brother was a job as pure as it was full-time, and Dean would never allow his hands to follow the path his eyes travelled down the indent of Sam’s hip when he thought Sam wasn’t looking. Not even if Sam’s eyes started catching on the curve of his brother’s ass in worn denim every time Dean walked away, provocative with his bowlegged strut.
Apparently the demon, unlike Dean, would allow it just fine. And fuck, Sam wouldn’t be human if he’s not still thinking about those filthy words coming from his brother’s sinful-looking mouth. Talk about being tempted by the devil. Sam can’t think of much that would twist him up inside more, and now here’s Dean, as beautiful as ever, lying there telling Sam he’s his for the taking. All he’s wanted for six solid months, his brother back and real and breathing. Sam aches to touch, to hold the strong body in his arms and feel its life, to welcome Dean back and hear his gruff laugh and see the gleam of his smile. Now there’s even more on offer, things Sam’s never allowed himself to consider. Forbidden things. To curve palm to his brother’s stubbled cheek and kiss the pink of his mouth and taste him inside out. How do you walk away from that?
It takes another few hours for the illusion to lose its grip and reality to twist Sam’s gut into a painful knot of awareness. In the stark artificial light of the warehouse, the demon’s skin is pale, an almost bluish cast to his cheeks and forehead, and it makes Sam’s heart thud, screams dead dead dead. Taunts Sam for his wanting, for his childish fantasies.
Not your brother.
Dean is dead.
Sam bites his lip, tries to steel himself for the inevitable. Be man enough to give this up, this pathetic grasping at something he knows he can’t have, won’t ever have again. Man enough to help Bobby pour on enough holy water and recite the right Latin to drive the demon out and let his brother’s body die once and for all. Sam knows it’s what Dean would want, what Dad would want. What should be.
The thought of finally burying Dean, laying that strong body and beautiful face to rest and sending the ashes to the heavens, it should bring him peace. But all Sam can think about is never seeing the freckles sprinkled over the bridge of his nose, never hearing the rough growl of his voice, never seeing his full lips pull into an amused smirk. Jesus, he’s missed it all so much, and now he has to give it up all over again?
Not Dean.
Not Dean.
Sam repeats it as he gets to his feet, turns to go find Bobby and enlist his help in doing what they have to do. Every step away tightens the ache in his chest, shoulders slumped under the weight of loss already.
“Sam…. Sammy.” The voice is rough but quiet, no more than a hoarse whisper.
Sam spins around instantly, heart double-timing with ridiculous hope, but the demon’s still asleep inside the circle, eyes closed tightly. He’s on his back now, body stretched taut and limbs splayed like he’s being torn asunder, and Sam can see the muscles in his bare arms tense and flex as his fingers fly open, outstretched as if in supplication. The demon sucks in a harsh breath, back arching as his shoulders grind against the cement and his hands curl into fists, and then he screams. Sam stumbles backwards it’s so loud, like the demon’s been shoring it up all this time and is putting his entire body into this one sound, and as he gasps, his face twists in agony and his mouth curls the sound into a single word.
“Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!”
Sam doesn’t even think, there’s no conscious decision at all. One second he’s walking away and the next he’s on his knees on the cement, half inside the circle and half out and both hands on his brother’s writhing body.
“Dean, Dean, can you hear me?” Sam’s hands grip biceps tensed and trembling, the muscles bunched hard as granite as the demon struggles and kicks. “I’m here, I’m right here,” Sam tells him, and it’s everything he never got to say, everything Dean never got to hear, and Sam can’t let go even when consciousness kicks in and he knows he’s playing with fire.
There’s a moment when the demon suddenly stills, and his eyes snap open and fix on Sam only inches away, and both of them freeze. “Sam?” he whispers, disbelieving. “Dean?” Sam whispers back, staring with equal disbelief into his brother’s wide – shockingly green – eyes.
Sam doesn’t hear the warehouse door slam open, so the pull on his foot comes too unexpectedly for Sam to have time to fight. Bobby’s yanked him out of the circle before he can protest, and his brother’s hand chasing after his own slams up against the limits of the magic, inches from Sam’s outstretched fingers.
“Bobby, wait, no – no --"
“What the hell are you doing, boy? Tryin’ to get yourself killed?” There’s fury in Bobby’s voice, and he moves adrenaline fast, dropping Sam to the floor and heaving the full bucket into the circle. “Think you can have him, you fucker? Well think again!”
The demon howls, claws desperately at his own face, and Sam watches in horror as he falls backwards writhing helplessly. A second bucket splashes over his stomach, soaks his shirt, his jeans. His scream this time is inhuman, and yet it’s still heartbreakingly Dean’s voice, torn and broken and full of the same agony Sam heard in his nightmare, when Dean’s eyes were green and he begged for Sam.
“Stop, ohgod, jesus, stop,” Sam’s pleading, grabbing for Bobby and wrestling the bucket from him, but it’s too late, the demon’s had enough. Sam watches panic-stricken as he opens his mouth wide, steam blanketing his still-twitching body and hissing into the cool air of the warehouse. Sam gets a glimpse of the real demon then, curl of black smoke twisting upwards, ominous and evil
He breaks from Bobby with more strength than Sam knew he still had, skidding on his knees across the circle and leaning over the body, hands scrabbling at the holy-water soaked shirt and pulling until the cotton tears loudly down the middle, trying to wipe away the wetness from his brother’s pale skin. He hears himself yelling “No, no, no,” hands swiping at Dean’s damp face, desperate, crazy. The black smoke hovers just above Dean’s lips, as though the demon’s trying to make a goddamned decision, and without thinking Sam’s on him, slamming a hand down over Dean’s mouth, and just like that, the smoke is gone, sucked back into the body like Dean blew a bubble and then popped it back.
The demon’s eyes snap open black as ebony and his mouth curves in a snarl as he stares up at Sam, curls his fingers deliberately around Sam’s wrist and removes Sam’s hand from his pretty red mouth.
“Sammy,” he purrs, dark and dangerous as ever, “I knew you still cared.”
“Sam,” Bobby says, and it’s a warning, every bit as dark and dangerous as how the demon said his name. “What the hell are you doing?”
What the hell is he doing? Frozen to the spot, the warmth of his brother’s fingers pressing against his wrist making his pulse race. Relief racing through him so strong Sam’s shaking with it. Almost lost him. Can’t lose him again.
Sam clears his throat before he turns to the older hunter. “His eyes were green.”
Bobby scoffs, throws the metal bucket across the warehouse to clatter against some storage containers. “Sam,” he says, voice shaking with rage, “Look at him. Fucking. Look. At. Him.”
The demon’s still holding Sam’s wrist captive, black eyes fixed on Sam like it’s a dare.
Sam swallows hard. “I know what I saw, Bobby.”
“Can’t let you do this, Sam.” Bobby’s voice is less anger, more sadness, and it makes Sam waver. But not for long.
“Won’t have to,” Sam says as he gets to his feet and crosses the circle in one swift determined movement, hits the perfect spot on the back of Bobby’s head with the barrel of his gun. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, as he heaves the smaller man over his shoulder and takes him to the battered Chevelle parked outside. It won’t take Bobby all that long to work out the knots once he comes to, but it’ll be long enough. Sam wants this decision on his shoulders, and his alone.
The demon doesn’t move when Sam steps back into the circle, armed with a bottle of holy water like it’s a lethal version of the water pistols they played with a few lifetimes ago, before their father tossed the plastic for steel and told them to grow the hell up. He looks so much the same, it’s not fucking fair, like any moment now Dean’s smile is gonna spread white toothed and wide across that handsome face and he’ll remember all the same moments that Sam can’t seem to forget. The days when Dean was all he had, everything that was good and safe in Sam’s world.
“Like what ya see, Sammy?” The demon smirks up at him, and Sam blushes at being caught staring.
“Shut up and give me your hands.” His stomach flips, sudden and weightless, at the demon’s words.
“Might be better if you give me your hands,” the demon goads, “I’m the one lying here all helpless and ravaged and you’re lookin’ at me like--
Sam doesn’t ask again, just grabs, yanking so hard on both arms that the demon’s head cracks back against the cement floor.
“Awww fuck, c’mon Sam,” he groans, and jesus, he sounds just like Dean complaining about Sam’s choice of music in the tape deck. Sam shivers with it, the familiarity, the uncertainty of what the fuck he’s doing and who the fuck this is lying here bitching while Sam binds his wrists with electrical wire. “Oww,” he growls as Sam pulls the wires tight, lets the thick black cord cut into the demon’s skin enough that Sam knows it’ll hold. He binds the demon’s ankles the same way, while the demon curses and threatens and squirms and calls Sam an impressive variety of truly filthy adjectives.
He’s heavier than Bobby when Sam breaks the devil’s trap and slings the demon over his shoulder, still kicking and cursing, but he doesn’t fight too much when Sam tosses him unceremoniously in the back seat of the Impala. In fact, he quiets almost immediately, and when Sam checks the rearview he sees the demon turn his face into the leather and close his eyes like he’s breathing in the familiar scent. At least Sam hopes it’s familiar. Did he just imagine his brother’s eyes back there? Was Bobby right?
* * *
Traveling with a hog-tied pissed-off demon in your backseat is tougher than Sam expected. First of all, the demon doesn’t stay quiet for long. As soon as the novelty – or whatever it is – of being in the Impala has faded, he’s back to cursing Sam out and demanding to be let go. Sam knows a lot about demons, certainly more than your average person, but he doesn’t know everything. He knows they’re strong, but how much stronger than a human he’s not sure, so he keeps pulling over and checking that the bindings are holding every twenty minutes or so. He knows the demon was weakened by the holy water, but isn’t sure how long that will last either. So he just keeps checking, and paints a devil’s trap onto the inside of the Impala’s roof for good measure, ignoring the demon’s outraged accusation that Sam’s desecrating a masterpiece. He seems to have retained some of Dean’s enthusiasm for the Impala as well as for Sam himself, though apparently Sam’s tying him up has dulled that particular feeling. Sam thinks that’s probably a good thing.
The first time he checks, the demon tries to convince him that he’ll behave if Sam unties him. Even tries to smile sweetly as he says it, though it comes off as more of an evil smirk. The second time, the demon catches him off guard with a vicious double-footed kick to the stomach, which luckily misses and lands on Sam’s hipbone. Sam curses and puts a fist to the demon’s solar plexus in return, knocks the breath out of him and shoves him down hard, tying his feet to the door handle on one side and his hands to the door handle on the other, stretching him out on the bench seat like a piece of meat. The third time, the demon calls him a motherfucker and threatens to cut Sam’s balls off in his sleep first chance he gets.
“Stop bitching or I won’t wait til you’re asleep to do just that,” Sam warns, turning to glare at the demon over the seat back in what he hopes is a completely serious and threatening way. The demon’s eyes go a little wider, which looks comical when they’re all black anyway. “You wouldn’t,” he says, but he doesn’t look certain.
“Try me,” Sam sighs, tired suddenly. What the fuck was he thinking, tying up a fucking demon and bringing him along for the ride?
“Okay, okay,” the demon relents suddenly, unclenches his bound fists and relaxes against the backseat with a plaintive – and overly dramatic -- moan. “But can we get something to fucking eat soon? Nobody’s fed me in like four days, y’know, and I’m fucking starving here.”
Figures that the demon would have retained Dean’s body’s constant need to eat, and his tendency to be cranky when he hasn’t. Or, like, always. Sam rubs at his temples and tries to figure out how the hell he’s gonna do this.
In the end, he throws a blanket over the demon, tells him that he’ll eat Big Macs right over his face and not let him have even a bite if he’s not quiet, and orders from the drive-thru. The kid handing over the bags stares at the not-quite-stationery lump in the back seat until Sam shrugs apologetically. “We were kinda in the middle of things – you know – and she – well, she got hungry.” The kid blushes beet red and waves Sam on, adjusting his polyester pants with a grimace.
The demon, it seems, also has Dean’s avid appreciation for anything sexual – times twenty -- so he’s grinning and squirming out from the under the blanket before Sam’s even gotten a chance to pull away. “Dude, that was awesome,” he crows, “Didja see that kid’s face? He’s just counting the minutes til his next break so he can squeeze one out in the little boy’s room.”
“Shut up,” Sam hisses, but he’s not even mad. The demon sounds so much like Dean, it’s breaking Sam’s heart a little, and it’s too much to hear it and not have it, not have him.
“Shut the fuck up,” he says again, and tosses a Big Mac over the seat. The demon curses him and claims cruel and unusual punishment because Sam didn’t unwrap it and fuck doesn’t Sam know he can’t even use his fucking hands since Sam (you asshole) tied him the fuck up? He grumbles through the entire meal, but he finds a way to turn to his side and anchor the hamburger against the seat back enough to rip away the wrapper with his teeth. Sam watches in the rearview as he gnaws off too-big pieces and chews noisily, swallows it all down with the same gusto Dean’s always had for fast food. Sam’s own burger sits like lead in his stomach.
“You have to piss?” Sam asks when they stop for gas in the long shade of a Hess station, Midwest sunset painting the white and green walls in pink and yellow. The demon scowls and shakes his head.
Huh. “You have to piss – like ever?”
The blanket shifts to his hips, exposing his torso where his chest is bare beneath the remains of his tee shirt, as the demon twists to scowl harder at Sam. “Of course I have to piss Sam, you idiot! Sometimes,” he says, and leaves it at that.
“What? Like every three days?” Sam’s way too tired to play these games, and every hour or so he realizes something else he doesn’t know about demons. Things he should have thought about before he threw one in the back of the car.
“Why’re you so interested in my damn pissing?” the demon shoots back, sounding every bit as annoyed as Sam. “You wanna see my dick, just say so.”
“You have a one-track mind, you know that?”
The demon smirks. Sam’s getting really tired of that particular expression. “You love it.”
Sam probably sets some kind of pissing speed record, which makes the demon smirk even more when he climbs back behind the wheel a little breathless.
“Sammy,” the demon wheedles as the Impala pulls back onto the road, voice singsong the way it used to be when Dean wanted Sam to bring him pie, and the memory makes Sam’s eyes sting. “Sammy, ‘m cold back here, my jeans are all wet and fuck, you tore my goddamn tee shirt right off me. Fuckin’ sasquatch.”
Sam refuses to look at him, knows he’ll see an expression so familiar he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep the bindings tied around hands he wants to hold between his own so badly he’s aching with it.
“Sam, c’mon and warm me up, I’m c-cold,” the demon whines convincingly, tugging at the wires that pull against the door handles, and god Sam’s been shivering for so long, wants to press himself up close and tight against his brother’s body, feel him warm and solid and alive.
Sam shudders and sets his jaw hard, turns up the radio and drowns out Dean’s voice with bad country music that thankfuck doesn’t remind Sam of anything. By the time they cross the border into South Dakota, the demon’s asleep and the blanket’s on the floor, and Sam sneaks long looks in the rearview, watching the play of shifting moonlight over the demon’s leanly muscled body, the way it outlines the sinewy muscles of his arms straining against their bonds and the flat ripples of his bare abs. He’s so beautiful. Sam has always known it, but never has he been able to just stare like this. Dean’s body is laid out like a banquet on the back seat, tied down and stretched up, and god, Sam wants. The demon’s taunt comes back to him, makes him flush hot and yank his eyes from the mirror, push his foot hard to the pedal.
The third time the Impala veers off the road and onto gravel with a squeal of protest, Sam rubs his eyes open and realizes that he has to sleep. They stop at the Pine Tree Motel, and it looks like every other no-tell motel they’ve slept in for years and years, Sam and Dean, just the same. And completely and utterly different.
He doesn’t trust the demon not to free himself, isn’t at all sure the bindings and the crudely drawn trap will hold or that the demon will even stay in this body, although he seems pretty attached to it, so leaving him in the Impala isn’t an option. Sam’s eyes are burning as he slips the knots off the door handles and drags the demon from the car – lack of sleep, that’s all, he tells himself – but his hands are shaking when he tries to maneuver them across the six feet of parking lot and through the narrow door.
“You just gonna leave me here?” the demon demands when Sam shoves him into the tiny bathroom. He can barely focus as he chalks a devil’s trap on the bathroom ceiling, trying to close the lines over the exposed pipes and mildewed surfaces. Tying the demon to the faucet and shoving the desk against the door is the best Sam can do with exhaustion closing in, and Sam can hear the dull thud of his feet kicking against the porcelain even through the closed bathroom door.
“You’re gonna leave me in the fucking tub? What the fuck, Sam? I gotta sleep still wet and cold and tied up in a fucking bathtub?”
The pipes rattle and clang as he struggles, and Sam feels the tears track slowly down his cheeks and dampen the cheap starched pillowcase. Ohgod, he thinks as he curls up on his side on the creaky mattress, what have I done? What the hell have I done?
Chapter 3
Author: runedgirl
Rating: NC17 soon – this chapter PG13
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/demon!Dean
Summary: The brother that Sam gets back isn’t the same, but Sam’s love is. Sam risks everything and leaves everyone he’s ever cared about behind in the desperate hope that the bond between him and Dean might just be strong enough to transcend what hell did to him.
Set post Season 3, seven months after Dean’s deal came due and written over the summer before it was AU, this story just kept writing itself and wouldn’t let go until it was an epic love story in every sense, eventually spanning five decades with enough twists and turns to make me dizzy.
Warning: Spoilers for S3 finale; some violence; Wincest (obviously)
Beta: Big thanks to K for caring enough to make awesome suggestions *hugs*
AN: Not a WIP – story is finished with 18 chapters and will be posted regularly. Feedback is adored and promptly savored. Posting two chapters this time – let me know what you think?
Sam doesn’t leave the warehouse for the next six hours, afraid to let the demon out of his sight, afraid to let Bobby have at him again. He knows that Bobby’s right, this isn’t Dean. But the past six months have been so fucking cold, so empty. Sam’s ashamed to admit it, but just looking at his brother’s face is enough right now. Especially when the demon sleeps, which apparently demons do a great deal when they haven’t had anything to eat and are fighting off bouts of holy water. So easy to imagine bright emerald green beneath the lush lashes, lazy curl of plush lips into a smile when he wakes and finds Sam there. Sam stretches out beside the painted circle, gets as close as he dares. So close he can count the freckles sprinkled over his brother’s sleeping face, listen to the familiar rhythm of his breathing. For weeks after Dean was gone, Sam couldn’t sleep without the sound that had soothed him to sleep most of his life, the steady reassurance that Dean was there beside him. Now he lays on his belly on the cold concrete and listens, drinks in everything he’s missed so much. He’s been wasting away without it. Without him.
The demon doesn’t rouse again, doesn’t lock his barren eyes to Sam’s and taunt him with Sam’s own twisted-dark fantasies. They’ve never gone there, not even when Dean’s time was running short and Sam’s desperation was spilling over. Not even those last few days, when fingers lingered on each other’s skin and the pulse at Sam’s wrist fluttered madly under his brother’s every touch, a craving so strong it felt like his heart would be wrenched right out of his chest with the wanting. Sam knows he wasn’t the only one who felt it, could see the mirrored longing in the way Dean’s eyes went dark, half-hidden by quickly downswept lashes. They never went there, mostly because Sam understood that Dean never could. Being his big brother was a job as pure as it was full-time, and Dean would never allow his hands to follow the path his eyes travelled down the indent of Sam’s hip when he thought Sam wasn’t looking. Not even if Sam’s eyes started catching on the curve of his brother’s ass in worn denim every time Dean walked away, provocative with his bowlegged strut.
Apparently the demon, unlike Dean, would allow it just fine. And fuck, Sam wouldn’t be human if he’s not still thinking about those filthy words coming from his brother’s sinful-looking mouth. Talk about being tempted by the devil. Sam can’t think of much that would twist him up inside more, and now here’s Dean, as beautiful as ever, lying there telling Sam he’s his for the taking. All he’s wanted for six solid months, his brother back and real and breathing. Sam aches to touch, to hold the strong body in his arms and feel its life, to welcome Dean back and hear his gruff laugh and see the gleam of his smile. Now there’s even more on offer, things Sam’s never allowed himself to consider. Forbidden things. To curve palm to his brother’s stubbled cheek and kiss the pink of his mouth and taste him inside out. How do you walk away from that?
It takes another few hours for the illusion to lose its grip and reality to twist Sam’s gut into a painful knot of awareness. In the stark artificial light of the warehouse, the demon’s skin is pale, an almost bluish cast to his cheeks and forehead, and it makes Sam’s heart thud, screams dead dead dead. Taunts Sam for his wanting, for his childish fantasies.
Not your brother.
Dean is dead.
Sam bites his lip, tries to steel himself for the inevitable. Be man enough to give this up, this pathetic grasping at something he knows he can’t have, won’t ever have again. Man enough to help Bobby pour on enough holy water and recite the right Latin to drive the demon out and let his brother’s body die once and for all. Sam knows it’s what Dean would want, what Dad would want. What should be.
The thought of finally burying Dean, laying that strong body and beautiful face to rest and sending the ashes to the heavens, it should bring him peace. But all Sam can think about is never seeing the freckles sprinkled over the bridge of his nose, never hearing the rough growl of his voice, never seeing his full lips pull into an amused smirk. Jesus, he’s missed it all so much, and now he has to give it up all over again?
Not Dean.
Not Dean.
Sam repeats it as he gets to his feet, turns to go find Bobby and enlist his help in doing what they have to do. Every step away tightens the ache in his chest, shoulders slumped under the weight of loss already.
“Sam…. Sammy.” The voice is rough but quiet, no more than a hoarse whisper.
Sam spins around instantly, heart double-timing with ridiculous hope, but the demon’s still asleep inside the circle, eyes closed tightly. He’s on his back now, body stretched taut and limbs splayed like he’s being torn asunder, and Sam can see the muscles in his bare arms tense and flex as his fingers fly open, outstretched as if in supplication. The demon sucks in a harsh breath, back arching as his shoulders grind against the cement and his hands curl into fists, and then he screams. Sam stumbles backwards it’s so loud, like the demon’s been shoring it up all this time and is putting his entire body into this one sound, and as he gasps, his face twists in agony and his mouth curls the sound into a single word.
“Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam!”
Sam doesn’t even think, there’s no conscious decision at all. One second he’s walking away and the next he’s on his knees on the cement, half inside the circle and half out and both hands on his brother’s writhing body.
“Dean, Dean, can you hear me?” Sam’s hands grip biceps tensed and trembling, the muscles bunched hard as granite as the demon struggles and kicks. “I’m here, I’m right here,” Sam tells him, and it’s everything he never got to say, everything Dean never got to hear, and Sam can’t let go even when consciousness kicks in and he knows he’s playing with fire.
There’s a moment when the demon suddenly stills, and his eyes snap open and fix on Sam only inches away, and both of them freeze. “Sam?” he whispers, disbelieving. “Dean?” Sam whispers back, staring with equal disbelief into his brother’s wide – shockingly green – eyes.
Sam doesn’t hear the warehouse door slam open, so the pull on his foot comes too unexpectedly for Sam to have time to fight. Bobby’s yanked him out of the circle before he can protest, and his brother’s hand chasing after his own slams up against the limits of the magic, inches from Sam’s outstretched fingers.
“Bobby, wait, no – no --"
“What the hell are you doing, boy? Tryin’ to get yourself killed?” There’s fury in Bobby’s voice, and he moves adrenaline fast, dropping Sam to the floor and heaving the full bucket into the circle. “Think you can have him, you fucker? Well think again!”
The demon howls, claws desperately at his own face, and Sam watches in horror as he falls backwards writhing helplessly. A second bucket splashes over his stomach, soaks his shirt, his jeans. His scream this time is inhuman, and yet it’s still heartbreakingly Dean’s voice, torn and broken and full of the same agony Sam heard in his nightmare, when Dean’s eyes were green and he begged for Sam.
“Stop, ohgod, jesus, stop,” Sam’s pleading, grabbing for Bobby and wrestling the bucket from him, but it’s too late, the demon’s had enough. Sam watches panic-stricken as he opens his mouth wide, steam blanketing his still-twitching body and hissing into the cool air of the warehouse. Sam gets a glimpse of the real demon then, curl of black smoke twisting upwards, ominous and evil
He breaks from Bobby with more strength than Sam knew he still had, skidding on his knees across the circle and leaning over the body, hands scrabbling at the holy-water soaked shirt and pulling until the cotton tears loudly down the middle, trying to wipe away the wetness from his brother’s pale skin. He hears himself yelling “No, no, no,” hands swiping at Dean’s damp face, desperate, crazy. The black smoke hovers just above Dean’s lips, as though the demon’s trying to make a goddamned decision, and without thinking Sam’s on him, slamming a hand down over Dean’s mouth, and just like that, the smoke is gone, sucked back into the body like Dean blew a bubble and then popped it back.
The demon’s eyes snap open black as ebony and his mouth curves in a snarl as he stares up at Sam, curls his fingers deliberately around Sam’s wrist and removes Sam’s hand from his pretty red mouth.
“Sammy,” he purrs, dark and dangerous as ever, “I knew you still cared.”
“Sam,” Bobby says, and it’s a warning, every bit as dark and dangerous as how the demon said his name. “What the hell are you doing?”
What the hell is he doing? Frozen to the spot, the warmth of his brother’s fingers pressing against his wrist making his pulse race. Relief racing through him so strong Sam’s shaking with it. Almost lost him. Can’t lose him again.
Sam clears his throat before he turns to the older hunter. “His eyes were green.”
Bobby scoffs, throws the metal bucket across the warehouse to clatter against some storage containers. “Sam,” he says, voice shaking with rage, “Look at him. Fucking. Look. At. Him.”
The demon’s still holding Sam’s wrist captive, black eyes fixed on Sam like it’s a dare.
Sam swallows hard. “I know what I saw, Bobby.”
“Can’t let you do this, Sam.” Bobby’s voice is less anger, more sadness, and it makes Sam waver. But not for long.
“Won’t have to,” Sam says as he gets to his feet and crosses the circle in one swift determined movement, hits the perfect spot on the back of Bobby’s head with the barrel of his gun. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, as he heaves the smaller man over his shoulder and takes him to the battered Chevelle parked outside. It won’t take Bobby all that long to work out the knots once he comes to, but it’ll be long enough. Sam wants this decision on his shoulders, and his alone.
The demon doesn’t move when Sam steps back into the circle, armed with a bottle of holy water like it’s a lethal version of the water pistols they played with a few lifetimes ago, before their father tossed the plastic for steel and told them to grow the hell up. He looks so much the same, it’s not fucking fair, like any moment now Dean’s smile is gonna spread white toothed and wide across that handsome face and he’ll remember all the same moments that Sam can’t seem to forget. The days when Dean was all he had, everything that was good and safe in Sam’s world.
“Like what ya see, Sammy?” The demon smirks up at him, and Sam blushes at being caught staring.
“Shut up and give me your hands.” His stomach flips, sudden and weightless, at the demon’s words.
“Might be better if you give me your hands,” the demon goads, “I’m the one lying here all helpless and ravaged and you’re lookin’ at me like--
Sam doesn’t ask again, just grabs, yanking so hard on both arms that the demon’s head cracks back against the cement floor.
“Awww fuck, c’mon Sam,” he groans, and jesus, he sounds just like Dean complaining about Sam’s choice of music in the tape deck. Sam shivers with it, the familiarity, the uncertainty of what the fuck he’s doing and who the fuck this is lying here bitching while Sam binds his wrists with electrical wire. “Oww,” he growls as Sam pulls the wires tight, lets the thick black cord cut into the demon’s skin enough that Sam knows it’ll hold. He binds the demon’s ankles the same way, while the demon curses and threatens and squirms and calls Sam an impressive variety of truly filthy adjectives.
He’s heavier than Bobby when Sam breaks the devil’s trap and slings the demon over his shoulder, still kicking and cursing, but he doesn’t fight too much when Sam tosses him unceremoniously in the back seat of the Impala. In fact, he quiets almost immediately, and when Sam checks the rearview he sees the demon turn his face into the leather and close his eyes like he’s breathing in the familiar scent. At least Sam hopes it’s familiar. Did he just imagine his brother’s eyes back there? Was Bobby right?
* * *
Traveling with a hog-tied pissed-off demon in your backseat is tougher than Sam expected. First of all, the demon doesn’t stay quiet for long. As soon as the novelty – or whatever it is – of being in the Impala has faded, he’s back to cursing Sam out and demanding to be let go. Sam knows a lot about demons, certainly more than your average person, but he doesn’t know everything. He knows they’re strong, but how much stronger than a human he’s not sure, so he keeps pulling over and checking that the bindings are holding every twenty minutes or so. He knows the demon was weakened by the holy water, but isn’t sure how long that will last either. So he just keeps checking, and paints a devil’s trap onto the inside of the Impala’s roof for good measure, ignoring the demon’s outraged accusation that Sam’s desecrating a masterpiece. He seems to have retained some of Dean’s enthusiasm for the Impala as well as for Sam himself, though apparently Sam’s tying him up has dulled that particular feeling. Sam thinks that’s probably a good thing.
The first time he checks, the demon tries to convince him that he’ll behave if Sam unties him. Even tries to smile sweetly as he says it, though it comes off as more of an evil smirk. The second time, the demon catches him off guard with a vicious double-footed kick to the stomach, which luckily misses and lands on Sam’s hipbone. Sam curses and puts a fist to the demon’s solar plexus in return, knocks the breath out of him and shoves him down hard, tying his feet to the door handle on one side and his hands to the door handle on the other, stretching him out on the bench seat like a piece of meat. The third time, the demon calls him a motherfucker and threatens to cut Sam’s balls off in his sleep first chance he gets.
“Stop bitching or I won’t wait til you’re asleep to do just that,” Sam warns, turning to glare at the demon over the seat back in what he hopes is a completely serious and threatening way. The demon’s eyes go a little wider, which looks comical when they’re all black anyway. “You wouldn’t,” he says, but he doesn’t look certain.
“Try me,” Sam sighs, tired suddenly. What the fuck was he thinking, tying up a fucking demon and bringing him along for the ride?
“Okay, okay,” the demon relents suddenly, unclenches his bound fists and relaxes against the backseat with a plaintive – and overly dramatic -- moan. “But can we get something to fucking eat soon? Nobody’s fed me in like four days, y’know, and I’m fucking starving here.”
Figures that the demon would have retained Dean’s body’s constant need to eat, and his tendency to be cranky when he hasn’t. Or, like, always. Sam rubs at his temples and tries to figure out how the hell he’s gonna do this.
In the end, he throws a blanket over the demon, tells him that he’ll eat Big Macs right over his face and not let him have even a bite if he’s not quiet, and orders from the drive-thru. The kid handing over the bags stares at the not-quite-stationery lump in the back seat until Sam shrugs apologetically. “We were kinda in the middle of things – you know – and she – well, she got hungry.” The kid blushes beet red and waves Sam on, adjusting his polyester pants with a grimace.
The demon, it seems, also has Dean’s avid appreciation for anything sexual – times twenty -- so he’s grinning and squirming out from the under the blanket before Sam’s even gotten a chance to pull away. “Dude, that was awesome,” he crows, “Didja see that kid’s face? He’s just counting the minutes til his next break so he can squeeze one out in the little boy’s room.”
“Shut up,” Sam hisses, but he’s not even mad. The demon sounds so much like Dean, it’s breaking Sam’s heart a little, and it’s too much to hear it and not have it, not have him.
“Shut the fuck up,” he says again, and tosses a Big Mac over the seat. The demon curses him and claims cruel and unusual punishment because Sam didn’t unwrap it and fuck doesn’t Sam know he can’t even use his fucking hands since Sam (you asshole) tied him the fuck up? He grumbles through the entire meal, but he finds a way to turn to his side and anchor the hamburger against the seat back enough to rip away the wrapper with his teeth. Sam watches in the rearview as he gnaws off too-big pieces and chews noisily, swallows it all down with the same gusto Dean’s always had for fast food. Sam’s own burger sits like lead in his stomach.
“You have to piss?” Sam asks when they stop for gas in the long shade of a Hess station, Midwest sunset painting the white and green walls in pink and yellow. The demon scowls and shakes his head.
Huh. “You have to piss – like ever?”
The blanket shifts to his hips, exposing his torso where his chest is bare beneath the remains of his tee shirt, as the demon twists to scowl harder at Sam. “Of course I have to piss Sam, you idiot! Sometimes,” he says, and leaves it at that.
“What? Like every three days?” Sam’s way too tired to play these games, and every hour or so he realizes something else he doesn’t know about demons. Things he should have thought about before he threw one in the back of the car.
“Why’re you so interested in my damn pissing?” the demon shoots back, sounding every bit as annoyed as Sam. “You wanna see my dick, just say so.”
“You have a one-track mind, you know that?”
The demon smirks. Sam’s getting really tired of that particular expression. “You love it.”
Sam probably sets some kind of pissing speed record, which makes the demon smirk even more when he climbs back behind the wheel a little breathless.
“Sammy,” the demon wheedles as the Impala pulls back onto the road, voice singsong the way it used to be when Dean wanted Sam to bring him pie, and the memory makes Sam’s eyes sting. “Sammy, ‘m cold back here, my jeans are all wet and fuck, you tore my goddamn tee shirt right off me. Fuckin’ sasquatch.”
Sam refuses to look at him, knows he’ll see an expression so familiar he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep the bindings tied around hands he wants to hold between his own so badly he’s aching with it.
“Sam, c’mon and warm me up, I’m c-cold,” the demon whines convincingly, tugging at the wires that pull against the door handles, and god Sam’s been shivering for so long, wants to press himself up close and tight against his brother’s body, feel him warm and solid and alive.
Sam shudders and sets his jaw hard, turns up the radio and drowns out Dean’s voice with bad country music that thankfuck doesn’t remind Sam of anything. By the time they cross the border into South Dakota, the demon’s asleep and the blanket’s on the floor, and Sam sneaks long looks in the rearview, watching the play of shifting moonlight over the demon’s leanly muscled body, the way it outlines the sinewy muscles of his arms straining against their bonds and the flat ripples of his bare abs. He’s so beautiful. Sam has always known it, but never has he been able to just stare like this. Dean’s body is laid out like a banquet on the back seat, tied down and stretched up, and god, Sam wants. The demon’s taunt comes back to him, makes him flush hot and yank his eyes from the mirror, push his foot hard to the pedal.
The third time the Impala veers off the road and onto gravel with a squeal of protest, Sam rubs his eyes open and realizes that he has to sleep. They stop at the Pine Tree Motel, and it looks like every other no-tell motel they’ve slept in for years and years, Sam and Dean, just the same. And completely and utterly different.
He doesn’t trust the demon not to free himself, isn’t at all sure the bindings and the crudely drawn trap will hold or that the demon will even stay in this body, although he seems pretty attached to it, so leaving him in the Impala isn’t an option. Sam’s eyes are burning as he slips the knots off the door handles and drags the demon from the car – lack of sleep, that’s all, he tells himself – but his hands are shaking when he tries to maneuver them across the six feet of parking lot and through the narrow door.
“You just gonna leave me here?” the demon demands when Sam shoves him into the tiny bathroom. He can barely focus as he chalks a devil’s trap on the bathroom ceiling, trying to close the lines over the exposed pipes and mildewed surfaces. Tying the demon to the faucet and shoving the desk against the door is the best Sam can do with exhaustion closing in, and Sam can hear the dull thud of his feet kicking against the porcelain even through the closed bathroom door.
“You’re gonna leave me in the fucking tub? What the fuck, Sam? I gotta sleep still wet and cold and tied up in a fucking bathtub?”
The pipes rattle and clang as he struggles, and Sam feels the tears track slowly down his cheeks and dampen the cheap starched pillowcase. Ohgod, he thinks as he curls up on his side on the creaky mattress, what have I done? What the hell have I done?
Chapter 3
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-12 06:38 pm (UTC)Oh, and what were those 'impressive variety of truly filthy adjectives' that Dean calls Sam, again? D/Dean, tut tut, I hope you don't kiss your mother with that mouth. Kiss me instead:).
Yea boys back together, sort of!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-12 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 03:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 03:06 pm (UTC)Hugs,
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 01:53 pm (UTC)I love how Sam is still cautious enough to tie Demon!Dean up, so he's not making himself entirely vulnerable. It's very realistic.
The drive-thru thing was hilarious!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 03:07 pm (UTC)Hugs,
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 08:34 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-14 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-19 08:49 pm (UTC)I'm off to read the next part :)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-20 04:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-02 03:04 pm (UTC)Hugs,
Lynsey
no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 05:16 pm (UTC)THIS IS BADGERING MY HEART BY THE WAY!!
no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 11:18 am (UTC)I've been waiting for the last chapter of this to be posted so that I could read it all through, and I'm so glad I did. Not sure I could have coped with cliffhangers like this.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 04:26 pm (UTC)Looking forward to your feedback!
*smishes you*
no subject
Date: 2009-01-29 03:10 am (UTC)It was most touching to see Sam let his tears run at the end.
Thanks for writing this and sharing.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-27 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-01 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-02 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-09 03:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-11 12:31 am (UTC)