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runedgirlTitle:Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Eyes (Ch 5/8) - Sequel to Fade To Black
Author: runedgirl (Lynsey)
Rating: NC17 overall
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/demon!Dean
Warning: violent content
Word Count this chapter: 4000
Beta: My sexyboy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pure_shite (Ashton). Thanks!!
Summary: Sam tried to thwart death in a desperate attempt to keep his brother human. Did it work or did heaven come between them the way hell never could? Sequel to the story Fade To Black - this one will make more sense if you read the original fic first. Previous chapters: Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four
AN: Not a WIP – story is finished with 8 chapters and will be posted regularly. Feedback is adored and promptly savored.
Chapter Five
The slam of the bathroom door breaks the spell, the demon jerking backwards and spinning around with teeth already bared in a snarl that makes Sam wonder if he imagined the gentleness of the last few minutes.
“You’re pathetic,” Ruby says to Sam, ignoring the other demon glaring at her menacingly. She’s wrapped in a surprisingly fluffy white motel towel, long dark hair dripping over her bare shoulders. She’s beautiful, both the demons are. Beautiful and biting and deadly all at once, and Sam really shouldn’t find the combination so alluring.
“What?” he protests belatedly.
“You’re like some sick cliché, the almighty cock heals everything, or whatever. A backseat fuck and it’s back to lovey dovey.”
She lets the towel fall to the floor and bends to pull on her jeans, and the other demon growls low in his throat as he watches her. There’s a different tension between them since the demon came to Ruby’s unwanted rescue earlier, but there’s no telling with demons whether that translates into better or worse.
Sam’s demon watches quietly for a minute, only the way his brow is furrowed and his fists are clenched giving away the swirl of something going on inside his head. Ruby straightens slowly when he approaches her, his every smooth movement broadcasting predatory intent. She doesn’t move until he lays a hand on her still-bare waist, but then her hand comes down over his with a slap that Sam can almost feel.
“Get your hands off me.” Ruby’s half naked and wet and more than a foot shorter than the demon, but her voice doesn’t even waver. When he doesn’t move, her pretty pink mouth curls up in a snarl every bit as feral as the other’s. “Now,” she says.
For a long moment they just stare at each other, still and snarling, and Sam wonders if Ruby’s pissed off enough to give up, fed up after a year of traveling the globe to find Sam and trying and failing to bring back what’s left of Dean. His stomach twists as they circle each other without moving, lips curled and eyes narrowed, both of them vibrating with the tension of not attacking. Ruby doesn’t give an inch, only her breathing sped up as the standoff drags on, her eyes gone black and flashing with anger.
It feels like an hour before anyone moves, Sam as frozen as the demons, afraid of doing anything to tip the balance in either direction. Sam’s demon finally growls again and lets go, shaking off Ruby’s hand and backing away with his mouth still curled into an ugly sneer.
“Fucker,” Ruby hisses at him as she pulls on a tee shirt, but he doesn’t growl back this time. She looks up again when she’s dressed, and nods when she catches the other demon still staring, and Sam can finally breathe through the clench in his chest. Something’s been settled between them that Sam doesn’t quite understand, in the carnage of the Handi Mart and the silent throw-down in their motel room. Some subtle balance of power that got knocked out of shape in the year Sam was gone. In the hell he left Dean in, and the mess he left Ruby to clean up.
“Where’re you going?”
Ruby’s got her jacket on and the car keys in her hand, freshly washed hair gleaming in a cascade of brown waves down her back and lipstick on her mouth that doesn’t really need reddening, and Sam has the sudden thought that this is it. She’s had it with him. With them. Ruby’s always been good at leaving.
“Out. Find some healing dick of my own so you two can just stick it to each other. Or maybe something a little softer and sweeter.”
“Ruby,” Sam starts, reaching for her without really knowing what he’s going to say. Only knows he wants her here. He’s not sure he can stand to be alone with what’s left of his brother, terrified that the silence will drive him mad.
She pushes his hand away dismissively. “Save it, Sam. You’re sorry, blah blah, whatever.”
“I need you, Ruby. We need you.”
Ruby’s gaze flicks between them, and the demon drops his eyes, shuffles one boot against the floor, and Ruby sighs.
“I’ll be back,” she says as she slams the door.
* * *
They chance a few hunts in the next two weeks, partly because it seemed to help the demon get his violent streak sublimated when he first came back from hell, and partly because Sam’s got the body of a 26 year old again, give or take a few years, and he damn well wants to make good use of it. The demon still doesn’t talk, but he lets Sam run the show, his boots skidding to a halt when Sam yells stop, waiting for Sam’s nod before he breaks cover to attack with a speed that still astonishes Sam. Their volatile threesome comes together like clockwork when they’re taking down something big and bad, all the tension put aside and decades of working closely letting them communicate more non-verbally than most hunters could with words. They always share a motel room, one bed for Ruby and one for Sam and his demon. Sometimes she watches them fuck and glares at them disapprovingly, sometimes she stretches out on the other bed and gets herself off, cursing at them to yeah, c’mon, harder, give it to him, fuck. Sometimes she grabs the keys and finds her own fun. She won’t let either of them touch her.
“Don’t get pregnant,” Sam says one night as she’s putting on her leather jacket, while Sam’s demon is already licking and biting his way up Sam’s thighs to get to his cock.
Ruby snorts. “You think I’m stupid, Sam? After all this time, you think I don’t know how to take care of myself?” She looks incredulous, brown eyes flashing with annoyance, and suddenly all Sam can see is Sammi, five years old with her hands on her hips demanding, “You think I’m stupid, Daddy?”
His erection flags even in Dean’s talented mouth, and the demon freezes and raises his head, eyebrows raised over his black eyes.
“I need to see them,” Sam says to both demons. “The kids. I need to see them.”
* * *
Ruby keeps muttering about this not being a good idea, but they wind their way slowly south towards Maryland as fall repaints the trees red-orange-yellow, where Johnny moved the family after Sam’s death. After Dean’s breakdown. Ruby’s not entirely clear on details that have never mattered to her, but somehow Sammi and Glen relocated too, Sammi wanting to be close to her brother after the loss of both their parents. Johnny and Sammi chose their partners wisely, Sam thinks, relieved that they have each other, just like he and Dean always have.
Does he still have Dean? It’s been three weeks, and Sam still doesn’t know, no matter what he said that night when the demon had his hand in a death grip. He glances at the demon riding shotgun, drumming his fingers on his thigh nervously and staring out the window, black eyes hidden under the expensive sunglasses he stole from a store in upstate New York.
It’s not like there’s nothing left of Dean, Sam knows the lean muscled body as well as ever. Knows where to touch to make his breath come fast and rough, where to press and push and pull to make him keen, the words to whisper to make him moan and come. The demon knows how to touch Sam too, though he still doesn’t know his own strength half the time. Sam’s got the bruises to prove it, but he’s also got twenty-six nights of mindblowing orgasms, so clearly Dean’s skills in bed are far from gone.
The demon seems to have retained some of Dean’s more annoying character traits too. Maybe they’re hardwired into that body, or some kind of biologically based personality traits, Sam doesn’t know. He does know that the familiarity never fails to knock the wind out of him. And that the demon always feigns innocence afterwards, which irks Sam even more.
When he rides shotgun he fiddles with the music until he finds bands that have been dead – literally – for decades, then turns up the volume and curls his lip up into a self-satisfied grin when Sam groans and Ruby curses. She likes to tease him about being a hundred years behind the times, which usually prompts him to turn it up even louder.
His appetite for food – and sex – is as healthy as ever, and he has a penchant for all of Dean’s favorites, Sam included. He’ll sit quietly in a restaurant and not ogle the waitress or growl like a starving and grumpy black bear if there’s a big juicy cheeseburger on the plate in front of him. Sometimes even to the point of wiping the grease off his chin with a napkin instead of the back of his hand when Sam glares at him and jerks his head in a not-so-subtle hint. He looks exactly like Dean when he’s eating, eyes half closed in bliss, tongue darting out to lick a dab of ketchup from the corner of his mouth. When he catches Sam staring, the smile he sends back is almost innocent, none of the demon’s usual sarcasm tugging up one side and making it cruel. He looks like a little boy, like the twelve year old who sat across from Sam and Dad in every diner across America and poked Sam in the side until he gave the waitress puppy eyes and scored them extra cherry pie.
“Good?” Sam asks one night in Ohio, watching the demon inhale a slice of blueberry with a mountain of vanilla ice cream melting on top.
The demon raises his eyebrows and grunts around his mouthful of pie.
“I guess that means yes,” Sam answers for him, can’t help smiling at how much the demon’s got in his mouth. His lips are stained purple, and there’s ice cream white and sticky on his chin.
The demon swallows, swipes his tongue over the crumbs sticking to his bottom lip, and Sam’s still staring.
He cocks his head, looks at Sam’s mouth, then slides the plate across the table.
It’s stupid how much Sam enjoys that piece of pie.
* * *
They cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania the next day, only hours from their destination. Sam let the demon fuck him the night before, and now he can’t sit still, shifting uncomfortably against the seat. His ass hurts, and there are bruises on his hips, scratches on his back, bite marks on his shoulders where the demon claimed him. For all the similarities that remain, the demon isn’t Dean. When he’s aroused, the demon’s more feral than any other time, and sometimes Sam longs for Dean’s tenderness, the gentle kisses to the nape of his neck that he remembers from before, Dean nosing his long hair aside to press his soft mouth to Sam’s skin. Sam’s got fingerprints all over, yet felt so much more owned before, from Dean’s gentle hands.
“Do you even remember them?” he asks, trying to distract himself from missing his brother’s lovemaking.
The demon shrugs noncommittally, and somehow that’s worse than saying no. That he just doesn’t give a damn – about his own children – makes Sam itch to punch him, knock that expressionless look right off his face, make him feel something.
“He remembers,” Ruby says from the back seat. “Tips of his ears are red.”
She’s right. Sam turns to inspect the blush coloring not only his ears but flushing his cheeks pink, and the demon snarls and turns his head toward the window.
* * *
It’s late when they park at the end of the paved road. From there, there’s just a dirt and gravel path, winding down the hill and into a thick stand of evergreens and a few maple trees just beginning to show fall colors in the crisp September chill. Sam can’t see the houses from here, but he can smell the smoke from seasoned logs in a fireplace that means people. Family. His heart’s pounding so fast he’s afraid he’ll faint before he gets to see them. A year, it’s been over a year, and god, Sam has missed them. He wants to run down the hill, throw the doors open, pull his children and grandchildren into his arms, tell them he’s sorry. He can barely bring himself to pause and wait for the others when Ruby lays a hand on his arm.
“Stay here, let me go down and talk to Johnny,” His whole body wants to go, now, go, but Sam nods, knows she’s right.
“You sure about this, Sam?” Ruby asks for the hundredth time.
Hell no, he’s not sure about this at all. Their kids endured his death, Dean’s madness, too much loss. How will they handle Sam coming back – let alone coming back looking younger than his own children? Ruby says Johnny warned the demon never to return, swore he’d never let him near their family again. If Johnny was that frightened, is Sam just being stupid bringing the demon here? Is he putting them all at risk? He looks back over his shoulder at the demon, leaning against the car and staring at the smoke curling over the trees from the bottom of the hill.
“No, not sure,” he answers finally.
Ruby scoffs. “At least that’s honest,” she says, and starts down the path.
It’s over an hour before the demon stiffens and turns his head towards the trees, scenting the wind with flared nostrils. His fists clench at his sides and a soft growl rumbles deep in his chest, and Sam can sense his tension, feel the storm of emotion underneath the surface. He’s just not sure what it is, prays it isn’t rage at the man – their son – who doused him with holy water, tied him up and abandoned him in a warehouse.
Sam’s heart stutters at the first sound of footsteps coming up the hill, longing washing over him.
Johnny trails Ruby by a few feet, shotgun raised and ready, trained on Sam dead center over his heart. The trigger’s cocked, and the look on Johnny’s face says he doesn’t believe what his mother’s told him.
“Who are you?” he demands, and the familiar sound of his voice almost knocks Sam’s feet out from under him. He’s gone a little gray at the temples in the year and a half Sam’s been gone, flecks in his beard and strands of his hair, but his eyes are as green as ever. Dean’s eyes. Johnny looks like Dean would have, if he’d lived to grow up, to grow older.
“Johnny,” Sam chokes out, emotion tightening his throat painfully and tears already stinging his eyes. “It’s me, son. It’s me.”
He pulls up his shirt to expose the tattoo on his hip, the one the children have always known.
“It’s Sam,” Ruby says, “I told you -- the spell, it didn’t work like we thought it would, but it worked. It took me this long to find him. He’s not a demon, Johnny.”
Johnny’s eyes go wide. “Dad?”
“Yeah,” Sam answers, relief and joy flooding him as he sees the awe in his son’s eyes. Johnny slowly lowers his gun, and Sam steps forward.
Instead of Johnny’s open arms, he gets a sideswipe of barrel to the ribs when Johnny jerks the rifle back into position, aiming suddenly over Sam’s shoulder.
“What the fuck? You brought – you brought him here?”
All the warmth that was in his son’s face a moment ago is gone, replaced by the cold steel gaze of a hunter with a monster in his sights. Johnny’s gun is pointed squarely at the demon, his finger twitching on the trigger. It’s a salt gun, of course it is. It was never loaded for Sam.
“Johnny,” Sam begins, but before he can plead the demon’s case another hunter steps out of the woods, matching rifle raised and ready.
“Dammit Sammi, I told you to stay at the house,” Johnny curses.
Sammi. Blonde haired and beautiful and feisty as ever. Sammi who has her big brother’s back the same way Sam has always had Dean’s. Sam can feel the tears overflow, too much emotion at the sight of both his children alive and well and so damn angry.
“Dad,” she murmurs, her eyes as wet as Sam’s, but she doesn’t take her gun off the demon. “You can come down, but not him. Not ever.”
“Sammi, he’s not – he’s not himself still, but he’s – he’s better, I can –
“No!” Johnny’s voice booms in the stillness of the clearing, a man’s voice, deep and strong and brooking no argument. “Not him.”
He keeps his gun on the demon, but turns to look Sam in the eye, and his words are measured, cold.
“The baby had a broken leg and a concussion when she hit the floor. When the sofa she was on was torn to pieces.”
Sam’s stomach turns over, bile rising so quickly he chokes on it, clutches his belly as his knees go weak.
“Her leg,” Johnny repeats, and he’s pleading with Sam as much as insisting. “Could have been her neck.”
Behind him, Sam can hear the demon make a sound for the first time, a strangled groan that quickly morphs into a growl. Then the crackle of leaves under receding footsteps, tandem shotguns trained on his back until he disappears into the next stand of evergreens on the other side of the clearing.
“Come stay with us,” Sammi says, and her blue eyes glisten. “We – I miss you, Dad.”
He does step forward then, pulls his grown up little girl in for a hug, the feel of her long hair under his chin and the scent of her shampoo making him long for homemade apple pies and blueberry pancakes and bacon on chilly autumn mornings. For home.
Johnny takes her place when she lets go, strength in his arms when he hugs his father. Sam knows without looking that one of them covers the other with the salt gun each time, not taking a chance. It breaks his heart to know it.
He steps back to look at his strong, handsome son. His brave, beautiful daughter.
“I can’t,” he says, and doesn’t care that his face is wet or his voice is shaking. “I can’t leave him.”
“Stupid bastard,” Ruby says, but neither of Sam’s children seem surprised.
“Will you call?” Sammi asks, and she looks like she might cry too.
Sam nods, promises, tries to smile. “You don’t have to worry, he won’t be back. I’ll stay with him, make sure of it.”
“Yeah Dad,” Johnny nods, “We know you will.”
Sam's heart aches to go with them when the kids head back down the path, back towards home. Sammi turns around when they reach the first of the taller trees, fixes Sam with the smile he remembers, the one that always turned him to putty in her hands. “Hey Dad,” she yells, voice carrying on the wind. “You look good.”
It’s a pretty damn small consolation.
* * *
The demon’s not at the car when Sam gets back, and the panic that washes over him is humiliating in the directions it takes him. Did he leave for good? Did he double back to the kids to take some kind of revenge? Sam hates himself for even thinking it, but the images Johnny painted of the baby broken with the sofa won’t leave him. After ten minutes of pacing and cursing, Sam opens the trunk and reaches for his own salt gun.
“Fuck it,” he spits, rage and panic warring and adrenaline coming on so strong he’s shaking with it. These are his kids, his family. Dean’s family.
The demon’s hand comes down on the gun so hard he knocks it out of Sam’s hand, sends it clattering back into the open trunk.
“You goddamn fucking bastard,” Sam starts, fists flying quickly enough to catch the demon with a right hook before he can gather his wits to defend himself. Two more punches graze his chin and shoulder before the demon gets his hands around Sam’s wrists and holds him still, Sam still struggling and cursing, trying to kick the demon in the shins instead.
Black eyes bore into Sam’s, just inches away as Sam stands helpless in his grip. Even without words, the demand there is clear. Were you gonna shoot me?
Sam stops his fruitless struggling, open mouthed and dumbfounded and still mad as hell. “Was I gonna shoot you, is that what you’re wondering? If I had to – to protect them? Yeah. Yeah, I would’ve.”
It’s the truth.
For a moment, Sam thinks the demon’s gonna kill him. Again. Then his grip on Sam’s wrists loosens, and he backs up a step, some of the tension bleeding out of him. Black eyes holding Sam’s, he backs up further and holds his hands out as if to say well, go ahead.
Fucking idiot. Sam shakes his head and slams the trunk. “I said only if I had to. Now get in the goddamn car.”
The demon is unnaturally still as they drive across the border into Virginia. Ruby’s staying with their family for a while, trying to ease the shock of Sam being alive but 25 and the demon being alive but still not Dean, and the silence hangs between the two of them without the buffer of her constant criticism.
“’s not like my salt gun would’ve killed you,” Sam finally grumbles.
The demon hrmphs in answer, still staring out the window.
When they stop for the night at the Piney Inn Motel, Sam gets a room with two queens out of habit, and the demon crawls into the other bed with his jeans still on without looking at Sam. It’s the first time Sam’s slept alone since he’s been back, and the chill on the inside is worse than the temperature in the drafty room.
“I know you can talk,” Sam says across the three feet gaping between the beds. “Is it just to punish me that you won’t?”
To his embarrassment, his voice breaks on the last word. But fuck it, who wouldn’t be close to tears? He’s given up everyone else to be with someone who won’t even speak to him. Sam puts his back to the other bed and tries to fall asleep with the rattling of the motel’s ancient radiator the only sound breaking the silence.
* * *
The demon lasts three days before he crawls back into Sam’s bed, which is miraculous considering his usual level of salacious behavior. Three days of Sam being equally quiet, of unspoken anger simmering between them as the tires eat up the highway from motel to grungy motel. It feels like it did a lifetime ago, when Dean came back the first time and there was still as much hate between them as love. When neither of them knew what to say and their shuttered glances were as much about mistrust as desire. Sam’s determined not to break first. Three long sleepless nights of Sam lying awake with his brain in overdrive, which is plenty of time for Sam to come up with a plan.
The mattress sags and squeaks at 3 am on Tuesday, and Sam feels the chill of the covers lifting, then the warmth of the demon’s body inching closer to his. He can’t resist a small smirk, even though the demon can’t see it in the dark. He was pretty sure there was no way the demon’s libido would make it through another long night. And pretty sure that the demon has no idea what’s coming.
Chapter Six
Author: runedgirl (Lynsey)
Rating: NC17 overall
Pairing: Sam/Dean, Sam/demon!Dean
Warning: violent content
Word Count this chapter: 4000
Beta: My sexyboy
pure_shite (Ashton). Thanks!!Summary: Sam tried to thwart death in a desperate attempt to keep his brother human. Did it work or did heaven come between them the way hell never could? Sequel to the story Fade To Black - this one will make more sense if you read the original fic first. Previous chapters: Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four
AN: Not a WIP – story is finished with 8 chapters and will be posted regularly. Feedback is adored and promptly savored.
Chapter Five
The slam of the bathroom door breaks the spell, the demon jerking backwards and spinning around with teeth already bared in a snarl that makes Sam wonder if he imagined the gentleness of the last few minutes.
“You’re pathetic,” Ruby says to Sam, ignoring the other demon glaring at her menacingly. She’s wrapped in a surprisingly fluffy white motel towel, long dark hair dripping over her bare shoulders. She’s beautiful, both the demons are. Beautiful and biting and deadly all at once, and Sam really shouldn’t find the combination so alluring.
“What?” he protests belatedly.
“You’re like some sick cliché, the almighty cock heals everything, or whatever. A backseat fuck and it’s back to lovey dovey.”
She lets the towel fall to the floor and bends to pull on her jeans, and the other demon growls low in his throat as he watches her. There’s a different tension between them since the demon came to Ruby’s unwanted rescue earlier, but there’s no telling with demons whether that translates into better or worse.
Sam’s demon watches quietly for a minute, only the way his brow is furrowed and his fists are clenched giving away the swirl of something going on inside his head. Ruby straightens slowly when he approaches her, his every smooth movement broadcasting predatory intent. She doesn’t move until he lays a hand on her still-bare waist, but then her hand comes down over his with a slap that Sam can almost feel.
“Get your hands off me.” Ruby’s half naked and wet and more than a foot shorter than the demon, but her voice doesn’t even waver. When he doesn’t move, her pretty pink mouth curls up in a snarl every bit as feral as the other’s. “Now,” she says.
For a long moment they just stare at each other, still and snarling, and Sam wonders if Ruby’s pissed off enough to give up, fed up after a year of traveling the globe to find Sam and trying and failing to bring back what’s left of Dean. His stomach twists as they circle each other without moving, lips curled and eyes narrowed, both of them vibrating with the tension of not attacking. Ruby doesn’t give an inch, only her breathing sped up as the standoff drags on, her eyes gone black and flashing with anger.
It feels like an hour before anyone moves, Sam as frozen as the demons, afraid of doing anything to tip the balance in either direction. Sam’s demon finally growls again and lets go, shaking off Ruby’s hand and backing away with his mouth still curled into an ugly sneer.
“Fucker,” Ruby hisses at him as she pulls on a tee shirt, but he doesn’t growl back this time. She looks up again when she’s dressed, and nods when she catches the other demon still staring, and Sam can finally breathe through the clench in his chest. Something’s been settled between them that Sam doesn’t quite understand, in the carnage of the Handi Mart and the silent throw-down in their motel room. Some subtle balance of power that got knocked out of shape in the year Sam was gone. In the hell he left Dean in, and the mess he left Ruby to clean up.
“Where’re you going?”
Ruby’s got her jacket on and the car keys in her hand, freshly washed hair gleaming in a cascade of brown waves down her back and lipstick on her mouth that doesn’t really need reddening, and Sam has the sudden thought that this is it. She’s had it with him. With them. Ruby’s always been good at leaving.
“Out. Find some healing dick of my own so you two can just stick it to each other. Or maybe something a little softer and sweeter.”
“Ruby,” Sam starts, reaching for her without really knowing what he’s going to say. Only knows he wants her here. He’s not sure he can stand to be alone with what’s left of his brother, terrified that the silence will drive him mad.
She pushes his hand away dismissively. “Save it, Sam. You’re sorry, blah blah, whatever.”
“I need you, Ruby. We need you.”
Ruby’s gaze flicks between them, and the demon drops his eyes, shuffles one boot against the floor, and Ruby sighs.
“I’ll be back,” she says as she slams the door.
* * *
They chance a few hunts in the next two weeks, partly because it seemed to help the demon get his violent streak sublimated when he first came back from hell, and partly because Sam’s got the body of a 26 year old again, give or take a few years, and he damn well wants to make good use of it. The demon still doesn’t talk, but he lets Sam run the show, his boots skidding to a halt when Sam yells stop, waiting for Sam’s nod before he breaks cover to attack with a speed that still astonishes Sam. Their volatile threesome comes together like clockwork when they’re taking down something big and bad, all the tension put aside and decades of working closely letting them communicate more non-verbally than most hunters could with words. They always share a motel room, one bed for Ruby and one for Sam and his demon. Sometimes she watches them fuck and glares at them disapprovingly, sometimes she stretches out on the other bed and gets herself off, cursing at them to yeah, c’mon, harder, give it to him, fuck. Sometimes she grabs the keys and finds her own fun. She won’t let either of them touch her.
“Don’t get pregnant,” Sam says one night as she’s putting on her leather jacket, while Sam’s demon is already licking and biting his way up Sam’s thighs to get to his cock.
Ruby snorts. “You think I’m stupid, Sam? After all this time, you think I don’t know how to take care of myself?” She looks incredulous, brown eyes flashing with annoyance, and suddenly all Sam can see is Sammi, five years old with her hands on her hips demanding, “You think I’m stupid, Daddy?”
His erection flags even in Dean’s talented mouth, and the demon freezes and raises his head, eyebrows raised over his black eyes.
“I need to see them,” Sam says to both demons. “The kids. I need to see them.”
* * *
Ruby keeps muttering about this not being a good idea, but they wind their way slowly south towards Maryland as fall repaints the trees red-orange-yellow, where Johnny moved the family after Sam’s death. After Dean’s breakdown. Ruby’s not entirely clear on details that have never mattered to her, but somehow Sammi and Glen relocated too, Sammi wanting to be close to her brother after the loss of both their parents. Johnny and Sammi chose their partners wisely, Sam thinks, relieved that they have each other, just like he and Dean always have.
Does he still have Dean? It’s been three weeks, and Sam still doesn’t know, no matter what he said that night when the demon had his hand in a death grip. He glances at the demon riding shotgun, drumming his fingers on his thigh nervously and staring out the window, black eyes hidden under the expensive sunglasses he stole from a store in upstate New York.
It’s not like there’s nothing left of Dean, Sam knows the lean muscled body as well as ever. Knows where to touch to make his breath come fast and rough, where to press and push and pull to make him keen, the words to whisper to make him moan and come. The demon knows how to touch Sam too, though he still doesn’t know his own strength half the time. Sam’s got the bruises to prove it, but he’s also got twenty-six nights of mindblowing orgasms, so clearly Dean’s skills in bed are far from gone.
The demon seems to have retained some of Dean’s more annoying character traits too. Maybe they’re hardwired into that body, or some kind of biologically based personality traits, Sam doesn’t know. He does know that the familiarity never fails to knock the wind out of him. And that the demon always feigns innocence afterwards, which irks Sam even more.
When he rides shotgun he fiddles with the music until he finds bands that have been dead – literally – for decades, then turns up the volume and curls his lip up into a self-satisfied grin when Sam groans and Ruby curses. She likes to tease him about being a hundred years behind the times, which usually prompts him to turn it up even louder.
His appetite for food – and sex – is as healthy as ever, and he has a penchant for all of Dean’s favorites, Sam included. He’ll sit quietly in a restaurant and not ogle the waitress or growl like a starving and grumpy black bear if there’s a big juicy cheeseburger on the plate in front of him. Sometimes even to the point of wiping the grease off his chin with a napkin instead of the back of his hand when Sam glares at him and jerks his head in a not-so-subtle hint. He looks exactly like Dean when he’s eating, eyes half closed in bliss, tongue darting out to lick a dab of ketchup from the corner of his mouth. When he catches Sam staring, the smile he sends back is almost innocent, none of the demon’s usual sarcasm tugging up one side and making it cruel. He looks like a little boy, like the twelve year old who sat across from Sam and Dad in every diner across America and poked Sam in the side until he gave the waitress puppy eyes and scored them extra cherry pie.
“Good?” Sam asks one night in Ohio, watching the demon inhale a slice of blueberry with a mountain of vanilla ice cream melting on top.
The demon raises his eyebrows and grunts around his mouthful of pie.
“I guess that means yes,” Sam answers for him, can’t help smiling at how much the demon’s got in his mouth. His lips are stained purple, and there’s ice cream white and sticky on his chin.
The demon swallows, swipes his tongue over the crumbs sticking to his bottom lip, and Sam’s still staring.
He cocks his head, looks at Sam’s mouth, then slides the plate across the table.
It’s stupid how much Sam enjoys that piece of pie.
* * *
They cross the Delaware River into Pennsylvania the next day, only hours from their destination. Sam let the demon fuck him the night before, and now he can’t sit still, shifting uncomfortably against the seat. His ass hurts, and there are bruises on his hips, scratches on his back, bite marks on his shoulders where the demon claimed him. For all the similarities that remain, the demon isn’t Dean. When he’s aroused, the demon’s more feral than any other time, and sometimes Sam longs for Dean’s tenderness, the gentle kisses to the nape of his neck that he remembers from before, Dean nosing his long hair aside to press his soft mouth to Sam’s skin. Sam’s got fingerprints all over, yet felt so much more owned before, from Dean’s gentle hands.
“Do you even remember them?” he asks, trying to distract himself from missing his brother’s lovemaking.
The demon shrugs noncommittally, and somehow that’s worse than saying no. That he just doesn’t give a damn – about his own children – makes Sam itch to punch him, knock that expressionless look right off his face, make him feel something.
“He remembers,” Ruby says from the back seat. “Tips of his ears are red.”
She’s right. Sam turns to inspect the blush coloring not only his ears but flushing his cheeks pink, and the demon snarls and turns his head toward the window.
* * *
It’s late when they park at the end of the paved road. From there, there’s just a dirt and gravel path, winding down the hill and into a thick stand of evergreens and a few maple trees just beginning to show fall colors in the crisp September chill. Sam can’t see the houses from here, but he can smell the smoke from seasoned logs in a fireplace that means people. Family. His heart’s pounding so fast he’s afraid he’ll faint before he gets to see them. A year, it’s been over a year, and god, Sam has missed them. He wants to run down the hill, throw the doors open, pull his children and grandchildren into his arms, tell them he’s sorry. He can barely bring himself to pause and wait for the others when Ruby lays a hand on his arm.
“Stay here, let me go down and talk to Johnny,” His whole body wants to go, now, go, but Sam nods, knows she’s right.
“You sure about this, Sam?” Ruby asks for the hundredth time.
Hell no, he’s not sure about this at all. Their kids endured his death, Dean’s madness, too much loss. How will they handle Sam coming back – let alone coming back looking younger than his own children? Ruby says Johnny warned the demon never to return, swore he’d never let him near their family again. If Johnny was that frightened, is Sam just being stupid bringing the demon here? Is he putting them all at risk? He looks back over his shoulder at the demon, leaning against the car and staring at the smoke curling over the trees from the bottom of the hill.
“No, not sure,” he answers finally.
Ruby scoffs. “At least that’s honest,” she says, and starts down the path.
It’s over an hour before the demon stiffens and turns his head towards the trees, scenting the wind with flared nostrils. His fists clench at his sides and a soft growl rumbles deep in his chest, and Sam can sense his tension, feel the storm of emotion underneath the surface. He’s just not sure what it is, prays it isn’t rage at the man – their son – who doused him with holy water, tied him up and abandoned him in a warehouse.
Sam’s heart stutters at the first sound of footsteps coming up the hill, longing washing over him.
Johnny trails Ruby by a few feet, shotgun raised and ready, trained on Sam dead center over his heart. The trigger’s cocked, and the look on Johnny’s face says he doesn’t believe what his mother’s told him.
“Who are you?” he demands, and the familiar sound of his voice almost knocks Sam’s feet out from under him. He’s gone a little gray at the temples in the year and a half Sam’s been gone, flecks in his beard and strands of his hair, but his eyes are as green as ever. Dean’s eyes. Johnny looks like Dean would have, if he’d lived to grow up, to grow older.
“Johnny,” Sam chokes out, emotion tightening his throat painfully and tears already stinging his eyes. “It’s me, son. It’s me.”
He pulls up his shirt to expose the tattoo on his hip, the one the children have always known.
“It’s Sam,” Ruby says, “I told you -- the spell, it didn’t work like we thought it would, but it worked. It took me this long to find him. He’s not a demon, Johnny.”
Johnny’s eyes go wide. “Dad?”
“Yeah,” Sam answers, relief and joy flooding him as he sees the awe in his son’s eyes. Johnny slowly lowers his gun, and Sam steps forward.
Instead of Johnny’s open arms, he gets a sideswipe of barrel to the ribs when Johnny jerks the rifle back into position, aiming suddenly over Sam’s shoulder.
“What the fuck? You brought – you brought him here?”
All the warmth that was in his son’s face a moment ago is gone, replaced by the cold steel gaze of a hunter with a monster in his sights. Johnny’s gun is pointed squarely at the demon, his finger twitching on the trigger. It’s a salt gun, of course it is. It was never loaded for Sam.
“Johnny,” Sam begins, but before he can plead the demon’s case another hunter steps out of the woods, matching rifle raised and ready.
“Dammit Sammi, I told you to stay at the house,” Johnny curses.
Sammi. Blonde haired and beautiful and feisty as ever. Sammi who has her big brother’s back the same way Sam has always had Dean’s. Sam can feel the tears overflow, too much emotion at the sight of both his children alive and well and so damn angry.
“Dad,” she murmurs, her eyes as wet as Sam’s, but she doesn’t take her gun off the demon. “You can come down, but not him. Not ever.”
“Sammi, he’s not – he’s not himself still, but he’s – he’s better, I can –
“No!” Johnny’s voice booms in the stillness of the clearing, a man’s voice, deep and strong and brooking no argument. “Not him.”
He keeps his gun on the demon, but turns to look Sam in the eye, and his words are measured, cold.
“The baby had a broken leg and a concussion when she hit the floor. When the sofa she was on was torn to pieces.”
Sam’s stomach turns over, bile rising so quickly he chokes on it, clutches his belly as his knees go weak.
“Her leg,” Johnny repeats, and he’s pleading with Sam as much as insisting. “Could have been her neck.”
Behind him, Sam can hear the demon make a sound for the first time, a strangled groan that quickly morphs into a growl. Then the crackle of leaves under receding footsteps, tandem shotguns trained on his back until he disappears into the next stand of evergreens on the other side of the clearing.
“Come stay with us,” Sammi says, and her blue eyes glisten. “We – I miss you, Dad.”
He does step forward then, pulls his grown up little girl in for a hug, the feel of her long hair under his chin and the scent of her shampoo making him long for homemade apple pies and blueberry pancakes and bacon on chilly autumn mornings. For home.
Johnny takes her place when she lets go, strength in his arms when he hugs his father. Sam knows without looking that one of them covers the other with the salt gun each time, not taking a chance. It breaks his heart to know it.
He steps back to look at his strong, handsome son. His brave, beautiful daughter.
“I can’t,” he says, and doesn’t care that his face is wet or his voice is shaking. “I can’t leave him.”
“Stupid bastard,” Ruby says, but neither of Sam’s children seem surprised.
“Will you call?” Sammi asks, and she looks like she might cry too.
Sam nods, promises, tries to smile. “You don’t have to worry, he won’t be back. I’ll stay with him, make sure of it.”
“Yeah Dad,” Johnny nods, “We know you will.”
Sam's heart aches to go with them when the kids head back down the path, back towards home. Sammi turns around when they reach the first of the taller trees, fixes Sam with the smile he remembers, the one that always turned him to putty in her hands. “Hey Dad,” she yells, voice carrying on the wind. “You look good.”
It’s a pretty damn small consolation.
* * *
The demon’s not at the car when Sam gets back, and the panic that washes over him is humiliating in the directions it takes him. Did he leave for good? Did he double back to the kids to take some kind of revenge? Sam hates himself for even thinking it, but the images Johnny painted of the baby broken with the sofa won’t leave him. After ten minutes of pacing and cursing, Sam opens the trunk and reaches for his own salt gun.
“Fuck it,” he spits, rage and panic warring and adrenaline coming on so strong he’s shaking with it. These are his kids, his family. Dean’s family.
The demon’s hand comes down on the gun so hard he knocks it out of Sam’s hand, sends it clattering back into the open trunk.
“You goddamn fucking bastard,” Sam starts, fists flying quickly enough to catch the demon with a right hook before he can gather his wits to defend himself. Two more punches graze his chin and shoulder before the demon gets his hands around Sam’s wrists and holds him still, Sam still struggling and cursing, trying to kick the demon in the shins instead.
Black eyes bore into Sam’s, just inches away as Sam stands helpless in his grip. Even without words, the demand there is clear. Were you gonna shoot me?
Sam stops his fruitless struggling, open mouthed and dumbfounded and still mad as hell. “Was I gonna shoot you, is that what you’re wondering? If I had to – to protect them? Yeah. Yeah, I would’ve.”
It’s the truth.
For a moment, Sam thinks the demon’s gonna kill him. Again. Then his grip on Sam’s wrists loosens, and he backs up a step, some of the tension bleeding out of him. Black eyes holding Sam’s, he backs up further and holds his hands out as if to say well, go ahead.
Fucking idiot. Sam shakes his head and slams the trunk. “I said only if I had to. Now get in the goddamn car.”
The demon is unnaturally still as they drive across the border into Virginia. Ruby’s staying with their family for a while, trying to ease the shock of Sam being alive but 25 and the demon being alive but still not Dean, and the silence hangs between the two of them without the buffer of her constant criticism.
“’s not like my salt gun would’ve killed you,” Sam finally grumbles.
The demon hrmphs in answer, still staring out the window.
When they stop for the night at the Piney Inn Motel, Sam gets a room with two queens out of habit, and the demon crawls into the other bed with his jeans still on without looking at Sam. It’s the first time Sam’s slept alone since he’s been back, and the chill on the inside is worse than the temperature in the drafty room.
“I know you can talk,” Sam says across the three feet gaping between the beds. “Is it just to punish me that you won’t?”
To his embarrassment, his voice breaks on the last word. But fuck it, who wouldn’t be close to tears? He’s given up everyone else to be with someone who won’t even speak to him. Sam puts his back to the other bed and tries to fall asleep with the rattling of the motel’s ancient radiator the only sound breaking the silence.
* * *
The demon lasts three days before he crawls back into Sam’s bed, which is miraculous considering his usual level of salacious behavior. Three days of Sam being equally quiet, of unspoken anger simmering between them as the tires eat up the highway from motel to grungy motel. It feels like it did a lifetime ago, when Dean came back the first time and there was still as much hate between them as love. When neither of them knew what to say and their shuttered glances were as much about mistrust as desire. Sam’s determined not to break first. Three long sleepless nights of Sam lying awake with his brain in overdrive, which is plenty of time for Sam to come up with a plan.
The mattress sags and squeaks at 3 am on Tuesday, and Sam feels the chill of the covers lifting, then the warmth of the demon’s body inching closer to his. He can’t resist a small smirk, even though the demon can’t see it in the dark. He was pretty sure there was no way the demon’s libido would make it through another long night. And pretty sure that the demon has no idea what’s coming.
Chapter Six
