Justine Delarge (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justinedelarge) wrote2013-10-02 05:37 pm
justinedelarge) wrote2013-10-02 05:37 pm
Entry tags:
Sure Got a Dirty Mouth Chapter 80: Truth or Dare
Title: Sure Got a Dirty Mouth Chapter 80: Truth or Dare
Author:
justinedelarge
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warning: Wincest
Spoilers: Seasons 1-5
Word Count:4448
Disclaimer: I don't own what I don't own. But I do own what I do own, such as my original characters and my plot.
Summary: Dean rushes in to save Sam. Things don’t go completely as expected. Secrets are revealed.
Author:
justinedelargeFandom: Supernatural
Pairing: Sam/Dean
Rating: R
Warning: Wincest
Spoilers: Seasons 1-5
Word Count:4448
Disclaimer: I don't own what I don't own. But I do own what I do own, such as my original characters and my plot.
Summary: Dean rushes in to save Sam. Things don’t go completely as expected. Secrets are revealed.
Trigger warning: Sexual stuff of a disturbing nature. If this seems like something you might need to know more about before reading, please send me a private message and I’ll give you more detail.
Master post of all chapters hereDean held the flat of the blade to his lips, murmuring things only he could hear, letting it guide him to where Sam had gone. The white van, one of Danny’s utility vehicles bearing the name and logo of a sewer company, pulled up across the street from a blue and white house. Dean pointed his left hand toward the front door, knife still pressed to his lips.
“There?”
He nodded, a determined expression on his face, and sheathed the knife.
Bobby bent over and undid the lace of his left boot. He handed it to Dean.
“What’s this for?”
“I get the feeling there’s gonna be some ass kicking going down. Tether your damn knife to your wrist so you don’t lose it when some black-eyed bastard kicks you in the teeth.”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “That’s smart.” Dean let Juliane tie one end of the shoelace around his wrist, and he tightly knotted the other end through the open circle at the end of the knife handle.
Juliane fiddled with one of the artichoke-shaped devices on her belt. Dean looked at her quizzically. “Salt grenade.”
“Those’ll come in handy.” Dean thought quickly, revising his mental plan, and laid out his general strategy to the others, and how he would signal them once they made it inside and scoped out the house. They got out of the van and walked toward the side of the house, with Bobby in the lead.
Dean hung back and tapped Danny’s shoulder. Danny turned and stopped.
“Hey man. I gotta ask. You got my back?” Dean’s body language was wary.
Danny frowned. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Dean looked down at the concrete sidewalk quickly, then back up at Danny, a question in his eyes.
Danny rubbed his hand over his forehead. He didn’t speak for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “I have two little brothers.”
Dean exhaled, a jet of white smoke in the cold air, and raised his head, fully expecting a fist on his jaw. Accepting it.
Danny wiped his hand over his mouth. “Look, we’ll talk later, ok?” Danny glanced toward the house. “After we get you Sam back.” He paused, then clapped his hand on Dean’s shoulder, quick, barely making contact, but connecting nonetheless.
Dean swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“Come on. Time to hit it.” Danny pulled a throwing knife out of his customized bandolier, with knives alternating with salt rounds.
They joined the others, moving quietly onto the front porch and crouched down, hidden from view by the plants and shrubs. Bobby crutched his way to the door, and rang the doorbell. A demon opened it.
“Avon calling,” Bobby said, and leaned to the side. Behind him, Danny flung a throwing knife straight into his throat. The devil’s trap etched into the blade penetrated his flesh and he dropped, unable to escape his vessel.
John and Danny pulled the demon onto the porch, hidden from view by anyone looking at the front of the house by the potted plants. Dean quickly knelt and drew the sharp edge of his blade lightly over the demon’s cheek. Just a scratch, but it was enough. The demon’s face froze in a rictus of repulsion and agony. Danny pulled his knife out, freeing the demon from the trap. Immediately, black smoke poured out of the demon’s mouth and seethed upward into the black sky.
John shook his head in disbelief. “Hell of a weapon you got there, Dean.”
Dean gripped the knife tighter and shot his father a look like he didn’t understand half of what he was talking about.
John didn’t even recognize the little boy he had taught how to ride a bike without training wheels. All that was left was the man he had become. The warrior.
Dean gestured with his hands, indicating how he wanted everyone to move.
Bobby slipped inside and took up position in the corner, camouflaged by a luxurious potted fern. Juliane ran lightly down the hallway, and peeked into the living room. She shook her head at Dean, letting him know Sam wasn’t in that room. Dean chopped his hand forward, signaling her to proceed. She pulled the pin on a salt grenade, and sent it rolling softly across the thick living room rug. Dean held his left hand up, fingers curled into a fist, signaling everyone to hold. A few seconds later came a soft bang, surprisingly quiet. Dean paused, then pulled his arm down in a short movement, dropping his fist, signaling everyone to move out.
John and Reggie went in first, carrying shotguns loaded with salt rounds. Next, Dean entered, knife in hand, with Danny and Juliane flanking him.
The stereo streamed soft jazz. The demons were sprawled on the floor, writhing. Some of them had taken enough of a blast of salt that it drove the demon from its human host, the last tendrils of black smoke streaming from their mouths. The six that remained in possession of their vessels were unable to move, immobilized in the salt spray. John and Reggie knelt and recited the exorcism in unison, loud enough for the demons to hear but not so loud anyone outside the room could make out their voices.
The naked woman was crouched on the floor, her back raw and bleeding, peppered with salt grains, softly weeping in pain. Juliane pulled a throw off the couch and tossed it to her. “Hide,” she whispered. She pointed toward a closet. The woman wrapped the throw around her, wincing as the material touched her bleeding back, crawled into the closet and pulled the door shut behind her.
Danny checked the pulse of the man staked out on top of the pool table. Juliane raised her eyebrows. Danny shook his head.
Dean’s eyes searched the room. No Azazel. No Sam. He gestured with two fingers toward the hallway, indicating with hand signals who should move where and in what order. This time, he went first. John and Reggie flanked him, fanning out to either side covering the left and right. Nothing. Danny and Juliane moved out. Then came a flash of movement along the side of the hallway.
A crutch sailed through the air, the rubber tip smashing into the nose of a demon in a blue evening gown emerging from the kitchen with a bottle of Champagne in her hand. She staggered back, hands rising to her face, and dropped the bottle. John caught it neatly before it smashed to the ground. She snarled, black eyes promising a multitude of unpleasant things and lunged at them.
Juliane pulled her strange gun with the metal reservoir from her belt and squeezed the trigger. A stream of water squirted into the demon’s mouth, into her throat. She sputtered, clutching at her neck, and dropped to her knees. Black smoke rose from her mouth and disappeared, the body from which it had fled collapsing over the arm of a love seat, hands hanging limp on the bamboo floor, hips in the air, red-soled stiletto heels dangling from her toes.
“Holy water squirt gun?” Reggie mouthed in disbelief.
Danny read his lips and grinned. He pointed to Dean and whispered, “That one was their idea.” Dean frowned, barely able to concentrate on anything other than the mantra rattling through him of Sam Sam Sam, but then he remembered. Christmas. The plastic squirt gun Juliane gave them, and both of them simultaneously thinking about filling it with holy water. Sam.
Dean went into the kitchen, and emerged quickly, giving a thumbs up for all clear. They fanned out and searched the other rooms. All empty.
Dean stood at the base of the grand staircase and gazed upward. A stream of light came from an open door on the second floor, from a room lined with books. Sam.
A soft shuffle behind them. From a door leading into the basement of the house poured a stream of demons. They circled around the group of hunters. John aimed his shotgun, but with a wave of a hand it went flying. Reggie was similarly disarmed. Danny’s bandolier and Juliane’s belt, bristling with ranged weapons, were removed as well, skidding across the floor to the demons’ feet. They moved closer, out of range of any handheld weapon, but close enough to encircle them completely. The three black-eyed teenagers in tight jeans and t-shirts made a point of standing directly across from Dean, eyeing him like a Texas boy eyes a mesquite-grilled rib eye.
The hunters formed a tight circle, back to back.
“Ideas?” John asked?
Dean gauged the distance between them and the demons. “You just gonna stand there like pussies or are you gonna dance?”
The demons hissed and took a step closer. “Down!” Dean bellowed. Everyone dropped into a crouch. Dean flung his knife out in an arc, whipping his arm around hard and spinning in place, sending his knife whirling in a circle on the end of the shoelace tether. The knife blade slashed the faces of the three demon teens, one after the other, then into each demon in turn. The knife didn’t cut deeply. It didn’t have to. Just a nick was enough. One by one, the demons encircling them fell, howling, smoke pouring from their mouths.
Dean pulled the shoelace back, tucked it up his sleeve again, and gripped his knife handle tight. A tingle ran through his hand, coming from the knife. He turned on his heels and looked up. The sound of boots rang down the corridor. Azazel appeared at the top of the stairs, and immediately locked eyes with John. John lunged for Azazel, but Reggie and Bobbie held him back.
Sam ran down the hall to the top of the stairs, skidding to a stop as he caught sight of Dean. Dean’s face twisted, love and relief warring with anger and betrayal that dissolved as soon as he saw the tears roll down Sam’s face at the sight of him.
“Dean!”
“Sam?”
Sam ran past Azazel, who was now surveying the remains of his dinner party, utterly unconcerned with Sam’s actions. Sam raced down the staircase as Dean ran up, intent on tearing him from Azazel’s clutches. They met in the middle. Dean wrapped Sam in his arms with a sob, his right hand fisted on Sam’s back, still clutching his knife, his left hand pressed flat on the back of Sam’s neck.
Their knives sang to each other.
Dean’s shoulders heaved. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Sammy. Don’t you leave me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his face contorting.
Sam held Dean as tight as he could, as though his life depended on it, feeling the strength of Dean’s body, the fragility of it. “I won’t. I swear.” Sam breathed in the scent of Dean, impossible to describe, just the scent of him that Sam knew better than his own. Immediately, a surge of strength roared through him, strength that had been slowly leaching out of him every moment he was apart from Dean. He hadn’t realized how much weaker, how much less himself he was without Dean until that very moment. “I won’t leave you.”
Dean ran his fingers through Sam’s hair, his fingers twitching as he touched something wet. Sam’s blood. He pulled back, face gone terribly still. “He hurt you, Sammy?” Dean’s voice, so low only Sam could hear, promised slow vengeance.
“I just hit my head. I’m ok.”
Dean blinked slowly, letting it go for the moment. He brought his blood-smeared hand to his mouth and before Sam could stop him, he sucked Sam’s blood off his fingers. “What happens to you happens to me.”
Sam’s face reflected a cascade of emotions as Dean took Sam’s blood inside him, shifting from fear to shame to a love so deep he forgot to breathe, as though he finally realizing what Dean had been trying to tell him. He sucked in a shuddering breath, pulled Dean into his arms, holding him tight, softly saying, “I won’t leave you again. Not ever. No matter what. You and me. Always.”
Danny watched the two of them, witnessed Dean taking Sam’s blood into him so that Sam knew he was not alone in what was done to him. He saw Sam’s mouth move, read his lips, interpreted exactly what Sam was whispering to Dean. He dropped his head, full understanding finally moving through him. Then he nodded. Juliane squeezed his hand. “Sorry. Took me a moment to get it,” he whispered.
Sam opened his eyes and saw the assembled group below. Bobby and Reggie, Danny and Juliane, and John. He went pale at the sight of John standing right next to Danny and Juliane. His eyes searched Dean’s face.
Dean shook his head, a tiny movement. He doesn’t know.
Sam looked at Juliane and Danny, then back at Dean.
A tiny nod. They know.
Sam’s eyebrows came together, his mouth quivering. His mouth opened as if to ask, Do they hate us? Dean stroked Sam’s shoulder, reassuring him. No, sweetheart.
Sam sought out Juliane with his eyes. She looked from him to Dean and back again, and smiled, a huge, gorgeous, accepting smile, telling Sam without words that it was ok. Sam turned his attention to Danny. He gave Sam a nod. Sam closed his eyes as relief, cool and sweet, washed over him.
“You’ve spoiled my party.” Azazel walked slowly down the stairs, eyes on the prone bodies of his former guests. He paused next to Dean.
Sam put his body between him and Dean. “Don’t so much as breathe on him.”
“I’ll let you keep your pet, Samuel.” He glared at Dean. “But your guests spoiled all my fun.” Azazel walked to the landing, and poked one of the bodies with his toe. The man, free of its demon parasite, moaned but did not regain consciousness. “We’re going to have to play a new game now to amuse me. Maybe some Truth or Dare.”
He waved his hand, and everyone except for Sam and Dean were frozen in place. He walked slowly to face John.
“They’re mine. All of them.” Sam called down to him.
“You claim them, Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Even this one?” He stood in front of Juliane. “Such a shame. You’d be so beautiful if it weren’t for those scars.” He winked at Danny. “So tragic when a pretty girl is all… disfigured like that.” Juliane flinched, and Danny’s hands curled into fists, helplessly, at his sides.
Azazel cocked his head. “You get…Dare. Come on over to my side, I’ll make all those ugly scars go away.” His lips curled back, baring his yellow teeth. “I’ll make you whole.”
“Bite me,” Juliane retorted.
He lunged at her, bringing his teeth to her throat. She shrieked, trying to get away, unable to move. He lingered there, not biting, just breathing in, shuddering with pleasure. “Your fear. It’s delicious.” He grinned. “I see why they took their time with you.” She turned her face away, unable to bear the avid gleam in his eyes. His eyes moved over her scars. “I meant it. I’ll make them go away.” He placed his hands on the top of her head. The air around her got hot, then plummeted in temperature. He stepped back, and with a flick of his finger, she was no longer held in place. “Take a look.”
She held her hands up and looked at her arms. They were completely smooth, skin perfect and unmarked. A sob burst from her. She crossed her arms in front of her and stroked her skin from shoulders to wrists.
Azazel moved behind her and murmured honeyed poison in her ear. “All those scars gone. Every one of them. You’re beautiful again. Perfect again. Flawless. And you can stay that way. He brought his mouth right next to her ear, so with every word, his mouth brushed her earlobe. “Just. Say. Yes.” Her eyelids fluttered, her hands moving ceaselessly over her smooth, unscarred skin. His mouth stopped moving but his voice still sounded in her head. Her eyes closed. Say yes. I know you want to. What do you owe these humans? All your friends abandoned you. Couldn’t stand the sight of you, cut to ribbons. They stared at you, thinking it. Freak. Monster. They left you all alone to mourn him, all alone in your pain. Join me and you’ll never feel alone again. Join me and walk in the sun again. No fear. Nothing will be able to hurt you, ever again. Join me. Join us. Be part of us. All of those friends, and where were they? How many of them came for you?
“Just one.” She opened her eyes, and looked right at Danny. “Just the one.” Tears ran down her face, but her smile was blissful.
Danny’s smile crinkled the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “You were perfect already.”
Juliane turned to face the demon. “The answer’s no.”
“You’re sure.” He smirked. “Going once, going twice…”
She stopped touching her skin and dropped her hands to her sides, palms extended outward in a gesture of defiance.
His nostrils flared. “Gone.” He seized her by the throat. She shuddered as her skin parted, invisible knives gouging the flesh, collagen raveling the bloodless cuts together until she was laced with scars just as she had been before. Azazel locked her in place, and turned away. Her head fell forward as she tried to camouflage her face with her hair, so the others could not see her cry.
“So, Sam. You get…Truth. How do you see this ending?” Azazel pulled the bottle of Champagne out of John’s hand and took a swig.
“What?”
“You picture all of you just strolling out of here?”
Sam swallowed hard. “Yes. Actually.”
“Not gonna happen. See, like I said, we’ve had to move up our timetable, and we’re gonna need to you, uh, get ready quicker. So we have to jumpstart the process. And that means…” Azazel spun on his heels. “Someone in this room is gonna die tonight.”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “No!”
“Yes,” Azazel hissed. “See, you love all these sorry sacks of meat. To one degree or another. And watching one of them die is gonna teach you how to hate. It’s gonna just get my blood blazing in you. Light the furnace. Get your powers really going.” He looked up at Dean. “The best one would be old Deano there. Make him burn just like his momma.”
Sam extended his hand, his beautiful features twisting. Azazel flew backward fifteen feet and landed on his tailbone on the hard bamboo floor. Instead of getting angry, he threw his head back and laughed. “Fucking adorable. I’m telling you.” He rose to his feet and walked back to where he was standing before. “Oh, I really should kill Dean. Look how riled up even the thought of it gets you. Look what it made you be able to do. I should have let them beat him to death in that alley.”
Sam’s expression darkened, his breath coming in snorts as his rage built.
“You touch one hair on his head, I’ll kill you.” John wrestled to get free of the invisible hold Azazel had on him.
“Love to see you try.” Azazel winked at him. “I killed you once before, Johnny boy. I can do it again.” He walked toward John until he was nose to nose with him. “My turn. And I pick…Truth.” He grinned. “Fifteen years, you’ve been looking for me. Plotting my bloody demise. Avenging your precious wife. Sacrificing your life and everything in it for the single purpose of finding me and killing me.” He breathed in and out. “And here you are. And you FAILED.”
John flinched. Then he stretched his neck forward as far as he was able, hate in his eyes. “Touch my sons and I’ll kill you, I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Gotta tell you, Johnny boy, this paternal instinct? Too little, too late. News flash–you’re not gonna win any father of the year awards. Left your precious boys all alone, again and again. Didn’t leave them enough food or money half the time. Cold and hungry, right, boys?” He looked over his shoulder at Sam and Dean. They couldn’t meet their father’s eyes.
John protested, “No, I always left them enough, they never said–“ He stopped and looked at Dean, really looked at him. He shook his head as the realization washed over him. “They did. You did say.” Dad, you gotta leave more money, that’s not enough. That’s all there is, Dean. Make it stretch. Make it work. “But I didn’t listen.”
“You wouldn’t believe what they had to do to make it work while Daddy was off doing… more important things.” The muscles in Dean’s jaw twitched. “Would he, Dean?”
Dean shook his head no. Please no.
“The stealing. The cheating at cards.”
Dean’s head kept moving. No no no…
“The truck stops.”
Dean’s face pleaded with him to stop. Knowing he would never stop.
“Dean?” Sam asked, worry making his voice quaver.
“Such a pretty boy, young Dean. So, so pretty. Really drew out the chicken hawks, didn’t you, boy? Poor little Sammy back home, so hungry, no cash left in the coffee can, weeks to go before Papa came home, and those men, with fists full of money, just wanting a little taste. Willing to pay just to eat you up.”
Dean’s face froze. He stared at the floor, unable to look anyone in the eye.
“Dean.” John’s voice carried that paternal command tone that Dean was helpless to disobey, even now. He looked up at his father, tears streaking his face. John broke down at what he read on his son’s face.
Azazel breathed in, drinking down the pain his words had sparked. “Still with your morals, though. Only letting them suck you off. ‘I don’t touch you. You don’t get to do anything else to me.’” Azazel’s voice was a perfect imitation of Dean. “So sweet, though. Your little dick.” Azazel’s voice changed again, took on an East Coast accent. “Oh yeah. Yeah, buddy.”
Dean’s eyes went wide in horror. The trucker in the puffy blue coat. The one who smelled like cheap wine. Who paid him enough to keep them fed and the heat on until Dad finally came home a month later. The one who took his time, on his knees, sucking Dean off while Dean kept his eyes squinted shut, praying it would be over soon. The one who kept moaning yeah, buddy. Oh yeah, buddy boy. He took a step back, then another. “No. No.”
Azazel smacked his lips. “I can still remember how sweet you taste, buddy boy.”
Sam’s pupils were blown so wide, they looked black. He fixed Azazel with a look that promised–guaranteed–death. Dean staggered back, would have fallen if not for Sam holding him up.
“You did that to him, Johnny boy. You reduced your son to that. Because you couldn’t do your job.” Azazel drank down the agony pouring off John in waves, squirmed and sighed with the dark pleasure of it.
Azazel blinked quickly, like a lizard, as a thought came to him. A huge, oily grin spread over his face.
“And the thing that really eats at you, Dean? It’s not that you let them do it to you. It’s that you kind of liked it.”
Dean kept shaking his head no, over and over, averting his gaze. He dropped to his knees, Sam guiding him down, kneeling with him.
Tears wetted Sam’s cheeks, hair in his eyes, his face anguished at what Dean had done for them. For him. “It’s ok, Dean. It’s ok. It’s alright.” Dean gripped Sam’s arm hard, but still would not look at him. “You were just doing what you had to, Dean. It’s ok.”
John’s face was grey, guilt and grief staining his features. Bobby hung his head, tears running into his beard. Reggie’s face was rigid with rage.
“Yeah, you liked it, buddy boy.” Azazel took a few steps back, so he could see John’s face as well as Sam and Dean’s. “But you like it so much better when it’s Sammy’s mouth. Don’t you.”
Complete, breathless silence.
Silence that stretched out, interminable.
Silence finally shattered by John’s laugh. “Nice try.”
“Those pretty hazel eyes looking up at you? That pretty little mouth sucking your dick? Taking it so good for his big brother. Don’t you, Sammy?”
Sam’s eyes were huge, horrified.
John gazed into the face of his youngest son. Of his first-born son. His gaze moved over them, saw the ring on Sam’s finger. Identical to Dean’s ring. He started to tremble. “You’re a liar.”
“Ever wonder what they were up to, in all those single beds? All those nights you left them all alone? Mommy dead, daddy god knows where, no friends because you moved them around so much, and the two of them so close, closer than normal brothers were…” Azazel cocked his head like a curious raven. “You didn’t you ever ask yourself, John, what they were up to?” Azazel’s eyes burned yellow.
“You’re a demon, you’re a fucking demon, you’re a fucking LIAR!” John screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth.
“Yeah. We lie. But the thing here, Johnny boy, the delicious thing here, is that I don’t have to lie.”
He turned his attention back to Dean.“Nobody’s mouth feels as good on your dick than Sam’s. And nothing tastes as good as his dick in your mouth. But even better than all of that is how good it feels to fuck him. Right, Dean? How good it feels to fuck your little brother, make him squirm on your dick, make him come screaming for you.” Azazel took another swig of Champagne. “And you do, don’t you, Sam. You’re a screamer.”
John’s face changed, all the color draining from it. He looked at Bobby, eyes pleading with him that it wasn’t true. At Reggie. Silently begging them to tell him it wasn’t true. That what he’d heard that first night in the Sanctuary wasn’t actually his sons. Together.
“It’s not like that!” Sam yelled, protecting Dean with his entire body. “It’s not…sick like that! We love each other!” His voice reverberated through the room. Sam and Dean clung to each other, defiant, terrified.
The only noise was the choked sound of John trying to breathe.
Azazel sank to his knees and stretched his arms out, chest lifted, blissfully absorbing the agony skittering through the room from seven anguished souls.
“There?”
He nodded, a determined expression on his face, and sheathed the knife.
Bobby bent over and undid the lace of his left boot. He handed it to Dean.
“What’s this for?”
“I get the feeling there’s gonna be some ass kicking going down. Tether your damn knife to your wrist so you don’t lose it when some black-eyed bastard kicks you in the teeth.”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “That’s smart.” Dean let Juliane tie one end of the shoelace around his wrist, and he tightly knotted the other end through the open circle at the end of the knife handle.
Juliane fiddled with one of the artichoke-shaped devices on her belt. Dean looked at her quizzically. “Salt grenade.”
“Those’ll come in handy.” Dean thought quickly, revising his mental plan, and laid out his general strategy to the others, and how he would signal them once they made it inside and scoped out the house. They got out of the van and walked toward the side of the house, with Bobby in the lead.
Dean hung back and tapped Danny’s shoulder. Danny turned and stopped.
“Hey man. I gotta ask. You got my back?” Dean’s body language was wary.
Danny frowned. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Dean looked down at the concrete sidewalk quickly, then back up at Danny, a question in his eyes.
Danny rubbed his hand over his forehead. He didn’t speak for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “I have two little brothers.”
Dean exhaled, a jet of white smoke in the cold air, and raised his head, fully expecting a fist on his jaw. Accepting it.
Danny wiped his hand over his mouth. “Look, we’ll talk later, ok?” Danny glanced toward the house. “After we get you Sam back.” He paused, then clapped his hand on Dean’s shoulder, quick, barely making contact, but connecting nonetheless.
Dean swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“Come on. Time to hit it.” Danny pulled a throwing knife out of his customized bandolier, with knives alternating with salt rounds.
They joined the others, moving quietly onto the front porch and crouched down, hidden from view by the plants and shrubs. Bobby crutched his way to the door, and rang the doorbell. A demon opened it.
“Avon calling,” Bobby said, and leaned to the side. Behind him, Danny flung a throwing knife straight into his throat. The devil’s trap etched into the blade penetrated his flesh and he dropped, unable to escape his vessel.
John and Danny pulled the demon onto the porch, hidden from view by anyone looking at the front of the house by the potted plants. Dean quickly knelt and drew the sharp edge of his blade lightly over the demon’s cheek. Just a scratch, but it was enough. The demon’s face froze in a rictus of repulsion and agony. Danny pulled his knife out, freeing the demon from the trap. Immediately, black smoke poured out of the demon’s mouth and seethed upward into the black sky.
John shook his head in disbelief. “Hell of a weapon you got there, Dean.”
Dean gripped the knife tighter and shot his father a look like he didn’t understand half of what he was talking about.
John didn’t even recognize the little boy he had taught how to ride a bike without training wheels. All that was left was the man he had become. The warrior.
Dean gestured with his hands, indicating how he wanted everyone to move.
Bobby slipped inside and took up position in the corner, camouflaged by a luxurious potted fern. Juliane ran lightly down the hallway, and peeked into the living room. She shook her head at Dean, letting him know Sam wasn’t in that room. Dean chopped his hand forward, signaling her to proceed. She pulled the pin on a salt grenade, and sent it rolling softly across the thick living room rug. Dean held his left hand up, fingers curled into a fist, signaling everyone to hold. A few seconds later came a soft bang, surprisingly quiet. Dean paused, then pulled his arm down in a short movement, dropping his fist, signaling everyone to move out.
John and Reggie went in first, carrying shotguns loaded with salt rounds. Next, Dean entered, knife in hand, with Danny and Juliane flanking him.
The stereo streamed soft jazz. The demons were sprawled on the floor, writhing. Some of them had taken enough of a blast of salt that it drove the demon from its human host, the last tendrils of black smoke streaming from their mouths. The six that remained in possession of their vessels were unable to move, immobilized in the salt spray. John and Reggie knelt and recited the exorcism in unison, loud enough for the demons to hear but not so loud anyone outside the room could make out their voices.
The naked woman was crouched on the floor, her back raw and bleeding, peppered with salt grains, softly weeping in pain. Juliane pulled a throw off the couch and tossed it to her. “Hide,” she whispered. She pointed toward a closet. The woman wrapped the throw around her, wincing as the material touched her bleeding back, crawled into the closet and pulled the door shut behind her.
Danny checked the pulse of the man staked out on top of the pool table. Juliane raised her eyebrows. Danny shook his head.
Dean’s eyes searched the room. No Azazel. No Sam. He gestured with two fingers toward the hallway, indicating with hand signals who should move where and in what order. This time, he went first. John and Reggie flanked him, fanning out to either side covering the left and right. Nothing. Danny and Juliane moved out. Then came a flash of movement along the side of the hallway.
A crutch sailed through the air, the rubber tip smashing into the nose of a demon in a blue evening gown emerging from the kitchen with a bottle of Champagne in her hand. She staggered back, hands rising to her face, and dropped the bottle. John caught it neatly before it smashed to the ground. She snarled, black eyes promising a multitude of unpleasant things and lunged at them.
Juliane pulled her strange gun with the metal reservoir from her belt and squeezed the trigger. A stream of water squirted into the demon’s mouth, into her throat. She sputtered, clutching at her neck, and dropped to her knees. Black smoke rose from her mouth and disappeared, the body from which it had fled collapsing over the arm of a love seat, hands hanging limp on the bamboo floor, hips in the air, red-soled stiletto heels dangling from her toes.
“Holy water squirt gun?” Reggie mouthed in disbelief.
Danny read his lips and grinned. He pointed to Dean and whispered, “That one was their idea.” Dean frowned, barely able to concentrate on anything other than the mantra rattling through him of Sam Sam Sam, but then he remembered. Christmas. The plastic squirt gun Juliane gave them, and both of them simultaneously thinking about filling it with holy water. Sam.
Dean went into the kitchen, and emerged quickly, giving a thumbs up for all clear. They fanned out and searched the other rooms. All empty.
Dean stood at the base of the grand staircase and gazed upward. A stream of light came from an open door on the second floor, from a room lined with books. Sam.
A soft shuffle behind them. From a door leading into the basement of the house poured a stream of demons. They circled around the group of hunters. John aimed his shotgun, but with a wave of a hand it went flying. Reggie was similarly disarmed. Danny’s bandolier and Juliane’s belt, bristling with ranged weapons, were removed as well, skidding across the floor to the demons’ feet. They moved closer, out of range of any handheld weapon, but close enough to encircle them completely. The three black-eyed teenagers in tight jeans and t-shirts made a point of standing directly across from Dean, eyeing him like a Texas boy eyes a mesquite-grilled rib eye.
The hunters formed a tight circle, back to back.
“Ideas?” John asked?
Dean gauged the distance between them and the demons. “You just gonna stand there like pussies or are you gonna dance?”
The demons hissed and took a step closer. “Down!” Dean bellowed. Everyone dropped into a crouch. Dean flung his knife out in an arc, whipping his arm around hard and spinning in place, sending his knife whirling in a circle on the end of the shoelace tether. The knife blade slashed the faces of the three demon teens, one after the other, then into each demon in turn. The knife didn’t cut deeply. It didn’t have to. Just a nick was enough. One by one, the demons encircling them fell, howling, smoke pouring from their mouths.
Dean pulled the shoelace back, tucked it up his sleeve again, and gripped his knife handle tight. A tingle ran through his hand, coming from the knife. He turned on his heels and looked up. The sound of boots rang down the corridor. Azazel appeared at the top of the stairs, and immediately locked eyes with John. John lunged for Azazel, but Reggie and Bobbie held him back.
Sam ran down the hall to the top of the stairs, skidding to a stop as he caught sight of Dean. Dean’s face twisted, love and relief warring with anger and betrayal that dissolved as soon as he saw the tears roll down Sam’s face at the sight of him.
“Dean!”
“Sam?”
Sam ran past Azazel, who was now surveying the remains of his dinner party, utterly unconcerned with Sam’s actions. Sam raced down the staircase as Dean ran up, intent on tearing him from Azazel’s clutches. They met in the middle. Dean wrapped Sam in his arms with a sob, his right hand fisted on Sam’s back, still clutching his knife, his left hand pressed flat on the back of Sam’s neck.
Their knives sang to each other.
Dean’s shoulders heaved. “Don’t you ever do that to me again, Sammy. Don’t you leave me.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his face contorting.
Sam held Dean as tight as he could, as though his life depended on it, feeling the strength of Dean’s body, the fragility of it. “I won’t. I swear.” Sam breathed in the scent of Dean, impossible to describe, just the scent of him that Sam knew better than his own. Immediately, a surge of strength roared through him, strength that had been slowly leaching out of him every moment he was apart from Dean. He hadn’t realized how much weaker, how much less himself he was without Dean until that very moment. “I won’t leave you.”
Dean ran his fingers through Sam’s hair, his fingers twitching as he touched something wet. Sam’s blood. He pulled back, face gone terribly still. “He hurt you, Sammy?” Dean’s voice, so low only Sam could hear, promised slow vengeance.
“I just hit my head. I’m ok.”
Dean blinked slowly, letting it go for the moment. He brought his blood-smeared hand to his mouth and before Sam could stop him, he sucked Sam’s blood off his fingers. “What happens to you happens to me.”
Sam’s face reflected a cascade of emotions as Dean took Sam’s blood inside him, shifting from fear to shame to a love so deep he forgot to breathe, as though he finally realizing what Dean had been trying to tell him. He sucked in a shuddering breath, pulled Dean into his arms, holding him tight, softly saying, “I won’t leave you again. Not ever. No matter what. You and me. Always.”
Danny watched the two of them, witnessed Dean taking Sam’s blood into him so that Sam knew he was not alone in what was done to him. He saw Sam’s mouth move, read his lips, interpreted exactly what Sam was whispering to Dean. He dropped his head, full understanding finally moving through him. Then he nodded. Juliane squeezed his hand. “Sorry. Took me a moment to get it,” he whispered.
Sam opened his eyes and saw the assembled group below. Bobby and Reggie, Danny and Juliane, and John. He went pale at the sight of John standing right next to Danny and Juliane. His eyes searched Dean’s face.
Dean shook his head, a tiny movement. He doesn’t know.
Sam looked at Juliane and Danny, then back at Dean.
A tiny nod. They know.
Sam’s eyebrows came together, his mouth quivering. His mouth opened as if to ask, Do they hate us? Dean stroked Sam’s shoulder, reassuring him. No, sweetheart.
Sam sought out Juliane with his eyes. She looked from him to Dean and back again, and smiled, a huge, gorgeous, accepting smile, telling Sam without words that it was ok. Sam turned his attention to Danny. He gave Sam a nod. Sam closed his eyes as relief, cool and sweet, washed over him.
“You’ve spoiled my party.” Azazel walked slowly down the stairs, eyes on the prone bodies of his former guests. He paused next to Dean.
Sam put his body between him and Dean. “Don’t so much as breathe on him.”
“I’ll let you keep your pet, Samuel.” He glared at Dean. “But your guests spoiled all my fun.” Azazel walked to the landing, and poked one of the bodies with his toe. The man, free of its demon parasite, moaned but did not regain consciousness. “We’re going to have to play a new game now to amuse me. Maybe some Truth or Dare.”
He waved his hand, and everyone except for Sam and Dean were frozen in place. He walked slowly to face John.
“They’re mine. All of them.” Sam called down to him.
“You claim them, Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Even this one?” He stood in front of Juliane. “Such a shame. You’d be so beautiful if it weren’t for those scars.” He winked at Danny. “So tragic when a pretty girl is all… disfigured like that.” Juliane flinched, and Danny’s hands curled into fists, helplessly, at his sides.
Azazel cocked his head. “You get…Dare. Come on over to my side, I’ll make all those ugly scars go away.” His lips curled back, baring his yellow teeth. “I’ll make you whole.”
“Bite me,” Juliane retorted.
He lunged at her, bringing his teeth to her throat. She shrieked, trying to get away, unable to move. He lingered there, not biting, just breathing in, shuddering with pleasure. “Your fear. It’s delicious.” He grinned. “I see why they took their time with you.” She turned her face away, unable to bear the avid gleam in his eyes. His eyes moved over her scars. “I meant it. I’ll make them go away.” He placed his hands on the top of her head. The air around her got hot, then plummeted in temperature. He stepped back, and with a flick of his finger, she was no longer held in place. “Take a look.”
She held her hands up and looked at her arms. They were completely smooth, skin perfect and unmarked. A sob burst from her. She crossed her arms in front of her and stroked her skin from shoulders to wrists.
Azazel moved behind her and murmured honeyed poison in her ear. “All those scars gone. Every one of them. You’re beautiful again. Perfect again. Flawless. And you can stay that way. He brought his mouth right next to her ear, so with every word, his mouth brushed her earlobe. “Just. Say. Yes.” Her eyelids fluttered, her hands moving ceaselessly over her smooth, unscarred skin. His mouth stopped moving but his voice still sounded in her head. Her eyes closed. Say yes. I know you want to. What do you owe these humans? All your friends abandoned you. Couldn’t stand the sight of you, cut to ribbons. They stared at you, thinking it. Freak. Monster. They left you all alone to mourn him, all alone in your pain. Join me and you’ll never feel alone again. Join me and walk in the sun again. No fear. Nothing will be able to hurt you, ever again. Join me. Join us. Be part of us. All of those friends, and where were they? How many of them came for you?
“Just one.” She opened her eyes, and looked right at Danny. “Just the one.” Tears ran down her face, but her smile was blissful.
Danny’s smile crinkled the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “You were perfect already.”
Juliane turned to face the demon. “The answer’s no.”
“You’re sure.” He smirked. “Going once, going twice…”
She stopped touching her skin and dropped her hands to her sides, palms extended outward in a gesture of defiance.
His nostrils flared. “Gone.” He seized her by the throat. She shuddered as her skin parted, invisible knives gouging the flesh, collagen raveling the bloodless cuts together until she was laced with scars just as she had been before. Azazel locked her in place, and turned away. Her head fell forward as she tried to camouflage her face with her hair, so the others could not see her cry.
“So, Sam. You get…Truth. How do you see this ending?” Azazel pulled the bottle of Champagne out of John’s hand and took a swig.
“What?”
“You picture all of you just strolling out of here?”
Sam swallowed hard. “Yes. Actually.”
“Not gonna happen. See, like I said, we’ve had to move up our timetable, and we’re gonna need to you, uh, get ready quicker. So we have to jumpstart the process. And that means…” Azazel spun on his heels. “Someone in this room is gonna die tonight.”
“No.” Sam shook his head. “No!”
“Yes,” Azazel hissed. “See, you love all these sorry sacks of meat. To one degree or another. And watching one of them die is gonna teach you how to hate. It’s gonna just get my blood blazing in you. Light the furnace. Get your powers really going.” He looked up at Dean. “The best one would be old Deano there. Make him burn just like his momma.”
Sam extended his hand, his beautiful features twisting. Azazel flew backward fifteen feet and landed on his tailbone on the hard bamboo floor. Instead of getting angry, he threw his head back and laughed. “Fucking adorable. I’m telling you.” He rose to his feet and walked back to where he was standing before. “Oh, I really should kill Dean. Look how riled up even the thought of it gets you. Look what it made you be able to do. I should have let them beat him to death in that alley.”
Sam’s expression darkened, his breath coming in snorts as his rage built.
“You touch one hair on his head, I’ll kill you.” John wrestled to get free of the invisible hold Azazel had on him.
“Love to see you try.” Azazel winked at him. “I killed you once before, Johnny boy. I can do it again.” He walked toward John until he was nose to nose with him. “My turn. And I pick…Truth.” He grinned. “Fifteen years, you’ve been looking for me. Plotting my bloody demise. Avenging your precious wife. Sacrificing your life and everything in it for the single purpose of finding me and killing me.” He breathed in and out. “And here you are. And you FAILED.”
John flinched. Then he stretched his neck forward as far as he was able, hate in his eyes. “Touch my sons and I’ll kill you, I swear to God, I’ll fucking kill you.”
“Gotta tell you, Johnny boy, this paternal instinct? Too little, too late. News flash–you’re not gonna win any father of the year awards. Left your precious boys all alone, again and again. Didn’t leave them enough food or money half the time. Cold and hungry, right, boys?” He looked over his shoulder at Sam and Dean. They couldn’t meet their father’s eyes.
John protested, “No, I always left them enough, they never said–“ He stopped and looked at Dean, really looked at him. He shook his head as the realization washed over him. “They did. You did say.” Dad, you gotta leave more money, that’s not enough. That’s all there is, Dean. Make it stretch. Make it work. “But I didn’t listen.”
“You wouldn’t believe what they had to do to make it work while Daddy was off doing… more important things.” The muscles in Dean’s jaw twitched. “Would he, Dean?”
Dean shook his head no. Please no.
“The stealing. The cheating at cards.”
Dean’s head kept moving. No no no…
“The truck stops.”
Dean’s face pleaded with him to stop. Knowing he would never stop.
“Dean?” Sam asked, worry making his voice quaver.
“Such a pretty boy, young Dean. So, so pretty. Really drew out the chicken hawks, didn’t you, boy? Poor little Sammy back home, so hungry, no cash left in the coffee can, weeks to go before Papa came home, and those men, with fists full of money, just wanting a little taste. Willing to pay just to eat you up.”
Dean’s face froze. He stared at the floor, unable to look anyone in the eye.
“Dean.” John’s voice carried that paternal command tone that Dean was helpless to disobey, even now. He looked up at his father, tears streaking his face. John broke down at what he read on his son’s face.
Azazel breathed in, drinking down the pain his words had sparked. “Still with your morals, though. Only letting them suck you off. ‘I don’t touch you. You don’t get to do anything else to me.’” Azazel’s voice was a perfect imitation of Dean. “So sweet, though. Your little dick.” Azazel’s voice changed again, took on an East Coast accent. “Oh yeah. Yeah, buddy.”
Dean’s eyes went wide in horror. The trucker in the puffy blue coat. The one who smelled like cheap wine. Who paid him enough to keep them fed and the heat on until Dad finally came home a month later. The one who took his time, on his knees, sucking Dean off while Dean kept his eyes squinted shut, praying it would be over soon. The one who kept moaning yeah, buddy. Oh yeah, buddy boy. He took a step back, then another. “No. No.”
Azazel smacked his lips. “I can still remember how sweet you taste, buddy boy.”
Sam’s pupils were blown so wide, they looked black. He fixed Azazel with a look that promised–guaranteed–death. Dean staggered back, would have fallen if not for Sam holding him up.
“You did that to him, Johnny boy. You reduced your son to that. Because you couldn’t do your job.” Azazel drank down the agony pouring off John in waves, squirmed and sighed with the dark pleasure of it.
Azazel blinked quickly, like a lizard, as a thought came to him. A huge, oily grin spread over his face.
“And the thing that really eats at you, Dean? It’s not that you let them do it to you. It’s that you kind of liked it.”
Dean kept shaking his head no, over and over, averting his gaze. He dropped to his knees, Sam guiding him down, kneeling with him.
Tears wetted Sam’s cheeks, hair in his eyes, his face anguished at what Dean had done for them. For him. “It’s ok, Dean. It’s ok. It’s alright.” Dean gripped Sam’s arm hard, but still would not look at him. “You were just doing what you had to, Dean. It’s ok.”
John’s face was grey, guilt and grief staining his features. Bobby hung his head, tears running into his beard. Reggie’s face was rigid with rage.
“Yeah, you liked it, buddy boy.” Azazel took a few steps back, so he could see John’s face as well as Sam and Dean’s. “But you like it so much better when it’s Sammy’s mouth. Don’t you.”
Complete, breathless silence.
Silence that stretched out, interminable.
Silence finally shattered by John’s laugh. “Nice try.”
“Those pretty hazel eyes looking up at you? That pretty little mouth sucking your dick? Taking it so good for his big brother. Don’t you, Sammy?”
Sam’s eyes were huge, horrified.
John gazed into the face of his youngest son. Of his first-born son. His gaze moved over them, saw the ring on Sam’s finger. Identical to Dean’s ring. He started to tremble. “You’re a liar.”
“Ever wonder what they were up to, in all those single beds? All those nights you left them all alone? Mommy dead, daddy god knows where, no friends because you moved them around so much, and the two of them so close, closer than normal brothers were…” Azazel cocked his head like a curious raven. “You didn’t you ever ask yourself, John, what they were up to?” Azazel’s eyes burned yellow.
“You’re a demon, you’re a fucking demon, you’re a fucking LIAR!” John screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth.
“Yeah. We lie. But the thing here, Johnny boy, the delicious thing here, is that I don’t have to lie.”
He turned his attention back to Dean.“Nobody’s mouth feels as good on your dick than Sam’s. And nothing tastes as good as his dick in your mouth. But even better than all of that is how good it feels to fuck him. Right, Dean? How good it feels to fuck your little brother, make him squirm on your dick, make him come screaming for you.” Azazel took another swig of Champagne. “And you do, don’t you, Sam. You’re a screamer.”
John’s face changed, all the color draining from it. He looked at Bobby, eyes pleading with him that it wasn’t true. At Reggie. Silently begging them to tell him it wasn’t true. That what he’d heard that first night in the Sanctuary wasn’t actually his sons. Together.
“It’s not like that!” Sam yelled, protecting Dean with his entire body. “It’s not…sick like that! We love each other!” His voice reverberated through the room. Sam and Dean clung to each other, defiant, terrified.
The only noise was the choked sound of John trying to breathe.
Azazel sank to his knees and stretched his arms out, chest lifted, blissfully absorbing the agony skittering through the room from seven anguished souls.