Sam/Jo - Stockholm Syndrome
Fandom: Supernatural
Title: Stockholm Syndrome
Author: iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam Winchester/Jo Harvelle, Dean Winchester
kissbingo Prompt: Type: Dirty
Content Warning: evil!Sam, AU. Spoilers through 316: No Rest for the Wicked.
Summary: When Sam kissed her it always tasted like blood.
Author’s Note: Written for unavoidedcrisis for the spn_hetexchange who gave me the prompt "To be free, one must give up a little part of oneself." I couldn’t resist evil!Sam if I tried. Though it turned out to be more broken!Sam than evil!Sam. Thanks to alison_sky, defy_n_gravity and lollobrigida for the betas.
Disclaimer: I don’t own. They belong to Kripke. I’m just borrowing and will put everything back where I found it.
Being with Sam was like being caught between a rock and a hard place.
She shouldn’t want to be there. In fact, she was relatively sure she had started out that way-not wanting. Sam had gone off the deep end after Dean’s death, lashing out to force his rage and grief onto the world. At first Jo had thought it was just about the demons-demons had cost him so much, probably more than she even knew about, and now he was just taking the opportunity to strike back. She heard from every hunter that came into whatever bar she was working, that Sam Winchester was taking out demons left and right, wherever he could find them. The reports were proud, impressed even. At least, until they started to change.
Soon, it wasn’t just demons anymore. Soon, it was everyone who got in his way, or reminded him of Dean, or he just didn’t like. Jo wasn’t there for any of it, but just the idea that the sweet, gentle man she remembered was doing all this damage was foreign to her. She wanted to believe that they were mistaken. That this was something else using Sam’s face, just like it had with her. She never said any of this, however, just got the hunter in question another beer and hoped for the best.
It was about six months after Dean’s death that she actually saw him. She was driving through to her next hunt and had spotted the Impala, hidden off on the side of the road. She knew that Sam knew better than that-maybe he was looking to get caught, or maybe it was a dare, but considering that Sam himself was nowhere to be found, she made a snap decision and decided to get out and investigate. She knew that it was stupid-if the rumors were true, then he could very easily kill her for disturbing whatever it was she was disturbing-but she couldn’t just sit still. She had to see for herself.
Then it suddenly became one of those moments you wish you could unsee.
It was just a little girl. One tiny, terrified little girl, whose face was red and swollen from crying, and Jo couldn’t just stand back and watch. The knife Sam was wielding was bigger than she was-something that could fillet her with just the tiniest amount of pressure, and he was looking at her like he wouldn’t hesitate in doing so. Jo couldn’t just stand there and not do something.
“Sam!”
His eyes snapped to her and she barely recognized them. They were wild-worse than when he had been possessed, because those hadn’t been Sam. This was real, and it made her blood run cold to think that he had that much malice inside him, just waiting to come out. It took him a minute to recognize her as well, but he didn’t lower his knife even the smallest fraction of an inch.
“She’s a demon.”
“She’s a little girl,” Jo replied gently, hands up as she slowly made her way closer and closer. “She hasn’t hurt anyone.”
“You don’t know that. Lilith always uses little girls.”
The idea of demons running around and committing crimes in children made her sick to her stomach faster than she could process the idea, even if there was a small voice in the back of her head asking her why she never thought of it before. Demons were twisted sons of bitches-they would use anything they wanted to get their way. She managed to hold it together long enough to look up at him again before continuing.
“Sam, do you think that if she were a demon, she would have just let you tie her up like this?”
“I’m not letting her go, Jo.”
“You, have to, Sam.” She took another two steps forward, one hand coming up to wrap around the wrist with the knife in it. “She’s just an innocent little girl. She hasn’t done anything wrong-not yet.”
Sam eyes flashed, and he yanked her forward, slamming her into the support beam that he had tied the girl to. The knife was at her throat, the thin metal of the blade resting in that space between her chin and where Sam had her by the throat. She could barely breathe, and didn’t dare to move out of fear of the knife catching.
“No one is innocent.”
“She is,” she said softly. “At least she is for now. You want someone who’s actually done something wrong, then kill me instead. But let her go.” It was a stupid risk, but it was better than doing nothing. No matter how far gone Sam was, she couldn’t see him hurting children, and she wasn’t just going to just stand there and let it happen. She held his stare and waited for him to flinch and look away, to say that he wasn’t going to kill her because once upon a time she had been his friend.
It took a minute, but eventually his fingers tightened around her throat, closing off her airway as he pulled her closer. “If I let her go, you stay. If you leave, I’ll kill you.”
She had a feeling that if she stayed he might kill her too, but she didn’t argue. She just nodded-she couldn’t speak, all she could do was nod. His hand loosened, and she rasped out. “We need to take her home.”
He held her eyes for a moment, trying to see if she was serious or not, before lowering the knife and looking away. “I’ll drive.”
***
It was another six months before Jo caught herself thinking of this whole set up as normal.
She didn’t do it intentionally. They had just managed to fall into a routine together, one that snuck up on them but felt right, even in the wrongness of the situation. She couldn’t stop Sam from killing-she tried, God knows she tried-but she could direct him. Send him towards hunts and demons as oppose to real people. There were a lot of people she couldn’t save, but at this point, she was trying to save him-not the rest of the world.
Sam didn’t let her out of his sight often. He kept saying that she would leave, no matter how many times she reassured him he wouldn’t. The only time he left her alone to herself to extended periods of time was when he was he was going for the kill, and didn’t want her to watch. He never made her watch, but he would bar her into the motel room, blocking all the exits. If the building happened to catch on fire, she was screwed, but at least Sam knew where she was. Jo took that time to do research, find hunts that he could blow off steam on, and try and be ready for him when he came home.
When he got there, she cleaned him up, made sure he ate something, and got some sleep. She didn’t ask him what he was doing, where or to who-she assumed it would be better if she didn’t know-and just did her best to take care of him. She promised she wouldn’t leave, and she was intending to keep that promise. In return, he promised her he would stop going after children. It wasn’t much, but it was a step in the right direction, and she would take it.
Slowly, but surely, he began to trust her a little more. He wouldn’t barricade the windows as much-let her come and go as she pleased when he was gone . It wasn’t a lot of freedom, but it was a show of trust. These days, Sam didn’t do a lot of it.
One day, she returned to the hotel room to find Sam sitting on the end of the bed. She could smell the blood on his hands, and it was almost as though he could sense the concern before she actually said anything. “Vampire nest,” he said simply. “Nobody human.”
“Good,” she said softly, before reaching for his hand, feeling the tacky drying blood as it stuck to her hand. “C’mon. Let’s go clean you up.”
He jerked his hand away from her. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Matters to me,” she snapped, before moving closer so that she was looking at him. “C’mon, Sam, you did good today. Let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll make you something to eat.”
“I’m no better than they are,” he replied with a snap. “All those people I killed? I deserve to have someone hunt me.”
“You’re doing better,” she said softly, one hand coming up to brush his hair away from his face. “It’s been weeks.”
“That doesn’t change anything.” He jerked away from her again. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Sam.” She wasn’t sure if she was just saying it or actually believed it, but it was enough to let her stay close to him, wrapping his arms around her, as he buried his face in her shoulder. This wasn’t an unusual gesture for him at this point-Sam had always been clingy, and allowing him that bit of contact made him easier to deal with. “You were just in trouble. You are getting better.”
“I don’t even know why you’re still here,” he murmured. “I thought you would have been gone by now.”
She closed her eyes, just staying close and letting him take what he needed. “I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
“Everyone leaves me,” he said simply. “Always thought that once I gave you room to go, you’d be gone.”
She pushed away from him, cupping his face in her hands so that she could force him to look at her. “I made you a promise, Sam. I don’t break my promises.” She leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, before pulling away completely. “Now, c’mon. You’re not getting any dinner unless you’re not bloody.”
He looked up at her with something akin to gratitude, before getting up and making his way into the bathroom. “I’ll get better, Jo.”
She squeezed his hand gently, and nodded as well. “I know you will.”
***
She never thought she’d say it, but her first mistake was keeping in touch with her mother and letting her know where she was.
There was a cast iron wall between her and Sam and that was never a good thing. She could hear him shouting through the wall, pleas alternated with threats as he tried to get Bobby’s attention. Jo, however, was just staring down Dean, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she made it clear that she was not in the mood to be screwed with. The only reason why she hadn’t stabbed Dean with a silver knife is because Bobby said that he was the real deal, and even that word is standing on pretty shaky ground with her, right then.
The Dean she knew would never have locked up his brother like that. Period.
“Let him out,” she said through gritted teeth. “Now.”
“Jesus, Jo,” Dean snapped. “What part of ‘he’s dangerous’ don’t you get?”
“Dean, I have been living with him for over a year,” she growled. “If he was going to hurt me, I think he might have done it already.”
“He’s been killing people.” Dean’s eyes were wide and desperate, as though he was still trying to comprehend how his brother could have done this. “How the hell do you know that he’s even Sam?”
“Same could go for you. So back off.” She went to reach for the door of the panic room, going to open it, but before she could get there, Dean’s fingers wrapped around her arm, yanking her back. “Let go of me!”
There was the sound of two fists, pounding against the iron wall of the room, and then there was something in the tone of Sam’s voice that she hadn’t heard in months It was the cold, clinical tone that he was using when she first found him, and hearing it come from him again made her heart drop like a stone to her stomach. “I swear to God, if you hurt her, I’ll tear you to pieces.”
The tone itself was enough to make Dean stumble back in shock. “How the hell did this happen?”
“You died,” Jo replied coolly. “And for the record, he hasn’t killed a human in months. I may not be a miracle worker, Dean, but I helped him. And if you don’t let me go in that room right now? The only thing you’re going to make him do is come out here and have him want to tear you apart.”
“Why are you protecting him?” Dean asked softly, and Jo looked away, before going to open the door.
“Someone had to.” She spun the wheel to the door, before turning her attention to Sam again. “Sam? I’m comin’ in-but you gotta step back, alright?”
There wasn’t a verbal response, just some shuffling as Sam moved away from the door, and she slowly pulled it open, before slipping inside and letting Dean close it behind her. Sam was pacing the edges of the room like a caged animal-which he was, as far as Dean and Bobby were concerned. She hated it, but those were the rules they were playing by at the moment, and she needed to help him stick to them. They weren’t getting out of here otherwise.
“That’s not Dean,” he said as he looked over at her, eyes desperate for her to tell her that he hadn’t gone on a murderous rampage for nothing. “It can’t be Dean, right?”
Jo sighed, walking over to the cot in the back and patting the spot next to her. “C’mon, Sam. Sit.”
“Jo, tell me that’s not Dean.”
“Sit, and I’ll tell you what I know.” Sam watched her for a moment, before making his way over to the cot and sitting next to her. She reached over and took his hand in hers. “According to Bobby, an angel named Castiel pulled him out of the pit. Lilith is trying to break seals to start the Apocalypse, and the angels brought Dean back to stop her. But he spent most of the time looking for you instead.”
She watched as Sam processed that information, and visibly deflated. “How long?”
“Sam … ”
“How long?”
“Dean got out four months after he went in,” she said quietly.
Sam processed that end of things a lot more quickly. His shoulders caved and he collapsed in on himself. “Oh, God.”
Jo reached for him on instinct, sliding her arms around him and letting him cry into her shoulder. He clung to her like she was his anchor, just like he did every time, and she let him. It helped remind her that he was still human, and that he needed this, just as much as everyone else did. She held him as he cried it out, and didn’t fight him when he moved his head up and kissed her desperately.
When Sam kissed her it always tasted like blood. No matter how clean he was, or how hard she tried to push the thoughts away, the taste was still there, coppery and dirty. It wasn’t something she could get used to over time, but she could learn to swallow it away until the day when she couldn’t taste it anymore. Because there would be a day when it wouldn’t. She just had to keep working towards it. He eventually pulled back from the kiss and let his forehead rest against hers gently.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said softly, brushing a hand against his face gently. “I promise.” She just hoped it’d be one she could keep.
Title: Stockholm Syndrome
Author: iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam Winchester/Jo Harvelle, Dean Winchester
kissbingo Prompt: Type: Dirty
Content Warning: evil!Sam, AU. Spoilers through 316: No Rest for the Wicked.
Summary: When Sam kissed her it always tasted like blood.
Author’s Note: Written for unavoidedcrisis for the spn_hetexchange who gave me the prompt "To be free, one must give up a little part of oneself." I couldn’t resist evil!Sam if I tried. Though it turned out to be more broken!Sam than evil!Sam. Thanks to alison_sky, defy_n_gravity and lollobrigida for the betas.
Disclaimer: I don’t own. They belong to Kripke. I’m just borrowing and will put everything back where I found it.
Being with Sam was like being caught between a rock and a hard place.
She shouldn’t want to be there. In fact, she was relatively sure she had started out that way-not wanting. Sam had gone off the deep end after Dean’s death, lashing out to force his rage and grief onto the world. At first Jo had thought it was just about the demons-demons had cost him so much, probably more than she even knew about, and now he was just taking the opportunity to strike back. She heard from every hunter that came into whatever bar she was working, that Sam Winchester was taking out demons left and right, wherever he could find them. The reports were proud, impressed even. At least, until they started to change.
Soon, it wasn’t just demons anymore. Soon, it was everyone who got in his way, or reminded him of Dean, or he just didn’t like. Jo wasn’t there for any of it, but just the idea that the sweet, gentle man she remembered was doing all this damage was foreign to her. She wanted to believe that they were mistaken. That this was something else using Sam’s face, just like it had with her. She never said any of this, however, just got the hunter in question another beer and hoped for the best.
It was about six months after Dean’s death that she actually saw him. She was driving through to her next hunt and had spotted the Impala, hidden off on the side of the road. She knew that Sam knew better than that-maybe he was looking to get caught, or maybe it was a dare, but considering that Sam himself was nowhere to be found, she made a snap decision and decided to get out and investigate. She knew that it was stupid-if the rumors were true, then he could very easily kill her for disturbing whatever it was she was disturbing-but she couldn’t just sit still. She had to see for herself.
Then it suddenly became one of those moments you wish you could unsee.
It was just a little girl. One tiny, terrified little girl, whose face was red and swollen from crying, and Jo couldn’t just stand back and watch. The knife Sam was wielding was bigger than she was-something that could fillet her with just the tiniest amount of pressure, and he was looking at her like he wouldn’t hesitate in doing so. Jo couldn’t just stand there and not do something.
“Sam!”
His eyes snapped to her and she barely recognized them. They were wild-worse than when he had been possessed, because those hadn’t been Sam. This was real, and it made her blood run cold to think that he had that much malice inside him, just waiting to come out. It took him a minute to recognize her as well, but he didn’t lower his knife even the smallest fraction of an inch.
“She’s a demon.”
“She’s a little girl,” Jo replied gently, hands up as she slowly made her way closer and closer. “She hasn’t hurt anyone.”
“You don’t know that. Lilith always uses little girls.”
The idea of demons running around and committing crimes in children made her sick to her stomach faster than she could process the idea, even if there was a small voice in the back of her head asking her why she never thought of it before. Demons were twisted sons of bitches-they would use anything they wanted to get their way. She managed to hold it together long enough to look up at him again before continuing.
“Sam, do you think that if she were a demon, she would have just let you tie her up like this?”
“I’m not letting her go, Jo.”
“You, have to, Sam.” She took another two steps forward, one hand coming up to wrap around the wrist with the knife in it. “She’s just an innocent little girl. She hasn’t done anything wrong-not yet.”
Sam eyes flashed, and he yanked her forward, slamming her into the support beam that he had tied the girl to. The knife was at her throat, the thin metal of the blade resting in that space between her chin and where Sam had her by the throat. She could barely breathe, and didn’t dare to move out of fear of the knife catching.
“No one is innocent.”
“She is,” she said softly. “At least she is for now. You want someone who’s actually done something wrong, then kill me instead. But let her go.” It was a stupid risk, but it was better than doing nothing. No matter how far gone Sam was, she couldn’t see him hurting children, and she wasn’t just going to just stand there and let it happen. She held his stare and waited for him to flinch and look away, to say that he wasn’t going to kill her because once upon a time she had been his friend.
It took a minute, but eventually his fingers tightened around her throat, closing off her airway as he pulled her closer. “If I let her go, you stay. If you leave, I’ll kill you.”
She had a feeling that if she stayed he might kill her too, but she didn’t argue. She just nodded-she couldn’t speak, all she could do was nod. His hand loosened, and she rasped out. “We need to take her home.”
He held her eyes for a moment, trying to see if she was serious or not, before lowering the knife and looking away. “I’ll drive.”
***
It was another six months before Jo caught herself thinking of this whole set up as normal.
She didn’t do it intentionally. They had just managed to fall into a routine together, one that snuck up on them but felt right, even in the wrongness of the situation. She couldn’t stop Sam from killing-she tried, God knows she tried-but she could direct him. Send him towards hunts and demons as oppose to real people. There were a lot of people she couldn’t save, but at this point, she was trying to save him-not the rest of the world.
Sam didn’t let her out of his sight often. He kept saying that she would leave, no matter how many times she reassured him he wouldn’t. The only time he left her alone to herself to extended periods of time was when he was he was going for the kill, and didn’t want her to watch. He never made her watch, but he would bar her into the motel room, blocking all the exits. If the building happened to catch on fire, she was screwed, but at least Sam knew where she was. Jo took that time to do research, find hunts that he could blow off steam on, and try and be ready for him when he came home.
When he got there, she cleaned him up, made sure he ate something, and got some sleep. She didn’t ask him what he was doing, where or to who-she assumed it would be better if she didn’t know-and just did her best to take care of him. She promised she wouldn’t leave, and she was intending to keep that promise. In return, he promised her he would stop going after children. It wasn’t much, but it was a step in the right direction, and she would take it.
Slowly, but surely, he began to trust her a little more. He wouldn’t barricade the windows as much-let her come and go as she pleased when he was gone . It wasn’t a lot of freedom, but it was a show of trust. These days, Sam didn’t do a lot of it.
One day, she returned to the hotel room to find Sam sitting on the end of the bed. She could smell the blood on his hands, and it was almost as though he could sense the concern before she actually said anything. “Vampire nest,” he said simply. “Nobody human.”
“Good,” she said softly, before reaching for his hand, feeling the tacky drying blood as it stuck to her hand. “C’mon. Let’s go clean you up.”
He jerked his hand away from her. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Matters to me,” she snapped, before moving closer so that she was looking at him. “C’mon, Sam, you did good today. Let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll make you something to eat.”
“I’m no better than they are,” he replied with a snap. “All those people I killed? I deserve to have someone hunt me.”
“You’re doing better,” she said softly, one hand coming up to brush his hair away from his face. “It’s been weeks.”
“That doesn’t change anything.” He jerked away from her again. “I’m a monster.”
“You’re not a monster, Sam.” She wasn’t sure if she was just saying it or actually believed it, but it was enough to let her stay close to him, wrapping his arms around her, as he buried his face in her shoulder. This wasn’t an unusual gesture for him at this point-Sam had always been clingy, and allowing him that bit of contact made him easier to deal with. “You were just in trouble. You are getting better.”
“I don’t even know why you’re still here,” he murmured. “I thought you would have been gone by now.”
She closed her eyes, just staying close and letting him take what he needed. “I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
“Everyone leaves me,” he said simply. “Always thought that once I gave you room to go, you’d be gone.”
She pushed away from him, cupping his face in her hands so that she could force him to look at her. “I made you a promise, Sam. I don’t break my promises.” She leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to his forehead, before pulling away completely. “Now, c’mon. You’re not getting any dinner unless you’re not bloody.”
He looked up at her with something akin to gratitude, before getting up and making his way into the bathroom. “I’ll get better, Jo.”
She squeezed his hand gently, and nodded as well. “I know you will.”
***
She never thought she’d say it, but her first mistake was keeping in touch with her mother and letting her know where she was.
There was a cast iron wall between her and Sam and that was never a good thing. She could hear him shouting through the wall, pleas alternated with threats as he tried to get Bobby’s attention. Jo, however, was just staring down Dean, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she made it clear that she was not in the mood to be screwed with. The only reason why she hadn’t stabbed Dean with a silver knife is because Bobby said that he was the real deal, and even that word is standing on pretty shaky ground with her, right then.
The Dean she knew would never have locked up his brother like that. Period.
“Let him out,” she said through gritted teeth. “Now.”
“Jesus, Jo,” Dean snapped. “What part of ‘he’s dangerous’ don’t you get?”
“Dean, I have been living with him for over a year,” she growled. “If he was going to hurt me, I think he might have done it already.”
“He’s been killing people.” Dean’s eyes were wide and desperate, as though he was still trying to comprehend how his brother could have done this. “How the hell do you know that he’s even Sam?”
“Same could go for you. So back off.” She went to reach for the door of the panic room, going to open it, but before she could get there, Dean’s fingers wrapped around her arm, yanking her back. “Let go of me!”
There was the sound of two fists, pounding against the iron wall of the room, and then there was something in the tone of Sam’s voice that she hadn’t heard in months It was the cold, clinical tone that he was using when she first found him, and hearing it come from him again made her heart drop like a stone to her stomach. “I swear to God, if you hurt her, I’ll tear you to pieces.”
The tone itself was enough to make Dean stumble back in shock. “How the hell did this happen?”
“You died,” Jo replied coolly. “And for the record, he hasn’t killed a human in months. I may not be a miracle worker, Dean, but I helped him. And if you don’t let me go in that room right now? The only thing you’re going to make him do is come out here and have him want to tear you apart.”
“Why are you protecting him?” Dean asked softly, and Jo looked away, before going to open the door.
“Someone had to.” She spun the wheel to the door, before turning her attention to Sam again. “Sam? I’m comin’ in-but you gotta step back, alright?”
There wasn’t a verbal response, just some shuffling as Sam moved away from the door, and she slowly pulled it open, before slipping inside and letting Dean close it behind her. Sam was pacing the edges of the room like a caged animal-which he was, as far as Dean and Bobby were concerned. She hated it, but those were the rules they were playing by at the moment, and she needed to help him stick to them. They weren’t getting out of here otherwise.
“That’s not Dean,” he said as he looked over at her, eyes desperate for her to tell her that he hadn’t gone on a murderous rampage for nothing. “It can’t be Dean, right?”
Jo sighed, walking over to the cot in the back and patting the spot next to her. “C’mon, Sam. Sit.”
“Jo, tell me that’s not Dean.”
“Sit, and I’ll tell you what I know.” Sam watched her for a moment, before making his way over to the cot and sitting next to her. She reached over and took his hand in hers. “According to Bobby, an angel named Castiel pulled him out of the pit. Lilith is trying to break seals to start the Apocalypse, and the angels brought Dean back to stop her. But he spent most of the time looking for you instead.”
She watched as Sam processed that information, and visibly deflated. “How long?”
“Sam … ”
“How long?”
“Dean got out four months after he went in,” she said quietly.
Sam processed that end of things a lot more quickly. His shoulders caved and he collapsed in on himself. “Oh, God.”
Jo reached for him on instinct, sliding her arms around him and letting him cry into her shoulder. He clung to her like she was his anchor, just like he did every time, and she let him. It helped remind her that he was still human, and that he needed this, just as much as everyone else did. She held him as he cried it out, and didn’t fight him when he moved his head up and kissed her desperately.
When Sam kissed her it always tasted like blood. No matter how clean he was, or how hard she tried to push the thoughts away, the taste was still there, coppery and dirty. It wasn’t something she could get used to over time, but she could learn to swallow it away until the day when she couldn’t taste it anymore. Because there would be a day when it wouldn’t. She just had to keep working towards it. He eventually pulled back from the kiss and let his forehead rest against hers gently.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said softly, brushing a hand against his face gently. “I promise.” She just hoped it’d be one she could keep.