SPN Fanfic--On My Knees Chapter 4 (Dean/Sam)
“No. No, Sam.”
Outside on Sarah’s lawn. White fence glowing in the moonlight and the grass dew-damp under their feet.
“Gimme one good reason why not.”
“I’m older and I fucking say so. It should be me.”
“That makes no sense, Dean, and you know it. The whole point, the whole reason we’re doing this is because I can-”
“I know why we’re doing it, Sam.”
Softer now, forgiving. “Then why are you arguing with me, man?”
Dean’s fingers, thrusting through his short hair.
“Sam. Jesus, Sam.”
“It has to be me, man. If there’s a chance we can learn something we didn’t know, find some way of helping her . . . ”
Dean said nothing, glared helplessly.
“I think I get why you always tried so hard to . . . ” Sam trailed off on a huff of breath that hung in the air a second before dissipating. “I need to keep her safe, Dean.”
“Yeah, Sam.” Tired, so damn weary. “I know you do.”
And so do you, Sam finished silently.
“Plus, you know,” Sam deadpanned, waited for Dean to meet his gaze, “I’m taller so it should definitely be me.”
---
Sam tried to insist that Dean take the first sleeping shift, but Dean just shook his head, barked out a short laugh.
“Trust me, dude. I’m not sleepin’ anytime soon.”
So Sam spent a couple hours drifting off and jump-starting awake with his cheek pressed to the cool leather of the couch and his brain spinning. Finally he just rolled to his feet, stumbled bleary-eyed into the hall to relieve Dean. He stopped short at the sound of voices, Sarah’s feminine tone strong and even, a counterpart to Dean’s rough, raw whispers. Sam leaned into the wall, listening.
“-shouldn’t have grabbed her so hard-”
“She was holding a meat cleaver, Dean. And, from what you and Sam have told me, possibly being controlled by someone . . . or something . . . that made her a lot scarier than your average seven year old.”
“We don’t know that. The fuck was I thinking? ‘S a little girl.”
Sarah made a tsking sound, and when she spoke again her tone was firm.
“We don’t know anything, except that tonight could have happened a lot of different ways. Someone could have gotten hurt-”
“Someone did.”
“Seriously hurt. Something more permanent than a hairline fracture. Layla could have injured herself with that knife, which, let’s not fail to remember, I was the one to leave out.”
Dean’s voice cutting in, a quick protest.
“No way is any of this your fault, Sarah.”
“She could have hurt herself,” Sarah said stubbornly. “Or me. Or Sam, or you. She brought the knife into your room, Dean. We don’t know what she was going to do with it.”
“I broke her arm.” Sam could hear the thin broken way Dean’s voice pushed out the words like they were jagged glass. “I fucking broke her arm.”
And then there was the hoarse noise of oxygen being sucked in followed by harsh, racking sobbing.
Sam slumped against the wall, listening as Dean broke down to a woman Sam kissed once, another lifetime ago, instead of to him.
---
The painkillers the ER docs prescribed accomplished the added task of keeping Layla out cold most of the morning. Keeping an ear peeled from the kitchen, Sam went through a stack of books, scribbling a list of things they might need. Dean joined him after a shower, sat down at the table and scanned the list before nodding an approval. His looks good, dude wasn’t all that reassuring; Sam still felt like he was pulling the whole thing out of his ass.
Sarah volunteered to do a supply run as soon as the stores opened. She got back around ten, looking smug.
“Chalk and candles. Sand, acacia leaves,” she said, pulling the items from the paper bag.
“What about the oil of Abramelin?” Dean asked. He was reading over Sam’s shoulder, something Sam found annoying and oddly endearing.
“Stop and Shop was all out,” Sarah said dryly. “But. I went by the library on the way back, and it turns out there’s a recipe for making your own on Wikipedia.”
“Wiki-what?” Dean asked, expression blank.
Sam grinned. “You find all the ingredients?” he asked, and Sarah unfolded a printout from her back pocket and passed it over the counter.
“All there in the bag,” Sarah said, a little smugly. Sam read it, smiled. It ought to work.
“You did good,” he told her softly.
“It sucks that you’re not into handsome guys,” Dean said. He leaned in to nudge Sarah’s arm with his. “ ‘Cause I’d totally be up for it.” He winked, and Sarah laughed.
Sam wondered how it was Dean got away with making horribly offensive comments. He supposed it was part of Dean’s-Christ-charm.
“Okay,” Dean said, rising. “I’m gonna pick up the last of the stuff. You guys can fight over who gets to be Top Chef.”
“Dean, hold up a second.” Sam raised a meaningful brow. “We still need to do that thing.”
“What . . . oh. Yeah, I’ll see what I can find.”
“Just find something that’ll do it. I don’t care about the . . . aftereffects.”
Sarah was glancing from one to the other, her expression suspicious.
“What are you talking about?” she demanded.
They exchanged looks, and Sarah made a small sound of displeasure.
“Uh uh, you two don’t get to keep secrets. Not now. Tell me what this is about.”
Dean jerked his head-go ahead, dude. Sam sighed, and caught his t-shirt around the waist before dragging it over his head.
“What is that?” Sarah said, her hand halting just short of tracing the symbol etched into his skin.
“Protection,” Dean explained. “Keeps anything outside from getting in.”
“The problem is,” Sam continued, “it’s also gonna prevent the ritual from working. Unless we get rid of it.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Sarah asked.
“However I have to,” Sam said. “If we have to burn it off-”
“I have a friend,” Sarah interrupted. “My roommate freshman year of college, she’s a plastic surgeon now.”
“We need the full moon, which is in three days,” Sam said. “We don’t have time-”
“Let me call her, okay?” Sarah glanced back and forth between them. “Before you two resort to the home remedy.”
---
Sam was hunting for his phone in Dean’s jeans when he heard the sound-a soft knocking, not continuous but broken, stopping and starting at random intervals.
Dean was still at the store, Sarah catching a few hours of much-deserved shuteye in her bedroom. At Sam’s insistence, she had locked the bedroom door from the inside. Sam figured now was as good a time as any to get this call out of the way. No way would Bobby be comfortable with what Sam and Dean intended to do in three nights’ time, but Sam felt honor-bound to inform him of their plans, even if just so Bobby could call them both damn idiots. He knew Dean would rag on Sam for doing it, just like he knew if he didn’t call, Dean would probably do it himself.
Crouched on the floor, Sam hesitated, head cocked. It was several seconds more before he realized what the sound was, and when he did realize it he felt his face heat and guilt roll over him in waves. He followed the knocking down the hall until he stood outside Layla’s room.
The chain on the door was still secure, the half-circle of salt undisturbed. Sam pressed a hand against the wood and imagined Layla sitting on the other side, holding her broken wrist. He rubbed a hand over his face and tried to breathe through the lump in his throat, hard and painful like he’d swallowed a Jolly Rancher.
He felt Dean’s presence at his side before he saw him. Dean’s face was windblown, new freckles popping on his nose.
“We need to talk to her,” Sam said quietly.
Dean jerked his head in acknowledgment, or agreement, Sam wasn’t sure, and reached out to unhook the latch on the chain. He waited for Sam’s ‘ready’ nod before turning the knob.
Sam didn’t know what he was expecting. The Layla who entered their room wielding a knife yesterday wasn’t the same kid they’d gotten to know these past weeks. Not the same little girl that screamed with delight when Dean chased her around the house, making stupid moaning noises and swaying, nor the one who snuggled up to Sam for story time, her small body fitting just right beneath one of his arms. She wasn’t the kid who ate Dean’s burnt eggs or Sam’s overdone spaghetti without complaint; not the kid who fell asleep in the Impala to lullabies of AC/DC and the two of them bickering. The girl last night hadn’t been Layla, but Sam was pretty sure she hadn’t been possessed, either. He didn’t know who or what it was that came at them with a butcher’s knife, and the not knowing scared the hell out of him.
Whatever he was expecting it wasn’t what he got-Layla perched on the edge of the makeshift bed, bare toes dragging on the carpet. She was wearing one of Sarah’s college t-shirts, and Sam remembered that Sarah had helped her change into it last night because her own pajamas were blood-stained from the cut she opened on Dean’s arm.
She glanced up when the door opened, her expression full of hurt and confusion.
“You locked me in,” she said accusingly.
Sam glanced at Dean, who glanced quickly away. He crossed the room, lowering himself to the bed beside her.
“We had to,” Sam said softly. “We didn’t know what you’d do if you got out.”
Realization turned her eyes into round balls of dark amber.
“You’re afraid of me,” she said.
Sam flashed Dean a look like, ‘You can jump in anytime now.’ He stretched out a hand to touch her, push stringy blond hair back from her face, but she jerked away from him. She scrambled across the bed to sit up by the wall, arms hugging her knees.
“Do you remember how you hurt your arm?” Sam asked gently.
She eyed him suspiciously, blinking beneath her bangs. Sam made a mental note that they ought to get her a haircut if they survived the next three days, and that was it, he was officially turning into their father. Or, worse, Dean.
“It’s okay,” he encouraged.
“You said I tripped,” she murmured. “I don’t remember falling though.”
Dean looked over, a mixture of anger and gratitude coloring his features. Sam stared back, remorseless, daring Dean to say something. Dean clamped his jaw shut and turned away.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Sam asked.
“The bogart,” she said, and Dean looked up, startled.
“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” Sam said, hiding a smile. “We were reading it before bed. Then what, Layla?”
“I woke up, and I was in you guys’ room. I didn’t know how I got there. And my arm hurt like a bitch.”
Sam very deliberately avoided looking at Dean’s face.
“Layla, do me a favor. Think back. Do you remember anything weird happening after I left your room, before you fell asleep? Anything that seemed strange or unusual?”
“No.” She sighed as though the conversation was boring her a little, and Sam had to remind himself she was only seven and yeah, this was probably a lot boring for her. “I wasn’t sleepy when you left so I was gonna read by myself for a while. But then I got really tired all of a sudden, and really warm too, so I laid down and went to sleep.”
“What do you mean, warm?” Dean asked, apparently deciding to join the conversation finally. He approached the bed but left a few feet’s distance between himself and Layla. “Like the heat was up too high?”
“No, just . . . warm.” She shrugged and started picking at her cast. “It’s stupid.”
“Try us,” Sam said, and Layla gave a dramatic-sounding sigh.
“I felt . . . warm and safe. Like somebody wrapped me up in a big soft blanket and was . . . hugging me from the inside.” She glanced up, nose wrinkling and cheeks flushed. “I told you it was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Sam said softly. “Was there anything else?”
Layla ran her bottom lip through her teeth and looked from one to the other.
“I did something, didn’t I? I made you scared of me. I’m like the things you fight.”
“No,” Sam said quickly.
“I’ve fought a lot of things in the dark, and not one of ‘em was as pretty as you,” Dean assured. “Most of ‘em? Damn ugly.”
“I’m not a little baby.”
Dean coughed and looked surprised.
“I know that,” he said.
“I know you don’t have to be ugly to be evil. Beautiful things can be evil too.”
Sam shook his head.
“Layla, you’re not evil-”
“I know something really bad’s happening,” she murmured. “Isn’t it.”
Sam knew what to say here, had been on the receiving end of this too many times not to. These words were so familiar they ached. Lying on foreign sheets in a room that smelled like strangers. Dad on a hunt and Dean breathing on the other side of the mattress. Shouldn’t he be back by now, Dean? Dean’s whispered assurances wrapped up in Shut up and Go to sleep, Sam. More comforting than if he’d been gentle. Later, when Dad was gone for good, Dean kept making promises. Nothing’s wrong, never while I’m alive, don’t worry about it, Sam. Sam had stopped believing his big brother was a superhero around the time he graduated elementary school but some part of him still thought, if Dean said something, it must be so. It was enough. In the end, it was enough that Dean said it.
“Do you trust us?” Sam asked.
Layla blinked and nodded finally.
“That’s good,” he said. “Because Dean and I, we’re going to keep you safe. I promise. As long as we’re around, nothing bad’s going to happen to you, Layla.”
She studied him with big brown eyes, and he was afraid she was going to see right through him. Call him a liar and tell him to go away. But after a long moment she just nodded again, and when he looked into her eyes he thought the fear was a little lessened maybe.
Dean was watching the scene with an odd expression on his face, soft and appraising at the same time.
“Can we have pancakes for breakfast?” Layla asked. “I’m starving. And maybe after we can watch Goonies again, Dean?”
On the way to the kitchen, Layla stepped right over the salt line neither of them had remembered to break.
---
The Winchester Brothers’ crash course in surviving the paranormal. Day One: Hand to Hand.
“I’m sorry,” Sam said for what must have been the fifteenth time this hour. By now Sarah must be feeling it, new muscles cramping and blood rushing to the surface of her skin in blue-green bruises. He offered a hand to help her up.
“Sam Winchester, you are the worst date ever.”
He forgot himself for a second and was offended.
“What? Why?”
Sarah pushed a section of damp dark hair back from her eyes, grinned.
“Hmm, let’s see. So far, I’ve almost gotten my throat slit by a painting and acted as unofficial babysitter for your and Dean’s unofficial ward. Toss in a little physical violence . . . ”
“Oh, that’s it.”
He wrapped his arms around her, pinning hers to her body and lifting her off the ground. She tried not to laugh and failed, and Sam started to laugh to, and for a moment he was back at Stanford, goofing around with Jess before they started dating. There was an ache in remembering-soft hair, lips in the dark, miss you Jess-but mostly it was a light feeling filling him up. A younger, more ignorant Sam, who while maybe not devoid of responsibility was definitely enjoying shirking it for a while.
He was still laughing when Sarah worked an elbow loose and hit him in the stomach, knocking the wind from him. She wrapped an ankle around his and they both went down, Sarah on top of him.
He blinked up into the sun, temporarily blinded, and when his eyes adjusted he saw Dean watching him from the back porch. He expected to see . . . he wasn’t sure what he expected. Jealousy? In Sam’s dreams, maybe. But Dean was smiling, like all he wanted in the world was currently rolling around in manicured grass under a bright June sky.
---
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Hey.” He unbuttoned his shirt, folded it in half absently and laid it over a chair. “You tried.”
“Reya’s visiting her parents in Paris. Otherwise, I know she’d have helped us out.”
Sam shrugged. He felt sort of stupid standing half naked in the middle of Sarah’s kitchen. The window was open, and a light breeze wafted in, made the chimes hanging in the windowsill tremble.
“Don’t worry, okay? It’s not even the first time I’ve had one of these burned off. And Dean doesn’t need to get the whole thing, just disrupt the symbol.”
Sarah looked down at the floor, and when she lifted her face again it was perfectly composed, any trace of concern or pity vanished. Sam thought not for the first time that Sarah would have made a good hunter.
“Is there something I can do?” she said.
Sam could see Dean hovering in the doorway, his face expressionless, though the set of his shoulders gave him away.
“Take Layla out into the backyard for a few minutes, okay?” He set his jaw. “I’d rather she didn’t hear this.”
---
“Sure you don’t wanna switch parts, Sammy? My Latin sucks, dude. You might end up downloading, I don’t know. A golden retriever.”
Sam didn’t bother asking what a golden retriever would be doing in Hell, just stepped over the circle of paint and sat down in the chair. Waited. Dean gave him that look, the one like Sam was five, fifteen, twenty-five, and Dean wanted to lock him up someplace safe. Finally, he came to kneel at Sam’s feet, started looping the rope around Sam’s ankles.
“Tighter, man,” Sam said softly, and Dean obliged, tugging until Sam felt the knots digging into bone. Dean did his hands next, slapping a pair of cop-issue cuffs around Sam’s wrists. Sam refrained from asking where Dean had procured the handcuffs, and for what purpose, but Dean answered anyway, with a suggestive brow waggle that had Sam’s eyes rolling.
“Kinky,” Sam said tonelessly, and Dean just smirked.
He made an apologetic sound in the back of his throat before throwing a length of rope around Sam’s waist, binding his arms to his torso and his entire upper body to the chair back. “Good?”
Sam used all his strength to pull against the bonds, and then nodded, satisfied.
“We’re good. You ready?”
Dean fixed him with a look. Not even close.
But he stepped out of the circle and picked up the notebook from the table. He read to himself, lips silently shaping the words.
“You ever gonna learn to read without moving your lips?” Sam teased, and Dean glanced up from the page, mouth opening to answer when Sarah walked in.
Her arms were full of candles, and when she drew up short she almost dropped a black taper, fumbled to hold onto it. She stood very still, watching Sam with serious eyes.
“You okay?” Dean asked, moving to take the candles from her.
“Fine. For a second this just reminded me of a date I had last month.” She dug in her pockets for a matchbook before adding, “That was a joke, guys.”
“I know,” Sam and Dean said together, then exchanged matching looks of disgust at having spoken in unison.
Sarah followed Dean around the perimeter of the circle, lighting candles when he positioned them.
“Layla in her room?” Sam asked while Dean knelt down to assemble the altar.
Sarah stared at her hands.
“I gave her two of the painkillers the doctor prescribed with lunch. I read to her until she fell asleep, and then I locked her in her room and put salt across the threshold like you showed me. Some babysitter, huh.”
“You did good,” Sam said softly, and Sarah looked up.
“It’ll all be worth it if this works, right?” She hesitated, as though this was a delicate subject, before adding, “Um, how do we know this will work?”
Dean emptied the rest of the sand into the bowl and stood, brushing his fingers on his jeans.
“Don’t,” Dean admitted. “Sam pieced the ritual together from a few sources-books, memories, goddamn inspiration. Pretty freakin’ impressive either way.” He glanced up long enough to meet Sam’s gaze, and Sam flushed, seeing the pride beneath the fear in Dean’s eyes.
“Our dad summoned a demon to him once,” Sam said quietly. “Some of the ingredients are things he used.”
“Of course,” Dean said, “what we’re doing is a little different. Demon we’re after ain’t walking around eating Happy Meals. She’s in Hell.”
“Because we put her there,” Sam said.
“Now the thing about demons in the pit,” Dean continued, “They don’t exactly have much holding ‘em together. Pretty much just big-ass clouds of smoke. Have to possess a body to walk and talk, which is where Sam comes in. We’re gonna draw the bitch outta hell and into Sam’s body.”
“Because we’re just that crazy,” Sam finished.
Dean smirked and reached for the notebook. Sam knew he was checking the words again, the ones Sam had checked and rechecked. He rolled his eyes.
“Sarah,” Sam began. “I need you to do what we talked about.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Sam. What if my being down here, with Dean, could help in some way? Could prevent things from going wrong in the first place?”
Dean hesitated, tongue working his lower lip. He glanced at Sam, but Sam shook his head firmly.
“I-we-need you upstairs. Dean.” He raised a brow, and Dean sighed, crossed to the table. He returned with a knife, which he pressed hilt-first into Sarah’s hand.
“This blade’ll kill anything,” Dean said quietly. “Use it if you have to.”
Sarah gave a jerky nod, and started to go. She hesitated then turned back, stepped over the circle and cupped a hand around Sam’s chin and brushed a kiss across his lips.
“Good luck,” she told him.
There was an awkward moment after she left. Sam coughed loudly, and after a second Dean stepped forward. He waited for Sam to meet his gaze, to nod his approval, before giving a jerky nod of his own. Then he lit the match on the side of his hand and threw it in the bowl.
“Hold on, Sammy,” he said quietly and began reading the words Sam had written.
---
He had been sort of hoping to pass out. Stupid-Sam had never been that lucky. He felt everything, felt the demon invade his body, forcing her way down his throat in an endless flume of hot smoke that had him gagging.
For the first few seconds, he was in shock, everything hurting too badly to move. It was all he could do to cope with the pain. She wasn’t making it easy for him either. Fuck, she was pissed, Sam could feel her fury, her want to make him suffer. He felt like his internal organs were boiling and it was a fight to wipe his mind enough to form thought.
Wait. Please.
But she was rabid, furious, and he could feel her rage like teeth. He let out a groan, he was losing, fading. Then his chest was on fire, and he screamed, but there was relief, too, she was releasing her grip on him somewhat. One of them, Sam wasn’t sure which, opened his eyes, and he saw Dean grinning down at him, wagging a flask of holy water in front of his face.
“Hey, baby,” Dean drawled lazy and smooth, and Sam knew it wasn’t just his brother’s aptitude for hunting and killing that made him such a hated figure among the demonic community. “Thanks for coming.”
---
Sam listened, and waited, trusting Dean to keep the teeth from snapping shut again.
“Look at me,” Dean murmured, lips curling around the words. “Yeah, that’s right. Check out this handsome face.”
Sam felt his throat struggling to swallow, mouth garnering moisture enough to speak.
Somebody said the words, “Dean Winchester,” and it was a few seconds before Sam realized it had been he who said them. Or rather, the thing inside him. The demon they killed back in Georgia.
Dean smirked, a cold-eyed expression, and shoved his face close enough that Sam could scent the coffee on his breath, which temporarily overpowered the taste of sulfur coating Sam’s tongue.
“In the flesh, bitch,” Dean offered, and the thing inside Sam snorted.
“I’d watch the language, sugar, as I’m wearing your brother’s.”
Dean made an incredulous noise and somehow managed to get even further into Sam’s face.
“You’ve heard of Sam, right? Reputation kinda precedes him. Anti-Christ an all that? I think he can handle one demon, especially one we already wasted.” He pronounced the last word slowly, tongue savoring it in a way that was downright sexual.
“I’m camped out in your brother’s body. If I want, I can liquefy all of Sam’s organs.”
Dean’s hand was in his hair almost before she-Sam was getting a headache trying to keep track of pronouns-finished the sentence. Dean yanking on his hair didn’t help things much.
“Bitch, you even try-”
Sam felt himself jerk forward as every muscle in his body went tense at the same time. She was trying to pull free from the bonds. A second later he was reeling from the backhanded slap Dean delivered to his face. Sam had a brief flash of their conversation days earlier. No, Dean. I’m gonna be the one who gets possessed. Don’t try to change my mind.
She was laughing in Dean’s face.
“We miss you downstairs, handsome. Although, way I hear it, you went from being Hell’s bitch to being Sammy’s.”
The demon grinned big and bright as the color receded from Dean’s cheeks. She chuckled as the pain pulsed in Dean’s eyes before a dangerous glint replaced it.
“I should smack that mouth of yours again,” Dean growled.
“Gonna break Sam’s strong, distinguished jaw? Rumor is you want that particular bone of your brother’s in working order, Dean-o.”
Dean said nothing. Sam’s mouth parted, his tongue darting out to moisten his bottom lip. His lips were forming a response when she suddenly paused.
Oh, fuck, Sam thought. No, no-
“She’s here.” Voice wondering, marveling over it. “Son of a bitch, you’ve had her this whole time.”
“Excuse me?” Dean said.
When the demon spoke again, her voice was clear and strident.
“I wanna see my daughter.”
Dean went still.
“What’d you just say?”
“My daughter. My child.” Sam’s neck arched forward, veins straining against sweat-slick flesh. “Bring her to me. Now.”
Dean leaned in close, his fist closing around a hunk of Sam’s hair.
“You don’t have a daughter,” he growled.
Sam’s memories of this were too fresh, too near to the surface. She kept pushing, peeling away the layers of his thoughts. He stopped fighting, let her take and take.
“I did until you took me from her,” she said. “The child you found in the basement of that house, Dean. Hiding under the pipes, filthy, frightened. You were going to burn the place to the ground but Sam insisted you take a last walk around to look for survivors. You found my daughter.”
Dean’s lips twisted into something too cold to be called a smile.
“Somebody skipped you when they were handing out sanity pills, didn’t they? She’s not yours, bitch. You’re not human. Layla-the kid-belonged to Rick and Maddy Omera, two hunters you murdered. That ring any bells, you demonic piece of-?”
“Layla,” she spat from Sam’s mouth, as though the word itself had a bitter taste to it, “nee Ryan Omera. That girl died in April of 2008. The child who took her place was named Ailo, and she was my daughter. Now I want to see her. Or I squeeze your brother’s heart until it pops like a balloon.”
Dean shook his head, jaw quivering with barely restrained fury.
“Sam even feels a twinge of heartburn, and I’ll pull you out of him so fast, you’ll be back in the pit before you can say, ‘Hellhounds are nipping at my ankles.’”
Dean leaned in and curled a hand under Sam’s chin, forcing the demon inside to meet his eyes. Sam’s eyes narrowed, a smirk playing at the edges of his lips.
“I know you’re not the brains of the operation, Dean. But you must realize the danger you’re courting.”
“I’ve courted worse,” Dean said with a humorless laugh. “Now I brought you here to play Let’s Make a Deal. You tell me what you did to that kid during the year you held her. And in return I don’t send you on a one-way trip back to the pit.”
Sam felt his knees spreading as much as the ropes allowed. He slumped back in the chair, head tilting carelessly.
“You must think I’m a fool,” the demon in him sneered. “You’d never let me go free.”
“Heh, you’re right about that.” Dean shrugged. “Can’t take the chance you’d come after us.”
“Aw, Dean.” She sounded almost like she was flirting with him. “You know it’s not a chance.”
Dean smiled, crossed to the table with slow, deliberate steps.
“Still. I want her free from you. So I’m willing to offer you a deal.” Dean reached behind his back, and a moment later he was laying the Colt down on the table. “‘Stead of sending you back to writhe for an eternity, I’ll deliver you into oblivion.”
He watched Sam’s face.
“Okay, so it ain’t a great deal. But it’s gotta be better than burning. And I can say that with some degree of authority on the subject.”
“Nice try,” she laughed. “I’m not dumb enough to believe you’d put a bullet in your own brother’s skull.”
“You’re right about that,” Dean agreed. “I wouldn’t shoot my brother.”
Sam’s brow shot up.
“Well, well. How the sanctimonious have fallen,” the demon in him observed.
“You spend some time in the pit, everything looks different. I got a little girl upstairs who isn’t ever gonna have a normal life unless I make a choice I don’t like all that much. Fact is, she deserves a shot at normal, at a life. And another fact. There’s plenty of people out there who don’t. Don’t deserve to live, even.” Dean turned away so his face was in shadows. “Wasn’t too hard for me and Sam to find just one candidate for oblivion.”
“One year out of Hell and you’re playing God. Quite the promotion.”
“So we got a deal then?” Dean asked, turning back.
She cocked Sam’s head to the side, studying Dean through narrowed eyes.
“Demons aren’t so different from humans, Dean. You should know that by now. We want the same things. Companionship, family. Children.”
“Oh you have got to be kidding me,” Dean said with a groan.
“What about this is so hard for you to believe? That we would want a child to raise in our image? To teach and to love. Unlike with you humans, we can’t achieve the miracle of life with a few sweaty moments of pleasure. It takes more than a casual fuck for us to become parents. Sterility is one of our curses. A punishment bestowed upon our kind to ensure that we live lives of loneliness.”
Dean looked murderous, ready to draw blood. Sam couldn’t exactly blame him.
“So you slaughter a couple of decent people and steal their kid?” Dean asked, voice dangerously soft. “Play some sick game of house with her for a year?”
“Decent? The Omeras killed my mother, along with plenty more of us-”
“Your mother?” Dean interrupted. “You just said demons can’t have kids. What’s a’matter, can’t keep your story straight?”
“That doesn’t mean we don’t form familial groups! That we don’t care about one another. Even-yes, Dean-love. You see, Lilith was a mother too. She loved children, their innocence and their . . . adaptability. Lilith knew what it was like to have a child, and to lose one. She knew the importance of having something to love, which is why she gave me the Omeras’ child. To make up for the loss of my mother.”
“Oh yeah. You’re totally sane.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t done your reading? No? Well let me enlighten you. Humans have known about Lilith for a long time, Dean. In the olden days, your people would draw protective circles around their beds, or use amulets, to ward her off. When a child laughed in her sleep, it was believed that Lilith was with her. Legend had it that tapping the child on the nose would make Lilith leave. What can I say? You guys are gullible.”
Dean smirked and started to turn away. Sam knew what was coming but could do nothing to brace himself. He felt the full impact when Dean backhanded him.
The demon growled, swearing as she spit a circle of Sam’s blood onto the floor.
“Don’t think I didn’t appreciate the history lesson,” Dean assured. “But do we got a deal or what?”
“You gonna kiss Sammy’s bruises later?”
“Tell me what you did to her.”
“I wanna see my daughter,” she spat back.
“Not a chance.”
“Exorcisms are tricky things, Dean, and word in the Pit is your Latin isn’t all that. Maybe Sammy should gnaw off his own tongue while you’re tripping over yours.”
“No wait!” Dean said, fear creeping into his tone.
“Dean, don’t!”
Sam didn’t know if he broke through or if she let him. In all probability it was the latter. But for a moment he could control his own limbs again, could have moved even, if he wasn’t tied to a chair.
“Sammy?”
“Don’t give her what she wants,” Sam begged. “I . . . I want my daughter, Dean,” and just like that she was pulling Sam back, tucking him away somewhere he wouldn’t be a burden. But this time she was careless, too quick. She left the window cracked, and suddenly he could see into the past, into the demon’s memory.
Layla, or Ailo . . . she was all the demon could think about. He could feel the weight of her in his arms-her body small but sturdy, warm with life. She was unconscious, or asleep, her head lolling on his shoulder as his boots (too high, not his) swept over a bed of pine needles. He was in the woods by the Omera house, making his way to the highway on the other side. It was dark, no moon, and several times he tripped over upraised roots or low branches. At one point a high branch sliced across his face, cutting a shallow gash into his forehead. He used his free hand to wipe away the blood, held the child tighter and kept moving. So still, not a sound. When he heard the scream, he thought it was an owl, glanced wildly around with eyes that no longer obeyed his brain’s commands.
From somewhere very far away, he heard Dean’s voice-the one he used when things had gone horribly wrong. “Is that you, Sarah?”
Sam forced his way back to the present, to the basement, watched Dean eyeing the staircase. The three of them-Dean, Sam, the demon-held their breaths, waiting.
She clambered down the stairs and stopped short at the base, one hand lingering on the rail. Even in Sam’s current state, a demon camped out in his body, he knew something wasn’t right with her.
“Layla,” Dean said, “where’s Sarah?”
Layla bit her lip. Her hair was coming out of the neat ponytail Sarah had made, blond falling into mouth, sticking to her face where it was wet with tears. She glanced down, and for the first time Sam noticed the knife she held in one hand. Ruby’s knife.
“I took this away from her.” She held it up like evidence, and Sam noticed that the tip was dry. So either Layla hadn’t used it . . . or she’d used the knife and wiped off the blood. “She tried to hurt me with it. I know you said she was your friend, Sam, but I think something’s wrong with . . . ”
She trailed off, as though noticing for the first time that Sam was tied to a chair. Then she looked into the demon’s eyes. She sucked out a startled breath that curled into a whimper.
“You’re not Sam,” she said, stating a fact.
“That’s going around,” Dean muttered, voice hoarse. “Layla, I need you to give me that knife.”
“Ailo,” the demon intoned, and for the first time its voice betrayed the emotion Sam felt swirling inside him. Them. “Oh, baby.”
Layla made a sound like a sob.
“I’m not her, okay?”
“Layla,” Dean began, “Give me the knife now.”
Back in the woods, but Sam could see lights through the trees. Car headlights. He stumbled up the incline and into the road, waved his free arm wildly. A dark minivan swerved, sped off. Curses pouring from his lips, old words in unfamiliar tongues. At last an ancient looking Buick ground its breaks, skidded to a halt in the middle of the street. Sam hugged the girl to his chest and jogged toward the car.
“You okay, ma’am?”
“No,” Sam said, breathless. “I need a ride.”
Warm in the backseat, heat blowing through the vents. The driver flicked on the overhead. An old man, gray hair and too lonely-looking to be anyone’s grandfather.
“Hey,” he said, “your daughter, she’s bleeding.”
Sam looked down at the girl, his, swept his hand along the red stain coating her nightgown.
“It’s not hers.”
“What?”
The man’s arterial blood, wet and spilling over his fingers. Sticky hands steering the car as he drove them south.
One minute Sam was in a car in Maine, the next he was back in the chair, the demon straining against the ropes holding his body in place.
“Ailo.” Half command, half plea. “Come here.”
Sam fought against the invisible ropes keeping him prisoner in his own body, keeping him from speaking. He wanted to scream, Stay back.
Layla was crying now, silent tears sluicing over her nose.
“No,” she whispered.
“Ailo!”
Dean’s voice, pleading: “Layla, just walk to me.”
“Take another step toward her and I’ll hurt Sam, Dean.” The demon twisted Sam’s lips into a smile. “Bring me the knife, Ailo.”
Sam met Layla’s eyes, which were wide with terror, and suddenly he was back in Maine, back at the house.
He woke up when the sun climbed high enough to shine through the skylight in the loft bedroom. It was morning, cartoon-early, and Sam felt amazing, safe and warm like he hadn’t since he was five or six and still young enough to believe whatever Dad and Dean told him.
He didn’t know whose head he was in, but it wasn’t the demon’s anymore.
He got up and went downstairs in his bare feet, mind full of Mom and breakfast and something else just beginning to push at the edges of his consciousness. The bedroom door was open, hall light sliding along the floor and across the big bed in the middle of the room. He hesitated in the doorway, confused, cold starting to creep up from his bare toes for the first time. And then she was there.
Beautiful and young, with dark hair curling around her face, green eyes gazing at him from a face shaped like a heart. Sam recognized her from somewhere. Georgia. The abandoned house. Crouching in a room with sigils on the walls.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” the demon asked him, voice heavy, reverent almost.
She pressed the knife into his small hand, and it seemed to fit there like it was made to. Sam turned around and went into the bedroom while the demon backed into the shadows, joined another figure. A small dark figure that looked suspiciously like a little girl.
He stood at the foot of the big bed, and waited. Finally, the bathroom door opened, and a woman emerged, and his brain said mom, but he didn’t feel it, didn’t feel anything until the warmth filled him again, stretching from his toes to the ends of his hair. It was like someone wrapped him in a blanket. Hugged him from the inside.
Layla’s head, he realized. That’s where he was now. And this was Layla’s mother, the late Maddy Omera.
“You’re up early,” the woman said, rubbing a towel over her head. She whipped it away, and her blond hair fell forward, choppy in places, like she was growing it out after a long time. “Daddy’s still asleep.”
Sam glanced at the bed, and at the man asleep under the sheet, which rose and fell with the rhythm of his breathing. Rick Omera. Dad, Sam thought, but he felt nothing.
“Hey.” Maddy knelt down, and Sam could see her brown eyes and the freckles on her nose. “Everything okay, Ryan?”
And Sam tried to stop it, he tried as hard as he could, but he was years too late. The knife plunged through the V where Maddy Omera’s robe gaped open, passed through nightgown and flesh, cutting deep. Sam tried to pull his hand back but it struck again, arching with expertise no six-year-old hand had a right to.
He rounded the bed, and the next part felt almost like anticlimax. One blow this time, perfectly aimed through the sheet. He could practically hear the silence when the heartbeats stopped. When Layla killed her father.
Sam left the room, was curled up on the living room sofa before he noticed how wet his hands were, or how cold he felt all of a sudden. Whatever presence was inside him was gone now. And then the dark-haired woman was there, bundling him into a blanket, her face pale and beautiful.
“My daughter,” she murmured, “my Ailo,” and her hands were soft and soothing in his hair. He had flashes of the woods, the car stopping for them on the dark deserted road, the gurgling sound the driver made when the demon slit his throat.
Sam wanted to throw up but didn’t have the control over his gag reflex. He had accomplished their goal finally, discovered the truth. They thought she’d witnessed her parents’ deaths when in reality she’d been an active participant. Lilith used her body-Layla’s own hands-to take her parents’ lives, before handing the little girl over to the demon.
Back in the basement, Sam cursed both of them to hell and hoped Lilith heard him somehow.
“I wasn’t the one who killed the Omeras,” the demon protested, and Sam knew she was talking to him and not Dean.
Dean’s eyes were sliding from Sam to Layla, still clutching the knife to her chest with her good hand.
“Granted she may have had a little help,” the demon drawled. “That little girl witnessed the murder of my mother at the hands of the Rick and Maddy Omera. So she became my daughter and avenged her grandmother’s death. Kind of fitting, don’t you think?”
No, Sam tried to say, but nothing came out.
The demon was bucking against the restraints, and Sam’s head felt like it was going to roll off his neck with the effort.
“Ailo, come here,” the demon commanded, voice high and straining now. “Come to me, baby.”
And it was like something inside Layla broke, and she crept forward sobbing.
“Layla, don’t!” Dean shouted and stepped over the circle.
The demon threw him across the room with enough force that he went careening into the wall opposite, before sliding to the floor with a sickening thud. Dean took a moment getting to his feet, head shaking from the impact, and that was the delay she needed.
The demon extended Sam’s cuffed hands to curve around Layla’s head. Sam could feel Layla’s hair, soft and damp, beneath his hand. He cradled her skull in one palm, marveling at the fact that she was his. His, hers. The child of a dead woman named Maddy Omera. Sam couldn’t see the line anymore, but he felt his eyes fill with someone else’s tears.
“Stab me,” the demon whispered. “Do it.”
His vision waterlogged, Sam watched Dean swaying to his feet, stumbling forward with a frantic “No!” on his lips.
Layla had stopped sobbing. She stared up at Sam with huge eyes, frightened and pleading. Mournful eyes, far too old for seven.
“I don’t wanna hurt anyone else,” she said softly.
“Ailo, look at me,” the demon instructed. “Look at my eyes. Do it. Do it, baby. Do it, Ryan.”
Layla sniffed, sucking snot through her nose, and wiped her face on her sleeve.
“I can’t,” she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
And Sam believed her. With a detached sort of interest, he watched her hand, small and steady, raise the blade before plunging it down and into his belly. He felt the knife slicing its way through skin and tissue, but the pain was vague, dull and far away. His lap felt warm, and he realized it was his own blood, seeping through his jeans.
Sam didn’t care about any of those feelings though because, far stronger, was the feeling of the demon letting go, letting him go. She was dying and declining to take Sam with her.
“No,” he groaned. “Not yet.”
Then Dean was on him, pushing Layla aside and grabbing the knife, using the still-wet blade to slice through Sam’s restraints. Fingers fumbled with the key, working the cuffs open.
Sam hissed as he slid from the chair in a controlled fall, Dean’s arms tight around him.
“Sammy?”
“Wrists hurt,” Sam ground out.
A soft expulsion of breath. Dean’s voice, disbelieving.
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
“She-she let me. I wasn’t there yet, but she let me . . . she let me see what she did to her, to Layla, over the last year. Why would she do that, Dean?”
The bodies in the house in Georgia, and others along the coast. The demon was sacrificing them, feeding Layla their blood along with her own. Trying to make Layla special, make her hers. Sam could see the rituals, the words, as though they were inked over his corneas.
“She-the demon-she fed Layla blood. Tried to change her. Wasn’t done though, not yet.”
“You’re bleeding to death, Sam. Do you think you could shut up for five minutes?”
“Don’t think it’s that bad,” Sam said objectively, realizing as he said the words that they were true. “Go check Sarah.”
“Sam-” Exasperation, and something like relief that Sam felt up to issuing orders.
“She could be hurt, Dean.”
“Seriously, Sam, if I have to gag you . . . ”
Sam’s muscle control wasn’t a hundred percent, but he managed to raise one hand, slap his palm lightly against Dean’s cheek.
“Dean,” he murmured.
“Excuse me.”
They both turned at the voice.
Layla’s hands were red, and Sam wanted to search her for injuries before he realized it was his blood. She was obviously scared but seemed otherwise unharmed, and Sam felt his body go limp with relief.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Dean was telling her. “Everything’s gonna be-”
“Dean,” Sam began, a frown starting to form. “I don’t think-”
“My name’s Ryan Jane Omera,” she interrupted, voice quaking like she was making a valiant effort not to cry. “I’m six years old and I live at 14 Acadia Drive in Portland Maine. My telephone number is 555 818 9032. Can you take me home or to the nearest police station, please?”
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Chapter Five