Best Self (Sam Winchester/ Sam Winchester, NC-17)
written for the King of Hell Sam Winchester's Birthday Extravaganza for the prompt:
King of Hell Sam meets Kale!Sam and they have many differences of opinion to work out.
(aka the only one who knows what Sam really wants is Sam.)
words by
monicawoe
banner by
quickreaver
thanks to
wetsammy for the beta!
Read it here or on AO3
Sam stood in front of his new Mirror™ and smoothed down the front of his moisture-wicking tank top. He could feel the increased definition in his abs, but it wasn't quite where he wanted it to be. Not yet. He was, as ever, determined to be his best self. That's what he'd built his whole career on, and he had to embody it wholly.
"Alexa, start Mirror, play Morning Pilates," Sam said, getting into starting position on his PVC-free yoga mat.
He moved through the first three exercises with ease, looking forward to the upcoming side plank with grim eagerness. He'd been getting better at the advanced version and was confident he could hold the position perfectly. When the time came he held the form without any quivering in his arms or legs, so focused on using his core to hold himself still that it took him a few seconds to realize the mirror was glitching. Sam's reflection wasn't doing a pristine side-plank at all, it was just standing there. And it was wearing a suit.
A suit he was pretty sure he didn't even own.
"Alexa, restart mirror," he snapped, annoyed at this interrupt. He could hold a side-plank a long time, but likely not all the way through the restart. Plus, he wanted to make sure his other side got an equal amount of attention, and... the mirror hadn't turned off. A bright orange line of static rippled down the middle. His reflection-still wearing a black suit with a dark maroon silk shirt-was looking right at him, a crooked smile creeping across its lips.
Unsettled, Sam pushed himself to his feet and moved to turn the damn thing off manually. He pressed himself up against the glass, reaching around the back with his left hand to find the reset button, and then the glass wriggled under him, and a hand grabbed him by the throat.
Sam choked as he was lifted clear off the ground by himself. Or somebody who looked exactly like him. Except for the suit and his eyes which flashed golden-yellow just before he tossed Sam unceremoniously to the floor.
More scared than he'd been in years, Sam scrambled backwards until his head slammed against his Calacatta marble kitchen island. "Who are you?" he stammered, as the stranger wearing his face came closer.
It wasn't just the suit or the eerie eyes; this other Sam was someone else entirely. He held himself differently, moved like the world was his: regal, dangerous and completely unafraid. He stopped two feet away from Sam and cocked his head to the side, considering. "I could ask you the same thing." He shrugged, languidly, teeth glinting. "But why bother?" He kept walking, heading past Sam and the kitchen towards the living room's back wall of floor to ceiling windows.
Sam stood, ignoring the shaking in his legs and the sudden but intense feeling of inadequacy, not just because he was underdressed but because of whatever aura this other him had. That, and his shoulders, which put his own to shame. He bit back the urge to ask him about his workout routine and instead asked the slightly more pressing question, "You're me, right?"
The other Sam looked down at the city, at the skyscrapers bathed pink by the cresting sunrise. "Is this yours?"
"The apartment? Yes, obviously-"
"The city."
"The city?" Sam scoffed. "What? You can't just-"
"I can."
Sam's irritation overcame his residual fear. "Look, I don't know who you think you are, but-"
"I'm the King."
"The King?" Sam's heart stuttered a beat. "Of what?"
His other's lips curved into a smug smile. "Of Hell and Earth, and other lesser places."
Sam swallowed as he took in that information. "Are you… are you me from the future?"
His counterpart scoffed. "Hardly. You think there's a future where you become me?"
He said it with such derision that Sam felt himself wilt. It wasn't that ridiculous, was it?
"I'm from another reality," the King said, taking a seat on the bench of Sam's baby grand piano.
"And you came through my Mirror, because-"
"I opened a portal, and I stepped through."
"To see me?"
"I wanted to meet the other versions of myself and… understand where they went wrong," he said, standing again, eyes locked on Sam in a most unsettling way.
"Went wrong?" Sam felt offended. "What makes you think I did anything wrong?"
The King stood, somehow taller than Sam and crowded him against the glass wall. "You've done nothing."
And that was enough. Sam shoved the King back, or tried to, but he was as immobile as a statue, muscles as solid as rock. Still, Sam stood his ground, raising his chin in defiance. "I've done plenty. I graduated top of my class at Stanford Law, I have my own law firm, I do self-help seminars-they're very popular."
The King snorted a laugh at him, and backed off, just a little, giving Sam a little room to breathe. "Wow, impressive," he said, with a mocking tone that was the exact opposite of impressed.
But Sam wasn't done. "And I did all of that without help from anybody."
"You mean your family."
"They're not my family, not anymore. I disowned them."
"There's one thing you did right," the King nodded in approval. "But the rest, what's it gotten you? Hm?" He gestured out towards Sam's apartment. "Five rooms filled with shiny crap."
"It's not crap," Sam said, still on the defensive.
"You have a mirror that talks to you because you have nobody else."
"I have plenty of people I can-"
"Where?"
Sam swallowed as the King turned his back on him. "I don't need anybody else. There's no point in wasting energy on anyone else. You have to put yourself first. Always. That's what being your best self is all about. "
The King had gone into Sam’s kitchen and was sniffing dubiously at the tray of self-baked kale chips. "This?” He picked up a chip between his fingertips and flicked it away in disgust. “This is not your best self."
"Not yet, but almost," Sam said, losing steam.
"You're right about that." His other's eyes flipped golden-yellow and Sam found himself pinned to the window again, but this time by sheer force. By power.
"How-how are you doing that?"
The King smirked and stepped away from Sam, shrugging out of his jacket. He tossed it casually on the couch, pulled off a golden cufflink and rolled back the left sleeve of his shirt as he came closer again. "You'll see."
A chill ran up Sam's spine at those words, and his mouth went dry. "What are you gonna do to me?"
"I'm going to help you become your best self," the King said, reaching his hand out towards the kitchen. A small paring knife detached itself from the magnetic bar Sam kept his kitchen blades on and flew through the air, landing solidly in the King's hand. He brought the blade towards his wrist and cut smoothly across the skin. A thin line of red welled up and before Sam could process what was happening, the King had shoved his bleeding wrist against Sam's mouth.
Sam pressed his lips shut, furiously thinking, "What the hell is he doing?"
"Drink up," the King said.
No, Sam thought and grunted in protest.
"Yes," the King said, the word resonating in Sam's head like a gonging bell. His mouth opened against his will and the King's bleeding wrist slid in.
Oh, this is so unhygienic. Sam's panicked thoughts focused on that and all the diseases he could get from this awful version of himself who'd done god knows what in another world. The taste of the blood was sickening, metallic and salty and something else, something that shouldn't be there that felt wrong and dark and slick as it filled his mouth and slid down his throat as he swallowed to keep from choking. A low buzz started at the back of his skull and spread until his whole brain filled with an electric tingle. His heart pounded no longer with fear but something else-exertion and exhilaration, like a runner's high. It overwhelmed him and he wasn't fighting the King anymore. He wanted more of what he was being given. His whole body was alive, singing with energy, with power and he'd never in his life felt this good.
Sam was flying, soul barely tethered to his body-he was light and bliss and ecstasy. He only became distantly aware that he'd been carried to his bed when his head hit the pillow. The silk sheets were cold beneath his skin but he didn't care. He was warm, he was happy, he felt whole. He grabbed for his other's wrist but missed, hand dropping down onto the sheets instead which he clutched at weakly. Sleep was pulling him under and that was ridiculous, he'd just woken up and he had so much to do...
"I'll check on you in a few weeks," the King said, stroking his cheek, and then Sam was alone again. He drifted to sleep, falling through a fluid, undulating mirror into dreams of red and gold.
#
A month passed.
Sam was losing focus. He still did his morning workouts every day, but they didn't make him feel how they used to, even though he'd gotten noticeably stronger over the last month. He was hungry all the time, had doubled his protein intake accordingly and it was visible in his shoulders and arms. But the real reason he came to mirror every morning wasn't to work on himself anymore. He came with the hope of seeing his other self again. Sometimes, after his routine was done, he'd sit in front of the mirror, in lotus pose, or sometimes on his knees, waiting for the King to come back to him.
He'd found the golden cufflink his other self had dropped in his carpet. A golden crown polished to a gleam. Sam had been tempted to wear it himself, but instead, somehow worried that act of transgression would upset its owner, set it on his nightstand. Every night he stared at it in the dark until his eyes eventually fell shut.
His treadmill-desk was gathering dust. It wasn't that he'd lost the urge to run; he'd gone back to running outside, when he couldn't bear being in the apartment anymore, constantly pushing back the need to check the mirror. He hit a point every day where he got angry with himself for thinking about nothing else and went running in the park. But inevitably, halfway around the lake he'd get paranoid, that he'd missed his chance and sprint back the rest of the way, more than once nearly bowling over a fellow jogger who was in his way. But every time his apartment was just how he'd left it when he got back, and the security camera footage never showed any visitors, unwanted or wanted.
Nothing satisfied Sam like that drink from the King's wrist had. Not energy shakes, not watching his investments climb steeply up, not his new clients with their loose pocketbooks and looser lips, not his unbroken streak of courtroom wins, not even his seminars which had gotten so popular he'd had to book venues with five times the capacity of what he'd been doing. Everything was going ridiculously well. It was everything he'd ever wanted, but all of it left him cold.
#
Thirty-four days and two hours later, the King came back.
Sam's breath caught in his throat as he felt trapped again by those snake-yellow eyes. He came out of the standing split he'd been holding, legs gone shaky, not from exertion but anticipation. He took a hesitant step forward as the King looked him up and down, assessing him.
"You're back," Sam said, stupidly.
"And? What have you done?"
Sam didn't entirely understand the question. It wasn't accusatory, it was curious, if anything. Eager. "You mean-"
"What have you accomplished since the last time I paid you a visit?" the King asked, his patience clearly starting to fade around the edges.
Sam told him, excitedly gloating about his increased audience sized, his new workout benchmarks, his bank account balances. It didn't even feel like gloating, it felt like he was rattling off assignments for a teacher, or maybe resume skills.
His counterpart took it all in with a steely unreadable expression, golden eyes alien and unblinking. "So you've done nothing. You've wasted the power I've given you."
"What? Wasted-what-what power?"
"I thought maybe if I gave you a taste-"
...and at that word alone, Sam's mouth began to water. His eyes flicked down to the King's wrist, eager to see red.
"Of what you could really do, you'd use it."
"Use what? I don't even know what you did to me!" Sam snapped, immediately on the defensive again.
"You have power now. Real power," the King said, eyes burning yellow flames. "Do something with it."
"I am, I-"
"You want control, I know you do. More than you can get from clean eating and exercise. You still have a need to dominate people, otherwise, why would you bother with those stupid seminars?"
"They're not stupid,” Sam said, flushing. "And I do them to help people."
"No, you don't." The King's voice was gentle now, honest. "You want them to listen to you because nobody ever does, do they?"
Sam swallowed and refused to acknowledge the stinging tears in his eyes, ignored the flashes of memory of his brother and father.
"It could be so much easier," the King said.
"How?" Sam asked, weakly.
The King moved behind him, turning Sam gently by his shoulders until they were both facing the mirror. "Bend the world to your will," he whispered, and with a flick of his wrist, the mirror came to life, showing a different world-of fire and ash, black smoke behemoths curling thick through the air like flying dragons, swarming into people, funneling down their open, screaming mouths. The streets glistened with bone and blood and in the center of it all stood the King, pristine and untouched, not a hair out of place. As he walked, the people around him fell to their knees all turned towards him with black, eager eyes.
Sam was horrified, or at least he told himself he was.
He was also rock hard.
The images on the mirror faded and Sam turned towards the King, caught somewhere between fear and intense lust.
“That’s what we can do,” the King said.
“I-I don’t know how,” Sam said. “Teach me.”
The King smiled, and put his hand on the side of Sam’s face, tracing his long fingers down his cheek. His touch was incongruously gentle, making Sam's eyelids flutter. He'd never been touched quite like this before, not by someone his own size.
"Lesson one," said the King, shifting his grip so he held Sam's chin sharply in his hand. "Know what you want."
Sam studied his golden eyes for a heartbeat before leaning in closer and crushing their lips together. At first, the King's lips were stiff against his, and Sam wondered if he'd made a fatal error. He didn't wait though, trying to take the lesson to heart and brought his hands to the back of the King's nape, spanning his hands up into his hair. It was soft, softer than he'd imagined, and he wondered if this was what he felt like to other people.
Their kiss grew hungrier, the King responding in kind, wrapping his arm around Sam's waist and pulling him in tighter. He pulled back and kissed his way along the side of Sam’s neck, grazing his teeth against his skin.
A moan escaped Sam’s lips and the desperate aching need inside of him grew too strong to ignore. “Okay,” he panted, pulling at the King’s hair until he let go. “Okay, I know what I want.”
The King’s alien eyes watched him, waiting.
Sam, determined to follow through, to prove he’d learned lesson one, grabbed the King’s wrist and pulled him roughly, turning to lead them both to the bedroom.
The King followed without protesting, even let Sam shove him back down onto the sheets and straddle his hips. Sam took his time undressing him, unbuttoning the shirt one button at a time, pulling the thick silk apart, revealing a body easily as beautiful as his own, if not more so. Sam slid his fingers down those hard planes of abs and then stopped, unbuttoning his pants. Overcome with urgency again, his movements grew quicker and he tugged the pants down, the King obliging with a soft bucking of his hips.
Sam cupped his hand over the hard length of him and pulled his boxer briefs down, nuzzling gently before swallowing him down.
The King was silent at first but for a few hitched breaths that soon, under Sam's practiced movements, turned to moans. He slid in and out of Sam’s mouth, ever deeper, grabbing the back of Sam's hair as his thrusts became harsher and then stilled.
Heat pulsed down Sam’s throat, and he swallowed, coming up breathless and hungry for something more. He lifted his head and the King grabbed him beneath his arms, yanked him up on top of him and then flipped them both over, pinning Sam beneath him.
Sam felt trapped by that yellow gaze, fully aware that the King’s power could hold him there just as easily as his strength.
As though he’d read Sam’s mind, the King sat back on his heels, mouth curving into a wry smile, psychically keeping Sam pinned to the mattress. “Lesson two,” the King said. “Take what you want.”
“I think I already did that part,” Sam said smugly.
“No, you gave me what I wanted. Now take what you want.”
Sam looked towards the veins in the King’s wrist, stark blue lines running parallel to his tightly strung tendons. His mouth watered at the memory of the taste of that blood and what had followed. He tried to shift up, to lift his head towards that font of power, but couldn’t move a centimeter.
“Try harder,” the King said, unamused. “Use more than just your body.”
Sam did. Focusing inwards, he searched for that coiling heat inside of him, the same heat he could feel in the King’s eyes and took hold of it, pulling himself up like the last time he’d gone rock-climbing. His head got closer and closer until he was within an inch of the King’s wrist; he opened his mouth, straining to reach that flesh, so close he could smell it, could practically feel the push of his teeth against skin. A shove of force sent him sprawling back onto the mattress, head bouncing.
"That's not taking," the King snarled, "that's begging." His expression had gone cold.
Sam's fear only heightened his arousal and he tried again, closing the distance between them more quickly, despite the King’s power. Sam knew what he wanted, and was determined to take it.
The King’s brow began beading with sweat as he strained to keep Sam away, but he couldn’t. Sam claimed his prize, sinking his teeth in hard and the King winced as his skin broke open beneath the unrelenting pressure of Sam’s canines.
And then the blood hit Sam's tongue and he was adrift again in bliss and an endless well of power. Sam swallowed it down, the heat even more intimate than before and in his mind, a whole new future unfolded-not terrifying like the King’s, but beautiful and perfect: a future where everyone and everything listened to him, where he saved people from themselves, where they did exactly as Sam wanted, where he had total control over everything.
When he looked out at the world again, the King’s eyes were different: the yellow glow had dissipated and Sam saw his own eyes looking back at him.
Sam smiled and could feel the tackiness of the blood still coating his teeth. “What's lesson three?”
“Eliminate the competition,” the King said, grabbing Sam by the shoulders as he bore down on his neck.
As the King's teeth bit into his skin, Sam fought futilely, another smothering press of power locking him down, making his body go slack. But still, he fought. He had more tools now, for as long as they'd last anyway. So he lashed out with his mind, grabbing in desperation at anything around, anything nearby that he could use. He'd left his favorite knife on the cutting board earlier, after his morning grapefruit. With every passing second, he was getting weaker, the King reclaiming all the gifts he'd given Sam; if he wanted to turn this around he was running out of time. So he mentally grabbed at the knife and desperately flung it towards the King. It hit him squarely in the back and the King arched up with a surprised wince, reaching his hand behind him. He pulled the knife out from where it had lodged itself just below his left shoulder blade and looked at it in surprise which shifted rapidly to fury and then something else-amusement?
Sam gave him as confident and threatening a glare as he could manage considering his neck was still bitten open. The red sheen on the knife made him proud. He'd done that. And he could do more, he felt it. His power wasn't gone yet. And if he had his way, he'd be taking it back, real soon, with interest.
"You really think you have a chance against me?" the King asked. "The only reason I haven't killed you yet is because you're an amusing distraction."
"You said I was competition," Sam countered, his confidence returning. He kept his eyes resolutely off the knife, even as he wrapped his mental fingers around the hilt.
"One day you could be."
"Only cowards are scared of their competition," Sam said, quoting one of his favorite speeches. "And competition can be the best motivator."
The King scoffed. "Terrible. People pay to hear that garbage?"
"They pay a lot."
"Idiots." The King rolled back his shoulders languidly, clearly not in pain from the knife wound, then reached for Sam's neck.
Sam didn't even flinch as the King's fingers traced over the wound in his neck. He could feel his skin knitting closed, yet another gift from the King's blood. No longer restrained psychically or in any other way, Sam sat, propping himself up on his elbows, and looped his arm over the King's back, pulling him down on top of him, crushing their lips together. The threat of death gone, for the moment, had left him wound up and ready to go another round or ten. He kissed the King deeply, reveling in the taste of blood mingling in both of their mouths. It all tasted the same and held the same promise of power and glory. He could've stayed like that forever, but soon, far too soon, the King pulled back, looking down at Sam with something like confusion on his sharp features.
"This wasn't my plan."
"I know," Sam said because that much was obvious.
"I was going to take this world."
"Yours wasn't enough?"
"It's never enough." The King shrugged. "But… there are others. So many others." He smiled, sending a chill down Sam's back. "I guess you can have this one." He picked up his shed clothing and started to get dressed.
Sam watched him in nervous silence, trying to think of something to say. Thank you, didn't feel quite right.
"For a while, anyway," the King said, buttoning his shirt.
"When will you be back?" Sam asked.
"When I get bored," the King said over his shoulder. And then he stepped through the mirror, and Sam was alone again.