fic: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree (SPN/BtVS; Sam/Buffy; adult)
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
SPN/BtVS; Sam/Buffy (Sam/Ruby); vague spoilers through SPN 4.14 & BtVS 7.22 (no comics canon); adult; 3,830 words
"I didn't ask for it. Nobody asks for it, Sam. It's the superpowers lottery. Tag, you're it."
Thanks to innie_darling for helping me figure this out, and to amberlynne for handholding. LJ-versary fic!
~*~
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
He's as tall sitting down as she is standing up, which should make the whole thing weird, but Sam's seen too much weird in his life to let a height discrepancy bother him, especially when she lets him lead her into the dim hallway that leads to the restrooms and kiss her. She winds her arms around his neck and wraps her legs around his waist. They fit perfectly this way.
She's tiny, but she's got a good grip, and her gasp when he slams her against the wall isn't one of pain, or not just pain, anyway. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated, and he can't really tell what color they are, just that there is white surrounding the iris. He kisses her hungrily, messily, all teeth and tongue, and she rubs up against him, breasts warm and firm against his chest as she moans softly into his mouth.
She smells of shampoo and girl sweat instead of sulfur, tastes of heat and beer instead of anger, and her hands are steady when she rolls the condom onto his dick. He licks the beads of sweat sliding down her throat, tongue grazing a pair of small raised marks over the jugular, the heavy beat of her pulse reminding him that they're both alive.
He keeps her pressed against the wall, her blonde hair fanning out like a halo in the cheap yellow light, and slams his hips in a way that makes her writhe and moan and clench around him. He reaches down with one hand, fingers her clit until she comes, desperate and gasping, air stuttering out of her lungs like she's forgotten how to breathe.
He sucks it down, feels his own orgasm building, pressure breaking into waves of pleasure that quiet the steady buzz of thoughts in his head for a few minutes.
Sam presses his face into the crook of her neck, breathing heavily. She clings to him, trembling, and when he can think again, he wonders if he's hurt her. It's what he does.
"You okay?" she asks, perfectly manicured fingers tipping his chin up so he has to meet her gaze. Her lips are swollen and there's a line of tiny red marks on her neck from his mouth, but she doesn't seem fazed or fearful.
"Yeah."
Her lips curl in a half-smile, like she knows he's lying, but she's not going to call him on it. "Okay," she says. She unwraps her legs from around his hips and he lets her slide down the wall. She smoothes her skirt down over her legs, bends to pick up her panties, and he thinks, What would Dean do?
He grabs her hand before she can shove her underwear into her purse, takes it and puts it in his own pocket.
"Okay," she says again, wrinkling her nose, and though he can hear wary amusement in her voice, he feels like a pervert. "I guess it's too late to say we don't know each other well enough for that." She holds a hand out. "I'm Buffy, by the way." He stares at her hand like it might bite him, wondering if he should give her underwear back. He hesitates too long, and she yanks her hand back. "I don't usually--" She shakes her head. "I can't imagine that ever sounding like the truth, even when it is."
"Sam," he says, reluctant, and amused despite himself. "I don't usually either."
She looks up at him, one hand coming up to smooth her hair. "It doesn't help," she says, and he knows she's telling the truth.
He shakes his head. "No."
She opens her mouth and then closes it, her whole body going tense and wary as she looks down the hall behind him.
Sam turns and bites back a sigh. "Ruby."
"Sam, I was worried sick." The hell of it is, she probably was, though not for the reasons Buffy's probably thinking. He gives a bitter bark of laughter.
"I'm fine, Ruby."
"I bet you are." He can hear the anger in it.
Buffy glances between them and grimaces. "Awkward," she whispers. "I'll just--" She slips past Sam, gives Ruby an appraising look that Ruby returns, chin raised defiantly, and then she's gone.
Sam can still smell her on his skin, but when he and Ruby get back to the motel, Ruby insists he take a shower, and she joins him, overwriting Buffy's marks on his body with her own.
Sam doesn't care enough either way to stop her.
*
Dad had always told them to steer clear of the devil's gate in Cleveland, and Sam and Dean had always followed that advice, but when both Castiel and Ruby directed them to it, Sam had insisted on going.
"If we have a chance to destroy a devil's gate, that could give us an advantage," he says, and sets his jaw. Dean doesn't argue, just throws the car into drive and heads out, sour look on his face.
By the time they arrive at the cemetery, the fight's almost finished. Sam doesn't see Castiel or Uriel, just a couple of girls with swords, and a tiny blonde with a wicked red axe, fighting against crazy scorpion monsters that look like something out of a Ray Harryhausen movie.
Sam and Dean wade in with shotguns and crossbows, but the girls do most of the close fighting and reap most of the kills.
When it's done, the girls come over and Sam braces himself for Dean's usual post-heroics sleaziness, but the girls look more skeptical than grateful.
"You could have been killed," the black girl says, hands on her hips. Sam blinks in surprise, not used to being scolded by civilians. He glances at Dean, who smirks in amusement.
"You should really leave the slaying to the professionals," the blonde with the axe says before Dean can try out one of his pick-up lines. She looks up from where she's cleaning the edge and inhales sharply. "Sam?"
All the good humor is gone from Dean's face. "You been holding out on me, Sammy?"
Sam ignores Dean's sarcasm and says, "Buffy?"
"Yeah." She brushes the hair out of her eyes and smiles. "How are you?"
"Okay. Better."
"Good, good." She hefts the axe, gestures, and Sam notices again how small she is, remembers how fragile she'd felt in his arms. He remembers being worried that he'd hurt her. He feels really dumb now. "So, uh, you guys are clued into the whole monsters are real thing, huh?"
He laughs awkwardly, rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah."
Dean is staring at her with a thoughtful expression on his face, and Sam can practically see the light go on above his head. "The blue cotton bikinis, right? With the flowers? That was you?"
"Dean!"
Buffy wrinkles her nose. "Pervert much?"
"You're the one who let this guy," he jerks his thumb at Sam, "walk off with your panties, sweetheart."
Buffy swings the axe like it doesn't weigh anything, grin on her face that can only mean trouble. "The name's Buffy, jackass. And you should be thanking me for doing your job."
Dean's chin comes up and Sam puts a restraining hand on his arm. Before Dean can say anything, he says, "You wanna explain exactly what you mean by that?"
She jerks the axe towards the mausoleum, completely unintimidated by him. "Some idiots were trying to open up the hellmouth, got the gertie-blues all riled up."
"Girtablilu," the black girl murmurs.
Buffy makes a dismissive gesture. "Whatever, Rona. That's what I said."
"They're Akkadian scorpion men," Rona explains. "They guard the gates of hell."
"Well, they did before we kicked their asses." Buffy grins again, more genuine this time but no less dangerous. "But I thought you were supposed to be the guys stopping the apocalypse this time."
"This time?" Sam asks.
Simultaneously, Dean says, "How do you know about that?"
"I've been averting the apocalypse since I was sixteen," she says, and she sounds tired, not boastful. "There's a specific prophecy about this one--Azazel's chosen one, and Lucifer, and stuff. It's a prophecy." She shrugs. "They generally don't make any sense until after everything's happened."
"What good are they, then?" Sam asks, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"They can give us the heads up, help us save people." She shrugs again. "Or you can think you're working to stop one and you're just making it come true. A lot of the time, there's really no way to tell."
"Son of a bitch," Dean mutters.
"Pretty much." There's sympathy along with resignation in Buffy's tone this time. "Anyway, you two are all over the prophecy--well, there's a lot of blah blah blah about hunters and chosen ones and obviously, you're hunters, and we," she points the axe at herself and her two friends, "are chosen ones, so..."
Sam's head is spinning. "Wait, you're Azazel's chosen one?"
"No," she says. "Well, maybe. I don't think so." She shakes her head. "Come on. Let's go someplace a little less public for this conversation. The cops in this town are a lot less willing to look the other way than the ones in Sunnydale, and I could go for some pancakes."
"I could eat," Dean says.
Buffy takes it as the peace offering it is, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. "If we're lucky, Andrew will still be up, and he'll be in the mood to cook. But Giles needs a briefing, and he's gonna wanna talk to you." She turns to her friends. "I'll ride back with these guys."
*
Sam has a ton of questions, but Buffy avoids answering them; instead, she alternates between mocking Dean's music and complimenting his car. Given the death-grip Dean has on the steering wheel, Sam's pretty sure Dean wants to wring her pretty neck. Given the way Buffy watches him in the rearview mirror, Sam's pretty sure she knows it, too, and is amused.
"You get away with a lot of shit because you're hot," Dean blurts, finally goaded beyond the ability to keep his mouth shut.
"Duh," she says, pretending to be focused on her manicure, though Sam can see she's watching Dean closely from under her lashes. "Don't you?"
Dean grunts in response, and Sam laughs, tension relieved, at least for the moment. Buffy settles back against the vinyl in the backseat with a sigh. She's quiet for the rest of the ride, piping up only once to give directions when nighttime construction gets them detoured.
The house is larger than Sam expected, and there are teenage girls all over the place. Buffy sics them on Dean when they hit the kitchen, and he's being cajoled into making pancakes for them when Buffy shepherds Sam out of the room with a fake apologetic smile. "You can catch up with us later," she calls back over her shoulder. "Save some pancakes for me!"
She ignores Dean's mutter about her panties, though Sam feels his ears burning in embarrassment.
She leads him into a library--there are bookshelves against the walls and books on every surface, and a few chairs scattered around. He sinks down into a burgundy leather wing chair and pulls Buffy into his lap. She laughs and tosses her hair over her shoulder, then wraps her arms around his neck. She still feels tiny and fragile in his arms, and now he can smell sweat and fear on her, imagines he can taste the lingering effects of adrenaline on her tongue when he kisses her. She kisses him back, hungry and wet and messy, small hands with quick fingers unbuttoning his shirt.
He fingers the hem of her shirt but when she pulls back to let him yank it over her head, he doesn't. She watches him carefully, smile leaving her face when he doesn't move.
"Sam?"
"What do you know about Azazel?"
"I know he was some big powerful demon who got his ass handed to him about a year and a half ago. There was a lot of chatter about a hellmouth opening and letting out a ton of old-school demons."
"Chatter?"
"You think the undead don't gossip? They're chattier than your Aunt Millie at a tea party."
He gives her a quick half-grin. "I don't have an Aunt Millie."
"You know what I mean."
"Dean killed him."
She blinks. "Okay, now I'm kind of impressed."
"You don't think much of hunters."
"They like to shoot things that don't like being shot, and sometimes at things that don't need to be shot." She shakes her head. "But we're trying to work with them. With you. We're all doing what we can, and right now, we need all the help we can get to keep the seals from being broken."
"You know about the seals?"
"I know you don't mean the kind at SeaWorld."
"Lilith is the one doing it," he says. "She's trying to free Lucifer."
Buffy lets out a long, low whistle. "The devil himself. No doubt she wants to unleash hell on earth, pain and suffering, yada yada, the whole nine yards."
Sam snorts and then feels huge and uncouth and wishes he hadn't. "I've never heard anybody yada yada hell on earth."
"It's not my first apocalypse. Things go better when I don't freak out."
"Yeah, I can imagine. You said you and Rona and--" He pauses, because he doesn't know the other girl's name.
"Shannon."
He nods. "Shannon are chosen ones. What does that mean?"
She shifts, makes herself at home in his lap, and says, "Slayers. Used to be there was only one at a time--one girl in all the world with the strength and the skill to hold back the darkness."
Sam's heard the story, though he'd never believed it. Dad had never found any evidence of their existence except in old books. "One dies, another is called."
"Right. When I died the first time, Kendra was called. And when she died, there was Faith."
"Died the first time?"
"Oh, it was a total technicality that time--a little CPR and I was fine. The second time," she looks down, away, "that's a long story."
He knows the feeling. "Okay. And when Faith died?" he prompts when she doesn't go on.
"Faith hasn't died yet." She shakes her head and makes a face. "We were fighting a losing battle and we needed more slayers. We needed to take control. So Willow did this spell--she activated all the potentials."
"Potentials?"
"All the girls who might have been called, when one of us died."
"All--" Sam frowns, trying to take it all in. Suddenly the horde of teenage girls in the kitchen makes sense. "They all live here?"
"Some do. Some live near other supernatural hotspots. Some take the slayer act on the road. And some are still out there, unidentified, but we're working on that, too."
"That's amazing."
Buffy laughs. "That's one word for it."
"So you've got, like, powers?"
"Super strength and quick healing. Sharper reflexes. Prophetic dreams. Spidey-sense, when things are off. Like that." She laughs again, and Sam can hear some bitterness underneath it.
"That's not a bad deal." And it's not too far off from the special package he's supposedly carrying around in his head, in his blood. He hopes nobody mentions it to Dean--he doesn't want to hear even more jokes about him being a girl.
"You'd think, right? But it comes with an early expiration date, and, well, apocalypses." She shrugs a shoulder. "I didn't ask for it. Nobody asks for it, Sam. It's just--it's the superpowers lottery." She taps his chest lightly. "Tag, you're it."
"Yeah." This time, he laughs, sharp and sour. "So where does old Yellow-Eyes fit into the picture?"
"Yellow-Eyes?"
"Azazel."
She shakes her head. "I don't know. He's dead, but God knows, that's never stopped anything else from trying to bring on the end the world. The prophecy talks about his chosen one, like, the leader of his demon army, but it's not really clear. It was written, like, a couple thousand years ago, in a language nobody speaks anymore. We're doing the best we can."
"So it can't be you, right? It's probably some demon." Or someone with demon blood. Sam thinks his nonchalance sounds strained, thinks what he hasn't said is hanging out there, obvious to anyone who knows what they're looking for, but Buffy doesn't seem to notice.
"Well, slayer powers come from a demon, so--"
"Wait, what?" Sam straightens up out of his slouch and almost knocks Buffy off his lap. "What?"
"Back in the day, and I do mean way, way back, like, in the day before they invented writing, these old shamans got together and decided to," Buffy purses her lips, like she's trying to find the best word, "infuse a girl with demonic powers in order to fight the darkness." Sam gets the impression that infuse isn't really the word she was looking for. "They were the first watchers. She was the first slayer. So I guess you can say we've all got demon blood in our veins. Metaphorically, at least. Though possibly literally, too." Her face scrunches up like she's thinking about it.
"But if the powers are demonic in origin--" Only those quick Slayer reflexes keep her from landing on the floor when he jumps up to pace.
"What?"
He shakes his head. "It's fruit of the poisonous tree. Where it comes from matters."
"Don't get all Jack McCoy on me now, Sam." She folds her arms across her chest. "Power is power. It's just a tool. How you use it is the important part."
"The feminist reclamation of the text, huh?"
"I don't know what that means, but yeah, okay." She sounds annoyed, like she's won this argument before and can't believe he's bringing it up again. "Look, none of us asked for this--the first slayer didn't, all those girls out there didn't, and I damn sure didn't, and it's cost me--it's cost me a lot." She takes a deep breath, visibly calms herself down. Sam admires how quickly she manages it. "I've died twice, you know."
He huffs a laugh and sinks back down into the chair. "You mentioned that."
"I'm glad you're paying attention." She seats herself on his lap again. "Seriously, when Willow did the spell, we were taking control back. Some old dead guys might have done this to us, might have made us some kind of weird demonspawn, but that doesn't mean we don't get a say in which side we're fighting for."
"It's just--" He shakes his head. "Okay, so when I was a baby, this demon--Azazel--bled into my mouth and killed my mother." Dean is the only other person he's actually told about it, but after hearing her story, he figures she'll understand. Has the crazy hope that maybe she'll help him understand. "Now I have these...powers. I used to have visions. I can exorcise demons with my mind. Once, I moved a dresser with my brain."
"Okay." She puts a hand on his shoulder, waits for him to find the words.
"Now I've got angels telling me that what I'm doing is wrong, and if I use these powers, if I step out of line, they're going to smite me. Or send Dean to hell."
"That doesn't sound like Angel."
"Really? 'Cause these two bozos are all about smiting me for using these powers."
"Two--wait, you mean actual angels, like with harps and feathery wings?"
"Yeah, except there are no harps or feathers. They're more like dicks in business suits."
"Huh. Didn't expect that."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, I'll tell you a little secret, Sam." She leans in, puts her lips close to his ear, and whispers, "When I died the second time, I didn't go to hell."
He shakes his head. "You were only gone for a few minutes, right? CPR brought you right back."
"That was the first time. The second time, I was gone for months. Buried and everything, for months. Had to claw my way out of my own grave." Her eyes go all far away for a few seconds, and she shakes her head as if to clear it of unpleasant memories. "I was in heaven, Sam." Her voice is soft, wondering, for a moment before turning businesslike. "They didn't know that when they brought me back, and I couldn't tell them. They thought they were rescuing me from hell, but I was--I was at peace."
Sam doesn't know what to say to that. He puts a hand on her shoulder, rubs his thumb along the delicate jut of her collarbone. The silence stretches and he lets it, ignoring the awkwardness to sort through his thoughts.
"You know," she finally says, mouth curving in a half-smile as she leans in to press her breasts against his chest, "most guys would rather have sex than talk about prophecies and demony stuff."
"Yeah, I know." He laughs again, and there's some real humor in it this time. "I'm not exactly most guys." He'd been someone else when he'd fucked her in that hallway; he'd been trying to be Dean and hadn't known how; now he's trying to be Sam again and he doesn't know how to be that anymore, either.
"I can see that." Her half-smile widens to a full one, lighting up her eyes. She kisses him gently, small hands cupping his face. Then she stands and offers him a hand. "Come on. I need to make sure your brother isn't debauching any minors."
Sam snorts in surprised laughter, and lets her lead him into the kitchen, where a group of girls is sitting around the table eating pancakes and chattering. Dean is focused on a brown-haired girl who's telling him lore about the Akkadian scorpion men. Well, he's focused on her cleavage as she leans forward, one hand under her chin, the other twirling in her hair.
"Are you hitting on my little sister?" Buffy asks incredulously.
"Dean's going to take me for a ride in his car," the girl says, and Sam is relieved to see she looks at least eighteen, and is probably more like twenty-one.
"No, Dawn, he's really not."
Dean flashes a leering grin. "You slept with my little brother. Seems only fair."
"There's nothing little about him," Dawn says, giving Sam a frank once-over that makes his ears burn.
Buffy slips her arm through his and grins a dirty grin. "You got that right."
Dean and Dawn exchange a grossed out look.
Sam doesn't bother to try and hold in his laughter. It feels good, eases some of the tension in his chest and shoulders. He can't remember the last time he laughed so much. Probably not since before Dean died.
Buffy sits down next to her sister, offers Sam the seat beside her, and says, "Now, how about some pancakes?"
end
~*~
Feedback is adored.
~*~
SPN/BtVS; Sam/Buffy (Sam/Ruby); vague spoilers through SPN 4.14 & BtVS 7.22 (no comics canon); adult; 3,830 words
"I didn't ask for it. Nobody asks for it, Sam. It's the superpowers lottery. Tag, you're it."
Thanks to innie_darling for helping me figure this out, and to amberlynne for handholding. LJ-versary fic!
~*~
Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
He's as tall sitting down as she is standing up, which should make the whole thing weird, but Sam's seen too much weird in his life to let a height discrepancy bother him, especially when she lets him lead her into the dim hallway that leads to the restrooms and kiss her. She winds her arms around his neck and wraps her legs around his waist. They fit perfectly this way.
She's tiny, but she's got a good grip, and her gasp when he slams her against the wall isn't one of pain, or not just pain, anyway. Her eyes are wide, pupils dilated, and he can't really tell what color they are, just that there is white surrounding the iris. He kisses her hungrily, messily, all teeth and tongue, and she rubs up against him, breasts warm and firm against his chest as she moans softly into his mouth.
She smells of shampoo and girl sweat instead of sulfur, tastes of heat and beer instead of anger, and her hands are steady when she rolls the condom onto his dick. He licks the beads of sweat sliding down her throat, tongue grazing a pair of small raised marks over the jugular, the heavy beat of her pulse reminding him that they're both alive.
He keeps her pressed against the wall, her blonde hair fanning out like a halo in the cheap yellow light, and slams his hips in a way that makes her writhe and moan and clench around him. He reaches down with one hand, fingers her clit until she comes, desperate and gasping, air stuttering out of her lungs like she's forgotten how to breathe.
He sucks it down, feels his own orgasm building, pressure breaking into waves of pleasure that quiet the steady buzz of thoughts in his head for a few minutes.
Sam presses his face into the crook of her neck, breathing heavily. She clings to him, trembling, and when he can think again, he wonders if he's hurt her. It's what he does.
"You okay?" she asks, perfectly manicured fingers tipping his chin up so he has to meet her gaze. Her lips are swollen and there's a line of tiny red marks on her neck from his mouth, but she doesn't seem fazed or fearful.
"Yeah."
Her lips curl in a half-smile, like she knows he's lying, but she's not going to call him on it. "Okay," she says. She unwraps her legs from around his hips and he lets her slide down the wall. She smoothes her skirt down over her legs, bends to pick up her panties, and he thinks, What would Dean do?
He grabs her hand before she can shove her underwear into her purse, takes it and puts it in his own pocket.
"Okay," she says again, wrinkling her nose, and though he can hear wary amusement in her voice, he feels like a pervert. "I guess it's too late to say we don't know each other well enough for that." She holds a hand out. "I'm Buffy, by the way." He stares at her hand like it might bite him, wondering if he should give her underwear back. He hesitates too long, and she yanks her hand back. "I don't usually--" She shakes her head. "I can't imagine that ever sounding like the truth, even when it is."
"Sam," he says, reluctant, and amused despite himself. "I don't usually either."
She looks up at him, one hand coming up to smooth her hair. "It doesn't help," she says, and he knows she's telling the truth.
He shakes his head. "No."
She opens her mouth and then closes it, her whole body going tense and wary as she looks down the hall behind him.
Sam turns and bites back a sigh. "Ruby."
"Sam, I was worried sick." The hell of it is, she probably was, though not for the reasons Buffy's probably thinking. He gives a bitter bark of laughter.
"I'm fine, Ruby."
"I bet you are." He can hear the anger in it.
Buffy glances between them and grimaces. "Awkward," she whispers. "I'll just--" She slips past Sam, gives Ruby an appraising look that Ruby returns, chin raised defiantly, and then she's gone.
Sam can still smell her on his skin, but when he and Ruby get back to the motel, Ruby insists he take a shower, and she joins him, overwriting Buffy's marks on his body with her own.
Sam doesn't care enough either way to stop her.
*
Dad had always told them to steer clear of the devil's gate in Cleveland, and Sam and Dean had always followed that advice, but when both Castiel and Ruby directed them to it, Sam had insisted on going.
"If we have a chance to destroy a devil's gate, that could give us an advantage," he says, and sets his jaw. Dean doesn't argue, just throws the car into drive and heads out, sour look on his face.
By the time they arrive at the cemetery, the fight's almost finished. Sam doesn't see Castiel or Uriel, just a couple of girls with swords, and a tiny blonde with a wicked red axe, fighting against crazy scorpion monsters that look like something out of a Ray Harryhausen movie.
Sam and Dean wade in with shotguns and crossbows, but the girls do most of the close fighting and reap most of the kills.
When it's done, the girls come over and Sam braces himself for Dean's usual post-heroics sleaziness, but the girls look more skeptical than grateful.
"You could have been killed," the black girl says, hands on her hips. Sam blinks in surprise, not used to being scolded by civilians. He glances at Dean, who smirks in amusement.
"You should really leave the slaying to the professionals," the blonde with the axe says before Dean can try out one of his pick-up lines. She looks up from where she's cleaning the edge and inhales sharply. "Sam?"
All the good humor is gone from Dean's face. "You been holding out on me, Sammy?"
Sam ignores Dean's sarcasm and says, "Buffy?"
"Yeah." She brushes the hair out of her eyes and smiles. "How are you?"
"Okay. Better."
"Good, good." She hefts the axe, gestures, and Sam notices again how small she is, remembers how fragile she'd felt in his arms. He remembers being worried that he'd hurt her. He feels really dumb now. "So, uh, you guys are clued into the whole monsters are real thing, huh?"
He laughs awkwardly, rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah."
Dean is staring at her with a thoughtful expression on his face, and Sam can practically see the light go on above his head. "The blue cotton bikinis, right? With the flowers? That was you?"
"Dean!"
Buffy wrinkles her nose. "Pervert much?"
"You're the one who let this guy," he jerks his thumb at Sam, "walk off with your panties, sweetheart."
Buffy swings the axe like it doesn't weigh anything, grin on her face that can only mean trouble. "The name's Buffy, jackass. And you should be thanking me for doing your job."
Dean's chin comes up and Sam puts a restraining hand on his arm. Before Dean can say anything, he says, "You wanna explain exactly what you mean by that?"
She jerks the axe towards the mausoleum, completely unintimidated by him. "Some idiots were trying to open up the hellmouth, got the gertie-blues all riled up."
"Girtablilu," the black girl murmurs.
Buffy makes a dismissive gesture. "Whatever, Rona. That's what I said."
"They're Akkadian scorpion men," Rona explains. "They guard the gates of hell."
"Well, they did before we kicked their asses." Buffy grins again, more genuine this time but no less dangerous. "But I thought you were supposed to be the guys stopping the apocalypse this time."
"This time?" Sam asks.
Simultaneously, Dean says, "How do you know about that?"
"I've been averting the apocalypse since I was sixteen," she says, and she sounds tired, not boastful. "There's a specific prophecy about this one--Azazel's chosen one, and Lucifer, and stuff. It's a prophecy." She shrugs. "They generally don't make any sense until after everything's happened."
"What good are they, then?" Sam asks, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"They can give us the heads up, help us save people." She shrugs again. "Or you can think you're working to stop one and you're just making it come true. A lot of the time, there's really no way to tell."
"Son of a bitch," Dean mutters.
"Pretty much." There's sympathy along with resignation in Buffy's tone this time. "Anyway, you two are all over the prophecy--well, there's a lot of blah blah blah about hunters and chosen ones and obviously, you're hunters, and we," she points the axe at herself and her two friends, "are chosen ones, so..."
Sam's head is spinning. "Wait, you're Azazel's chosen one?"
"No," she says. "Well, maybe. I don't think so." She shakes her head. "Come on. Let's go someplace a little less public for this conversation. The cops in this town are a lot less willing to look the other way than the ones in Sunnydale, and I could go for some pancakes."
"I could eat," Dean says.
Buffy takes it as the peace offering it is, and Sam breathes a sigh of relief. "If we're lucky, Andrew will still be up, and he'll be in the mood to cook. But Giles needs a briefing, and he's gonna wanna talk to you." She turns to her friends. "I'll ride back with these guys."
*
Sam has a ton of questions, but Buffy avoids answering them; instead, she alternates between mocking Dean's music and complimenting his car. Given the death-grip Dean has on the steering wheel, Sam's pretty sure Dean wants to wring her pretty neck. Given the way Buffy watches him in the rearview mirror, Sam's pretty sure she knows it, too, and is amused.
"You get away with a lot of shit because you're hot," Dean blurts, finally goaded beyond the ability to keep his mouth shut.
"Duh," she says, pretending to be focused on her manicure, though Sam can see she's watching Dean closely from under her lashes. "Don't you?"
Dean grunts in response, and Sam laughs, tension relieved, at least for the moment. Buffy settles back against the vinyl in the backseat with a sigh. She's quiet for the rest of the ride, piping up only once to give directions when nighttime construction gets them detoured.
The house is larger than Sam expected, and there are teenage girls all over the place. Buffy sics them on Dean when they hit the kitchen, and he's being cajoled into making pancakes for them when Buffy shepherds Sam out of the room with a fake apologetic smile. "You can catch up with us later," she calls back over her shoulder. "Save some pancakes for me!"
She ignores Dean's mutter about her panties, though Sam feels his ears burning in embarrassment.
She leads him into a library--there are bookshelves against the walls and books on every surface, and a few chairs scattered around. He sinks down into a burgundy leather wing chair and pulls Buffy into his lap. She laughs and tosses her hair over her shoulder, then wraps her arms around his neck. She still feels tiny and fragile in his arms, and now he can smell sweat and fear on her, imagines he can taste the lingering effects of adrenaline on her tongue when he kisses her. She kisses him back, hungry and wet and messy, small hands with quick fingers unbuttoning his shirt.
He fingers the hem of her shirt but when she pulls back to let him yank it over her head, he doesn't. She watches him carefully, smile leaving her face when he doesn't move.
"Sam?"
"What do you know about Azazel?"
"I know he was some big powerful demon who got his ass handed to him about a year and a half ago. There was a lot of chatter about a hellmouth opening and letting out a ton of old-school demons."
"Chatter?"
"You think the undead don't gossip? They're chattier than your Aunt Millie at a tea party."
He gives her a quick half-grin. "I don't have an Aunt Millie."
"You know what I mean."
"Dean killed him."
She blinks. "Okay, now I'm kind of impressed."
"You don't think much of hunters."
"They like to shoot things that don't like being shot, and sometimes at things that don't need to be shot." She shakes her head. "But we're trying to work with them. With you. We're all doing what we can, and right now, we need all the help we can get to keep the seals from being broken."
"You know about the seals?"
"I know you don't mean the kind at SeaWorld."
"Lilith is the one doing it," he says. "She's trying to free Lucifer."
Buffy lets out a long, low whistle. "The devil himself. No doubt she wants to unleash hell on earth, pain and suffering, yada yada, the whole nine yards."
Sam snorts and then feels huge and uncouth and wishes he hadn't. "I've never heard anybody yada yada hell on earth."
"It's not my first apocalypse. Things go better when I don't freak out."
"Yeah, I can imagine. You said you and Rona and--" He pauses, because he doesn't know the other girl's name.
"Shannon."
He nods. "Shannon are chosen ones. What does that mean?"
She shifts, makes herself at home in his lap, and says, "Slayers. Used to be there was only one at a time--one girl in all the world with the strength and the skill to hold back the darkness."
Sam's heard the story, though he'd never believed it. Dad had never found any evidence of their existence except in old books. "One dies, another is called."
"Right. When I died the first time, Kendra was called. And when she died, there was Faith."
"Died the first time?"
"Oh, it was a total technicality that time--a little CPR and I was fine. The second time," she looks down, away, "that's a long story."
He knows the feeling. "Okay. And when Faith died?" he prompts when she doesn't go on.
"Faith hasn't died yet." She shakes her head and makes a face. "We were fighting a losing battle and we needed more slayers. We needed to take control. So Willow did this spell--she activated all the potentials."
"Potentials?"
"All the girls who might have been called, when one of us died."
"All--" Sam frowns, trying to take it all in. Suddenly the horde of teenage girls in the kitchen makes sense. "They all live here?"
"Some do. Some live near other supernatural hotspots. Some take the slayer act on the road. And some are still out there, unidentified, but we're working on that, too."
"That's amazing."
Buffy laughs. "That's one word for it."
"So you've got, like, powers?"
"Super strength and quick healing. Sharper reflexes. Prophetic dreams. Spidey-sense, when things are off. Like that." She laughs again, and Sam can hear some bitterness underneath it.
"That's not a bad deal." And it's not too far off from the special package he's supposedly carrying around in his head, in his blood. He hopes nobody mentions it to Dean--he doesn't want to hear even more jokes about him being a girl.
"You'd think, right? But it comes with an early expiration date, and, well, apocalypses." She shrugs a shoulder. "I didn't ask for it. Nobody asks for it, Sam. It's just--it's the superpowers lottery." She taps his chest lightly. "Tag, you're it."
"Yeah." This time, he laughs, sharp and sour. "So where does old Yellow-Eyes fit into the picture?"
"Yellow-Eyes?"
"Azazel."
She shakes her head. "I don't know. He's dead, but God knows, that's never stopped anything else from trying to bring on the end the world. The prophecy talks about his chosen one, like, the leader of his demon army, but it's not really clear. It was written, like, a couple thousand years ago, in a language nobody speaks anymore. We're doing the best we can."
"So it can't be you, right? It's probably some demon." Or someone with demon blood. Sam thinks his nonchalance sounds strained, thinks what he hasn't said is hanging out there, obvious to anyone who knows what they're looking for, but Buffy doesn't seem to notice.
"Well, slayer powers come from a demon, so--"
"Wait, what?" Sam straightens up out of his slouch and almost knocks Buffy off his lap. "What?"
"Back in the day, and I do mean way, way back, like, in the day before they invented writing, these old shamans got together and decided to," Buffy purses her lips, like she's trying to find the best word, "infuse a girl with demonic powers in order to fight the darkness." Sam gets the impression that infuse isn't really the word she was looking for. "They were the first watchers. She was the first slayer. So I guess you can say we've all got demon blood in our veins. Metaphorically, at least. Though possibly literally, too." Her face scrunches up like she's thinking about it.
"But if the powers are demonic in origin--" Only those quick Slayer reflexes keep her from landing on the floor when he jumps up to pace.
"What?"
He shakes his head. "It's fruit of the poisonous tree. Where it comes from matters."
"Don't get all Jack McCoy on me now, Sam." She folds her arms across her chest. "Power is power. It's just a tool. How you use it is the important part."
"The feminist reclamation of the text, huh?"
"I don't know what that means, but yeah, okay." She sounds annoyed, like she's won this argument before and can't believe he's bringing it up again. "Look, none of us asked for this--the first slayer didn't, all those girls out there didn't, and I damn sure didn't, and it's cost me--it's cost me a lot." She takes a deep breath, visibly calms herself down. Sam admires how quickly she manages it. "I've died twice, you know."
He huffs a laugh and sinks back down into the chair. "You mentioned that."
"I'm glad you're paying attention." She seats herself on his lap again. "Seriously, when Willow did the spell, we were taking control back. Some old dead guys might have done this to us, might have made us some kind of weird demonspawn, but that doesn't mean we don't get a say in which side we're fighting for."
"It's just--" He shakes his head. "Okay, so when I was a baby, this demon--Azazel--bled into my mouth and killed my mother." Dean is the only other person he's actually told about it, but after hearing her story, he figures she'll understand. Has the crazy hope that maybe she'll help him understand. "Now I have these...powers. I used to have visions. I can exorcise demons with my mind. Once, I moved a dresser with my brain."
"Okay." She puts a hand on his shoulder, waits for him to find the words.
"Now I've got angels telling me that what I'm doing is wrong, and if I use these powers, if I step out of line, they're going to smite me. Or send Dean to hell."
"That doesn't sound like Angel."
"Really? 'Cause these two bozos are all about smiting me for using these powers."
"Two--wait, you mean actual angels, like with harps and feathery wings?"
"Yeah, except there are no harps or feathers. They're more like dicks in business suits."
"Huh. Didn't expect that."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, I'll tell you a little secret, Sam." She leans in, puts her lips close to his ear, and whispers, "When I died the second time, I didn't go to hell."
He shakes his head. "You were only gone for a few minutes, right? CPR brought you right back."
"That was the first time. The second time, I was gone for months. Buried and everything, for months. Had to claw my way out of my own grave." Her eyes go all far away for a few seconds, and she shakes her head as if to clear it of unpleasant memories. "I was in heaven, Sam." Her voice is soft, wondering, for a moment before turning businesslike. "They didn't know that when they brought me back, and I couldn't tell them. They thought they were rescuing me from hell, but I was--I was at peace."
Sam doesn't know what to say to that. He puts a hand on her shoulder, rubs his thumb along the delicate jut of her collarbone. The silence stretches and he lets it, ignoring the awkwardness to sort through his thoughts.
"You know," she finally says, mouth curving in a half-smile as she leans in to press her breasts against his chest, "most guys would rather have sex than talk about prophecies and demony stuff."
"Yeah, I know." He laughs again, and there's some real humor in it this time. "I'm not exactly most guys." He'd been someone else when he'd fucked her in that hallway; he'd been trying to be Dean and hadn't known how; now he's trying to be Sam again and he doesn't know how to be that anymore, either.
"I can see that." Her half-smile widens to a full one, lighting up her eyes. She kisses him gently, small hands cupping his face. Then she stands and offers him a hand. "Come on. I need to make sure your brother isn't debauching any minors."
Sam snorts in surprised laughter, and lets her lead him into the kitchen, where a group of girls is sitting around the table eating pancakes and chattering. Dean is focused on a brown-haired girl who's telling him lore about the Akkadian scorpion men. Well, he's focused on her cleavage as she leans forward, one hand under her chin, the other twirling in her hair.
"Are you hitting on my little sister?" Buffy asks incredulously.
"Dean's going to take me for a ride in his car," the girl says, and Sam is relieved to see she looks at least eighteen, and is probably more like twenty-one.
"No, Dawn, he's really not."
Dean flashes a leering grin. "You slept with my little brother. Seems only fair."
"There's nothing little about him," Dawn says, giving Sam a frank once-over that makes his ears burn.
Buffy slips her arm through his and grins a dirty grin. "You got that right."
Dean and Dawn exchange a grossed out look.
Sam doesn't bother to try and hold in his laughter. It feels good, eases some of the tension in his chest and shoulders. He can't remember the last time he laughed so much. Probably not since before Dean died.
Buffy sits down next to her sister, offers Sam the seat beside her, and says, "Now, how about some pancakes?"
end
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