Loyalty Lies - girl!Sam/Dean for domina_malfoy
Title: Loyalty Lies
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Pairing: girl!Sam/Dean
Summary: Azazel may believe he has control but with her brother at her side, Sam will never lose. Set circa season two and quiet obviously AU.
Notes: For samdeanexchange. The prompt I chose was "evil!Sam embracing her destiny and always loyal!Dean." I hope this satisfies!
It isn't easy for Dean sometimes. Sam knows that. She knows everything about her brother these days, his open mind a maze of secrets she would never have guessed at before.
Before. What does that mean? Before the fire. Before Azazel's dreams. Before Sam opened herself up and let Hell in. Points on a map, a long route to where they are now, sitting together in a motel room that isn't, with Dean's arm around her shoulders. It's scenes like this that comfort her brother, Sam finds. She can offer him anything, any twist of scenery or turn of the sky. She can offer him as close to Heaven as Hell can hold and he wants this. A room like one they shared three years ago in Arkansas, with pale yellow walls and a window that takes up most of one wall. Dean had liked this room because of the bathroom, spacious and cleaner than most, and because the view couldn't be better past the highway outside. Sam had edited out that highway at first, but Dean had insisted the illusion of it should remain.
"You wanna take a shower?" Sam asks close to Dean's ear. She has to tip her head up a little. That's why Dean likes this position, she knows. It makes him forget that she's been taller than him by half an inch since she was seventeen.
Dean shakes his head. "Nah. Later?" he says, halfway between an assertion and a question. His voice is slow and taut. He wants to stay here, his erratic thoughts whisper to Sam; he wants to stay here on this old bed from the life before and forget that everything comes at a cost. She knows there's no doubt in him that it's worth it, but still. He's afraid.
Sam hates that she caused it. She hates most of all that it's so hard to make him understand that this is the only way they'll be safe, and safe is half a step down from normal. "Yeah, okay," she replies after a moment, when Dean's heart begins to thud a little faster. It always does when she takes her time. What does he think she'll do? "I can get you pizza."
It's bait. Dean knows it and Sam doesn't need to take in his thoughts to know that. She gets him whatever he's craving and when he eats, he forgives, quietly and unashamedly. Every time. "Later," he says, more firmly this time.
He's not ready and that's okay. Sam can be patient. She knows Dean's not gonna leave, not even if he could.
---
"Patience is a virtue," Azazel said. He had that smile, the one that went deeper than his skin, the one that burned. "They'll be out soon enough."
They had been waiting for hours, or so it felt. Sam was cold; her hoody, the grey one Dean had bought her, was still in the wash back at the hotel laundry where her brother was waiting. "Dean's gonna wonder where I am."
Azazel didn't drop the smile. It scratched at Sam's cold skin, irritating and relentless. "Which means you haven't told him. Oh, Samantha, you know what I said."
"I know," she spat. Tell him and he lives, he'd said. She didn't need his voice in her head to hear the unspoken alternative. "I'll do it. But I need to get back. If he comes after me - "
"What? What can little Dean do?" Azazel mocked, his yellow eyes on the house they were watching. "He's no risk to us."
"I won't do this without him," Sam said. It was the first time she admitted it aloud but Azazel didn't seem surprised; he didn't even look at her. Eyes straight ahead, focus unbroken. She felt ridiculous, cheeks full of red that wasn't just the snap of the air on her skin, revealing a secret that had never been. She had been working up to this announcement for months and he already knew. Like when she'd told Dean she was leaving and he'd just nodded and slung his own packed bag beside hers. "I mean it."
Azazel rolled his eyes and stepped towards the house. "Then tell him."
So Sam had cornered Dean, once the rebel demon sect was slain, their thick blood thudding in her own veins, potent and perfect. She had taken Dean's punch and his apology with equal indifference, elation glowing within her chest, swelling like a balloon because Dean hadn't walked away.
If he hadn't left for this, knowing what she had become, he never would.
---
Dean is asleep. He still trusts her enough for that. Never in front of an enemy could Dean Winchester let down his guard, no more than Sam herself could. She hasn't slept for nearly a month, too focused on Azazel's many missions and keeping Dean safe between them. She's not tired, at least not physically. Her body is beyond that now.
But inside, where her thoughts turn and twirl like a never-ending tempest, Sam is exhausted.
Azazel keeps their space well-guarded. He needs Sam. Without her, Hell is nothing but a desolate pit of sin, a mess of torture and bloodied bodies and blackened souls burning. With Sam, with her as the focus, Hell is amplified. The suffering stops and the souls become warriors.
Sam's not stupid. She knows there's more to it than that, and she knows Azazel has more than a few tricks up his sleeves and none of them are honest or good. She knows Azazel thinks that behind her gentle face there's a gentle mind; soft and easily manipulated with a few words of righteous rebellion.
He's wrong.
"Dean?" Sam whispers close to his ear. She's moved them to the bed, using her increased strength only when Dean's eyes are closed to it. Anything to do with the demon blood freaks him out. Now, though, he's peaceful. He's not dreaming; she made sure of that. At the sound of Sam's voice her brother rolls towards her in sleep-sluggish movements, mumbling something incoherent under his breath.
Something constricts tight and painful in Sam's chest as she tucks herself up against Dean. Without her brother to bind her to what's important, maybe Azazel would have had every inch of her soul right now. Dean will keep her focused with his loyalty - unshakeable but never blind faith, not with everything he sees in Sam - and his quiet trust. The worst will pass and they'll still be standing side by side, silhouettes against the backdrop of an empty Hell that will never burn them.
Dean believes in Sam. Even when she's lost her own certainty.
Needing to release some of this desperate pressure against her ribs, she tips her head and kisses feather-light against Dean’s neck, just below the shell of his ear. He huffs out a contented sigh; and through their touching skin the pain disbands, just like always.
---
Azazel didn't know everything about them.
"I've seen the way your brother looks at you sometimes, Sammy," the demon drawled on one of their nightly trips. Sam bristled but said nothing and Azazel laughed, delighted. "Oh, you've noticed it too! How uncomfortable it must make you, knowing your brother gets hard when he thinks too long about your pert little body."
"Shut up," Sam said. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh I think I do," Azazel insisted. "Why do you stick with such a pervert, huh? I bet he's wanted to spread you open since you were a kid."
Scratch that. Azazel didn't know anything about them.
---
Sam wakes with Dean's arm around her and his hand dragging slow soft trails up her arm. She's too surprised to have slept to do anything but smile and press her body closer to her brother's. Her thigh touches the cloth of his boxer shorts and the warm flesh beneath.
He's hard. Sam's smile eases into a grin as she squirms back against him, hard enough to drag a moan from Dean's lips.
There's one other thing than food which comes with forgiveness in Dean's eyes.
"You've been thinking about me," Sam says quietly, pleased. She rolls him onto his back and crouches over him, legs on either side of his, arms bracketing his head. When her hair falls into her eyes, he pushes it back. "I don't need to be psychic to know that."
"Maybe," Dean admits. He's been so docile since Sam returned from the last bout of necessary evil that it's a relief to hear him speak without coercion. He nuzzles warm breath into the side of Sam's neck and lifts his hips enough that she can feel him through two thin layers of fabric. He has one hand in her hair, stroking through strands with that familiar reverent look. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I know they weren't kids. Not really."
It's even more of a relief to hear him say that. Everything Sam does depends on Dean and she doesn't know how far she could go without her brother's understanding, without his unwavering loyalty. She kisses him, open-mouthed and teasing, and rocks down against him. "Might let you fuck me for that."
"Oh, I hope so," Dean says, voice dropping low as the pit they're in. He tugs her hair and she lets him kiss a line down her neck. "It's the only reason I apologised."
Sam jerks back and smacks his arm, pout in full effect, though his joke is more of a sign of his acceptance than anything.
Dean teases her so nicely, moving against her in all the right ways. When he runs his fingertips down between them, rubbing against the damp strip of fabric between her legs, he grunts in predictable surprise. Their underwear disappears in an instant and skin takes its place. "Impatient aren't you, you little brat?"
"Always, asshole," she snaps back and shoves his hand out of the way to tip herself down onto his dick, hotter than Hell inside her. Sam tugs at the pleasure centre in Dean's brain, making every second more intense, though she doesn't move yet. It makes Dean uneasy every time; he knows she could just as easy twist him into pain without a touch.
He never asks her to stop, though. "Please, Sammy," he begs breathlessly. Please."
When Dean begs so prettily, how can Sam do anything but give him everything he wants?
---
They were going after a human this time. All the demons were saying she had a special gun that could kill anything.
It could kill Azazel, Sam thought. Unfamiliar hope swelled insistently within her. She could turn the tide, turn it to her favour; she wouldn't have to be the instrument anymore. She could be in control and she and Dean would be safe forever.
"What are you going to do with it when we get it?" Sam asked as the cold air of Montana wrapped around her skin.
Azazel raised his eyebrows. "Destroy it, of course. We don't need that kind of threat to my rule."
His rule. As though he'd done anything but find Sam in the first place. "We could use it," she suggested, just to see his reaction.
"We don't need it, Sam. There's nothing out there you can't kill," he pointed out. Except me went unspoken, but Sam heard it loud and clear. She would have to be careful.
Her name was Bela. She seemed to know she was being hunted, if the spells up around her extravagant apartment were anything to go by, but they did nothing to stop Sam and Azazel. They appeared side by side inside her kitchen, knife ready.
Sam knew where the gun was the moment they were there.
Bela put up a good fight, but one human was no match for the power Sam held. It was frightening how easy it was to hold her in place against the wall, pain twisting beneath her skin, while they overturned every inch of the house. With Azazel's back turned, Sam took the chance to move up close to the woman. The colt was beneath her loose black shirt, strapped against her skin, and it disappeared the moment Sam touched it.
"I'm sorry," Sam said quietly, because no one deserved this.
Bela spat in her face. "Fuck you."
Sam wiped her face and went back to searching, nervous energy skittering over her skin. Less than three hours later, Bela was slumped dead on the polished floor and Azazel was the picture of frustration. "Where did that bitch put it?"
"She knew people want it," Sam pointed out, hoping Azazel put the erratic beating of her heart down to the demon blood she'd imbibed on the way. "Maybe she hid it somewhere else."
"We'll look for it again tomorrow," Azazel announced after a moment, wiping bloodied hands on his pants. "I've got to deal with Meg while I'm up here. She's been going topside without permission."
Azazel left a split second before Sam and in that time, she grinned triumphantly and kick-started Bela's heart back into life.
---
It's waiting on the table in their sanctuary when Sam returns. Dean hasn't touched it, though his eyes are fixed to it suspiciously.
"Is this yours?" he asks when Sam materializes.
"It is now. Do you know how this gun works?" Sam asks. Dean shrugs, apathetic, and she continues, regardless of his enthusiasm. "It catches on the evil in a soul. It holds onto the impurity and burns up everything it touches. It can kill pretty much anything or anyone. You could use it."
Dean's eyes snap up to hers. "What?"
"You could use it," repeats Sam in the same tone. She doesn't look up from the gun, turning it slowly in her hand, regarding it from all angles. "I'd let you. I wouldn't try to stop you. What do you think, Dean? This could all be over if you took this from me."
His silence numbs her. Dean doesn't protest or look horrified; he just takes it from Sam's hands hesitantly, eyes focused sharply on her face.
This is his chance, she realises. He must have been waiting all this time for the moment to come where he can fight back, and finally it's here. Sam's passed it to him on a plate. All he has to do is press back that tiny trigger, and Sam will be out of his way forever. For one fleeting moment, she wants it. If Dean's willing to kill her she's willing to take it; if she's hurt her brother that much, she wants his pain to end. Even if that means the end of her everything.
And then Dean catches her gaze, earnest and concerned. "Hey, Sammy, what's wrong? This is a good thing, right?"
"Is it?" she asks bitterly. She hadn't thought he'd be so damn happy to shoot her in the face after all they've been through, but souls can turn on a dime just like anything else. Just like her fate did the day Azazel came to her.
"Yeah. He's an asshole." Sam blinks, nonplussed, while Dean begins to pace. He's excited. It might not show on his face, but it shows in his step. "We use this, it's over. I know you've gotta do this, Sammy, I know that, and believe me I'm gonna help as much as I can but with him gone, you can do it better. You can do it without him breathing down your neck."
It takes Sam far too long to realise he's talking about Azazel, and her heart peaks in both terror and elation. "Can you do it?"
"Will this definitely kill him? No slip ups?"
Sam nods. "If you can hit him."
"C'mon, I haven't missed a shot since I was thirteen," Dean says. He puts the gun down on the faux-oak table (Sam could have made it real but Dean insisted it should be 'authentic') and runs both hands through his hair. "Shit. This is incredible. Just gonna be you and me again, Sammy."
It hasn't even occurred to Dean to shoot her, Sam realises with a hot jolt. He doesn't want her dead. He doesn't want out of this life; all he wants is Azazel gone.
She stares at Dean like she's not sure what she's seeing. Dean steps in close in an instant with familiar concern etched into every line of his face. "This is what you want, right? That's why you gave me the gun."
Sam laughs and watches how it startles Dean, but for once she sees no fear flare bright inside him. "No. I gave you the gun to shoot me."
Dean frowns. "Why? Why would I do that?"
"I don't know, Dean, because I've ruined your fucking life?"
"No you haven't," Dean replies, and when Sam snorts derisively he wraps her shoulders in his firm hands like he wants to shake some sense into her. "You are my life. This isn't exactly what I'd planned on happening to us, but it's what has to happen. It's what you want and that's enough."
"I can make a real difference with Hell behind me," Sam says, but Dean cuts her off.
"I know," he says. "You don't need to go over this again. I get it, I really do. I don't care. As long as I'm with you, I don't care."
It's as close to a proclamation of undying love as Dean can ever get. Sam's heart swells pathetically and she ducks her head to hide the pleased grin that betrays her. Dean's hand smoothes down her back and she hears the distant clink of the gun on the table. Killing Azazel is important; Sam is more important.
It's the way it's always been and now, with Hell at Sam's feet, it's the way it will always be. They kiss and it means everything, just like the first time.
"I know where he is," she says eventually, speaking against his lips on a gasp. "We should do it now before he knows I took the gun."
Dean picks up the gun and stands at Sam's side. "You ready for this, brat?"
Sam grins and grabs his hand, lacing their fingers tight and possessive. "Always, asshole."
---
The shot rings out like the bang that started the universe, all-encompassing. Sam's heart beats louder as Azazel's body slumps to the ground.
With Azazel dead and Dean at her side, Sam knows she's indestructible.
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: R
Pairing: girl!Sam/Dean
Summary: Azazel may believe he has control but with her brother at her side, Sam will never lose. Set circa season two and quiet obviously AU.
Notes: For samdeanexchange. The prompt I chose was "evil!Sam embracing her destiny and always loyal!Dean." I hope this satisfies!
It isn't easy for Dean sometimes. Sam knows that. She knows everything about her brother these days, his open mind a maze of secrets she would never have guessed at before.
Before. What does that mean? Before the fire. Before Azazel's dreams. Before Sam opened herself up and let Hell in. Points on a map, a long route to where they are now, sitting together in a motel room that isn't, with Dean's arm around her shoulders. It's scenes like this that comfort her brother, Sam finds. She can offer him anything, any twist of scenery or turn of the sky. She can offer him as close to Heaven as Hell can hold and he wants this. A room like one they shared three years ago in Arkansas, with pale yellow walls and a window that takes up most of one wall. Dean had liked this room because of the bathroom, spacious and cleaner than most, and because the view couldn't be better past the highway outside. Sam had edited out that highway at first, but Dean had insisted the illusion of it should remain.
"You wanna take a shower?" Sam asks close to Dean's ear. She has to tip her head up a little. That's why Dean likes this position, she knows. It makes him forget that she's been taller than him by half an inch since she was seventeen.
Dean shakes his head. "Nah. Later?" he says, halfway between an assertion and a question. His voice is slow and taut. He wants to stay here, his erratic thoughts whisper to Sam; he wants to stay here on this old bed from the life before and forget that everything comes at a cost. She knows there's no doubt in him that it's worth it, but still. He's afraid.
Sam hates that she caused it. She hates most of all that it's so hard to make him understand that this is the only way they'll be safe, and safe is half a step down from normal. "Yeah, okay," she replies after a moment, when Dean's heart begins to thud a little faster. It always does when she takes her time. What does he think she'll do? "I can get you pizza."
It's bait. Dean knows it and Sam doesn't need to take in his thoughts to know that. She gets him whatever he's craving and when he eats, he forgives, quietly and unashamedly. Every time. "Later," he says, more firmly this time.
He's not ready and that's okay. Sam can be patient. She knows Dean's not gonna leave, not even if he could.
---
"Patience is a virtue," Azazel said. He had that smile, the one that went deeper than his skin, the one that burned. "They'll be out soon enough."
They had been waiting for hours, or so it felt. Sam was cold; her hoody, the grey one Dean had bought her, was still in the wash back at the hotel laundry where her brother was waiting. "Dean's gonna wonder where I am."
Azazel didn't drop the smile. It scratched at Sam's cold skin, irritating and relentless. "Which means you haven't told him. Oh, Samantha, you know what I said."
"I know," she spat. Tell him and he lives, he'd said. She didn't need his voice in her head to hear the unspoken alternative. "I'll do it. But I need to get back. If he comes after me - "
"What? What can little Dean do?" Azazel mocked, his yellow eyes on the house they were watching. "He's no risk to us."
"I won't do this without him," Sam said. It was the first time she admitted it aloud but Azazel didn't seem surprised; he didn't even look at her. Eyes straight ahead, focus unbroken. She felt ridiculous, cheeks full of red that wasn't just the snap of the air on her skin, revealing a secret that had never been. She had been working up to this announcement for months and he already knew. Like when she'd told Dean she was leaving and he'd just nodded and slung his own packed bag beside hers. "I mean it."
Azazel rolled his eyes and stepped towards the house. "Then tell him."
So Sam had cornered Dean, once the rebel demon sect was slain, their thick blood thudding in her own veins, potent and perfect. She had taken Dean's punch and his apology with equal indifference, elation glowing within her chest, swelling like a balloon because Dean hadn't walked away.
If he hadn't left for this, knowing what she had become, he never would.
---
Dean is asleep. He still trusts her enough for that. Never in front of an enemy could Dean Winchester let down his guard, no more than Sam herself could. She hasn't slept for nearly a month, too focused on Azazel's many missions and keeping Dean safe between them. She's not tired, at least not physically. Her body is beyond that now.
But inside, where her thoughts turn and twirl like a never-ending tempest, Sam is exhausted.
Azazel keeps their space well-guarded. He needs Sam. Without her, Hell is nothing but a desolate pit of sin, a mess of torture and bloodied bodies and blackened souls burning. With Sam, with her as the focus, Hell is amplified. The suffering stops and the souls become warriors.
Sam's not stupid. She knows there's more to it than that, and she knows Azazel has more than a few tricks up his sleeves and none of them are honest or good. She knows Azazel thinks that behind her gentle face there's a gentle mind; soft and easily manipulated with a few words of righteous rebellion.
He's wrong.
"Dean?" Sam whispers close to his ear. She's moved them to the bed, using her increased strength only when Dean's eyes are closed to it. Anything to do with the demon blood freaks him out. Now, though, he's peaceful. He's not dreaming; she made sure of that. At the sound of Sam's voice her brother rolls towards her in sleep-sluggish movements, mumbling something incoherent under his breath.
Something constricts tight and painful in Sam's chest as she tucks herself up against Dean. Without her brother to bind her to what's important, maybe Azazel would have had every inch of her soul right now. Dean will keep her focused with his loyalty - unshakeable but never blind faith, not with everything he sees in Sam - and his quiet trust. The worst will pass and they'll still be standing side by side, silhouettes against the backdrop of an empty Hell that will never burn them.
Dean believes in Sam. Even when she's lost her own certainty.
Needing to release some of this desperate pressure against her ribs, she tips her head and kisses feather-light against Dean’s neck, just below the shell of his ear. He huffs out a contented sigh; and through their touching skin the pain disbands, just like always.
---
Azazel didn't know everything about them.
"I've seen the way your brother looks at you sometimes, Sammy," the demon drawled on one of their nightly trips. Sam bristled but said nothing and Azazel laughed, delighted. "Oh, you've noticed it too! How uncomfortable it must make you, knowing your brother gets hard when he thinks too long about your pert little body."
"Shut up," Sam said. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh I think I do," Azazel insisted. "Why do you stick with such a pervert, huh? I bet he's wanted to spread you open since you were a kid."
Scratch that. Azazel didn't know anything about them.
---
Sam wakes with Dean's arm around her and his hand dragging slow soft trails up her arm. She's too surprised to have slept to do anything but smile and press her body closer to her brother's. Her thigh touches the cloth of his boxer shorts and the warm flesh beneath.
He's hard. Sam's smile eases into a grin as she squirms back against him, hard enough to drag a moan from Dean's lips.
There's one other thing than food which comes with forgiveness in Dean's eyes.
"You've been thinking about me," Sam says quietly, pleased. She rolls him onto his back and crouches over him, legs on either side of his, arms bracketing his head. When her hair falls into her eyes, he pushes it back. "I don't need to be psychic to know that."
"Maybe," Dean admits. He's been so docile since Sam returned from the last bout of necessary evil that it's a relief to hear him speak without coercion. He nuzzles warm breath into the side of Sam's neck and lifts his hips enough that she can feel him through two thin layers of fabric. He has one hand in her hair, stroking through strands with that familiar reverent look. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I know they weren't kids. Not really."
It's even more of a relief to hear him say that. Everything Sam does depends on Dean and she doesn't know how far she could go without her brother's understanding, without his unwavering loyalty. She kisses him, open-mouthed and teasing, and rocks down against him. "Might let you fuck me for that."
"Oh, I hope so," Dean says, voice dropping low as the pit they're in. He tugs her hair and she lets him kiss a line down her neck. "It's the only reason I apologised."
Sam jerks back and smacks his arm, pout in full effect, though his joke is more of a sign of his acceptance than anything.
Dean teases her so nicely, moving against her in all the right ways. When he runs his fingertips down between them, rubbing against the damp strip of fabric between her legs, he grunts in predictable surprise. Their underwear disappears in an instant and skin takes its place. "Impatient aren't you, you little brat?"
"Always, asshole," she snaps back and shoves his hand out of the way to tip herself down onto his dick, hotter than Hell inside her. Sam tugs at the pleasure centre in Dean's brain, making every second more intense, though she doesn't move yet. It makes Dean uneasy every time; he knows she could just as easy twist him into pain without a touch.
He never asks her to stop, though. "Please, Sammy," he begs breathlessly. Please."
When Dean begs so prettily, how can Sam do anything but give him everything he wants?
---
They were going after a human this time. All the demons were saying she had a special gun that could kill anything.
It could kill Azazel, Sam thought. Unfamiliar hope swelled insistently within her. She could turn the tide, turn it to her favour; she wouldn't have to be the instrument anymore. She could be in control and she and Dean would be safe forever.
"What are you going to do with it when we get it?" Sam asked as the cold air of Montana wrapped around her skin.
Azazel raised his eyebrows. "Destroy it, of course. We don't need that kind of threat to my rule."
His rule. As though he'd done anything but find Sam in the first place. "We could use it," she suggested, just to see his reaction.
"We don't need it, Sam. There's nothing out there you can't kill," he pointed out. Except me went unspoken, but Sam heard it loud and clear. She would have to be careful.
Her name was Bela. She seemed to know she was being hunted, if the spells up around her extravagant apartment were anything to go by, but they did nothing to stop Sam and Azazel. They appeared side by side inside her kitchen, knife ready.
Sam knew where the gun was the moment they were there.
Bela put up a good fight, but one human was no match for the power Sam held. It was frightening how easy it was to hold her in place against the wall, pain twisting beneath her skin, while they overturned every inch of the house. With Azazel's back turned, Sam took the chance to move up close to the woman. The colt was beneath her loose black shirt, strapped against her skin, and it disappeared the moment Sam touched it.
"I'm sorry," Sam said quietly, because no one deserved this.
Bela spat in her face. "Fuck you."
Sam wiped her face and went back to searching, nervous energy skittering over her skin. Less than three hours later, Bela was slumped dead on the polished floor and Azazel was the picture of frustration. "Where did that bitch put it?"
"She knew people want it," Sam pointed out, hoping Azazel put the erratic beating of her heart down to the demon blood she'd imbibed on the way. "Maybe she hid it somewhere else."
"We'll look for it again tomorrow," Azazel announced after a moment, wiping bloodied hands on his pants. "I've got to deal with Meg while I'm up here. She's been going topside without permission."
Azazel left a split second before Sam and in that time, she grinned triumphantly and kick-started Bela's heart back into life.
---
It's waiting on the table in their sanctuary when Sam returns. Dean hasn't touched it, though his eyes are fixed to it suspiciously.
"Is this yours?" he asks when Sam materializes.
"It is now. Do you know how this gun works?" Sam asks. Dean shrugs, apathetic, and she continues, regardless of his enthusiasm. "It catches on the evil in a soul. It holds onto the impurity and burns up everything it touches. It can kill pretty much anything or anyone. You could use it."
Dean's eyes snap up to hers. "What?"
"You could use it," repeats Sam in the same tone. She doesn't look up from the gun, turning it slowly in her hand, regarding it from all angles. "I'd let you. I wouldn't try to stop you. What do you think, Dean? This could all be over if you took this from me."
His silence numbs her. Dean doesn't protest or look horrified; he just takes it from Sam's hands hesitantly, eyes focused sharply on her face.
This is his chance, she realises. He must have been waiting all this time for the moment to come where he can fight back, and finally it's here. Sam's passed it to him on a plate. All he has to do is press back that tiny trigger, and Sam will be out of his way forever. For one fleeting moment, she wants it. If Dean's willing to kill her she's willing to take it; if she's hurt her brother that much, she wants his pain to end. Even if that means the end of her everything.
And then Dean catches her gaze, earnest and concerned. "Hey, Sammy, what's wrong? This is a good thing, right?"
"Is it?" she asks bitterly. She hadn't thought he'd be so damn happy to shoot her in the face after all they've been through, but souls can turn on a dime just like anything else. Just like her fate did the day Azazel came to her.
"Yeah. He's an asshole." Sam blinks, nonplussed, while Dean begins to pace. He's excited. It might not show on his face, but it shows in his step. "We use this, it's over. I know you've gotta do this, Sammy, I know that, and believe me I'm gonna help as much as I can but with him gone, you can do it better. You can do it without him breathing down your neck."
It takes Sam far too long to realise he's talking about Azazel, and her heart peaks in both terror and elation. "Can you do it?"
"Will this definitely kill him? No slip ups?"
Sam nods. "If you can hit him."
"C'mon, I haven't missed a shot since I was thirteen," Dean says. He puts the gun down on the faux-oak table (Sam could have made it real but Dean insisted it should be 'authentic') and runs both hands through his hair. "Shit. This is incredible. Just gonna be you and me again, Sammy."
It hasn't even occurred to Dean to shoot her, Sam realises with a hot jolt. He doesn't want her dead. He doesn't want out of this life; all he wants is Azazel gone.
She stares at Dean like she's not sure what she's seeing. Dean steps in close in an instant with familiar concern etched into every line of his face. "This is what you want, right? That's why you gave me the gun."
Sam laughs and watches how it startles Dean, but for once she sees no fear flare bright inside him. "No. I gave you the gun to shoot me."
Dean frowns. "Why? Why would I do that?"
"I don't know, Dean, because I've ruined your fucking life?"
"No you haven't," Dean replies, and when Sam snorts derisively he wraps her shoulders in his firm hands like he wants to shake some sense into her. "You are my life. This isn't exactly what I'd planned on happening to us, but it's what has to happen. It's what you want and that's enough."
"I can make a real difference with Hell behind me," Sam says, but Dean cuts her off.
"I know," he says. "You don't need to go over this again. I get it, I really do. I don't care. As long as I'm with you, I don't care."
It's as close to a proclamation of undying love as Dean can ever get. Sam's heart swells pathetically and she ducks her head to hide the pleased grin that betrays her. Dean's hand smoothes down her back and she hears the distant clink of the gun on the table. Killing Azazel is important; Sam is more important.
It's the way it's always been and now, with Hell at Sam's feet, it's the way it will always be. They kiss and it means everything, just like the first time.
"I know where he is," she says eventually, speaking against his lips on a gasp. "We should do it now before he knows I took the gun."
Dean picks up the gun and stands at Sam's side. "You ready for this, brat?"
Sam grins and grabs his hand, lacing their fingers tight and possessive. "Always, asshole."
---
The shot rings out like the bang that started the universe, all-encompassing. Sam's heart beats louder as Azazel's body slumps to the ground.
With Azazel dead and Dean at her side, Sam knows she's indestructible.