Hotel California (Sam/Dean - NC17)
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Title: Hotel California
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Prince of Hell!Sam/Dean, Jo, Ruby, Azazel
Summary: Sam has waited for Dean, for a very long time. Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
{In this au the story diverges from canon in Sam and Dean's childhood. Sam was killed by the Shtriga, and Dean grew up with Jo, and hunts with her. The canon of S1 and S2 MoW episodes is followed, but with Jo by Dean's side.}
Warnings: dark!fic, evil!Sam, explicit sexual content, non-con, collared, horror, graphic violence, blood and gore, character deaths
Word Count: ~6.9K
Beta readers: Thank you to linvro21, meus_venator and sylsdarkplace for making this better. Any mistakes that remain are my own.
Disclaimer: This is fiction, pure fantasy folks. Sadly all the characters remain the property of Eric Kripke and the CW, and I make no money from it.
Authors Notes:
1. The title and words in the summary are taken from The Eagles' song, Hotel California. While I know the song was intended to be about hedonism in the music industry, I chose to take the words and put a much darker spin on them, because I can, and because trying to name this fic was a bitch.
2. This is my contribution to the evilsam_spn Summer Challenge 2013: It's So Easy When You're Evil for which I drew “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta - III. Adagio" by Bela Bartok as my prompt. I signed up for the challenge to push me outside my comfort zone by writing evil!Sam. I love reading evil!Sam, but my regular readers have probably noticed that evil!Sam is a character I have trouble putting on paper. As it turned out, the music pushed me even further from my comfort zone but it was a great challenge - and woohoo - look! Evil!Sam fic!
3.Thanks to pushkin666 for organising this original challenge and herding me to the finish line.
After struggling with different incarnations of Sam for the music prompt, I almost gave up - and then I spotted this photograph of an abandoned hotel and it seemed the perfect setting for the music. The story grew from there.
Hotel California
The Impala growls and bumps up the steep incline of a winding and rocky road.
At its destination, wood creaks, plaster sheds dust, and animals scurry, hop and flap through empty rooms. Lucifer's prince waits, beside a fire of burning ice, on a carpet of crimson flesh.
There's a metallic clunk of doors and the sound of a heavy trunk opening and closing. Voices swirl in on a fresh breeze. He senses an air of excitement in those that come with the old car. There's trepidation and a whole lot of awe in the conversation he overhears.
He knows what they see, Dean Winchester and his fake-sister, Jo - an abandoned hotel on the edge of a canyon, with sweeping views of waterfalls, rock and sky. Rooks and eagles wheel in the blue, with the raucous call of predator and carrion feeder. The vistas here are to die for, and several have. Some were helped on their way, others had human frailties of carelessness and greed.
Sam snaps his fingers. Choking yellow fog rolls in, surrounding the high rock the place sits on. It limits vision and chills bones. Sam doesn't feel the cold; he doesn't even remember it.
“Mine,” Sam sighs as the heavy entrance door swings open. He muffles its creak, who needs theatrics?
He knows that Dean and Jo see a hostelry that once bustled with wealthy visitors and smartly dressed staff. There would have been sparkling chandeliers, roaring open fires, silk drapes and the scent of sweet flowers and good food. Now, the pervading smell is damp and rot, and the only ones inhabiting it are rats, termites, ghosts and demons
They hunt, side-by-side, and back-to-back. The hotel remains grimly silent, it's colors and grandeur are muted under water damage and ash-like grime.
Dean bounces through the rooms like an overgrown kid, quoting scenes from The Haunting, Candyman, and The Others (because Nicole Kidman, man). He feathers calloused fingers over heavy candelabra and smooths ancient wood panels. His eyes are edged with thick lashes; they're as green as Sam remembers, and are wide with wonder. His skin is pale, lightly freckled, and it covers miles of muscular and delectable flesh. Sam could eat him alive. He makes a mental note to ensure that his claim on Dean is unmistakable.
A corridor swallows Dean and Jo in darkness until they walk through heavy mahogany doors into a ballroom which yawns wide in invitation.
“Awesome!” Dean grins. He makes a smiley face on a dusty mirror and brushes a cobweb from an art-deco lamp. Jo grins with him.
“You're so lame, Deano.”
Dean cocks his sawn- off, loaded with salt rounds. “C'mon! Genuine haunted hotel! Here ghostie, ghostie ghostie.”
“Except, nobody noticed this place, let alone its ghost until it went up for auction three weeks ago. It's kids goofing off, or someone trying to lower the price. We should have brought Scooby Doo with us, not salt and iron.” Jo shakes her head, but her gun stays ready, and her brown eyes are alert.
Sam doesn't like Jo, she's not right for Dean. She isn't his soulmate. Possessiveness and hatred burn bright in the blackness of Sam's soul and his hazel eyes blaze gold for a brief moment. Nobody can replace Sam at his brother's side; Jo has to go, but he can wait; he'd like to toy with her a little.
Azazel appears beside Sam. “You want this? You want him?” the yellow eyed demon asks his prince.
“I will have this. I will have him.”
“He abandoned you. He let you die at the hands of a monster.” Azazel's nasal whine betrays his sneering distaste for Michael’s vessel, Dean Winchester.
“He will never leave my side again,” Sam smirks.
The time is near. Sam no longer needs this twisted, traitorous demon. He clicks his fingers and Azazel's yellow eyes round with horror. Grey smoke trickles from the ancient demon's nose and mouth. It gathers, blackens and burns as the last of Azazel's almost-life turns to glowing ashes.
Sam returns to his current amusement. Fresh souls are such fun, and these are extra special, still wrapped in their flesh.
***
“If it's not haunted, explain how it's all intact,” Dean challenges Jo.
“No EMF,” comments Jo smugly from an ancient terrace, where ivy consumes walls and creeps over stone paving. She walks slowly to the edge, and stairs appear through the haze, a few yards in front of her. They drop steeply into a cloudy abyss and she squints to get a better view. There's a wicked chill in the mist and she shivers.
“Ow! Shit!”
Dean hears Jo on the terrace of the old ballroom, but he can't see her. He runs toward her voice, his gun cocked. “Jo!”- he's not really worried - Jo can handle herself on a hunt and there's no urgency in her exclamations. He finds her sprawled on cold paving. She's pale and rubs her rapidly swelling ankle. There are tell-tale hives on her skin of some sort of allergic reaction.
“Goddamn fog. Stupid ivy.”
A twisted curl of poison ivy rests by Jo's foot. Dean eyes it suspiciously. EMF or not, this doesn't feel right.
“I'm fine. I didn't see it,” Jo states, as if reading his mind. “Just help me up.”
Dean winds an arm around Jo's waist, pulls her close, and takes her insubstantial weight as she limps into the echoing expanse of the empty ballroom. He grabs a mildewed chair and tests that it is sturdy before setting Jo onto the seat.
The glass paneled door they just passed through swings shut with a ringing crack, and glass crashes, splintering as it falls to mossy-damp ground. There's a sudden dizzying sensation that has Dean reeling in a whirlpool of sensations, and just for a second, he can hear gunshot, and see images of masked men, and Jo covered in blood. It passes, and he's disorientated and nauseous. He steadies himself with a hand on the back of the chair. “Jo,” he asks, “What just happened?”
Jo stares toward the terrace while she scratches at the itchy rash on her ankle. Fog seeps in through the jagged gaps of glass and wood. It's like a carpet unrolling on the floor, then it expands and creeps up faded walls. It searches for the ceiling, and devours the once-gay space, even as they watch.
“Freakin' fog. What is this, a James Herbert novel? You got anything, Jo? Anything like it?” Dean exclaims, even as he's lifting Jo and preparing to defend them.
They cock their guns simultaneously, fire into the gloom, reload and fire again. Jo runs out of ammo; she unholsters her pistol, and discharges silver rounds with thunderous noise. Bullets embed into walls with the flying dust of wet plaster, without finding a target. Holy water splashes uselessly into puddles on the floor, but the fog marches relentlessly closer.
“Might be something in your dad's journal, but no, can't think of anything,” Jo's voice is breathy and full of strain.
“Awesome!” There's both fear and wonder in Dean's reply. He's lingering, trying to peer into the mist, squinting to see something.
Breath catches in Jo's throat. Dean can hear her terror, and it's out of proportion with the circumstances. “Dean, c'mon. We have to get out of here.” There's tears in her eyes and she's stifling a scream. She pulls at his arm, ignores the pain in her ankle and drags him through heavy timber doors, to the shabby remains of a reception room.
Dean is too caught up with the fuzzy shape that he's sure he can't really perceive, to complain. He hasn't got words for the image of Sam, his little Sammy, reaching through the fog, a hand outstretched in a plea for his big brother, eyes shining hazel, and then fading, fading, like the life being sucked from him, and then he's gone.
Jo slams the door and secures it with a steel chain and a lock. They pant and watch the door, alert for signs of the encroaching fog, but it doesn't come after them.
Dean gives a cocky grin and Jo laughs nervously.
“So, there's that,” says Dean, “Whatever the hell, that is.” He's spooked more than he's going to admit to Jo.
A scratching noise makes them both turn to find the source. Dean can't see anything, but since when has that bothered the supernatural? His heart is pumping fit to burst, and he can't place the direction it's coming from or judge where to take cover. He shakes a hasty salt ring around them and Jo grips his hand.
“What's that?” she whispers.
They turn slowly, back to back in the circle, searching for a hint of their enemy. The scratching stops, and they relax, still watchful, before it begins again, comes closer scritch, scritch. There's a high pitched squeak and they both startle as a small black rat dashes through the salt, dragging white grains across the floor with it's tail. They both sag with relief as it scurries away.
Dean rubs a large palm over his face and rubs the bridge of his nose. “It's the ghost of Mario Bava*,” he wisecracks.
“What did you see in the fog?” Jo asks. Her lips are pressed thin, her fingers curl too tightly around her shotgun.
Dean is quick to deny his vision, “Nothin'. There's nothing there.”
“Liar!” Jo punches him in the arm, then leans into his side. “Can we get out of here? We can do some research, find out if there's any smoke-related deaths. Fires, that sort of thing.”
“There's no evidence of fire damage,” Dean points out.
“Could have been rebuilt,” counters Jo.
“No EMF,” argues Dean, infuriatingly.
Jo playfully slaps his arm.
They push through service doors on the far side of the room, which still swing easily. A corridor stretches in both directions, with miles of polished mahogany panel interspersed with evenly spaced guest rooms, denoted by shiny brass numbers. They turn left, past room 19 and keep walking.
Jo's arm winds around Dean's shoulder, as she limps beside him. There's an uncomfortable thought scraping at the back of Dean's mind but he can't quite catch it to pin it down. His boots sink into surprisingly plush, dry carpet and they keep walking. Corridor lights flicker, and Dean blinks.
Flash, a helicopter searchlight. Flash, the blue and red rotation of squad car lights. Flash, the red laser of a sniper.
“Dean?” Jo's voice pulls Dean back, though he's not sure where he's been.
“How did we get this job?”
Dean has to stop to think about it. He leans against the door of room 19, in the dim, unlit corridor. Splinters from shabby wood panelling stick to his jacket, and he brushes them away. His eyebrows dip as he tries to remember.
“Think!” Jo looks at him earnestly, and flicks her hair behind her ear.
“Roland,” is all he's got, but Dean doesn't remember who Roland is.
“This hall, it doesn't go anywhere. It's the same rooms every time” Jo rubs a finger over the green and pitted brass number 19.
She's right, Dean thinks, and he can't work out why he hadn't noticed. He squints in half-light and wonders how they saw anything without a flashlight. “Was there lights?” he asks, frowning in confusion.
“Aagh!” Jo pulls her hand away from the brass number in one, sudden, jerky, movement. Her forefinger slides from the metal plate, exposing a shining, gory knuckle. It drops to the dusty floor, and Jo stares in disbelief at the blood which streams down her arm, drips and pools below her, like gathering rain. “It's goddamn sharp,” she cries, but the brass edges seem smooth to Dean.
Dean grabs her hand and binds it tight with his handkerchief, strips his plaid shirt and uses that too. There's tears in Jo's eyes and the color has drained from her face. He recognizes shock.
“It's okay, you're gonna be okay Jo. We'll put it on ice, get to a hospital. We have to get out of here.” He speaks with a calm that belies his inner turmoil and retrieves the bloody finger. He pockets it, then pushes door 19, and it opens. They tumble inside, and Jo is barely able to walk.
Heavy velvet drapes are drawn and it's hard to see in the gloom. Dean grabs his flashlight. The bright beam sweeps the room and shadows dance as it moves. Jo is starting to slump, but she still lets out a yelp of surprise when a shelf of china dolls with glass eyes and shiny porcelain limbs glow with reflected light.
“I know this,” she follows up, and sure enough, there is a large dolls house, a replica of the Pierpont Hotel where the ghost of a child had once roamed. Jo's laugh is weak and hysterical, “It's not real. It's memories,” she declares.
Dean feels the wet shape of a fingertip in his pocket. It feels real. Jo's pain looks real, but the room cannot be. The ghost was gone, the hotel demolished. Dean shakes his head - his memory after Connecticut is hazy. “The fog was some sort of gas? A hallucinogen?” he suggests. “What did you see, in the fog, Jo?”
Jo opens her mouth to speak, but in that moment there's a rustle beside them, the noise of a skipping rope, and children chanting nursery rhymes.
“Djinn?” Dean wonders.
“If this is your ideal world, it sucks,” Jo says, but the joke is grated out through clenched teeth.
“I saw Sammy,” Dean admits. “He was reaching out for me, and the life was being sucked from him, but I wasn't there. I left him alone.” His voice wavers, and it's thick with guilt and self-loathing. “I was playing games, while he died, and he died thinking I hated him. I've done it again. Here we are, and I can't get you out.”
Jo holds his hand, he loves her like a sister, has since the day after they burned Sam's body, when John dragged Dean to the Road House and abandoned him there.
“I saw my dad,” Jo began, “Clawed up by a demon, with his guts in his hand, just like mom told me. I know I was a noisy, demanding baby. He hunted to get away from me.” Her face was pinched with pain and guilt.
“Hey, no. You were just a baby.” Dean speaks angrily.
“You were just a kid, Dean.”
“We are both messed up I guess,” Dean admits. It feels like a confession. He never does this, talks like this. Not even to Jo.
After Sam died, Jo and Dean had been inseparable. John had returned to visit Dean eventually, but he could barely look at his remaining son. On weekends and during school vacations John would uproot him without ceremony, and the revenge for their mother, the hunting and training would resume.
Sam was never mentioned again.
Ellen and Bobby tolerated him, but there was always a sense of awkwardness that Dean could never put his finger on. He rarely returns to them. Now, the impala is his home. It smells of vinyl, and oil, and family, and deep in its core Sam is still there, in the soldier in the ashtray, the legos in the vents and the graffiti they once carved.
Dean knows he was wrong to involve Jo in hunting, but she hadn't settled well at college, and when John had gone missing, Dean ran to Jo, and asked for help. She was all the family he had left, and he trusted her.
Jo smiles weakly, “I don't hate you, and we're going to get out of here. Hey, we're probably in some dingy motel, smokin' some bad weed.”
Dean shakes off his past and his doubt. He has to focus. They need to find an exit, but the door has disappeared, and he can't see a monster to kill. They're hunting blind and injured, and they're not even sure what is real or how they got here. He runs his fingers over the wall next to him and his hand unexpectedly touches brittle strands of fine, dry hair. He draws his fingers back and looks carefully at an old blonde-haired doll. Then, there's a sudden flare of light, and an open door appears, as if by magic, to a room beyond the one that they are in.
Candles blaze gold on silver candelabra, placed on a stone altar. Beside them, a skull of a cat, hair, herbs, sigils, and a small photograph are neatly spaced. He knows the photograph is of Sam. It's memories, just memories.
Beyond the altar, a door of heavy wood stands ajar, just a fraction. Dean swallows hard. Jo and Dean look at the exit, weighing up their options.
“If it's real then we walk into the monster's trap, but if it's not, then it could be a way out,” Jo offers.
“If it's a monster, then we already walked into the trap, and it's hiding from us.” Dean turns in a circle, looks around, and yells, “Show yourself, you cowardly son of a bitch!”
The toys and furnishings vanish abruptly. Ropes snake from the ceiling and Jo is hanging in the air, from her bound wrists, and gallons of water are rushing over her. Her body jerks and swings. She's screaming, gurgling and choking. Dean stands useless and desperate, unable to stop it. He should never have told Ellen that they'd be okay, that families hunt together. He's going to lose Jo to a monster, just like he lost Sammy, like he lost Dad to a demon, and it's all his fault. He should have insisted that Jo go back to college. It should be Dean hanging there, like he did in Black Water Ridge, when Jo rescued him from the wendigo. It should be Dean drowning, like the folks he couldn't save in Lake Manitoc. It should be him rotting in hell, not Dad.
He steps under the deluge to hack with a knife, at the rope that holds Jo. It's like the bottom of Niagara Falls and the river comes in curtains of icy knives, slashing at flesh. He feels the moment Jo fades, and he can see the water turning red around her. Jo's skin is melting, shedding from her bloody corpse, like the shifter in the bank.
The bank. The SWAT team - gunshots. A red laser-pointer on Roland's chest, and then on Dean's chest. Moving too late. The slam of a high trajectory bullet. A bloom of wet pain. The fall. Darkness. A winding road that took them to this place of fog, fear and pain.
***
Sam absorbs Jo's pain, her fear and her confusion. He wallows in it, rolls his tongue around it's exquisite taste, and inhales the sweaty, acrid scent of it. It's long awaited, delicious and satisfying.
Ruby slides into the space by Sam. “Everything is ready,” she croons.
Sam thinks it's a shame. It's not nearly enough pain for the years that Jo stole from him, riding shotgun in a seat that should have been his. Still, time spreads limitless ahead of them, and Sam can appreciate an eternity of his brother's company. Before that, there is a deed to be done. There's a declaration of war on heaven and earth, and everything turns on the desecration of Michael’s vessel. Sam has to get it right.
He looks down at Ruby, in her tiny brunette vessel. “Make sure the troops are ready.”
Ruby nods her understanding and backs away, to muster their army. She strokes the hell hound by her side and cannot help the upward curl of her lips. Her eyes shine with excitement and anticipation. Sam cannot imagine how she feels. She has been thousands of years in Hell's loyal service, waiting for the day Lucifer rises.
***
The waterfall ceases, Jo slumps to an ash-laden floor. The candles snuff out, although there's no hint of breeze, but a light still glows yellow in a haze that stinks of rotten eggs. It's deathly silent, not a puddle in sight, or creak of wood, without snuffle, or breath, or footfall. Dean kneels by Jo, but he knows she's already gone. “Jo?” he asks anyway, and then again. Louder, hysterical. A single tear gathers in green eyes, clings to eyelashes, then drops and trails down a pale freckled cheek. He gasps with a shudder but there's no breath in his lungs. “No, no, no! No, Jo.”
He scoops her in his arms and kisses her soaked, bloody head before rearranging her gruesome corpse neatly. He stands and pulls himself to his full size. It's the stench of sulfur that gives Dean a clue. Dean punches a wall and flaking brick scatters to the floor. “Show yourself, you demonic bastard!”
A silhouette forms against the backdrop of low light at the altar. It's a human shape, taller than Dean and broad shouldered but lean. “We're going to have to clean up that mouth of yours, Dean.” The voice is adult, male and it has a calm, whispering quality with an edge of steel.
“Sonofabitch!” Dean swears.
An arm punches through the mist. Powerful and straight, it ends in an outstretched hand and Dean is picked up by an invisible force, to be slammed against a giant iron pentagram. Dean struggles and tries to kick out, but his body cannot obey his mind. His lips slam together, and he's reduced to humming his disapproval in his throat.
“That's better, Dean. You'll learn.”
Dean thinks the demon's breath is surprisingly fresh as the creature towers over him. Dean is over six foot tall but the meatsuit this demon wears is bigger. Muscular arms lean against the struts either side of Dean, and the demon is crowding into his space, leaning intimately close. The hairs on Dean's arm stand up as he feels the shiver of contact and he's staring into tip- tilted, hazel eyes-tinted yellow and gold-in a face that is coldly handsome with chiseled features and a wide mouth. There's something familiar about some aspects of the face and Dean struggles to recall what it is.
“Relax. You know who I am, Dean. You brought me to life here.” Sam extends his arm to the altar in the center of the room.
Dean remembers the weeks after the Shtriga killed Sam. The tears, the recriminations and the huge black hole of loss he could never fill. He still can't fill that space, however many years pass. He remembers his childish attempts to bring Sam back with spells and voodoo, from Bobby's books, and stolen ingredients from his dad's stash. He recognizes the stone altar that sits before him. It's just hallucination and memories, his mind insists.
“Oh, I'm real,” the demon smiles with dimples and bright white teeth. “And I'm not a demon. That's what you were thinking, wasn't it Dean? Next, you will ask where you are. Because you're not stupid. You're not daddy's blunt instrument, Dean. You never were.”
The not-demon tips his head to one side, surveying Dean. “You already know where you are, Dean. I'll give you a hint.” He lifts one hand and fire flares in a blue circle around them. Jo's corpse is engulfed in flame, and the stench of sulfur makes Dean gag.
When the flicker dies down, Jo's body is crispy like a hog roast, but it's not that which sends a jolt of horror through Dean's entire body - and if he weren't pinned motionless he would crumple, scream and yell, because Jo's eyes are open, begging for reprieve, and there's a primal wail that rips from her ruined throat.
Dean can hardly comprehend the terror he is witnessing. His mind is screaming “No!” but there's not a sound falling from his mouth.
“If you promise not to curse our mother, I'll let you speak, Dean.” The not-demon flexes his shoulders and turns his body away from Dean. He crouches, reaches a long arm and elegant fingers, to break off one of Jo's crispy-cooked thumbs. He pops it in his mouth, crunches and chews it with enthusiasm. Jo's eyes watch, desperate and helpless. He offers a bite to Dean, and Dean shakes his head, appalled and sick to his core.
The not-demon smiles and takes another bite. “It's a delicacy, and the original meat suit is always the best. You'll learn.” He throws the bone over his shoulder when he's done, and licks his fingers. “Mmm. Where were we?”
Dean tries again to speak. The word grates in his throat and sticks on his tongue. He's shaking, but his eyes blaze defiantly. “Hell,” he manages to whisper. “What are you?”
“I'm your brother, but you know that too. You built the altar that will save the world. You offered yourself and saved me. You made all this possible, Dean.” His arm stretches, fog swirls in rich reds and yellow, and the not-demon transforms in front of Dean's eyes. A young boy stands with his hand outstretched, offering a toy from a cereal packet. Brown hair is silky soft and wayward, the eyes are the same gold-flecked hazel, and he has the same well-defined bone structure and moles. Sammy.
Behind Sam, swirling mists part, and Dean sees endless tortured souls in in grotesque burning piles, and massed demons like shadows, tattered, floating, ever changing in the air, but their eyes glow like fairy lights in the gloom.
Dean knows what he did all those years ago at the altar. He offered his soul.
He understands now too, the memories of a shifter in a bank, red laser and gunshots; he'd screwed up, and a SWAT team had shot Jo, Roland and Dean. He's grateful that Roland isn't with them in this place, and wonders if he lived. What Dean can't accept, is this now tall again, supernatural beast who leans dangerously close, with an evil smirk and cruel expression. He refuses to believe this is Sam.
Sam speaks remarkably gently, “You know who I am, and you know you are mine.”
“NO! NO! You're not him. You're a monster!” Dean sneers.
A brief glimpse of hurt is quickly replaced by anger. “I'm the Prince of Hell, and you will address me properly,” Sam's words, boom and echo.
Impossibly, Jo's charred body arches up and shakes. Her flesh renews in seconds, just before Sam clicks his fingers and flames devour her once more. There's a cacophony of screams, and they're not all Jo's.
Sam paces. “I've waited so long for you, Dean. You will not disappoint me.”
Dean forces his disgust and fury down, because it won't help Jo. “Why wait all this time? Why now?”
“Hunters wanted me dead. Dad, Bobby, all of them.” Sam examines his fingernails and looks back at Dean, “You would have wanted to kill me if you knew what I was. I needed to be strong.”
“I already killed you. I can do it again.” It's blurted out with Dean's usual defensive snark.
Sam is quick to react and fix him with a stare. “You will never hurt me. We're ying and yang. One soul across heaven and hell. You didn't kill me, dad did. He knew exactly what he was doing when he left us alone. He found out what we were, and he took the coward's way.” His hand reaches to Dean's face, and the caress of his fingers is delicate. “You will be mine and our vessels will be out of reach to angel and demon alike. Heaven, Hell and humanity will bow before us.”
“You always speak in riddles, huh, dick?” It's brave talk, but the confusion Dean feels with the accusation against his father, has his mind twisted in dark knots. There are so many mysteries tied up with his mother, Sam, and the illusive yellow eyed demon, and John Winchester never explained any of them.
“Silence!” Sam's eyes flash yellow.
Vines break through the floor, they grow and twist, slither over surfaces until Dean is surrounded by green leaves and gnarled stem. The vine coils and grips. It wraps around his ankles and wrists, and constricts his chest. It drags and pulls at him, and he's trying to fight all the way but he's too soon at the altar and he knows that can't be a good thing.
From the corner of his eye Dean can see a horde of winged shadows, all claws and teeth, blood and bone. They descend upon Jo to tear and shred her cooked flesh. Soft organs squelch and drip in their grip. She's writhing and screaming but they don't stop. Dean opens his mouth but no words come out. There's a tear running down his cheek but he won't cry.
Warm fingertips crush the teardrop and wipe it away. They resume their caress, and cup his chin to tilt it up and look in cold hazel eyes.“You made a promise at the this altar, Dean. You're mine, and I know you keep your promises. I never stopped loving you, Dean. All these years, I watched and waited until the time was ripe, and I yearned to be by your side. There will never be anyone but me, now.”
“Jo kept me safe for you,” Dean manages to grate out on limited breath. “Leave her alone.”
“Against all those monsters and demons? You were good enough on your own Dean, and I wouldn't have let them hurt you, not really.”
There's a cold shiver that travels Dean's spine, and he realizes that he's suddenly naked. He thinks quick and takes a chance. “I'll do it, whatever it is. Just let Jo go. She doesn't belong here.”
“She thinks she does, that's what matters,” Sam answers dismissively. He grins, a rattlesnake smile, at Dean. “Of course you will do what I ask; my puppet on a string.” He quirks an eyebrow and Dean's arm shoots out, straight ahead, then his hand waves, and Dean is not controlling it.
“Huh.” Dean trembles, and he can't prevent it. “I'll do it without the freaky mind thing.”
Sam puts a finger to his chin and seems to consider Dean's plea. “Okay, Dean.”
A petite brunette appears from the shadows, to clutch Sam's arm. “Sam! No. What are you doing?” In an instant she's flung through the air by invisible force, into the depths of the fog.
It's Dean's turn to quirk his eyebrow. “Friend of yours?”
“One of my generals, but it's no concern of yours, Dean.” Sam clicks his fingers twice and Jo's flesh returns, and plumps. “Jo will rejoice your desecration with us, and then she shall have the best accommodation.” He speaks smoothly, and Dean wonders if the best accommodation is a good thing at all in Hell.
“Dean!” Jo cries out, as she's restrained by two huge, winged, guards.
Sam raises a single finger and Jo is silenced. The vines loosen and slide from Dean's naked body. He briefly considers fighting and running, but there's a horde of shadowy figures at the edge of the darkness, baying to rip him apart.
Sam leans close to his ear, “You're in Hell, Dean, do you really think you're getting out without me?” He circles Dean assessing every part of him. “Let's see how good you can be for me.”
Dean remains motionless. Hell seems to draw breath and wait. “Perfect,” Sam announces.
He flinches when Sam tugs his anti-possession necklace over his head. Sam holds it up and studies it. “This won't be enough. We'll make it permanent. A little ink, perhaps,. I won't let any other have you.” He whispers his words into the shell of Dean's ear. “Now, kneel pretty for me. It's time to crown you.”
The small brunette demon appears by Sam's side with a cushion, but it isn't a crown she offers to Sam. There's a golden collar, engraved with delicate spell-work, resting on the velvet. Dean's hands clench into fists and his nails dig half moons into his flesh. His cheeks blush wine-red with humiliation, but he tips his neck and submits. Sam's hand ruffles Dean's short spiked hair and strokes the soft flesh of his neck.
“Thank you, Ruby.”
Ruby seems to revel in the praise and smirks at Dean.
Sam is surprisingly gentle fitting the heavy, lined collar around Dean's neck. “Do you remember what you offered for my life, Dean?”
Dean wants to yell and curse. He was just a grieving kid and he made a deal for Sam, his Sammy, not this hell- monster with changeable eyes and psychic powers. He doesn't shout though. He can still see Jo, restrained by the shadowy-winged demons, and he won't let her suffer more. He closes his eyes, with the flutter of long lashes. Every instinct is telling him to fight, run, or go down swinging, but he's already dead, and hell is his final destination. “I offered me. I promised to do anything Sam asked and to never leave his side again, not for a moment.”
Sam stands back a step to admire the collar that weighs heavy around his brother's neck. Dean's blush extends red all over his body.
“What else?”
“I said I would go to Hell, if only I could have Sam back, but I was just a kid, I didn't understand …”
Sam shushes Dean's lips with two fingers. “Do you think Hell cared about your age? The spell was perfect and it was a wonderful thing.” He withdraws his hand to take a shiny blade from Ruby. Dean's eyes widen and Sam shushes him again. “A little scratch, Dean.”
Sam unfolds his own palm and draws the finely honed blade over his life line. The flesh parts pink and runs red, with human blood. “Your turn, give me your hand, Dean.”
Sam's right, it's barely a scratch. The pain is needle-sharp and brief, and then their hands are together, their blood mingling, and Dean feels a jolt of cold power that explodes at the base of his mind and spreads. It creeps like ice through veins and nerves and he's whimpering with the dizzying discomfort of the sensation.
He hardly notices when Sam tugs him up by his collar and turns him around, to slam him ass up and vulnerable, over the altar. Somewhere, in his mixed up, fuzzy brain, there's a voice that's protesting, “No, oh no, no,” and a vague insistence that there's no lube … no lube …. and oh, FUCK, this can't be happening, but it is, and a crowd of jostling, rotting demons are watching, judging, jeering at Dean's ordeal.
Dean isn't sure when Sam got naked, he can't even remember what he was wearing a few minutes before, but there's erect velvet flesh, pushing between his ass cheeks and nudging at his hole. Dean's been around the block, done some things with girls, but there's been nothing more than finger through that muscle and this Sam is huge. Dean is going to be raped, and it's gonna hurt, but he doesn't seem to have the will to move away.
A hand strokes down Dean's spine. It soothes and thrills. Dean squirms. Sam tugs at his collar, stretching his head back, and Dean struggles to breathe. He can't work out why his lungs need air in Hell, but he's fighting for every acrid breath of mist, and his nightmare is becoming fuzzy at the edges.
“Relax, Dean.” Sam insists, and Dean wants to laugh because he's being raped by his undead brother in front of a massed audience and there's no lube and no prep, and he says to relax. He doesn't laugh, because that's the moment, he's breached and impaled, and Sam isn't stopping, to let him adjust. His hole is in tatters and he is being ripped apart from the inside. He feels the liquid heat of blood ooze down the inside of his thighs, and he doesn't notice his own agonized screams, but he sees Jo's frantic struggles, and hears the massed audience clap and cheer. The altar stone darkens with the drip of his tears and snot.
“Relax, Dean, I will fix you.” Sam insists again, but Dean doesn't think he will ever be fixed. Sam will rebuild his flesh, like he did with Jo, but the memory of this pain will never fade. Dean's muscles relax anyway, he's been given a command and his body obeys its master.
Sam plunges powerfully, he grips Dean's hips with bruising force to slam his cock deep, and his balls slap against the flesh of Dean's ass. Dean pulls away from the screeching, burning intrusion, but there's more soft words from Sam and he's rocking back to meet the rhythm, chasing the electric sensation against his prostate. He barely registers the Latin that Sam yells on breathless pants, or the bright ring of fire that surrounds them, as Sam's orgasm slams into Dean and fills his channel. Dean doesn't come, but it's over, and his sweat cools despite the flames which flicker steadily around them. He remembers the crowd and he wants to die, but he's already dead, and Hell is forever.
Sam yanks Dean upright, by his collar and Dean is unsteady like a newborn foal. He sees Ruby next to them. She's got her arms outstretched and a look of confusion on her face. Sam gives an evil smirk which grows as she looks up at her Prince of Hell.
“I don't understand,” her voice shakes, “He should be here. Lucifer should be here,” Ruby whimpers.
There's the firm support of Sam's palm on Dean's back, even as pain stabs and coils inside him. With his other hand, Sam presses a fancy carved knife into Dean's hand. “Kill her,” Sam commands, and Dean does. With the practised move of a lifetime's hunting Dean's hand cuts cleanly through the air, and the knife slices between Ruby's ribs.
Sam stares directly into the black of her eyes. “Did you really think, I was going to give all this up, to spend an eternity with Lucifer riding my ass?”
Her mouth gapes in shock, and her body crumples. Golden lightning flashes within her and dies. Ashes flutter in the air, like morbid confetti.
Sam tilts his head at the mass of charcoal on the floor. “She just didn't get it,” he says with detachment. “Why would I give all this up, just for some dick angels to fight? And now that our vessels are ruined for them, we won't have to.” He stops to squeeze Dean's ass, “And I can have this whenever I like.”
Dean doesn't understand what just happened. He winces in pain, and tears fill his eyes. Sam wipes his tears away. and Dean is warm again. His pain and blood are gone, leaving just an ache and burn in his over-stretched ass.
Sam claps his hands and the crowd cheers. The noise is awful. It surrounds them, vibrates through bones, and echoes without walls. Several large demons lurk at the edge of Dean's vision, but he can't quite make out their form.
Sam takes a powerful stance at the head of them all. He's tall and imposing, and he exudes control. “Generals, troops. The world is ours to take and we will not share with angels. Take what you will ….” Sam's voice lowers and booms with threat, as he speaks the next sentence. “But nobody touches my consort, or the lady in his protection. Ruby didn't acknowledge my status. Do not make the same mistake.”
Consort, Dean touches his collar. It's a strange word to use, but he's overwhelmed, aching and exhausted and Jo is whole and protected. He can't think about it any more. Mist swirls and thickens and then clears again, and the crowd is gone.
Now, there is only this Sam with Dean. Sam is dressed once more. His hair is arranged tidily and he's smart in a black tie and tux, but Dean remains naked and humiliated with just the gold collar around his neck. They're in the softly lit, and grand entrance of a hotel that perches high on a rocky mountain top. Blue sky is visible through sparkling clean windows, and rooks soar over a ravine. Piano music tinkles in another room, and there's the murmur of voices and clink of glasses in a bar.
“The world has waited this long, it will wait a little longer while we take our honeymoon, don't you think?” Sam tugs at a chain on Dean's collar, and Dean has no option but to follow him into a vast and lavish lobby. The receptionist greets Sam with a smile.
“Penthouse,” says Sam, and accepts the key with nod. “Oh, and make sure the valet takes utmost care with my brother's '67 Impala.”
~end~
*Mario Bava - cinematographer and horror movie director.
Title: Hotel California
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Prince of Hell!Sam/Dean, Jo, Ruby, Azazel
Summary: Sam has waited for Dean, for a very long time. Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
{In this au the story diverges from canon in Sam and Dean's childhood. Sam was killed by the Shtriga, and Dean grew up with Jo, and hunts with her. The canon of S1 and S2 MoW episodes is followed, but with Jo by Dean's side.}
Warnings: dark!fic, evil!Sam, explicit sexual content, non-con, collared, horror, graphic violence, blood and gore, character deaths
Word Count: ~6.9K
Beta readers: Thank you to linvro21, meus_venator and sylsdarkplace for making this better. Any mistakes that remain are my own.
Disclaimer: This is fiction, pure fantasy folks. Sadly all the characters remain the property of Eric Kripke and the CW, and I make no money from it.
Authors Notes:
1. The title and words in the summary are taken from The Eagles' song, Hotel California. While I know the song was intended to be about hedonism in the music industry, I chose to take the words and put a much darker spin on them, because I can, and because trying to name this fic was a bitch.
2. This is my contribution to the evilsam_spn Summer Challenge 2013: It's So Easy When You're Evil for which I drew “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta - III. Adagio" by Bela Bartok as my prompt. I signed up for the challenge to push me outside my comfort zone by writing evil!Sam. I love reading evil!Sam, but my regular readers have probably noticed that evil!Sam is a character I have trouble putting on paper. As it turned out, the music pushed me even further from my comfort zone but it was a great challenge - and woohoo - look! Evil!Sam fic!
3.Thanks to pushkin666 for organising this original challenge and herding me to the finish line.
After struggling with different incarnations of Sam for the music prompt, I almost gave up - and then I spotted this photograph of an abandoned hotel and it seemed the perfect setting for the music. The story grew from there.
Hotel California
The Impala growls and bumps up the steep incline of a winding and rocky road.
At its destination, wood creaks, plaster sheds dust, and animals scurry, hop and flap through empty rooms. Lucifer's prince waits, beside a fire of burning ice, on a carpet of crimson flesh.
There's a metallic clunk of doors and the sound of a heavy trunk opening and closing. Voices swirl in on a fresh breeze. He senses an air of excitement in those that come with the old car. There's trepidation and a whole lot of awe in the conversation he overhears.
He knows what they see, Dean Winchester and his fake-sister, Jo - an abandoned hotel on the edge of a canyon, with sweeping views of waterfalls, rock and sky. Rooks and eagles wheel in the blue, with the raucous call of predator and carrion feeder. The vistas here are to die for, and several have. Some were helped on their way, others had human frailties of carelessness and greed.
Sam snaps his fingers. Choking yellow fog rolls in, surrounding the high rock the place sits on. It limits vision and chills bones. Sam doesn't feel the cold; he doesn't even remember it.
“Mine,” Sam sighs as the heavy entrance door swings open. He muffles its creak, who needs theatrics?
He knows that Dean and Jo see a hostelry that once bustled with wealthy visitors and smartly dressed staff. There would have been sparkling chandeliers, roaring open fires, silk drapes and the scent of sweet flowers and good food. Now, the pervading smell is damp and rot, and the only ones inhabiting it are rats, termites, ghosts and demons
They hunt, side-by-side, and back-to-back. The hotel remains grimly silent, it's colors and grandeur are muted under water damage and ash-like grime.
Dean bounces through the rooms like an overgrown kid, quoting scenes from The Haunting, Candyman, and The Others (because Nicole Kidman, man). He feathers calloused fingers over heavy candelabra and smooths ancient wood panels. His eyes are edged with thick lashes; they're as green as Sam remembers, and are wide with wonder. His skin is pale, lightly freckled, and it covers miles of muscular and delectable flesh. Sam could eat him alive. He makes a mental note to ensure that his claim on Dean is unmistakable.
A corridor swallows Dean and Jo in darkness until they walk through heavy mahogany doors into a ballroom which yawns wide in invitation.
“Awesome!” Dean grins. He makes a smiley face on a dusty mirror and brushes a cobweb from an art-deco lamp. Jo grins with him.
“You're so lame, Deano.”
Dean cocks his sawn- off, loaded with salt rounds. “C'mon! Genuine haunted hotel! Here ghostie, ghostie ghostie.”
“Except, nobody noticed this place, let alone its ghost until it went up for auction three weeks ago. It's kids goofing off, or someone trying to lower the price. We should have brought Scooby Doo with us, not salt and iron.” Jo shakes her head, but her gun stays ready, and her brown eyes are alert.
Sam doesn't like Jo, she's not right for Dean. She isn't his soulmate. Possessiveness and hatred burn bright in the blackness of Sam's soul and his hazel eyes blaze gold for a brief moment. Nobody can replace Sam at his brother's side; Jo has to go, but he can wait; he'd like to toy with her a little.
Azazel appears beside Sam. “You want this? You want him?” the yellow eyed demon asks his prince.
“I will have this. I will have him.”
“He abandoned you. He let you die at the hands of a monster.” Azazel's nasal whine betrays his sneering distaste for Michael’s vessel, Dean Winchester.
“He will never leave my side again,” Sam smirks.
The time is near. Sam no longer needs this twisted, traitorous demon. He clicks his fingers and Azazel's yellow eyes round with horror. Grey smoke trickles from the ancient demon's nose and mouth. It gathers, blackens and burns as the last of Azazel's almost-life turns to glowing ashes.
Sam returns to his current amusement. Fresh souls are such fun, and these are extra special, still wrapped in their flesh.
***
“If it's not haunted, explain how it's all intact,” Dean challenges Jo.
“No EMF,” comments Jo smugly from an ancient terrace, where ivy consumes walls and creeps over stone paving. She walks slowly to the edge, and stairs appear through the haze, a few yards in front of her. They drop steeply into a cloudy abyss and she squints to get a better view. There's a wicked chill in the mist and she shivers.
“Ow! Shit!”
Dean hears Jo on the terrace of the old ballroom, but he can't see her. He runs toward her voice, his gun cocked. “Jo!”- he's not really worried - Jo can handle herself on a hunt and there's no urgency in her exclamations. He finds her sprawled on cold paving. She's pale and rubs her rapidly swelling ankle. There are tell-tale hives on her skin of some sort of allergic reaction.
“Goddamn fog. Stupid ivy.”
A twisted curl of poison ivy rests by Jo's foot. Dean eyes it suspiciously. EMF or not, this doesn't feel right.
“I'm fine. I didn't see it,” Jo states, as if reading his mind. “Just help me up.”
Dean winds an arm around Jo's waist, pulls her close, and takes her insubstantial weight as she limps into the echoing expanse of the empty ballroom. He grabs a mildewed chair and tests that it is sturdy before setting Jo onto the seat.
The glass paneled door they just passed through swings shut with a ringing crack, and glass crashes, splintering as it falls to mossy-damp ground. There's a sudden dizzying sensation that has Dean reeling in a whirlpool of sensations, and just for a second, he can hear gunshot, and see images of masked men, and Jo covered in blood. It passes, and he's disorientated and nauseous. He steadies himself with a hand on the back of the chair. “Jo,” he asks, “What just happened?”
Jo stares toward the terrace while she scratches at the itchy rash on her ankle. Fog seeps in through the jagged gaps of glass and wood. It's like a carpet unrolling on the floor, then it expands and creeps up faded walls. It searches for the ceiling, and devours the once-gay space, even as they watch.
“Freakin' fog. What is this, a James Herbert novel? You got anything, Jo? Anything like it?” Dean exclaims, even as he's lifting Jo and preparing to defend them.
They cock their guns simultaneously, fire into the gloom, reload and fire again. Jo runs out of ammo; she unholsters her pistol, and discharges silver rounds with thunderous noise. Bullets embed into walls with the flying dust of wet plaster, without finding a target. Holy water splashes uselessly into puddles on the floor, but the fog marches relentlessly closer.
“Might be something in your dad's journal, but no, can't think of anything,” Jo's voice is breathy and full of strain.
“Awesome!” There's both fear and wonder in Dean's reply. He's lingering, trying to peer into the mist, squinting to see something.
Breath catches in Jo's throat. Dean can hear her terror, and it's out of proportion with the circumstances. “Dean, c'mon. We have to get out of here.” There's tears in her eyes and she's stifling a scream. She pulls at his arm, ignores the pain in her ankle and drags him through heavy timber doors, to the shabby remains of a reception room.
Dean is too caught up with the fuzzy shape that he's sure he can't really perceive, to complain. He hasn't got words for the image of Sam, his little Sammy, reaching through the fog, a hand outstretched in a plea for his big brother, eyes shining hazel, and then fading, fading, like the life being sucked from him, and then he's gone.
Jo slams the door and secures it with a steel chain and a lock. They pant and watch the door, alert for signs of the encroaching fog, but it doesn't come after them.
Dean gives a cocky grin and Jo laughs nervously.
“So, there's that,” says Dean, “Whatever the hell, that is.” He's spooked more than he's going to admit to Jo.
A scratching noise makes them both turn to find the source. Dean can't see anything, but since when has that bothered the supernatural? His heart is pumping fit to burst, and he can't place the direction it's coming from or judge where to take cover. He shakes a hasty salt ring around them and Jo grips his hand.
“What's that?” she whispers.
They turn slowly, back to back in the circle, searching for a hint of their enemy. The scratching stops, and they relax, still watchful, before it begins again, comes closer scritch, scritch. There's a high pitched squeak and they both startle as a small black rat dashes through the salt, dragging white grains across the floor with it's tail. They both sag with relief as it scurries away.
Dean rubs a large palm over his face and rubs the bridge of his nose. “It's the ghost of Mario Bava*,” he wisecracks.
“What did you see in the fog?” Jo asks. Her lips are pressed thin, her fingers curl too tightly around her shotgun.
Dean is quick to deny his vision, “Nothin'. There's nothing there.”
“Liar!” Jo punches him in the arm, then leans into his side. “Can we get out of here? We can do some research, find out if there's any smoke-related deaths. Fires, that sort of thing.”
“There's no evidence of fire damage,” Dean points out.
“Could have been rebuilt,” counters Jo.
“No EMF,” argues Dean, infuriatingly.
Jo playfully slaps his arm.
They push through service doors on the far side of the room, which still swing easily. A corridor stretches in both directions, with miles of polished mahogany panel interspersed with evenly spaced guest rooms, denoted by shiny brass numbers. They turn left, past room 19 and keep walking.
Jo's arm winds around Dean's shoulder, as she limps beside him. There's an uncomfortable thought scraping at the back of Dean's mind but he can't quite catch it to pin it down. His boots sink into surprisingly plush, dry carpet and they keep walking. Corridor lights flicker, and Dean blinks.
Flash, a helicopter searchlight. Flash, the blue and red rotation of squad car lights. Flash, the red laser of a sniper.
“Dean?” Jo's voice pulls Dean back, though he's not sure where he's been.
“How did we get this job?”
Dean has to stop to think about it. He leans against the door of room 19, in the dim, unlit corridor. Splinters from shabby wood panelling stick to his jacket, and he brushes them away. His eyebrows dip as he tries to remember.
“Think!” Jo looks at him earnestly, and flicks her hair behind her ear.
“Roland,” is all he's got, but Dean doesn't remember who Roland is.
“This hall, it doesn't go anywhere. It's the same rooms every time” Jo rubs a finger over the green and pitted brass number 19.
She's right, Dean thinks, and he can't work out why he hadn't noticed. He squints in half-light and wonders how they saw anything without a flashlight. “Was there lights?” he asks, frowning in confusion.
“Aagh!” Jo pulls her hand away from the brass number in one, sudden, jerky, movement. Her forefinger slides from the metal plate, exposing a shining, gory knuckle. It drops to the dusty floor, and Jo stares in disbelief at the blood which streams down her arm, drips and pools below her, like gathering rain. “It's goddamn sharp,” she cries, but the brass edges seem smooth to Dean.
Dean grabs her hand and binds it tight with his handkerchief, strips his plaid shirt and uses that too. There's tears in Jo's eyes and the color has drained from her face. He recognizes shock.
“It's okay, you're gonna be okay Jo. We'll put it on ice, get to a hospital. We have to get out of here.” He speaks with a calm that belies his inner turmoil and retrieves the bloody finger. He pockets it, then pushes door 19, and it opens. They tumble inside, and Jo is barely able to walk.
Heavy velvet drapes are drawn and it's hard to see in the gloom. Dean grabs his flashlight. The bright beam sweeps the room and shadows dance as it moves. Jo is starting to slump, but she still lets out a yelp of surprise when a shelf of china dolls with glass eyes and shiny porcelain limbs glow with reflected light.
“I know this,” she follows up, and sure enough, there is a large dolls house, a replica of the Pierpont Hotel where the ghost of a child had once roamed. Jo's laugh is weak and hysterical, “It's not real. It's memories,” she declares.
Dean feels the wet shape of a fingertip in his pocket. It feels real. Jo's pain looks real, but the room cannot be. The ghost was gone, the hotel demolished. Dean shakes his head - his memory after Connecticut is hazy. “The fog was some sort of gas? A hallucinogen?” he suggests. “What did you see, in the fog, Jo?”
Jo opens her mouth to speak, but in that moment there's a rustle beside them, the noise of a skipping rope, and children chanting nursery rhymes.
“Djinn?” Dean wonders.
“If this is your ideal world, it sucks,” Jo says, but the joke is grated out through clenched teeth.
“I saw Sammy,” Dean admits. “He was reaching out for me, and the life was being sucked from him, but I wasn't there. I left him alone.” His voice wavers, and it's thick with guilt and self-loathing. “I was playing games, while he died, and he died thinking I hated him. I've done it again. Here we are, and I can't get you out.”
Jo holds his hand, he loves her like a sister, has since the day after they burned Sam's body, when John dragged Dean to the Road House and abandoned him there.
“I saw my dad,” Jo began, “Clawed up by a demon, with his guts in his hand, just like mom told me. I know I was a noisy, demanding baby. He hunted to get away from me.” Her face was pinched with pain and guilt.
“Hey, no. You were just a baby.” Dean speaks angrily.
“You were just a kid, Dean.”
“We are both messed up I guess,” Dean admits. It feels like a confession. He never does this, talks like this. Not even to Jo.
After Sam died, Jo and Dean had been inseparable. John had returned to visit Dean eventually, but he could barely look at his remaining son. On weekends and during school vacations John would uproot him without ceremony, and the revenge for their mother, the hunting and training would resume.
Sam was never mentioned again.
Ellen and Bobby tolerated him, but there was always a sense of awkwardness that Dean could never put his finger on. He rarely returns to them. Now, the impala is his home. It smells of vinyl, and oil, and family, and deep in its core Sam is still there, in the soldier in the ashtray, the legos in the vents and the graffiti they once carved.
Dean knows he was wrong to involve Jo in hunting, but she hadn't settled well at college, and when John had gone missing, Dean ran to Jo, and asked for help. She was all the family he had left, and he trusted her.
Jo smiles weakly, “I don't hate you, and we're going to get out of here. Hey, we're probably in some dingy motel, smokin' some bad weed.”
Dean shakes off his past and his doubt. He has to focus. They need to find an exit, but the door has disappeared, and he can't see a monster to kill. They're hunting blind and injured, and they're not even sure what is real or how they got here. He runs his fingers over the wall next to him and his hand unexpectedly touches brittle strands of fine, dry hair. He draws his fingers back and looks carefully at an old blonde-haired doll. Then, there's a sudden flare of light, and an open door appears, as if by magic, to a room beyond the one that they are in.
Candles blaze gold on silver candelabra, placed on a stone altar. Beside them, a skull of a cat, hair, herbs, sigils, and a small photograph are neatly spaced. He knows the photograph is of Sam. It's memories, just memories.
Beyond the altar, a door of heavy wood stands ajar, just a fraction. Dean swallows hard. Jo and Dean look at the exit, weighing up their options.
“If it's real then we walk into the monster's trap, but if it's not, then it could be a way out,” Jo offers.
“If it's a monster, then we already walked into the trap, and it's hiding from us.” Dean turns in a circle, looks around, and yells, “Show yourself, you cowardly son of a bitch!”
The toys and furnishings vanish abruptly. Ropes snake from the ceiling and Jo is hanging in the air, from her bound wrists, and gallons of water are rushing over her. Her body jerks and swings. She's screaming, gurgling and choking. Dean stands useless and desperate, unable to stop it. He should never have told Ellen that they'd be okay, that families hunt together. He's going to lose Jo to a monster, just like he lost Sammy, like he lost Dad to a demon, and it's all his fault. He should have insisted that Jo go back to college. It should be Dean hanging there, like he did in Black Water Ridge, when Jo rescued him from the wendigo. It should be Dean drowning, like the folks he couldn't save in Lake Manitoc. It should be him rotting in hell, not Dad.
He steps under the deluge to hack with a knife, at the rope that holds Jo. It's like the bottom of Niagara Falls and the river comes in curtains of icy knives, slashing at flesh. He feels the moment Jo fades, and he can see the water turning red around her. Jo's skin is melting, shedding from her bloody corpse, like the shifter in the bank.
The bank. The SWAT team - gunshots. A red laser-pointer on Roland's chest, and then on Dean's chest. Moving too late. The slam of a high trajectory bullet. A bloom of wet pain. The fall. Darkness. A winding road that took them to this place of fog, fear and pain.
***
Sam absorbs Jo's pain, her fear and her confusion. He wallows in it, rolls his tongue around it's exquisite taste, and inhales the sweaty, acrid scent of it. It's long awaited, delicious and satisfying.
Ruby slides into the space by Sam. “Everything is ready,” she croons.
Sam thinks it's a shame. It's not nearly enough pain for the years that Jo stole from him, riding shotgun in a seat that should have been his. Still, time spreads limitless ahead of them, and Sam can appreciate an eternity of his brother's company. Before that, there is a deed to be done. There's a declaration of war on heaven and earth, and everything turns on the desecration of Michael’s vessel. Sam has to get it right.
He looks down at Ruby, in her tiny brunette vessel. “Make sure the troops are ready.”
Ruby nods her understanding and backs away, to muster their army. She strokes the hell hound by her side and cannot help the upward curl of her lips. Her eyes shine with excitement and anticipation. Sam cannot imagine how she feels. She has been thousands of years in Hell's loyal service, waiting for the day Lucifer rises.
***
The waterfall ceases, Jo slumps to an ash-laden floor. The candles snuff out, although there's no hint of breeze, but a light still glows yellow in a haze that stinks of rotten eggs. It's deathly silent, not a puddle in sight, or creak of wood, without snuffle, or breath, or footfall. Dean kneels by Jo, but he knows she's already gone. “Jo?” he asks anyway, and then again. Louder, hysterical. A single tear gathers in green eyes, clings to eyelashes, then drops and trails down a pale freckled cheek. He gasps with a shudder but there's no breath in his lungs. “No, no, no! No, Jo.”
He scoops her in his arms and kisses her soaked, bloody head before rearranging her gruesome corpse neatly. He stands and pulls himself to his full size. It's the stench of sulfur that gives Dean a clue. Dean punches a wall and flaking brick scatters to the floor. “Show yourself, you demonic bastard!”
A silhouette forms against the backdrop of low light at the altar. It's a human shape, taller than Dean and broad shouldered but lean. “We're going to have to clean up that mouth of yours, Dean.” The voice is adult, male and it has a calm, whispering quality with an edge of steel.
“Sonofabitch!” Dean swears.
An arm punches through the mist. Powerful and straight, it ends in an outstretched hand and Dean is picked up by an invisible force, to be slammed against a giant iron pentagram. Dean struggles and tries to kick out, but his body cannot obey his mind. His lips slam together, and he's reduced to humming his disapproval in his throat.
“That's better, Dean. You'll learn.”
Dean thinks the demon's breath is surprisingly fresh as the creature towers over him. Dean is over six foot tall but the meatsuit this demon wears is bigger. Muscular arms lean against the struts either side of Dean, and the demon is crowding into his space, leaning intimately close. The hairs on Dean's arm stand up as he feels the shiver of contact and he's staring into tip- tilted, hazel eyes-tinted yellow and gold-in a face that is coldly handsome with chiseled features and a wide mouth. There's something familiar about some aspects of the face and Dean struggles to recall what it is.
“Relax. You know who I am, Dean. You brought me to life here.” Sam extends his arm to the altar in the center of the room.
Dean remembers the weeks after the Shtriga killed Sam. The tears, the recriminations and the huge black hole of loss he could never fill. He still can't fill that space, however many years pass. He remembers his childish attempts to bring Sam back with spells and voodoo, from Bobby's books, and stolen ingredients from his dad's stash. He recognizes the stone altar that sits before him. It's just hallucination and memories, his mind insists.
“Oh, I'm real,” the demon smiles with dimples and bright white teeth. “And I'm not a demon. That's what you were thinking, wasn't it Dean? Next, you will ask where you are. Because you're not stupid. You're not daddy's blunt instrument, Dean. You never were.”
The not-demon tips his head to one side, surveying Dean. “You already know where you are, Dean. I'll give you a hint.” He lifts one hand and fire flares in a blue circle around them. Jo's corpse is engulfed in flame, and the stench of sulfur makes Dean gag.
When the flicker dies down, Jo's body is crispy like a hog roast, but it's not that which sends a jolt of horror through Dean's entire body - and if he weren't pinned motionless he would crumple, scream and yell, because Jo's eyes are open, begging for reprieve, and there's a primal wail that rips from her ruined throat.
Dean can hardly comprehend the terror he is witnessing. His mind is screaming “No!” but there's not a sound falling from his mouth.
“If you promise not to curse our mother, I'll let you speak, Dean.” The not-demon flexes his shoulders and turns his body away from Dean. He crouches, reaches a long arm and elegant fingers, to break off one of Jo's crispy-cooked thumbs. He pops it in his mouth, crunches and chews it with enthusiasm. Jo's eyes watch, desperate and helpless. He offers a bite to Dean, and Dean shakes his head, appalled and sick to his core.
The not-demon smiles and takes another bite. “It's a delicacy, and the original meat suit is always the best. You'll learn.” He throws the bone over his shoulder when he's done, and licks his fingers. “Mmm. Where were we?”
Dean tries again to speak. The word grates in his throat and sticks on his tongue. He's shaking, but his eyes blaze defiantly. “Hell,” he manages to whisper. “What are you?”
“I'm your brother, but you know that too. You built the altar that will save the world. You offered yourself and saved me. You made all this possible, Dean.” His arm stretches, fog swirls in rich reds and yellow, and the not-demon transforms in front of Dean's eyes. A young boy stands with his hand outstretched, offering a toy from a cereal packet. Brown hair is silky soft and wayward, the eyes are the same gold-flecked hazel, and he has the same well-defined bone structure and moles. Sammy.
Behind Sam, swirling mists part, and Dean sees endless tortured souls in in grotesque burning piles, and massed demons like shadows, tattered, floating, ever changing in the air, but their eyes glow like fairy lights in the gloom.
Dean knows what he did all those years ago at the altar. He offered his soul.
He understands now too, the memories of a shifter in a bank, red laser and gunshots; he'd screwed up, and a SWAT team had shot Jo, Roland and Dean. He's grateful that Roland isn't with them in this place, and wonders if he lived. What Dean can't accept, is this now tall again, supernatural beast who leans dangerously close, with an evil smirk and cruel expression. He refuses to believe this is Sam.
Sam speaks remarkably gently, “You know who I am, and you know you are mine.”
“NO! NO! You're not him. You're a monster!” Dean sneers.
A brief glimpse of hurt is quickly replaced by anger. “I'm the Prince of Hell, and you will address me properly,” Sam's words, boom and echo.
Impossibly, Jo's charred body arches up and shakes. Her flesh renews in seconds, just before Sam clicks his fingers and flames devour her once more. There's a cacophony of screams, and they're not all Jo's.
Sam paces. “I've waited so long for you, Dean. You will not disappoint me.”
Dean forces his disgust and fury down, because it won't help Jo. “Why wait all this time? Why now?”
“Hunters wanted me dead. Dad, Bobby, all of them.” Sam examines his fingernails and looks back at Dean, “You would have wanted to kill me if you knew what I was. I needed to be strong.”
“I already killed you. I can do it again.” It's blurted out with Dean's usual defensive snark.
Sam is quick to react and fix him with a stare. “You will never hurt me. We're ying and yang. One soul across heaven and hell. You didn't kill me, dad did. He knew exactly what he was doing when he left us alone. He found out what we were, and he took the coward's way.” His hand reaches to Dean's face, and the caress of his fingers is delicate. “You will be mine and our vessels will be out of reach to angel and demon alike. Heaven, Hell and humanity will bow before us.”
“You always speak in riddles, huh, dick?” It's brave talk, but the confusion Dean feels with the accusation against his father, has his mind twisted in dark knots. There are so many mysteries tied up with his mother, Sam, and the illusive yellow eyed demon, and John Winchester never explained any of them.
“Silence!” Sam's eyes flash yellow.
Vines break through the floor, they grow and twist, slither over surfaces until Dean is surrounded by green leaves and gnarled stem. The vine coils and grips. It wraps around his ankles and wrists, and constricts his chest. It drags and pulls at him, and he's trying to fight all the way but he's too soon at the altar and he knows that can't be a good thing.
From the corner of his eye Dean can see a horde of winged shadows, all claws and teeth, blood and bone. They descend upon Jo to tear and shred her cooked flesh. Soft organs squelch and drip in their grip. She's writhing and screaming but they don't stop. Dean opens his mouth but no words come out. There's a tear running down his cheek but he won't cry.
Warm fingertips crush the teardrop and wipe it away. They resume their caress, and cup his chin to tilt it up and look in cold hazel eyes.“You made a promise at the this altar, Dean. You're mine, and I know you keep your promises. I never stopped loving you, Dean. All these years, I watched and waited until the time was ripe, and I yearned to be by your side. There will never be anyone but me, now.”
“Jo kept me safe for you,” Dean manages to grate out on limited breath. “Leave her alone.”
“Against all those monsters and demons? You were good enough on your own Dean, and I wouldn't have let them hurt you, not really.”
There's a cold shiver that travels Dean's spine, and he realizes that he's suddenly naked. He thinks quick and takes a chance. “I'll do it, whatever it is. Just let Jo go. She doesn't belong here.”
“She thinks she does, that's what matters,” Sam answers dismissively. He grins, a rattlesnake smile, at Dean. “Of course you will do what I ask; my puppet on a string.” He quirks an eyebrow and Dean's arm shoots out, straight ahead, then his hand waves, and Dean is not controlling it.
“Huh.” Dean trembles, and he can't prevent it. “I'll do it without the freaky mind thing.”
Sam puts a finger to his chin and seems to consider Dean's plea. “Okay, Dean.”
A petite brunette appears from the shadows, to clutch Sam's arm. “Sam! No. What are you doing?” In an instant she's flung through the air by invisible force, into the depths of the fog.
It's Dean's turn to quirk his eyebrow. “Friend of yours?”
“One of my generals, but it's no concern of yours, Dean.” Sam clicks his fingers twice and Jo's flesh returns, and plumps. “Jo will rejoice your desecration with us, and then she shall have the best accommodation.” He speaks smoothly, and Dean wonders if the best accommodation is a good thing at all in Hell.
“Dean!” Jo cries out, as she's restrained by two huge, winged, guards.
Sam raises a single finger and Jo is silenced. The vines loosen and slide from Dean's naked body. He briefly considers fighting and running, but there's a horde of shadowy figures at the edge of the darkness, baying to rip him apart.
Sam leans close to his ear, “You're in Hell, Dean, do you really think you're getting out without me?” He circles Dean assessing every part of him. “Let's see how good you can be for me.”
Dean remains motionless. Hell seems to draw breath and wait. “Perfect,” Sam announces.
He flinches when Sam tugs his anti-possession necklace over his head. Sam holds it up and studies it. “This won't be enough. We'll make it permanent. A little ink, perhaps,. I won't let any other have you.” He whispers his words into the shell of Dean's ear. “Now, kneel pretty for me. It's time to crown you.”
The small brunette demon appears by Sam's side with a cushion, but it isn't a crown she offers to Sam. There's a golden collar, engraved with delicate spell-work, resting on the velvet. Dean's hands clench into fists and his nails dig half moons into his flesh. His cheeks blush wine-red with humiliation, but he tips his neck and submits. Sam's hand ruffles Dean's short spiked hair and strokes the soft flesh of his neck.
“Thank you, Ruby.”
Ruby seems to revel in the praise and smirks at Dean.
Sam is surprisingly gentle fitting the heavy, lined collar around Dean's neck. “Do you remember what you offered for my life, Dean?”
Dean wants to yell and curse. He was just a grieving kid and he made a deal for Sam, his Sammy, not this hell- monster with changeable eyes and psychic powers. He doesn't shout though. He can still see Jo, restrained by the shadowy-winged demons, and he won't let her suffer more. He closes his eyes, with the flutter of long lashes. Every instinct is telling him to fight, run, or go down swinging, but he's already dead, and hell is his final destination. “I offered me. I promised to do anything Sam asked and to never leave his side again, not for a moment.”
Sam stands back a step to admire the collar that weighs heavy around his brother's neck. Dean's blush extends red all over his body.
“What else?”
“I said I would go to Hell, if only I could have Sam back, but I was just a kid, I didn't understand …”
Sam shushes Dean's lips with two fingers. “Do you think Hell cared about your age? The spell was perfect and it was a wonderful thing.” He withdraws his hand to take a shiny blade from Ruby. Dean's eyes widen and Sam shushes him again. “A little scratch, Dean.”
Sam unfolds his own palm and draws the finely honed blade over his life line. The flesh parts pink and runs red, with human blood. “Your turn, give me your hand, Dean.”
Sam's right, it's barely a scratch. The pain is needle-sharp and brief, and then their hands are together, their blood mingling, and Dean feels a jolt of cold power that explodes at the base of his mind and spreads. It creeps like ice through veins and nerves and he's whimpering with the dizzying discomfort of the sensation.
He hardly notices when Sam tugs him up by his collar and turns him around, to slam him ass up and vulnerable, over the altar. Somewhere, in his mixed up, fuzzy brain, there's a voice that's protesting, “No, oh no, no,” and a vague insistence that there's no lube … no lube …. and oh, FUCK, this can't be happening, but it is, and a crowd of jostling, rotting demons are watching, judging, jeering at Dean's ordeal.
Dean isn't sure when Sam got naked, he can't even remember what he was wearing a few minutes before, but there's erect velvet flesh, pushing between his ass cheeks and nudging at his hole. Dean's been around the block, done some things with girls, but there's been nothing more than finger through that muscle and this Sam is huge. Dean is going to be raped, and it's gonna hurt, but he doesn't seem to have the will to move away.
A hand strokes down Dean's spine. It soothes and thrills. Dean squirms. Sam tugs at his collar, stretching his head back, and Dean struggles to breathe. He can't work out why his lungs need air in Hell, but he's fighting for every acrid breath of mist, and his nightmare is becoming fuzzy at the edges.
“Relax, Dean.” Sam insists, and Dean wants to laugh because he's being raped by his undead brother in front of a massed audience and there's no lube and no prep, and he says to relax. He doesn't laugh, because that's the moment, he's breached and impaled, and Sam isn't stopping, to let him adjust. His hole is in tatters and he is being ripped apart from the inside. He feels the liquid heat of blood ooze down the inside of his thighs, and he doesn't notice his own agonized screams, but he sees Jo's frantic struggles, and hears the massed audience clap and cheer. The altar stone darkens with the drip of his tears and snot.
“Relax, Dean, I will fix you.” Sam insists again, but Dean doesn't think he will ever be fixed. Sam will rebuild his flesh, like he did with Jo, but the memory of this pain will never fade. Dean's muscles relax anyway, he's been given a command and his body obeys its master.
Sam plunges powerfully, he grips Dean's hips with bruising force to slam his cock deep, and his balls slap against the flesh of Dean's ass. Dean pulls away from the screeching, burning intrusion, but there's more soft words from Sam and he's rocking back to meet the rhythm, chasing the electric sensation against his prostate. He barely registers the Latin that Sam yells on breathless pants, or the bright ring of fire that surrounds them, as Sam's orgasm slams into Dean and fills his channel. Dean doesn't come, but it's over, and his sweat cools despite the flames which flicker steadily around them. He remembers the crowd and he wants to die, but he's already dead, and Hell is forever.
Sam yanks Dean upright, by his collar and Dean is unsteady like a newborn foal. He sees Ruby next to them. She's got her arms outstretched and a look of confusion on her face. Sam gives an evil smirk which grows as she looks up at her Prince of Hell.
“I don't understand,” her voice shakes, “He should be here. Lucifer should be here,” Ruby whimpers.
There's the firm support of Sam's palm on Dean's back, even as pain stabs and coils inside him. With his other hand, Sam presses a fancy carved knife into Dean's hand. “Kill her,” Sam commands, and Dean does. With the practised move of a lifetime's hunting Dean's hand cuts cleanly through the air, and the knife slices between Ruby's ribs.
Sam stares directly into the black of her eyes. “Did you really think, I was going to give all this up, to spend an eternity with Lucifer riding my ass?”
Her mouth gapes in shock, and her body crumples. Golden lightning flashes within her and dies. Ashes flutter in the air, like morbid confetti.
Sam tilts his head at the mass of charcoal on the floor. “She just didn't get it,” he says with detachment. “Why would I give all this up, just for some dick angels to fight? And now that our vessels are ruined for them, we won't have to.” He stops to squeeze Dean's ass, “And I can have this whenever I like.”
Dean doesn't understand what just happened. He winces in pain, and tears fill his eyes. Sam wipes his tears away. and Dean is warm again. His pain and blood are gone, leaving just an ache and burn in his over-stretched ass.
Sam claps his hands and the crowd cheers. The noise is awful. It surrounds them, vibrates through bones, and echoes without walls. Several large demons lurk at the edge of Dean's vision, but he can't quite make out their form.
Sam takes a powerful stance at the head of them all. He's tall and imposing, and he exudes control. “Generals, troops. The world is ours to take and we will not share with angels. Take what you will ….” Sam's voice lowers and booms with threat, as he speaks the next sentence. “But nobody touches my consort, or the lady in his protection. Ruby didn't acknowledge my status. Do not make the same mistake.”
Consort, Dean touches his collar. It's a strange word to use, but he's overwhelmed, aching and exhausted and Jo is whole and protected. He can't think about it any more. Mist swirls and thickens and then clears again, and the crowd is gone.
Now, there is only this Sam with Dean. Sam is dressed once more. His hair is arranged tidily and he's smart in a black tie and tux, but Dean remains naked and humiliated with just the gold collar around his neck. They're in the softly lit, and grand entrance of a hotel that perches high on a rocky mountain top. Blue sky is visible through sparkling clean windows, and rooks soar over a ravine. Piano music tinkles in another room, and there's the murmur of voices and clink of glasses in a bar.
“The world has waited this long, it will wait a little longer while we take our honeymoon, don't you think?” Sam tugs at a chain on Dean's collar, and Dean has no option but to follow him into a vast and lavish lobby. The receptionist greets Sam with a smile.
“Penthouse,” says Sam, and accepts the key with nod. “Oh, and make sure the valet takes utmost care with my brother's '67 Impala.”
~end~
*Mario Bava - cinematographer and horror movie director.