FIC: The Stinging Bitch-Slap of the Past 2/? - R - Willow/Sam
Title: The Stinging Bitch-Slap of the Past
Author: Jinni (jinni.tth@gmail.com)
Rated: R
Disclaimer: All things BtVS belong to Joss Whedon, et al. All things Supernatural belong to Kripke, et al.
Pairing: Willow/Sam. Maybe Dean/Willow/Sam later. Depends on whether or not I get that twisted with it. Might have to change the rating, too. We'll see. *evilness*
Spoilers: So, let's just go with all of BtVS. The entire series. And for Supernatural? I'll limit it to, oh, say, everything up to and including s2e1. *grin* AU after s2e1, obviously, then.
Summary: They both left to get away from everything they'd seen, everything they'd done. They left to find out if normal was even possible and found each other in the middle of all that glaring normalcy. What happens when the past catches up, though?
A/N: Wow, 4800 words on this part alone. This story is just writing itself so far.
CHAPTER TWO
The phone was ringing when Willow pushed open the door of the apartment, a paper bag of groceries in her arms. She shoved the bag of groceries onto the kitchen counter and reached for the phone.
“Hello?” Silence. Not even breathing. Willow frowned and tried again. “Hello?” She rolled her eyes. “Speak now or forever hold your peace, buddy.”
“Sorry - I must have the wrong number,” the response came finally. A man, then. Smooth voice that was just a little bit rough underneath of it all. He sounded really confused, too.
“You sure? You haven’t even asked for anyone yet,” she teased, despite herself, and started pulling things from the grocery bag, the phone tucked between her head and shoulder.
A disembodied chuckle echoed down the line and Willow felt a little guilty when her stomach clenched at the sexy sound of it. Bad to be thinking of a mysterious stranger as having a sexy voice when her live-in boyfriend had a sexy voice all of his own.
“Alright,” he drawled. “Is Sam there? I thought this was his new number.”
“He’s at work,” she said automatically, still smiling. “See - you had the right number, after all. Can I take a message?”
“Yeah. Tell him to call his brother.”
She froze, slowly pulling her hand from the bag of groceries.
“His… brother?” Willow stumbled over the word, unable to believe it. Sam had never mentioned a brother. Didn’t talk about having any family at all, even. Not that she was forthcoming about her own, but that was beside the point. She was the one that was supposed to have secrets. “Like frat brother type of thing or, you know, brother brother?”
“His older brother - Dean.”
So, right - blood brother, then. Real flesh and blood relations type of stuff.
Willow felt her heart drop. So, wow. Sam hadn’t been up-front about something. It was hard to imagine. He was one of the nicest guys that she knew and, yeah, it was silly to think that he couldn’t lie to her - that he was just that nice - but that hadn’t stopped her from assuming it anyway, right? She swallowed.
“Um, yeah. Sorry, I guess he just never got around to mentioning you,” she said softly, the happiness she’d had to be home fleeing under the glare of this new development in a relationship that had been going so, so perfectly. “I’ll let him know you called.”
“What’re you, his roommate or something?” Dean’s question held a bite that she could appreciate. It spoke of family love and a need to protect that she was all too familiar with - like he was going to leap through the phone and shake her if he didn’t like her answer.
“Girlfriend,” Willow said, leaning against the counter. Her legs felt weak. Shock was funny like that. So was heartache. “For the last six months.”
“Oh.” One word, but wow did it say a lot all on its own. He cleared his throat. “Well, we sort of parted on bad terms before then - so don’t feel bad or anything that he never said anything. Look - just tell him to call me, okay? It’s important.”
Beneath the rough words that she supposed were meant to comfort her, Willow could hear pain. She supposed that it would hurt to find out your little brother didn’t even mention you to the girl he had been dating for that long. She sighed and nodded to herself.
“Yeah,” Willow said, the line disconnecting before the word had even died on her lips. She turned the phone off and put it on the counter, closing her eyes for a long moment. There was a logical explanation for all of this, right? Dean had said that he and Sam hadn’t parted on the best of terms and, hey, maybe that meant that Sam didn’t want to admit to having a brother.
Or… something.
It just didn’t make much sense. Why not just mention, at least off-hand, that he had a brother? She had mentioned her parents long enough to say that she hadn’t talked to them since before she graduated from high school. Heck, she’d even mentioned Xander and the others under the guise of ‘good friends’ that she’d ‘grown apart from’.
But Sam had never mentioned Dean and that was upsetting on so many levels - apparently not just for her, either.
Paranoia trickled into her mind, insinuating itself so quickly and smoothly that Willow didn’t even realize it was happening until her chest got tight and she started wondering what else Sam could be hiding or just omitting.
Her thoughts immediately went to the bin in their closet. The one that was next to her own chest full o’ secrets. The one that he’d marked only with his name and the word ‘private’. Not once in the week they’d lived here had she even been tempted to look inside of it.
A quick glance at the clock on the microwave showed that she had at least ten minutes until Sam was due home. She could just go in there, take a quick look to make sure there was nothing damning - like, oh, a wife and kid somewhere? It wasn’t unreasonable. If he had a brother that he’d never mentioned then he could be hiding just about anything, right?
She kept telling herself that as she left the kitchen, walked through the living room, and into the bedroom. The door to the walk-in closet was open, one of her shirts lying on the ground where she’d dropped it that morning when she was getting ready. She picked it up without even thinking, tossing it in the hamper. She had to push aside some of the clothes to get to the bin.
Sam. Private.
Two words that hadn’t even stirred so much as a whisper of a question in her before. Now, they stood the chance of holding meaning beyond that which she wanted them to have.
Kneeling before the bin, Willow put her fingers under the lid and paused. Was this what she wanted to do? Because once she opened the bin, it was done. A virtual Pandora’s box. There was no taking it back, even if there was a good explanation for why Sam had never mentioned Dean. She would have violated his privacy - something he would never do to her. It would destroy the trust they had in one another.
Still… a brother?
She pressed up with her fingers half-heartedly, still working through everything in her head, not even enough to move the top, and then stopped and sighed. This wasn’t right. Sam deserved better than her rooting through his things when he wasn’t home, even if he had hid something so big from her.
Standing, Willow pushed the clothes back into place, their edges barely brushing the top of the bin. Staring at it, the temptation rose up again, only to be quashed. She’d give Sam a chance to explain himself.
If she didn’t like his answer, she could always look through it tomorrow, after all.
She’d only just made it back to the kitchen and finished pulling dinner from the grocery bag when she heard a key in the lock of the front door. Taking a deep breath, she put on what she hoped was a passably happy look, and prepared to talk to Sam.
~*~*~
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was wrong with Willow. Sam glanced at her across the table. She was smiling too bright, trying too hard. It was all fake. He’d seen it enough times - hell, he’d done it enough times - to recognize it for what it was. He’d been home for thirty minutes and she had done her best to avoid talking to him during that entire time. She couldn’t even meet his eyes now, when they were sitting across from each other. Apparently the wall was just fascinating tonight. Sam swallowed the food in his mouth and sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
If he’d needed confirmation that something was up - that question was all that it took. The way that her eyes went wide and the smile stretched just a bit wider.
“The truth,” he said quietly, before she could attempt a denial. He leaned back in his chair, worry filling his heart.
Willow sighed and put down her fork. She took the napkin out of her lap and shut her eyes. Was she going to break up with him or something? Finally, her eyes opened and she looked so sad that it nearly broke his heart.
“We… well, you, I mean… got a call right after I got home. And, you know, the person that was calling came as a bit of a shock to me. It’s not like we really discuss things like that too much - but you’d think, you know, that you would have mentioned it…”
He was lost. Floundering, even. Whatever had happened, it had upset her, that much he got. It had upset her enough that she was rambling - something he knew she only did when she was really nervous, like the night he’d asked her to get an apartment with him. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what kind of call she could have gotten that would have rattled her this way. “What are you talking about? Who called?”
“Your brother.”
It took a long moment for her words to register in his brain and, when they did, Sam felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Dean called?”
“Wow, way to just admit to it, I guess. Yeah. Your brother, Sam. The brother I didn’t even know you had! You, who basically said in not-so-many words that you didn’t have any family at all. Hello? A brother isn’t family?”
Sam heard her words, saw the hurt on her face, but all he could think about was the fact that Dean had called. Here. Well, of course here. He’d gotten rid of his cell phone a couple months ago after he lost it and just hadn’t felt like replacing it. So, he’d left Dean a voicemail with the house number - just in case. That wasn’t even the point, though, if Dean had called there was a good reason for it. His older brother wasn’t the type to try to randomly rekindle bonds just for the hell of it. Not even when it was completely unexpected and would throw a serious kink in the works of an otherwise peaceful life.
“I need to call him,” Sam said.
“But -“
“I need to call him,” he repeated, firmly, catching Willow’s eyes with his own and hoping that the importance of what he was saying carried through that look and his tone. “And then we can talk, okay?”
Although, what he was going to say to her, he wasn’t sure.
He stood up and went to the phone, punching in Dean’s cell phone number with fingers that trembled just a little. Eight months and Dean was calling him. Eight months. No, almost nine now. Well, there was no way in hell he was going to up and leave like he had back at Stanford. He cared about Willow too much to risk leaving her alone if he was about to get dragged into this mess again. If he had to - and he prayed he didn’t - he’d explain it all to her and hope that she didn’t freak out and never want to see him again.
He wouldn’t screw up the same way twice, though, that was for sure. Willow was not going to be Jess part two.
The phone rang a handful of times and then flipped over to Dean’s voicemail. Sam tried to tell himself that Dean was in the shower or just not near his phone - because there was no reason that he’d call unless he needed to talk, which meant that letting it go to voicemail wasn’t a conscious decision.
“Dean - it’s me. I heard you called earlier. Call me when you get this.”
He disconnected the call and stared down at the phone in his hand. Dean had called and it could only mean something bad. No matter which way he tried to spin it in his head, Sam couldn’t see Dean calling just to say ‘hey’.
Sam put the phone back on its charger and sighed. There was nothing to do but wait for Dean to call him back now, he guessed.
“Sam?”
Right - nothing to do but wait for Dean to call back and explain what the hell was going on to Willow without giving away things that he didn’t want to involve her in unless he absolutely had to. He turned back and gave her a sad, half-smile. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
“That would be nice,” she said. Their dinner sat on the table, forgotten. Sam didn’t feel hungry now, anyway. Doubted he’d be able to get much of anything done until Dean called him back, to be quite honest, which was why he was hoping that his brother would be calling back any second now…
He looked at the phone expectantly, waiting to see if that silent wish would be answered.
…No, no call. Damn.
Guilt washed through Sam when he looked - really looked - at the expression on Willow’s face. She was scared and hurt and he had done that to her. He ran a hand over his face and decided to go with the truth.
Or, a version of the truth, at least.
“I don’t talk about him because he and I sort of aren’t speaking to each other,” Sam said. He walked back towards Willow, stopping in front of her to kneel down and take her hand. “He and I didn’t see eye to eye on some pretty big things and when I said I was going to go out and make a life for myself - he pretty much made it clear that he didn’t want to speak to me again if that was the case.” Sam shrugged, pushing back the pain he still felt over that. “I tried calling him a couple times after I moved here, but he never answered. Then I met you and talking about the brother that wanted nothing to do with me suddenly didn’t seem like such a great thing. Wouldn’t want you thinking I came from a dysfunctional family or anything.”
“You knew about my parents. It’s not like I’m the poster child for a loving family,” she said and it was a good argument; he’d give her that. It was one that he couldn’t really argue with, to be honest. So, he switched tactics with a sheepish look and a bow of the head.
“I know,” Sam nodded. “I can’t really explain why I didn’t say anything And, yeah, I should have talked to you about this. I mean, he’s still my brother, even if we don’t really talk.”
“He called you today,” Willow pointed out, as if saying ‘look, its not hopeless’.
Sam shook his head. “Something’s wrong. That’s the only reason he’d call.”
“Oh.” Willow’s face clouded over for a minute and she looked away. “Yeah, I get that. I can understand it completely, even. I know a couple people like that - you know, that would only call if they really had to.”
Sam wanted to ask, but didn’t. Willow had told him about the friends from her past that she didn’t really talk to anymore. He assumed that she meant one of them. The look of such pained longing on her face was so much like what he’d felt since leaving Dean, though, that he didn’t even question it.
“So - are we okay? I really am sorry,” Sam murmured, a sigh of relief escaping him when Willow nodded and gave him a tentative smile.
“Unless you have any more skeletons in your closet?”
Lying through his teeth was something that he was good at - he’d learned from the best after all. No one lied or obscured the truth like a Winchester. And, it wasn’t like there were literal skeletons anyway. No animated skeletons in his past, thank you very much. He shook his head and gave her a grin. “Not that I can think of.”
“Good.”
~*~*~
Willow turned on the computer while Sam was in the shower, humming under her breath to herself. That had gone better than she’d thought. She was very glad not to have gone through his things, especially when his excuse made such good sense. It was very much like everyone back at the Council house. Sure, she’d mentioned them once or twice, but it was painful enough that she didn’t want to do it at all. It was harder for Sam, though, she knew - because the person he’d been not speaking to was his brother.
Speaking of calls, she could have sworn she heard her cell phone vibrating against something while her and Sam were talking. As the computer started up and connected to the internet, Willow got up to take it from her purse. She flipped the little silver device open, frowning.
Ten missed calls? Three messages? The last call had come in only fifteen minutes before, just as Sam was getting in the shower. That’s what she got for forgetting to take her phone off of silent when she left work.
She scrolled through the numbers. Faith - five times. One number that she recognized as a line in the Council house. And four from unlisted numbers. Willow felt a tremor of something that definitely wasn’t excitement start in her stomach. It felt like fear, if she had to be perfectly honest. The kind of fear that made the back of your mouth bitter with the threat of being sick.
While she was still friendly with Faith - the dark haired slayer had never called that many times in one day. And no one from the Council house had called her since the day she left. She sat down on the arm of the couch, already dialing her voicemail. In the bathroom the water shut off and she could hear the rings of the curtain jingle as Sam got out.
“Message one,” the tinny voicemail monotone announced, then it was all Faith. “Red - give me a call ASAP. Something bad’s going down.”
Willow nodded. Okay, that’s what she’d thought. She pressed to delete the message and debated just calling Faith to see what was going on, rather than listen to the other two messages, but then decided against it. For all she knew, whatever problem it was had been dealt with and she didn’t need to call at all.
“Message two,” the voice announced, and then Faith again. “Damnit, Red - where the fuck are you? Check your e-mail. Major demon rising. One of the Council seers is trying to scry for it, but we’re in the dark. Could use some help.”
Okay - so, not dealt with as of when that message was left.
“Hey - you okay?” Sam asked, coming out of the bedroom dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Any other time, the sight of him dressed like that, hair still wet from the shower, would have been enough to make her stomach do funny little flips. Right now it was doing something, but it wasn’t because of lust. Willow looked up at him and shook her head.
“Seems we’re both getting unexpected calls today,” she tried to joke, to lighten the fear she knew was covering her face. Sam frowned and sat down next to her, pulling her into his arms. She gave him a tight smile. “Listening to voicemail.”
Sam nodded and she pressed for the third message.
“Message three - RED! Run. Get out of there and take your boy toy with you. Second though, G-man says it’ll just follow you, there’s not enough time to get far enough away or some shit. Ward your fucking apartment. It’s coming for YOU and your boyfriend. The seer got a vision and…yeah - YOU, Red. Not us. We’re on our way, all of us. Minor demon, a couple posesseds… minion-types, ya know. You need -“
Willow didn’t hear the rest, the phone falling from fingers gone suddenly numb. The time stamp had said that was left about twenty minutes ago. That meant that whatever was going to happen could very well be starting any second now. Visions didn’t usually pop up with a whole lot of advanced warning, in her book. And Faith had sounded so frantic.
She jumped up, Sam’s questions following her as she ran into the bedroom. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she didn’t have time to explain to him. No time at all. Why this was coming for her, of all people, she didn’t know - but she’d be damned if she was going to let Sam get caught in the crossfire. He was a good guy and did not deserve this kind of crap just because he had given his heart to her, thinking she was just a regular old girl.
She threw open the door of the closet, falling to her knees, aware of Sam’s hovering presence behind her. Her head was swimming with thoughts. Did she even have anything in here that would hold them off? She couldn’t really remember what she’d kept, what she’d thrown away as ‘never use again’.
“What’s wrong, Willow? Talk to me.”
“No time. Just... Goddess! I need the key,” her hand closed around the lock and she tugged on it once, futilely, before stumbling back to her feet. It was a spelled-lock. The only thing that would open it was the key. Nightstand. It was in the nightstand.
“Willow?”
She sucked in a breath, tossing things from her nightstand as she tried to find the little silver key that went with the lock. “There are things…” There it was. She snatched up the key and pushed past Sam, into the closet. “… things that… you know, this is a lot easier to explain when I’m not worried about letting us get killed!!”
“What?!?!”
Willow shoved the key in the lock, still speaking, but the words made little sense even to her. “There are things that you wouldn’t even begin to understand, Sam. And I’m so, so sorry for not telling you. For not protecting you like I should have, with everything that I am and everything…. And now, goddess, I just hope I get another chance to make it right.”
The lock fell away and she opened the chest, just as someone knocked on the front door.
~*~*~
Not only could he not believe what he was hearing, but now his eyes had to be playing tricks on him, too. Had to - because there was no way Willow - his sweet, innocent, normal Willow - was pulling out things that he knew all too well - but from her own locked box of secrets.
He jumped when the knocking started. Willow didn’t even look up. “Don’t answer it.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Sam said evenly, shaking his head. Years of training were kicking in, pushing down the surprise and shock - and relief? - yeah, relief that he wasn’t going to have to hide whatever was going to go down with Dean from her, because, hey, she seemed to be just as in the know as he was. “You and I are going to have a long talk when this is over.”
“If we live,” she whispered and Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear that.
The knocking on the door was getting louder. A banging, almost. Had they locked the door? Slid the deadbolt in? Sam hoped so.
He leaned over and tugged the top off of his own personal stash of hunting equipment, saw Willow do a double take out of the corner of his eye, and had to bite back a grim smile at her shock. He certainly knew how that felt.
“Yeah - there’ll definitely be talking,” she assured him, leaning over to look at his gear. “Oh! You have salt? I might love you even more for that. Doors, windows - please?”
“Not my first time with this, thanks,” Sam said, grabbing for the box and a stick of chalk. She was lighting some sage as he sprinted to the living room door, already showing cracks in the wood from where knocking and pounding had turned to outright battering. Salt rained down from the box in a thick line right across the inside of the door. Willow had come out of the bedroom to eye the front door and he stepped around her as he crossed to the balcony door.
When he turned around again, she was at the door, scribbling sigils on it with chalk. Some he recognized, some he didn’t - mostly protection and warding.
“What are we dealing with?”
“Faith said a minor demon and a handful of possessed humans. But there’s a major demon somewhere in the mix. Whether its gonna be here or not, I don’t know,” she rattled off, taking for granted that he would know what she was talking about without any prompting from him. It was like she had fallen into a role that was as well-defined as his own had always been. All evidence of her earlier fluster was gone, replaced by coolness that Sam could appreciate.
“Demons? Seriously?” Sam yelled above the renewed banging on the front door, taking a step towards the bedroom. Just that window and then they could figure out how the hell to get out of this. The salt wouldn’t repel a true demon for very long. Not even a minor one.
The window shattered before he was even two steps into the room, glass bursting inward to cover everything in its path. Sam stumbled back a step, eyeing the door of the closet. Why hadn’t he grabbed his gun or even his knife? He was getting sloppy. Dean would never let him hear the end of it if he was here to see this.
“Sam!”
Willow’s hand on his arm tugged him back and out of the doorway. Then she was there, in front of him, and all he could really think was that she shouldn’t be standing between him and - yeah, that was a demon - coming through the window.
“Crap! Spell, spell, spell,” he heard her mutter under her breath. “Should’ve stayed in practice.”
He could agree with her there. Both for himself and her. He wished they’d both stayed in practice. Was this what Dean had been trying to get in touch with him about? Willow said something under her breath and the demon was shoved back against the wall of the bedroom, held there by an invisible force. It was…impressive. He glanced down at Willow and blinked. Was her hair a little darker at the roots than it had been a minute ago? It was almost like ink was spreading out from her scalp, coloring her hair as it went.
Indecision warred with trust. Was he so sure that Willow was one of the good guys?
The sound of glass breaking behind them brought Sam whirling around. The balcony doors - both glass, had been shattered, and a gust of wind was blowing away the line of salt that was their only protection against the black-eyed visitors that were waiting there patiently, like they had all the time in the world. In the distance, Sam heard sirens. Someone had called the cops - but they wouldn’t get here in time and, even if they did, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to stop them.
“This sucks,” Willow said and her tone was darker, lower than he was used to. He wanted to turn, to make sure she was okay, but taking his eyes off of the balcony just wasn’t an option, either. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
“For what?”
“For this.”
“We’re going to be okay!” he insisted. But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure whether or not it was true. Or that it was even her fault, even if it had been her friends warning her. How many times had him just being who he was been the cause of something just like this? At least she wasn’t on the ceiling and nothing was on fire.
Yet.
The line of salt thinned, broke, and now they were coming in. He heard Willow gasp and then a dark laugh that wasn’t hers, but he was too busy swinging and ducking, trying like hell to get out of a situation that looked just about as close to impossible as anything he’d been in before. Willow screamed and he turned just in time to see the demon take a swipe at him, wondering even as he did if this was the part where Dean was supposed to bust in and save them all, be the hero just like usual.
But he didn’t.
And then all went black.
END CHAPTER
Author: Jinni (jinni.tth@gmail.com)
Rated: R
Disclaimer: All things BtVS belong to Joss Whedon, et al. All things Supernatural belong to Kripke, et al.
Pairing: Willow/Sam. Maybe Dean/Willow/Sam later. Depends on whether or not I get that twisted with it. Might have to change the rating, too. We'll see. *evilness*
Spoilers: So, let's just go with all of BtVS. The entire series. And for Supernatural? I'll limit it to, oh, say, everything up to and including s2e1. *grin* AU after s2e1, obviously, then.
Summary: They both left to get away from everything they'd seen, everything they'd done. They left to find out if normal was even possible and found each other in the middle of all that glaring normalcy. What happens when the past catches up, though?
A/N: Wow, 4800 words on this part alone. This story is just writing itself so far.
CHAPTER TWO
The phone was ringing when Willow pushed open the door of the apartment, a paper bag of groceries in her arms. She shoved the bag of groceries onto the kitchen counter and reached for the phone.
“Hello?” Silence. Not even breathing. Willow frowned and tried again. “Hello?” She rolled her eyes. “Speak now or forever hold your peace, buddy.”
“Sorry - I must have the wrong number,” the response came finally. A man, then. Smooth voice that was just a little bit rough underneath of it all. He sounded really confused, too.
“You sure? You haven’t even asked for anyone yet,” she teased, despite herself, and started pulling things from the grocery bag, the phone tucked between her head and shoulder.
A disembodied chuckle echoed down the line and Willow felt a little guilty when her stomach clenched at the sexy sound of it. Bad to be thinking of a mysterious stranger as having a sexy voice when her live-in boyfriend had a sexy voice all of his own.
“Alright,” he drawled. “Is Sam there? I thought this was his new number.”
“He’s at work,” she said automatically, still smiling. “See - you had the right number, after all. Can I take a message?”
“Yeah. Tell him to call his brother.”
She froze, slowly pulling her hand from the bag of groceries.
“His… brother?” Willow stumbled over the word, unable to believe it. Sam had never mentioned a brother. Didn’t talk about having any family at all, even. Not that she was forthcoming about her own, but that was beside the point. She was the one that was supposed to have secrets. “Like frat brother type of thing or, you know, brother brother?”
“His older brother - Dean.”
So, right - blood brother, then. Real flesh and blood relations type of stuff.
Willow felt her heart drop. So, wow. Sam hadn’t been up-front about something. It was hard to imagine. He was one of the nicest guys that she knew and, yeah, it was silly to think that he couldn’t lie to her - that he was just that nice - but that hadn’t stopped her from assuming it anyway, right? She swallowed.
“Um, yeah. Sorry, I guess he just never got around to mentioning you,” she said softly, the happiness she’d had to be home fleeing under the glare of this new development in a relationship that had been going so, so perfectly. “I’ll let him know you called.”
“What’re you, his roommate or something?” Dean’s question held a bite that she could appreciate. It spoke of family love and a need to protect that she was all too familiar with - like he was going to leap through the phone and shake her if he didn’t like her answer.
“Girlfriend,” Willow said, leaning against the counter. Her legs felt weak. Shock was funny like that. So was heartache. “For the last six months.”
“Oh.” One word, but wow did it say a lot all on its own. He cleared his throat. “Well, we sort of parted on bad terms before then - so don’t feel bad or anything that he never said anything. Look - just tell him to call me, okay? It’s important.”
Beneath the rough words that she supposed were meant to comfort her, Willow could hear pain. She supposed that it would hurt to find out your little brother didn’t even mention you to the girl he had been dating for that long. She sighed and nodded to herself.
“Yeah,” Willow said, the line disconnecting before the word had even died on her lips. She turned the phone off and put it on the counter, closing her eyes for a long moment. There was a logical explanation for all of this, right? Dean had said that he and Sam hadn’t parted on the best of terms and, hey, maybe that meant that Sam didn’t want to admit to having a brother.
Or… something.
It just didn’t make much sense. Why not just mention, at least off-hand, that he had a brother? She had mentioned her parents long enough to say that she hadn’t talked to them since before she graduated from high school. Heck, she’d even mentioned Xander and the others under the guise of ‘good friends’ that she’d ‘grown apart from’.
But Sam had never mentioned Dean and that was upsetting on so many levels - apparently not just for her, either.
Paranoia trickled into her mind, insinuating itself so quickly and smoothly that Willow didn’t even realize it was happening until her chest got tight and she started wondering what else Sam could be hiding or just omitting.
Her thoughts immediately went to the bin in their closet. The one that was next to her own chest full o’ secrets. The one that he’d marked only with his name and the word ‘private’. Not once in the week they’d lived here had she even been tempted to look inside of it.
A quick glance at the clock on the microwave showed that she had at least ten minutes until Sam was due home. She could just go in there, take a quick look to make sure there was nothing damning - like, oh, a wife and kid somewhere? It wasn’t unreasonable. If he had a brother that he’d never mentioned then he could be hiding just about anything, right?
She kept telling herself that as she left the kitchen, walked through the living room, and into the bedroom. The door to the walk-in closet was open, one of her shirts lying on the ground where she’d dropped it that morning when she was getting ready. She picked it up without even thinking, tossing it in the hamper. She had to push aside some of the clothes to get to the bin.
Sam. Private.
Two words that hadn’t even stirred so much as a whisper of a question in her before. Now, they stood the chance of holding meaning beyond that which she wanted them to have.
Kneeling before the bin, Willow put her fingers under the lid and paused. Was this what she wanted to do? Because once she opened the bin, it was done. A virtual Pandora’s box. There was no taking it back, even if there was a good explanation for why Sam had never mentioned Dean. She would have violated his privacy - something he would never do to her. It would destroy the trust they had in one another.
Still… a brother?
She pressed up with her fingers half-heartedly, still working through everything in her head, not even enough to move the top, and then stopped and sighed. This wasn’t right. Sam deserved better than her rooting through his things when he wasn’t home, even if he had hid something so big from her.
Standing, Willow pushed the clothes back into place, their edges barely brushing the top of the bin. Staring at it, the temptation rose up again, only to be quashed. She’d give Sam a chance to explain himself.
If she didn’t like his answer, she could always look through it tomorrow, after all.
She’d only just made it back to the kitchen and finished pulling dinner from the grocery bag when she heard a key in the lock of the front door. Taking a deep breath, she put on what she hoped was a passably happy look, and prepared to talk to Sam.
~*~*~
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was wrong with Willow. Sam glanced at her across the table. She was smiling too bright, trying too hard. It was all fake. He’d seen it enough times - hell, he’d done it enough times - to recognize it for what it was. He’d been home for thirty minutes and she had done her best to avoid talking to him during that entire time. She couldn’t even meet his eyes now, when they were sitting across from each other. Apparently the wall was just fascinating tonight. Sam swallowed the food in his mouth and sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
If he’d needed confirmation that something was up - that question was all that it took. The way that her eyes went wide and the smile stretched just a bit wider.
“The truth,” he said quietly, before she could attempt a denial. He leaned back in his chair, worry filling his heart.
Willow sighed and put down her fork. She took the napkin out of her lap and shut her eyes. Was she going to break up with him or something? Finally, her eyes opened and she looked so sad that it nearly broke his heart.
“We… well, you, I mean… got a call right after I got home. And, you know, the person that was calling came as a bit of a shock to me. It’s not like we really discuss things like that too much - but you’d think, you know, that you would have mentioned it…”
He was lost. Floundering, even. Whatever had happened, it had upset her, that much he got. It had upset her enough that she was rambling - something he knew she only did when she was really nervous, like the night he’d asked her to get an apartment with him. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of what kind of call she could have gotten that would have rattled her this way. “What are you talking about? Who called?”
“Your brother.”
It took a long moment for her words to register in his brain and, when they did, Sam felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “Dean called?”
“Wow, way to just admit to it, I guess. Yeah. Your brother, Sam. The brother I didn’t even know you had! You, who basically said in not-so-many words that you didn’t have any family at all. Hello? A brother isn’t family?”
Sam heard her words, saw the hurt on her face, but all he could think about was the fact that Dean had called. Here. Well, of course here. He’d gotten rid of his cell phone a couple months ago after he lost it and just hadn’t felt like replacing it. So, he’d left Dean a voicemail with the house number - just in case. That wasn’t even the point, though, if Dean had called there was a good reason for it. His older brother wasn’t the type to try to randomly rekindle bonds just for the hell of it. Not even when it was completely unexpected and would throw a serious kink in the works of an otherwise peaceful life.
“I need to call him,” Sam said.
“But -“
“I need to call him,” he repeated, firmly, catching Willow’s eyes with his own and hoping that the importance of what he was saying carried through that look and his tone. “And then we can talk, okay?”
Although, what he was going to say to her, he wasn’t sure.
He stood up and went to the phone, punching in Dean’s cell phone number with fingers that trembled just a little. Eight months and Dean was calling him. Eight months. No, almost nine now. Well, there was no way in hell he was going to up and leave like he had back at Stanford. He cared about Willow too much to risk leaving her alone if he was about to get dragged into this mess again. If he had to - and he prayed he didn’t - he’d explain it all to her and hope that she didn’t freak out and never want to see him again.
He wouldn’t screw up the same way twice, though, that was for sure. Willow was not going to be Jess part two.
The phone rang a handful of times and then flipped over to Dean’s voicemail. Sam tried to tell himself that Dean was in the shower or just not near his phone - because there was no reason that he’d call unless he needed to talk, which meant that letting it go to voicemail wasn’t a conscious decision.
“Dean - it’s me. I heard you called earlier. Call me when you get this.”
He disconnected the call and stared down at the phone in his hand. Dean had called and it could only mean something bad. No matter which way he tried to spin it in his head, Sam couldn’t see Dean calling just to say ‘hey’.
Sam put the phone back on its charger and sighed. There was nothing to do but wait for Dean to call him back now, he guessed.
“Sam?”
Right - nothing to do but wait for Dean to call back and explain what the hell was going on to Willow without giving away things that he didn’t want to involve her in unless he absolutely had to. He turned back and gave her a sad, half-smile. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
“That would be nice,” she said. Their dinner sat on the table, forgotten. Sam didn’t feel hungry now, anyway. Doubted he’d be able to get much of anything done until Dean called him back, to be quite honest, which was why he was hoping that his brother would be calling back any second now…
He looked at the phone expectantly, waiting to see if that silent wish would be answered.
…No, no call. Damn.
Guilt washed through Sam when he looked - really looked - at the expression on Willow’s face. She was scared and hurt and he had done that to her. He ran a hand over his face and decided to go with the truth.
Or, a version of the truth, at least.
“I don’t talk about him because he and I sort of aren’t speaking to each other,” Sam said. He walked back towards Willow, stopping in front of her to kneel down and take her hand. “He and I didn’t see eye to eye on some pretty big things and when I said I was going to go out and make a life for myself - he pretty much made it clear that he didn’t want to speak to me again if that was the case.” Sam shrugged, pushing back the pain he still felt over that. “I tried calling him a couple times after I moved here, but he never answered. Then I met you and talking about the brother that wanted nothing to do with me suddenly didn’t seem like such a great thing. Wouldn’t want you thinking I came from a dysfunctional family or anything.”
“You knew about my parents. It’s not like I’m the poster child for a loving family,” she said and it was a good argument; he’d give her that. It was one that he couldn’t really argue with, to be honest. So, he switched tactics with a sheepish look and a bow of the head.
“I know,” Sam nodded. “I can’t really explain why I didn’t say anything And, yeah, I should have talked to you about this. I mean, he’s still my brother, even if we don’t really talk.”
“He called you today,” Willow pointed out, as if saying ‘look, its not hopeless’.
Sam shook his head. “Something’s wrong. That’s the only reason he’d call.”
“Oh.” Willow’s face clouded over for a minute and she looked away. “Yeah, I get that. I can understand it completely, even. I know a couple people like that - you know, that would only call if they really had to.”
Sam wanted to ask, but didn’t. Willow had told him about the friends from her past that she didn’t really talk to anymore. He assumed that she meant one of them. The look of such pained longing on her face was so much like what he’d felt since leaving Dean, though, that he didn’t even question it.
“So - are we okay? I really am sorry,” Sam murmured, a sigh of relief escaping him when Willow nodded and gave him a tentative smile.
“Unless you have any more skeletons in your closet?”
Lying through his teeth was something that he was good at - he’d learned from the best after all. No one lied or obscured the truth like a Winchester. And, it wasn’t like there were literal skeletons anyway. No animated skeletons in his past, thank you very much. He shook his head and gave her a grin. “Not that I can think of.”
“Good.”
~*~*~
Willow turned on the computer while Sam was in the shower, humming under her breath to herself. That had gone better than she’d thought. She was very glad not to have gone through his things, especially when his excuse made such good sense. It was very much like everyone back at the Council house. Sure, she’d mentioned them once or twice, but it was painful enough that she didn’t want to do it at all. It was harder for Sam, though, she knew - because the person he’d been not speaking to was his brother.
Speaking of calls, she could have sworn she heard her cell phone vibrating against something while her and Sam were talking. As the computer started up and connected to the internet, Willow got up to take it from her purse. She flipped the little silver device open, frowning.
Ten missed calls? Three messages? The last call had come in only fifteen minutes before, just as Sam was getting in the shower. That’s what she got for forgetting to take her phone off of silent when she left work.
She scrolled through the numbers. Faith - five times. One number that she recognized as a line in the Council house. And four from unlisted numbers. Willow felt a tremor of something that definitely wasn’t excitement start in her stomach. It felt like fear, if she had to be perfectly honest. The kind of fear that made the back of your mouth bitter with the threat of being sick.
While she was still friendly with Faith - the dark haired slayer had never called that many times in one day. And no one from the Council house had called her since the day she left. She sat down on the arm of the couch, already dialing her voicemail. In the bathroom the water shut off and she could hear the rings of the curtain jingle as Sam got out.
“Message one,” the tinny voicemail monotone announced, then it was all Faith. “Red - give me a call ASAP. Something bad’s going down.”
Willow nodded. Okay, that’s what she’d thought. She pressed to delete the message and debated just calling Faith to see what was going on, rather than listen to the other two messages, but then decided against it. For all she knew, whatever problem it was had been dealt with and she didn’t need to call at all.
“Message two,” the voice announced, and then Faith again. “Damnit, Red - where the fuck are you? Check your e-mail. Major demon rising. One of the Council seers is trying to scry for it, but we’re in the dark. Could use some help.”
Okay - so, not dealt with as of when that message was left.
“Hey - you okay?” Sam asked, coming out of the bedroom dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Any other time, the sight of him dressed like that, hair still wet from the shower, would have been enough to make her stomach do funny little flips. Right now it was doing something, but it wasn’t because of lust. Willow looked up at him and shook her head.
“Seems we’re both getting unexpected calls today,” she tried to joke, to lighten the fear she knew was covering her face. Sam frowned and sat down next to her, pulling her into his arms. She gave him a tight smile. “Listening to voicemail.”
Sam nodded and she pressed for the third message.
“Message three - RED! Run. Get out of there and take your boy toy with you. Second though, G-man says it’ll just follow you, there’s not enough time to get far enough away or some shit. Ward your fucking apartment. It’s coming for YOU and your boyfriend. The seer got a vision and…yeah - YOU, Red. Not us. We’re on our way, all of us. Minor demon, a couple posesseds… minion-types, ya know. You need -“
Willow didn’t hear the rest, the phone falling from fingers gone suddenly numb. The time stamp had said that was left about twenty minutes ago. That meant that whatever was going to happen could very well be starting any second now. Visions didn’t usually pop up with a whole lot of advanced warning, in her book. And Faith had sounded so frantic.
She jumped up, Sam’s questions following her as she ran into the bedroom. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she didn’t have time to explain to him. No time at all. Why this was coming for her, of all people, she didn’t know - but she’d be damned if she was going to let Sam get caught in the crossfire. He was a good guy and did not deserve this kind of crap just because he had given his heart to her, thinking she was just a regular old girl.
She threw open the door of the closet, falling to her knees, aware of Sam’s hovering presence behind her. Her head was swimming with thoughts. Did she even have anything in here that would hold them off? She couldn’t really remember what she’d kept, what she’d thrown away as ‘never use again’.
“What’s wrong, Willow? Talk to me.”
“No time. Just... Goddess! I need the key,” her hand closed around the lock and she tugged on it once, futilely, before stumbling back to her feet. It was a spelled-lock. The only thing that would open it was the key. Nightstand. It was in the nightstand.
“Willow?”
She sucked in a breath, tossing things from her nightstand as she tried to find the little silver key that went with the lock. “There are things…” There it was. She snatched up the key and pushed past Sam, into the closet. “… things that… you know, this is a lot easier to explain when I’m not worried about letting us get killed!!”
“What?!?!”
Willow shoved the key in the lock, still speaking, but the words made little sense even to her. “There are things that you wouldn’t even begin to understand, Sam. And I’m so, so sorry for not telling you. For not protecting you like I should have, with everything that I am and everything…. And now, goddess, I just hope I get another chance to make it right.”
The lock fell away and she opened the chest, just as someone knocked on the front door.
~*~*~
Not only could he not believe what he was hearing, but now his eyes had to be playing tricks on him, too. Had to - because there was no way Willow - his sweet, innocent, normal Willow - was pulling out things that he knew all too well - but from her own locked box of secrets.
He jumped when the knocking started. Willow didn’t even look up. “Don’t answer it.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Sam said evenly, shaking his head. Years of training were kicking in, pushing down the surprise and shock - and relief? - yeah, relief that he wasn’t going to have to hide whatever was going to go down with Dean from her, because, hey, she seemed to be just as in the know as he was. “You and I are going to have a long talk when this is over.”
“If we live,” she whispered and Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear that.
The knocking on the door was getting louder. A banging, almost. Had they locked the door? Slid the deadbolt in? Sam hoped so.
He leaned over and tugged the top off of his own personal stash of hunting equipment, saw Willow do a double take out of the corner of his eye, and had to bite back a grim smile at her shock. He certainly knew how that felt.
“Yeah - there’ll definitely be talking,” she assured him, leaning over to look at his gear. “Oh! You have salt? I might love you even more for that. Doors, windows - please?”
“Not my first time with this, thanks,” Sam said, grabbing for the box and a stick of chalk. She was lighting some sage as he sprinted to the living room door, already showing cracks in the wood from where knocking and pounding had turned to outright battering. Salt rained down from the box in a thick line right across the inside of the door. Willow had come out of the bedroom to eye the front door and he stepped around her as he crossed to the balcony door.
When he turned around again, she was at the door, scribbling sigils on it with chalk. Some he recognized, some he didn’t - mostly protection and warding.
“What are we dealing with?”
“Faith said a minor demon and a handful of possessed humans. But there’s a major demon somewhere in the mix. Whether its gonna be here or not, I don’t know,” she rattled off, taking for granted that he would know what she was talking about without any prompting from him. It was like she had fallen into a role that was as well-defined as his own had always been. All evidence of her earlier fluster was gone, replaced by coolness that Sam could appreciate.
“Demons? Seriously?” Sam yelled above the renewed banging on the front door, taking a step towards the bedroom. Just that window and then they could figure out how the hell to get out of this. The salt wouldn’t repel a true demon for very long. Not even a minor one.
The window shattered before he was even two steps into the room, glass bursting inward to cover everything in its path. Sam stumbled back a step, eyeing the door of the closet. Why hadn’t he grabbed his gun or even his knife? He was getting sloppy. Dean would never let him hear the end of it if he was here to see this.
“Sam!”
Willow’s hand on his arm tugged him back and out of the doorway. Then she was there, in front of him, and all he could really think was that she shouldn’t be standing between him and - yeah, that was a demon - coming through the window.
“Crap! Spell, spell, spell,” he heard her mutter under her breath. “Should’ve stayed in practice.”
He could agree with her there. Both for himself and her. He wished they’d both stayed in practice. Was this what Dean had been trying to get in touch with him about? Willow said something under her breath and the demon was shoved back against the wall of the bedroom, held there by an invisible force. It was…impressive. He glanced down at Willow and blinked. Was her hair a little darker at the roots than it had been a minute ago? It was almost like ink was spreading out from her scalp, coloring her hair as it went.
Indecision warred with trust. Was he so sure that Willow was one of the good guys?
The sound of glass breaking behind them brought Sam whirling around. The balcony doors - both glass, had been shattered, and a gust of wind was blowing away the line of salt that was their only protection against the black-eyed visitors that were waiting there patiently, like they had all the time in the world. In the distance, Sam heard sirens. Someone had called the cops - but they wouldn’t get here in time and, even if they did, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do to stop them.
“This sucks,” Willow said and her tone was darker, lower than he was used to. He wanted to turn, to make sure she was okay, but taking his eyes off of the balcony just wasn’t an option, either. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
“For what?”
“For this.”
“We’re going to be okay!” he insisted. But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure whether or not it was true. Or that it was even her fault, even if it had been her friends warning her. How many times had him just being who he was been the cause of something just like this? At least she wasn’t on the ceiling and nothing was on fire.
Yet.
The line of salt thinned, broke, and now they were coming in. He heard Willow gasp and then a dark laugh that wasn’t hers, but he was too busy swinging and ducking, trying like hell to get out of a situation that looked just about as close to impossible as anything he’d been in before. Willow screamed and he turned just in time to see the demon take a swipe at him, wondering even as he did if this was the part where Dean was supposed to bust in and save them all, be the hero just like usual.
But he didn’t.
And then all went black.
END CHAPTER