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I was going to write a drabble and... well. Life had other plans.
His Dark Materials + SPN; in other words, Sam/Dean with daemons. This is for oxoniensis, since I borrowed her crossover (though not her universe!), and astolat, because I took liberties with her spn_holidays gift. Thanks to jamesinboots for the beta!
If you aren't familiar with HDM, Signe has an excellent primer here (along with her excellent fic!) that will explain what daemons are. If you'd like pictures of the animals I mention in mine (since some of them are a little offbeat) and Sam and Dean's daemons, you can go to my companion post, but you should do it after you read, because it contains serious spoilers through the end. That's here. Image credits can be found there was well.
Malleus Maleficarum, NC-17, Sam/Dean, 5600 words.
Malleus Maleficarum
She takes longer to settle than Dean thinks she should, and he's stuck waiting, sixteen and caught tight between his father and the open road. The only consolation is the Impala, steering wheel warm beneath his fingers, but it's not as easy when she's in the passenger seat, slipping from goldfinch to lynx and back again, a slow blur in the corners of his vision.
"Pick something," Dean says, irritably, and they both know he's not just talking about which exit to take.
Even Sachiel is thinking about it, and Sam's only twelve; she can't shift from form to form anymore, machine gun fast, click-click-click every time Sam sees something that scares him. She picks things and stays with them for weeks on end - a badger, a jackrabbit, a goddamned golden retriever.
"Not that one," Kaida said, finally, curled up black and tan at the foot of their father's bed, head on her paws. Sam settled a little closer to Dean.
"Maybe not," he'd said, and that was the end of that phase.
When Dean was a kid, back before it mattered, they used to play a game under the blankets at night after Sam fell asleep. She'd pick - easy at first, sparrows and snakes, things he could guess, but the point was to let it get hard, nothing he could even imagine.
"I don't know," he'd say, finally, feeling her breathing against his cheek.
"Bamboo lemur," Marjorie said.
"Do you think we -" Dean said.
"Of course not," she said, and back then, it was reassuring; Dean didn't want to be anything he didn't know.
At seventeen, he gives up on being angry over it. They're somewhere in Montana when a ghost tries to pull her away from him, the worst thing Dean's ever felt. After, Dean walks into the prairie off the dirt road and throws up until there isn't anything left in his stomach, over and over and over again.
"Nobody's going to take you," he says, with Marjorie curled up tight in his hands, a mouse for a second, then something else entirely. Even if she's got a plain name and she won't pick something, she's his and he loves her more than anything else he's ever known.
"Maybe we ought to see Bobby," John says, finally, and Dean tucks her into his coat pocket and doesn't say anything.
"You don't have to choose, but you're gonna have to pretend," he whispers, with her on his pillow. Three days later she's a german shepherd, matched up easy against Kaida. Marjorie lets her win when they play in the snow off of an I-95 rest stop, lets her, Dean knows, even if she's smaller. Dean leans against the car and watches his father drink his coffee while Sam buys a coke from the vending machine.
"I think she might -" he says, swallowing, "stay this way." John looks relieved then proud, like he's been waiting.
"Let's hit the road, son," he says, hand against Dean's shoulder.
They stop edging toward Bobby's house. Sam doesn't say anything at all.
When they're alone, she switches so fast he can't see, and only comes up for air when she's exhausted, curled up against his side.
"I don't think you're going to forget how," Dean says, a little dryly, even if he wishes she would.
"It's wrong," she says, firmly. He cleans the guns out, watching her.
The last time Sachiel changes, Dean's asking for directions in the middle of Wyoming, collar turned up against the goddamned cold. They're hunting something he doesn't know the name of, just a lot of murdered women in the mountains, something dark shoving up the edges of his mind. It feels a little like snow, and he's thinking about getting gas and where to stop for dinner and whether to call his father when Sam nudges a shoulder against his, drowsy in the passenger seat.
"Hey," he says, and she's asleep in his lap, something Dean can't quite recognize, but the feeling's there.
"I don't know," he says.
"An otter," Marjorie says, from the back seat. Sam settles a hand up against the cream fur of Sachiel's stomach, thumb against a paw.
"You're doing twenty over, Dean," Sachiel says, apparently not that asleep after all. Dean's not even jealous, because it's just right.
When Sam leaves, Dean and Marjorie don't speak for an entire month. There's too much underneath his skin. He fucks six women, watches her pin their daemons down without the casual play between them that sex is supposed to be. Tequila can't even fix it, though she's closer, then. Finally, outside of Nebraska, he finds a medicine man who's supposed to know a little bit about cursed ground.
"My father sent me," he says, Marjorie outside of the trailer, far enough away that he's starting to feel it, though the ache isn't anything compared to how he feels most of the time these days.
"It's not your daemon that can't choose," the man says, with a hand on his back, and later, Dean pulls off the shoulder of the highway and buries his hands in her fur.
"I shouldn't have," he says, right up against her. She licks his face, like he might be crying, even though Dean definitely isn't.
"Do you love him more than me?" Marjorie says, finally. Dean knows what the answer should be, but he can't quite get there.
"Not more," he says, finally, the best truth he can figure out. It isn't as lonely, after that.
The next three years are hazy, the sort of quicksand memory that Dean hasn't ever quite been able to shake. When he shows up in Sam's living room, it's like surfacing from sleep, coming out of an intense and winding dream that Dean can't remember much of.
"Jesus, Sam," Jessica's crow daemon says. Dean only realizes later, with Sam asleep in the passenger seat, still smelling of smoke, that he never bothered to learn his name.
Dean's tired of keeping secrets, tired of keeping time, so he puts a hand on Marjorie's head, lifting her out of the back seat after she changes. She curls up with Sachiel, a tight knot between them as Dean pushes his way outside of California, warm against his thigh. Otter's not right, exactly, but it feels better than what she's been keeping, and when Sam wakes up outside of Salt Lake City and runs a hand through Sachiel's fur, Dean feels the electric jump of too close up and down his spine, but it just pulls him a little closer to awake.
"You used to be a dog," Sam says, not all the way awake, maybe a little accusatory, like his mind is playing tricks on him, and Marjorie flashes her teeth in a way that means she's amused.
"Possibly," she says, "probably," because she's slower to forgive, and Dean realizes that not knowing who he is isn't the worst thing that could happen.
It's different, after Stanford, because Sam's not exactly Dean's kid brother anymore, but the trade off is easy; he knows Sam has his back, even if he's not quite sure that he's not going to leave. Somehow, it gets easier.
The worst part of spirits is that they don't have daemons, that they'll try to steal yours right off the mark. The first time something grabs for Sachiel, when Sam's in the goddamned car with Constance Welch, Dean almost falls down not because of Sam but because he can feel it, just as sharp as if it were Marjorie, like somebody's pulling his ribs out through his lungs and heart, one by one.
When something undead grabs Marjorie outside of Omaha, Sam puts seven silver bullets into it, one right on top of the other, until he's firing through.
"I think it's dead, Sammy," Dean says, a little dryly - he's pretty sure it went down with one. Sam shudders all over and throws up in the corner of the basement.
"I felt that," Sam says, hands out like he wants to grab for them both, to make sure they're all right. Sachiel winds her way up into his arms, as frantic as Dean's seen her. Even Dean's got to admit that his bones feel wrong, crawling with phantom, rotting touch.
"It's okay," he says, Marjorie underneath his collar, a snake this time, and wraps an arm around Sam's shoulders for a minute, reassuring.
It should be weird, and maybe it is, this thing with them, but all of Sam's research turns up nothing, so Dean gives up. Maybe it's a hunting thing, an adrenaline thing. Dean's known stranger things, so he gets used to feeling out spirits by how close they get to his brother's daemon. After the reaper, when he feels grey around the edges and wrong, Sachiel tucks herself against him in the passenger seat, with Sam staring straight out at the road, hands tight against the steering wheel.
It's wrong, electric, too close and more intimate than Dean thinks he can stand, but when Sam lets out a breath, slow, like it's too much for both of them, the acknowledgement pushes the feeling out the other side into all right, and Dean feels a little more whole.
The thing is, daemons make it easier. Shape shifters don't have one, and Dean puts a bullet straight through one in St. Louis. People who are possessed aren't right, exactly; their daemons are a little blurry around the edges, off in a way that a normal daemon knows. Dean can tell when Sam's dreaming true because Sachiel slides toward it, grey edged instead of black. Her eyes are always the wrong color when they're coming out of it, so Dean knows what to believe and what not to, and Marjorie knows the signs. When Meg says hello to Sam in Chicago, Sachiel makes a noise Dean's never heard from her before, a ch-ch-ch hiss ending on bared teeth, and Marjorie's right behind her, furious.
"I know she's possessed," Sam says, a little irritably, after. "She's been possessed all along."
"Fuck you," Sachiel says, shaking herself off, and Sam snorts, but brushes his fingertips along her back.
"Thanks for mentioning that," Dean says, dryly, but unfortunately, killing somebody who's possessed still makes their daemon flicker out with a sickening, horrible feeling, like watching a train wreck or cutting somebody's heart out, and it just gets worse from there, because the noise Kaida makes when Sam shoots John isn't anything Dean's ever going to get out of his head.
After, in the hospital, something happens that makes Dean think about it. He's stuck between nowhere and nowhere and Marjorie's not with him. The only thing that keeps him from panicking is the knowledge that she's right where she ought to be, asleep next to his body. Sachiel stays, most of the time, muzzle pressed against Marjorie's throat, like she's keeping watch, a ball of tails and paws and slick, warm fur up against his side in the hospital bed, with Sam in a yellow chair beside them.
"What's her name?" the doctor says, and Sam looks up from his magazine, so worn through Dean can see it written across his face.
"Sachiel," he says, "Marjorie." They both roll a little in their sleep, restless, until it's the other way around, the wrong otter pressed against his side. Even like this, Dean can feel it, warm and unbalanced, like putting his hands on something too hot.
The doctor catches it, blinks at it, startles as if she's seeing something she shouldn't. She looks away, cheeks warm, like she's caught them having sex or plotting murder, too private, and puts a hand on the bedrail.
"She's touching him?" she says, and Sam looks up, sharp.
"He's my brother," he says.
"I've never seen -" she whispers.
"He's my brother," Sam says, fierce and low and brutal, with an undercurrent Dean's never heard before. The doctor looks at him for a moment longer before she backs out of the room, her border collie quick at her heels.
"Just," Sam says, "goddamn it, Dean, wake up." He buries his head in his hands, and Dean sits down beside him, exhausted.
The hardest thing about death - about John's collapse and burning him - is that there's something missing, something crucial that Dean can't seem to find, because without Kaida, John's naked and vulnerable, like every part of himself that he never wanted anyone to see is on display, an emotional autopsy. Dean can't even look at the body, and Sam throws up by the side of the road when they're finished. Dean doesn't have to ask to know that it's from something worse than grief, because the idea of being so alone is terrifying.
Dean doesn't know how to handle it. He doesn't know how to feel this way, because guilt is eating at the edges of his vision, blocking everything else.
"Stop running," Marjorie says, finally, teeth against his throat, and Dean finds a way to tell Sam.
After, in an abandoned house just off the highway, Sam rolls over onto his side in his sleeping bag, reaches out to wrap a hand around his wrist. "It's not your fault," he says. Dean's going to say something else when Sachiel slides into his sleeping bag, down one side of his leg, playing with the zipper until he's laughing, and Marjorie chases her down, until he can't even get free, they're so tangled in blankets.
"Thanks," Dean says, finally, when he's convinced Marjorie to settle in against his chest, her heartbeat still rapid.
"I told her to bite you," Sam says, dryly. "She just doesn't listen."
"I do, I just I like him better," Sachiel informs him, the faint huff of laughter somewhere between them, and Sam rolls his eyes.
"He doesn't give you sardines," Sam points out. "I'm pretty sure that’s a point in my favor."
"No," Sachiel says, dreamily, "he gives me pie." Dean laughs so hard he almost makes himself sick.
There's still guilt, after that, but life gets a little more normal for awhile.
"I think," Marjorie says, restless in the passenger seat, and Dean realizes he can't remember the last time he got laid.
He lets her pick, a concession to the way things have been, lately, a strange sort of trust, and she heads for the back corner, a booth Dean would have passed over. "How about you let me buy you a drink," he says, before he can see her. He thinks it's going to be hard and fast but it isn't; she's got a smile that seems familiar, and in the back of the Impala she cups his face in her hands and slides down onto his cock, slow enough to burn, meeting his eyes.
It's not easy, but it's honest, open, and Dean thrusts up into her until he can't think of anything but tight, wet heat, his hands gripped on the leather of the seat in front of them. She leans back and undoes the buttons of her shirt, fingers tracing the edge of her bra, dipping down beneath the lace. Dean thinks about shoving her back and fucking her, but she slides a little closer and wraps her arms around his neck, rocking her hips against his.
"Hey," she says, right up against his mouth, grinning, "let go a little," and Dean buries his face against her shoulder and comes, hard.
He tilts her back against the car door and licks into her with soft, steady strokes of his tongue, just enough to get her off, a hand curled tight around her hip, pushing his fingertips inside her. She comes around his fingers in slow waves, head tilted back, breathing hard, and Dean doesn't stop long enough to let her come down, just takes it a little deeper, presses his fingertips up into her and licks her out until she shudders hard and comes again, damp and flushed, her whole spine arched off the leather.
She doesn't stick around, but getting out of the car, she wraps her arms around his waist and kisses him.
"You're not a bad guy," she says, by way of goodbye, with a grin that makes Dean like her, in spite of everything.
"Do you want my number?" he says, watching her bat daemon untangle himself from Marjorie, listening to them whisper to one another. She laughs and leans against him, pressing a kiss to the curve of his jaw.
"You wouldn't pick up," she answers, pulling her skirt down, and Dean takes her face in his hands and kisses her like he hasn't kissed anyone in years, since Cassie, warm and affectionate, a little bit possessive.
"I'll let you buy me a cup of coffee, though," she says, laughing. It's the first sex he's had in years that makes him feel better instead of worse.
Marjorie's smug in the passenger seat all the way home, cat then fox, licking her tail. Dean laughs at her until she bites him.
Sam's reading when he gets back to the motel room, so Dean locks the door again and watches Sachiel meet Marjorie, winding around each other in a hello Dean feels somewhere around his spine.
"What the hell," Sam says, when they're tucked underneath one of the beds; Dean checks, careful, to find them curled up around each other, almost asleep. Sachiel's tucked against Marjorie's stomach, grooming her, and he watches one sleepy eye open, yellow and beautiful.
"Go away," Marjorie says, irritated through the afterglow, like there's something Dean's missing. He gives up and takes a shower.
"Do you think they're just going to stay there?" Sam says, when he's done with most of his book and Dean's sick of watching the Discovery channel. There's something in his voice that Dean can't put his finger on, like maybe he misses her, so Dean turns out the light and slides in on the other side of Sam's bed.
"Probably just wants you to get laid too," he says, yawning, and Sam huffs laughter and presses the back of his hand against Dean's side when Dean rolls over on his stomach to sleep.
Werewolf daemons are wolves, no matter what they are originally, the only time Dean's ever heard of daemons changing in adulthood, and he knows Madison's it the first time she opens the door. Her daemon's not comfortable in its own skin, like it's just playing at being something, and she looks more than a little lost.
"Maybe it takes awhile," Sam says, the first morning after Dean kills the werewolf who infected her, his voice tight when Vivek doesn't change back into the barn swallow he ought to be.
Dean locks her into the bedroom when she starts to turn again, Sam pacing across the kitchen floor, back and forth. When she's herself again, he knows what he has to do. "Stay in the kitchen," he tells Sam, tight, but Sam takes his back, stubborn as hell like always. At least her daemon's right again before he goes, slipping from wolf to swallow, fluttering against the palm of her hand. Sam jerks at that, hard, and again when they're going through her bedroom, making it look like a robbery, but Dean's pretty sure it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
Even with that - and the string of bad luck that happens afterward, jail and djinns and goddamned demons - Dean's okay, because the four of them running together is the way it should be, and he's on top of his goddamned game, the best he's been in years. Everything's going to be fine, they're going to get the son of a bitch, and then -
Sam disappears, and Sam dies. After Dean brings him home, Marjorie searches the whole house like she might find her, every single place she can think to look, and then she curls up on Sam's chest like he might still be breathing, if she touches him the right way.
"We have to," she says, finally, as small as Dean's ever heard her, "we have to -"
It's easier than Dean thinks it should be, to let the crossroads demon touch Marjorie, put her hands all over his goddamned soul. Any other time, in any other life, it might be the worst thing he's ever felt, but here, Dean knows better. She licks the tears off his face, and they go home.
Sam's okay, awake, breathing, but the twist of relief Dean feels disappears the moment Sam closes his hands in Dean's shirt.
"She's gone," he says, voice completely raw, "she's -"
Marjorie hits him running, an otter that's almost the right shape, and the way she curls against his chest, nuzzling against his face, close, is savage and determined. Dean is - an unfamiliar feeling - proud of her, for doing the right thing.
"She's not gone," she says, small and steady, "we just have to - find her." Sam slides down the wall and wraps his arms around her, the first time they touch, the best thing Dean's ever felt.
That night they share a daemon, curled around each other in the back of the car, because Dean can't stand the house, and in the morning, she's asleep in the front seat, driver's side door open.
"Sam," Dean says, soft, because he knows. Sam buries his hands in her fur before he's even awake, tight. Marjorie's a mouse he can tip over the front seat, then a tentative otter, curling up against the soft black and gold of Sachiel's chest.
"If you ever leave me again," Sachiel says. Dean leans across the front seat and presses a hand beneath the curve of her jaw, feeling her heartbeat.
"That's my goddamned line," he says, shaky, and she opens her eyes for him, not the familiar brown he knows but soft gold. When she starts to purr, Dean starts breathing again.
It's not until after the whole thing is over that Dean thinks to ask, watching them sleep on the other side of the bed, curled up against each other.
"She's a cheetah," Marjorie says, sleeping between Sam's shoulder blades, and Dean doesn't have time to think about how she doesn't look like any cheetah that he's ever seen before she's correcting his train of thought. "A king cheetah," Marjorie offers, like it's something to be proud of, even though she won't touch the shape. Dean understands.
"Sounds a little bit sexist to me," he says, finally, and Sachiel laughs, not entirely asleep, just like always.
After Sam kills Gordon, Dean stops fighting it. It will be or it won't be, and there's not a hell of a lot of use pushing Sam away, so they fit into a king sized bed all winter, their daemons up against Sam's back. Dean puts ghosts and demons where they belong, clean and easy, and figures out how to put Sam to sleep by nudging his fingers beneath Sachiel's jaw, up against the heavy curve of her skull. It's not a bad way to live.
Dean's reasonably sure that he hates Bela Talbot, at least until nine months into his final year, when she slides a folder across the table at him. It's an exchange for a sapphire necklace that takes off heads, the sort of thing Dean doesn't exactly want in his bedside drawer, a fair deal.
"They only have twenty-four hours to collect," she says, free hand curled around a cup of coffee. "Midnight to midnight on the anniversary. It's a little - " the corner of her mouth curves up. "Loophole. If you can keep her away from them…"
Bela's daemon is on the back of the seat, padding back and forth like he's nervous; Dean suspects Sachiel, who's had her eye on him all evening.
"Her?" Dean says, a little absently.
"The demon will take Marjorie," she says, softer than he's used to from her, but still blunt. She closes a hand in her daemon's fur. "It's how you'll die."
"He's not a fox," Dean says, finally, because she's not what he thought she was, either.
"No," Bela says, looking something close to amused. "She's a zorro culpeo, a pseudalopex."
"She," Dean says, turning it over in his mouth, and then laughs.
"It doesn't mean I fuck other women," Bela says, dryly. "Call me if you live."
"I'll think about it," Dean says, and brushes close to her daemon on the way out, laughing as she disappears under the seat, startled, and Bela swears.
The sapphires aren't real, anyway.
His last night, Dean puts the Colt under his pillow and wakes up to Sachiel's warning growl and Marjorie shrieking, backed into a corner, a sound he's never heard her make in any shape before. She's a tiger, the biggest thing she can push herself into, but the demon winds her hands in Marjorie's fur, the woman's rat daemon docile under Sachiel's enormous paws.
"I can kill you," Sachiel says, and Sam has the Colt aimed right at the demon, right between her eyes. "He can kill you."
"It wouldn't matter," the daemon says, with a vicious, amused smile. "Time's up, Dean."
She grabs Marjorie and pulls, pain so sharp that Dean doubles over. Then Marjorie's a sparrow, darting through her hands, a hummingbird among the rafters, hovering.
"Hide," Dean manages, "hide," and she flies out the open door.
"This isn't entertaining, Winchester," the demon says, tight, stepping forward, but Sam shoves the blankets down to reveal the devil's trap drawn on the sheets, one they've been sleeping in the middle of for three days.
"I wouldn't," he says, cold, and the last thing Dean hears before he passes out is her hiss of rage.
When he wakes, later, the only thing he knows is that Marjorie's too far away, and he's alone.
"Trust her," Sachiel says, lying on top of him; her touch is the only thing keeping Dean from going under again.
The afternoon drags by - Marjorie's close enough to keep them both alive, but far enough that Dean can feel it, pain so bad he's feverish, almost delirious. It feels like his bones are splitting, like his heart might be breaking, and it's still not as terrible as the knowledge that she's feeling it too, alone. Dean can't stay conscious, so Sam's the only one keeping track of the clock. Dean only knows it's over because Sachiel leaves his back.
"We'll find her," she says, steady, and Dean watches the numbers slide by on Sam's watch, ten minutes, then twenty, then half an hour, and something - a low shock, a good shock, steady pressure down his spine, and he hears the screen door of the farm house slam.
"Shh," Sam says, "Dean," and tips her forward into his hands, a mouse, trembling and exhausted.
"It's over," Marjorie says, and Dean can breathe for what seems like the first time in memory, her fur against his skin.
"You were so brave," he whispers, too tired to even sit up, his eyes closing, and they fall asleep together, close enough that Dean can feel her heart hammering beneath his thumb, soft and reassuring.
It's like recovering from a long illness, learning each other all over again. They sleep for three days, and even after that, Dean's almost too tired to move. Marjorie sleeps against the hollow of his throat even when Dean's awake; she can't change, anymore, but Dean doesn't think it's permanent.
"It's too goddamned cold in here," Sam says, finally, when August spills over into September and Dean's still sleeping sixteen hours a day. He guides them out of the abandoned farm house, aspens turning gold along the edges of the highway, and drives south to the Roadhouse.
Ellen feeds him four bowls of soup, Jo's rattlesnake daemon asleep under the heat lamp behind the bar while she waits tables, and they stay for a weekend, until Sam pushes him into the car again.
"I'm not living in a goddamned cottage," Dean says, when they pull into the driveway; it has a fucking white picket fence and gingerbread trim and an herb garden.
"It's Ellen's," Sam says. "Just until you're well."
Dean falls asleep in the car, waiting Sam out, and when he wakes up, Sachiel's teeth are against his leg.
"Inside," she says, in a tone that Dean's pretty sure means he's going to get bitten, and so he slips Marjorie into his pocket and carries his duffle into the kitchen.
Sam's cutting up vegetables, humming to himself, and when he hears Dean come in, he turns around, backed against the counter.
"It's got central heating," he says, looking exasperated. "Stop fighting me on this one."
"It's just him," Marjorie says, out of his pocket, and then she's a cat, winding around Sachiel's legs. Dean's relieved enough that he gives up.
In November, it snows six inches over night and Sam and Marjorie chase each other around the yard at full speed, border collie then leopard then snowshoe hare, until Sam tackles Marjorie into a snow bank. Dean can feel it from the kitchen where he's making breakfast, warm and satisfied. He's breaking eggs into a dish when he hears Sachiel make a soft noise across the kitchen.
"Dean," she says, soft, and when she leans against him, Dean suddenly can't stand.
It's the reason this is forbidden, the feeling he's never been able to hit just right from touching her, Sam, heavy beneath his skin, heat pooling low in his stomach.
"Jesus," he manages, fingers tight on the counter.
Sachiel laughs, low, like she knows something he doesn't. Dean gets it when Sam stumbles into the kitchen, flushed, holding Marjorie in his arms. Then she's sliding forward, head down, an otter again. He watches Sachiel meet her, slow, then has to look away; between them, it's obvious, affection he can feel like adrenaline.
"Hey," Sam says, stepping forward, hands out. He's uncertain, but there's a smile pulling up the corner of his mouth, and Dean feels everything click into place.
Sam backs him up against the counter, easy, focused, and Dean unwinds his scarf slowly, like waiting is going to make a difference.
"Well," Sam says, soft, and Dean glances at their daemons; Marjorie's a leopard, so close their fur blends together.
"Well," Dean says, and when Sam tilts his face up and kisses him, it's warm, steady pressure and the answer to something he's been turning over for years.
Sam kisses like he does everything else, more intense than Dean's used to, all heat and slow swipes of his tongue. He nudges Dean back against the sink as he licks into his mouth, hungry, and spreads a hand against Dean's back, pressing their hips together. Sam's unbuckling Dean's belt before Dean manages to get Sam's coat off, so Dean has to push him back for a second.
"Hold on," he manages, laughing, shoving Sam's winter jacket off his shoulders. Sam flushes all over, down beneath his collar.
"It's been three fucking years," he manages, squirming when Dean slides his hands up under his shirt, "so can we -"
Dean laughs, again, and shoves him backwards into the living room, down onto the couch, and unbuttons Sam's jeans, damp from the snow.
"Take it easy," he says, sliding to his knees, mouth against the warm skin of Sam's stomach. Dean gets a hand into Sam's boxers, wrapping his fingers around him, already half-hard, and strokes until Sam's making low, soft noises, hips pushing up into Dean's hand.
"Fuck, Dean," Sam manages, breathing hard when Dean licks his way up Sam's cock. Sam's hips jerk when Dean slides his mouth down over the head, fast and wet and a little messy, and Dean barely sucks at all before Sam's coming down his throat, hands fisted against the leather cushions.
After, Sam pushes him down and sprawls out beside him. He pulls Dean's jeans off and runs his fingers up and down Dean's dick until he can't breathe, then strokes him off between warm, wet kisses, until Dean comes all over Sam's hands.
"Yenta," Sam says to Sachiel, dryly amused; she's curled up in the winter sun with Marjorie, breathing hard. She doesn't even bother to protest, just flicks her tail at him, and Dean falls asleep listening to the low rumble of her purr and Sam's steady breathing against his shoulder.
That afternoon, Dean's doing dishes in the kitchen, not thinking about much other than hot water and soap, when he hears Sam push aside his book at the table.
"Marjorie," he says, thoughtful, maybe, and she untangles herself from Sachiel and goes to him. Sam cups her face in his hands, rubbing his thumb behind her ears, and Dean rinses a glass, warm all over.
"I think," Sam says.
"Hm," Marjorie says, and Dean sees her shift out of the corner of her eye, then turns around without entirely meaning to, feeling the soft pull between them.
Sam lets go and Marjorie turns toward him, soft and quiet and beautiful, and Dean kneels down as she pads across the kitchen. He touches her, hesitant, letting her press up into his hands. He can feel Sam's smile from a cross the room.
"A coyote," he says, quiet.
"A coyote," Marjorie echoes, certain, and it's just right.
His Dark Materials + SPN; in other words, Sam/Dean with daemons. This is for oxoniensis, since I borrowed her crossover (though not her universe!), and astolat, because I took liberties with her spn_holidays gift. Thanks to jamesinboots for the beta!
If you aren't familiar with HDM, Signe has an excellent primer here (along with her excellent fic!) that will explain what daemons are. If you'd like pictures of the animals I mention in mine (since some of them are a little offbeat) and Sam and Dean's daemons, you can go to my companion post, but you should do it after you read, because it contains serious spoilers through the end. That's here. Image credits can be found there was well.
Malleus Maleficarum, NC-17, Sam/Dean, 5600 words.
Malleus Maleficarum
She takes longer to settle than Dean thinks she should, and he's stuck waiting, sixteen and caught tight between his father and the open road. The only consolation is the Impala, steering wheel warm beneath his fingers, but it's not as easy when she's in the passenger seat, slipping from goldfinch to lynx and back again, a slow blur in the corners of his vision.
"Pick something," Dean says, irritably, and they both know he's not just talking about which exit to take.
Even Sachiel is thinking about it, and Sam's only twelve; she can't shift from form to form anymore, machine gun fast, click-click-click every time Sam sees something that scares him. She picks things and stays with them for weeks on end - a badger, a jackrabbit, a goddamned golden retriever.
"Not that one," Kaida said, finally, curled up black and tan at the foot of their father's bed, head on her paws. Sam settled a little closer to Dean.
"Maybe not," he'd said, and that was the end of that phase.
When Dean was a kid, back before it mattered, they used to play a game under the blankets at night after Sam fell asleep. She'd pick - easy at first, sparrows and snakes, things he could guess, but the point was to let it get hard, nothing he could even imagine.
"I don't know," he'd say, finally, feeling her breathing against his cheek.
"Bamboo lemur," Marjorie said.
"Do you think we -" Dean said.
"Of course not," she said, and back then, it was reassuring; Dean didn't want to be anything he didn't know.
At seventeen, he gives up on being angry over it. They're somewhere in Montana when a ghost tries to pull her away from him, the worst thing Dean's ever felt. After, Dean walks into the prairie off the dirt road and throws up until there isn't anything left in his stomach, over and over and over again.
"Nobody's going to take you," he says, with Marjorie curled up tight in his hands, a mouse for a second, then something else entirely. Even if she's got a plain name and she won't pick something, she's his and he loves her more than anything else he's ever known.
"Maybe we ought to see Bobby," John says, finally, and Dean tucks her into his coat pocket and doesn't say anything.
"You don't have to choose, but you're gonna have to pretend," he whispers, with her on his pillow. Three days later she's a german shepherd, matched up easy against Kaida. Marjorie lets her win when they play in the snow off of an I-95 rest stop, lets her, Dean knows, even if she's smaller. Dean leans against the car and watches his father drink his coffee while Sam buys a coke from the vending machine.
"I think she might -" he says, swallowing, "stay this way." John looks relieved then proud, like he's been waiting.
"Let's hit the road, son," he says, hand against Dean's shoulder.
They stop edging toward Bobby's house. Sam doesn't say anything at all.
When they're alone, she switches so fast he can't see, and only comes up for air when she's exhausted, curled up against his side.
"I don't think you're going to forget how," Dean says, a little dryly, even if he wishes she would.
"It's wrong," she says, firmly. He cleans the guns out, watching her.
The last time Sachiel changes, Dean's asking for directions in the middle of Wyoming, collar turned up against the goddamned cold. They're hunting something he doesn't know the name of, just a lot of murdered women in the mountains, something dark shoving up the edges of his mind. It feels a little like snow, and he's thinking about getting gas and where to stop for dinner and whether to call his father when Sam nudges a shoulder against his, drowsy in the passenger seat.
"Hey," he says, and she's asleep in his lap, something Dean can't quite recognize, but the feeling's there.
"I don't know," he says.
"An otter," Marjorie says, from the back seat. Sam settles a hand up against the cream fur of Sachiel's stomach, thumb against a paw.
"You're doing twenty over, Dean," Sachiel says, apparently not that asleep after all. Dean's not even jealous, because it's just right.
When Sam leaves, Dean and Marjorie don't speak for an entire month. There's too much underneath his skin. He fucks six women, watches her pin their daemons down without the casual play between them that sex is supposed to be. Tequila can't even fix it, though she's closer, then. Finally, outside of Nebraska, he finds a medicine man who's supposed to know a little bit about cursed ground.
"My father sent me," he says, Marjorie outside of the trailer, far enough away that he's starting to feel it, though the ache isn't anything compared to how he feels most of the time these days.
"It's not your daemon that can't choose," the man says, with a hand on his back, and later, Dean pulls off the shoulder of the highway and buries his hands in her fur.
"I shouldn't have," he says, right up against her. She licks his face, like he might be crying, even though Dean definitely isn't.
"Do you love him more than me?" Marjorie says, finally. Dean knows what the answer should be, but he can't quite get there.
"Not more," he says, finally, the best truth he can figure out. It isn't as lonely, after that.
The next three years are hazy, the sort of quicksand memory that Dean hasn't ever quite been able to shake. When he shows up in Sam's living room, it's like surfacing from sleep, coming out of an intense and winding dream that Dean can't remember much of.
"Jesus, Sam," Jessica's crow daemon says. Dean only realizes later, with Sam asleep in the passenger seat, still smelling of smoke, that he never bothered to learn his name.
Dean's tired of keeping secrets, tired of keeping time, so he puts a hand on Marjorie's head, lifting her out of the back seat after she changes. She curls up with Sachiel, a tight knot between them as Dean pushes his way outside of California, warm against his thigh. Otter's not right, exactly, but it feels better than what she's been keeping, and when Sam wakes up outside of Salt Lake City and runs a hand through Sachiel's fur, Dean feels the electric jump of too close up and down his spine, but it just pulls him a little closer to awake.
"You used to be a dog," Sam says, not all the way awake, maybe a little accusatory, like his mind is playing tricks on him, and Marjorie flashes her teeth in a way that means she's amused.
"Possibly," she says, "probably," because she's slower to forgive, and Dean realizes that not knowing who he is isn't the worst thing that could happen.
It's different, after Stanford, because Sam's not exactly Dean's kid brother anymore, but the trade off is easy; he knows Sam has his back, even if he's not quite sure that he's not going to leave. Somehow, it gets easier.
The worst part of spirits is that they don't have daemons, that they'll try to steal yours right off the mark. The first time something grabs for Sachiel, when Sam's in the goddamned car with Constance Welch, Dean almost falls down not because of Sam but because he can feel it, just as sharp as if it were Marjorie, like somebody's pulling his ribs out through his lungs and heart, one by one.
When something undead grabs Marjorie outside of Omaha, Sam puts seven silver bullets into it, one right on top of the other, until he's firing through.
"I think it's dead, Sammy," Dean says, a little dryly - he's pretty sure it went down with one. Sam shudders all over and throws up in the corner of the basement.
"I felt that," Sam says, hands out like he wants to grab for them both, to make sure they're all right. Sachiel winds her way up into his arms, as frantic as Dean's seen her. Even Dean's got to admit that his bones feel wrong, crawling with phantom, rotting touch.
"It's okay," he says, Marjorie underneath his collar, a snake this time, and wraps an arm around Sam's shoulders for a minute, reassuring.
It should be weird, and maybe it is, this thing with them, but all of Sam's research turns up nothing, so Dean gives up. Maybe it's a hunting thing, an adrenaline thing. Dean's known stranger things, so he gets used to feeling out spirits by how close they get to his brother's daemon. After the reaper, when he feels grey around the edges and wrong, Sachiel tucks herself against him in the passenger seat, with Sam staring straight out at the road, hands tight against the steering wheel.
It's wrong, electric, too close and more intimate than Dean thinks he can stand, but when Sam lets out a breath, slow, like it's too much for both of them, the acknowledgement pushes the feeling out the other side into all right, and Dean feels a little more whole.
The thing is, daemons make it easier. Shape shifters don't have one, and Dean puts a bullet straight through one in St. Louis. People who are possessed aren't right, exactly; their daemons are a little blurry around the edges, off in a way that a normal daemon knows. Dean can tell when Sam's dreaming true because Sachiel slides toward it, grey edged instead of black. Her eyes are always the wrong color when they're coming out of it, so Dean knows what to believe and what not to, and Marjorie knows the signs. When Meg says hello to Sam in Chicago, Sachiel makes a noise Dean's never heard from her before, a ch-ch-ch hiss ending on bared teeth, and Marjorie's right behind her, furious.
"I know she's possessed," Sam says, a little irritably, after. "She's been possessed all along."
"Fuck you," Sachiel says, shaking herself off, and Sam snorts, but brushes his fingertips along her back.
"Thanks for mentioning that," Dean says, dryly, but unfortunately, killing somebody who's possessed still makes their daemon flicker out with a sickening, horrible feeling, like watching a train wreck or cutting somebody's heart out, and it just gets worse from there, because the noise Kaida makes when Sam shoots John isn't anything Dean's ever going to get out of his head.
After, in the hospital, something happens that makes Dean think about it. He's stuck between nowhere and nowhere and Marjorie's not with him. The only thing that keeps him from panicking is the knowledge that she's right where she ought to be, asleep next to his body. Sachiel stays, most of the time, muzzle pressed against Marjorie's throat, like she's keeping watch, a ball of tails and paws and slick, warm fur up against his side in the hospital bed, with Sam in a yellow chair beside them.
"What's her name?" the doctor says, and Sam looks up from his magazine, so worn through Dean can see it written across his face.
"Sachiel," he says, "Marjorie." They both roll a little in their sleep, restless, until it's the other way around, the wrong otter pressed against his side. Even like this, Dean can feel it, warm and unbalanced, like putting his hands on something too hot.
The doctor catches it, blinks at it, startles as if she's seeing something she shouldn't. She looks away, cheeks warm, like she's caught them having sex or plotting murder, too private, and puts a hand on the bedrail.
"She's touching him?" she says, and Sam looks up, sharp.
"He's my brother," he says.
"I've never seen -" she whispers.
"He's my brother," Sam says, fierce and low and brutal, with an undercurrent Dean's never heard before. The doctor looks at him for a moment longer before she backs out of the room, her border collie quick at her heels.
"Just," Sam says, "goddamn it, Dean, wake up." He buries his head in his hands, and Dean sits down beside him, exhausted.
The hardest thing about death - about John's collapse and burning him - is that there's something missing, something crucial that Dean can't seem to find, because without Kaida, John's naked and vulnerable, like every part of himself that he never wanted anyone to see is on display, an emotional autopsy. Dean can't even look at the body, and Sam throws up by the side of the road when they're finished. Dean doesn't have to ask to know that it's from something worse than grief, because the idea of being so alone is terrifying.
Dean doesn't know how to handle it. He doesn't know how to feel this way, because guilt is eating at the edges of his vision, blocking everything else.
"Stop running," Marjorie says, finally, teeth against his throat, and Dean finds a way to tell Sam.
After, in an abandoned house just off the highway, Sam rolls over onto his side in his sleeping bag, reaches out to wrap a hand around his wrist. "It's not your fault," he says. Dean's going to say something else when Sachiel slides into his sleeping bag, down one side of his leg, playing with the zipper until he's laughing, and Marjorie chases her down, until he can't even get free, they're so tangled in blankets.
"Thanks," Dean says, finally, when he's convinced Marjorie to settle in against his chest, her heartbeat still rapid.
"I told her to bite you," Sam says, dryly. "She just doesn't listen."
"I do, I just I like him better," Sachiel informs him, the faint huff of laughter somewhere between them, and Sam rolls his eyes.
"He doesn't give you sardines," Sam points out. "I'm pretty sure that’s a point in my favor."
"No," Sachiel says, dreamily, "he gives me pie." Dean laughs so hard he almost makes himself sick.
There's still guilt, after that, but life gets a little more normal for awhile.
"I think," Marjorie says, restless in the passenger seat, and Dean realizes he can't remember the last time he got laid.
He lets her pick, a concession to the way things have been, lately, a strange sort of trust, and she heads for the back corner, a booth Dean would have passed over. "How about you let me buy you a drink," he says, before he can see her. He thinks it's going to be hard and fast but it isn't; she's got a smile that seems familiar, and in the back of the Impala she cups his face in her hands and slides down onto his cock, slow enough to burn, meeting his eyes.
It's not easy, but it's honest, open, and Dean thrusts up into her until he can't think of anything but tight, wet heat, his hands gripped on the leather of the seat in front of them. She leans back and undoes the buttons of her shirt, fingers tracing the edge of her bra, dipping down beneath the lace. Dean thinks about shoving her back and fucking her, but she slides a little closer and wraps her arms around his neck, rocking her hips against his.
"Hey," she says, right up against his mouth, grinning, "let go a little," and Dean buries his face against her shoulder and comes, hard.
He tilts her back against the car door and licks into her with soft, steady strokes of his tongue, just enough to get her off, a hand curled tight around her hip, pushing his fingertips inside her. She comes around his fingers in slow waves, head tilted back, breathing hard, and Dean doesn't stop long enough to let her come down, just takes it a little deeper, presses his fingertips up into her and licks her out until she shudders hard and comes again, damp and flushed, her whole spine arched off the leather.
She doesn't stick around, but getting out of the car, she wraps her arms around his waist and kisses him.
"You're not a bad guy," she says, by way of goodbye, with a grin that makes Dean like her, in spite of everything.
"Do you want my number?" he says, watching her bat daemon untangle himself from Marjorie, listening to them whisper to one another. She laughs and leans against him, pressing a kiss to the curve of his jaw.
"You wouldn't pick up," she answers, pulling her skirt down, and Dean takes her face in his hands and kisses her like he hasn't kissed anyone in years, since Cassie, warm and affectionate, a little bit possessive.
"I'll let you buy me a cup of coffee, though," she says, laughing. It's the first sex he's had in years that makes him feel better instead of worse.
Marjorie's smug in the passenger seat all the way home, cat then fox, licking her tail. Dean laughs at her until she bites him.
Sam's reading when he gets back to the motel room, so Dean locks the door again and watches Sachiel meet Marjorie, winding around each other in a hello Dean feels somewhere around his spine.
"What the hell," Sam says, when they're tucked underneath one of the beds; Dean checks, careful, to find them curled up around each other, almost asleep. Sachiel's tucked against Marjorie's stomach, grooming her, and he watches one sleepy eye open, yellow and beautiful.
"Go away," Marjorie says, irritated through the afterglow, like there's something Dean's missing. He gives up and takes a shower.
"Do you think they're just going to stay there?" Sam says, when he's done with most of his book and Dean's sick of watching the Discovery channel. There's something in his voice that Dean can't put his finger on, like maybe he misses her, so Dean turns out the light and slides in on the other side of Sam's bed.
"Probably just wants you to get laid too," he says, yawning, and Sam huffs laughter and presses the back of his hand against Dean's side when Dean rolls over on his stomach to sleep.
Werewolf daemons are wolves, no matter what they are originally, the only time Dean's ever heard of daemons changing in adulthood, and he knows Madison's it the first time she opens the door. Her daemon's not comfortable in its own skin, like it's just playing at being something, and she looks more than a little lost.
"Maybe it takes awhile," Sam says, the first morning after Dean kills the werewolf who infected her, his voice tight when Vivek doesn't change back into the barn swallow he ought to be.
Dean locks her into the bedroom when she starts to turn again, Sam pacing across the kitchen floor, back and forth. When she's herself again, he knows what he has to do. "Stay in the kitchen," he tells Sam, tight, but Sam takes his back, stubborn as hell like always. At least her daemon's right again before he goes, slipping from wolf to swallow, fluttering against the palm of her hand. Sam jerks at that, hard, and again when they're going through her bedroom, making it look like a robbery, but Dean's pretty sure it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
Even with that - and the string of bad luck that happens afterward, jail and djinns and goddamned demons - Dean's okay, because the four of them running together is the way it should be, and he's on top of his goddamned game, the best he's been in years. Everything's going to be fine, they're going to get the son of a bitch, and then -
Sam disappears, and Sam dies. After Dean brings him home, Marjorie searches the whole house like she might find her, every single place she can think to look, and then she curls up on Sam's chest like he might still be breathing, if she touches him the right way.
"We have to," she says, finally, as small as Dean's ever heard her, "we have to -"
It's easier than Dean thinks it should be, to let the crossroads demon touch Marjorie, put her hands all over his goddamned soul. Any other time, in any other life, it might be the worst thing he's ever felt, but here, Dean knows better. She licks the tears off his face, and they go home.
Sam's okay, awake, breathing, but the twist of relief Dean feels disappears the moment Sam closes his hands in Dean's shirt.
"She's gone," he says, voice completely raw, "she's -"
Marjorie hits him running, an otter that's almost the right shape, and the way she curls against his chest, nuzzling against his face, close, is savage and determined. Dean is - an unfamiliar feeling - proud of her, for doing the right thing.
"She's not gone," she says, small and steady, "we just have to - find her." Sam slides down the wall and wraps his arms around her, the first time they touch, the best thing Dean's ever felt.
That night they share a daemon, curled around each other in the back of the car, because Dean can't stand the house, and in the morning, she's asleep in the front seat, driver's side door open.
"Sam," Dean says, soft, because he knows. Sam buries his hands in her fur before he's even awake, tight. Marjorie's a mouse he can tip over the front seat, then a tentative otter, curling up against the soft black and gold of Sachiel's chest.
"If you ever leave me again," Sachiel says. Dean leans across the front seat and presses a hand beneath the curve of her jaw, feeling her heartbeat.
"That's my goddamned line," he says, shaky, and she opens her eyes for him, not the familiar brown he knows but soft gold. When she starts to purr, Dean starts breathing again.
It's not until after the whole thing is over that Dean thinks to ask, watching them sleep on the other side of the bed, curled up against each other.
"She's a cheetah," Marjorie says, sleeping between Sam's shoulder blades, and Dean doesn't have time to think about how she doesn't look like any cheetah that he's ever seen before she's correcting his train of thought. "A king cheetah," Marjorie offers, like it's something to be proud of, even though she won't touch the shape. Dean understands.
"Sounds a little bit sexist to me," he says, finally, and Sachiel laughs, not entirely asleep, just like always.
After Sam kills Gordon, Dean stops fighting it. It will be or it won't be, and there's not a hell of a lot of use pushing Sam away, so they fit into a king sized bed all winter, their daemons up against Sam's back. Dean puts ghosts and demons where they belong, clean and easy, and figures out how to put Sam to sleep by nudging his fingers beneath Sachiel's jaw, up against the heavy curve of her skull. It's not a bad way to live.
Dean's reasonably sure that he hates Bela Talbot, at least until nine months into his final year, when she slides a folder across the table at him. It's an exchange for a sapphire necklace that takes off heads, the sort of thing Dean doesn't exactly want in his bedside drawer, a fair deal.
"They only have twenty-four hours to collect," she says, free hand curled around a cup of coffee. "Midnight to midnight on the anniversary. It's a little - " the corner of her mouth curves up. "Loophole. If you can keep her away from them…"
Bela's daemon is on the back of the seat, padding back and forth like he's nervous; Dean suspects Sachiel, who's had her eye on him all evening.
"Her?" Dean says, a little absently.
"The demon will take Marjorie," she says, softer than he's used to from her, but still blunt. She closes a hand in her daemon's fur. "It's how you'll die."
"He's not a fox," Dean says, finally, because she's not what he thought she was, either.
"No," Bela says, looking something close to amused. "She's a zorro culpeo, a pseudalopex."
"She," Dean says, turning it over in his mouth, and then laughs.
"It doesn't mean I fuck other women," Bela says, dryly. "Call me if you live."
"I'll think about it," Dean says, and brushes close to her daemon on the way out, laughing as she disappears under the seat, startled, and Bela swears.
The sapphires aren't real, anyway.
His last night, Dean puts the Colt under his pillow and wakes up to Sachiel's warning growl and Marjorie shrieking, backed into a corner, a sound he's never heard her make in any shape before. She's a tiger, the biggest thing she can push herself into, but the demon winds her hands in Marjorie's fur, the woman's rat daemon docile under Sachiel's enormous paws.
"I can kill you," Sachiel says, and Sam has the Colt aimed right at the demon, right between her eyes. "He can kill you."
"It wouldn't matter," the daemon says, with a vicious, amused smile. "Time's up, Dean."
She grabs Marjorie and pulls, pain so sharp that Dean doubles over. Then Marjorie's a sparrow, darting through her hands, a hummingbird among the rafters, hovering.
"Hide," Dean manages, "hide," and she flies out the open door.
"This isn't entertaining, Winchester," the demon says, tight, stepping forward, but Sam shoves the blankets down to reveal the devil's trap drawn on the sheets, one they've been sleeping in the middle of for three days.
"I wouldn't," he says, cold, and the last thing Dean hears before he passes out is her hiss of rage.
When he wakes, later, the only thing he knows is that Marjorie's too far away, and he's alone.
"Trust her," Sachiel says, lying on top of him; her touch is the only thing keeping Dean from going under again.
The afternoon drags by - Marjorie's close enough to keep them both alive, but far enough that Dean can feel it, pain so bad he's feverish, almost delirious. It feels like his bones are splitting, like his heart might be breaking, and it's still not as terrible as the knowledge that she's feeling it too, alone. Dean can't stay conscious, so Sam's the only one keeping track of the clock. Dean only knows it's over because Sachiel leaves his back.
"We'll find her," she says, steady, and Dean watches the numbers slide by on Sam's watch, ten minutes, then twenty, then half an hour, and something - a low shock, a good shock, steady pressure down his spine, and he hears the screen door of the farm house slam.
"Shh," Sam says, "Dean," and tips her forward into his hands, a mouse, trembling and exhausted.
"It's over," Marjorie says, and Dean can breathe for what seems like the first time in memory, her fur against his skin.
"You were so brave," he whispers, too tired to even sit up, his eyes closing, and they fall asleep together, close enough that Dean can feel her heart hammering beneath his thumb, soft and reassuring.
It's like recovering from a long illness, learning each other all over again. They sleep for three days, and even after that, Dean's almost too tired to move. Marjorie sleeps against the hollow of his throat even when Dean's awake; she can't change, anymore, but Dean doesn't think it's permanent.
"It's too goddamned cold in here," Sam says, finally, when August spills over into September and Dean's still sleeping sixteen hours a day. He guides them out of the abandoned farm house, aspens turning gold along the edges of the highway, and drives south to the Roadhouse.
Ellen feeds him four bowls of soup, Jo's rattlesnake daemon asleep under the heat lamp behind the bar while she waits tables, and they stay for a weekend, until Sam pushes him into the car again.
"I'm not living in a goddamned cottage," Dean says, when they pull into the driveway; it has a fucking white picket fence and gingerbread trim and an herb garden.
"It's Ellen's," Sam says. "Just until you're well."
Dean falls asleep in the car, waiting Sam out, and when he wakes up, Sachiel's teeth are against his leg.
"Inside," she says, in a tone that Dean's pretty sure means he's going to get bitten, and so he slips Marjorie into his pocket and carries his duffle into the kitchen.
Sam's cutting up vegetables, humming to himself, and when he hears Dean come in, he turns around, backed against the counter.
"It's got central heating," he says, looking exasperated. "Stop fighting me on this one."
"It's just him," Marjorie says, out of his pocket, and then she's a cat, winding around Sachiel's legs. Dean's relieved enough that he gives up.
In November, it snows six inches over night and Sam and Marjorie chase each other around the yard at full speed, border collie then leopard then snowshoe hare, until Sam tackles Marjorie into a snow bank. Dean can feel it from the kitchen where he's making breakfast, warm and satisfied. He's breaking eggs into a dish when he hears Sachiel make a soft noise across the kitchen.
"Dean," she says, soft, and when she leans against him, Dean suddenly can't stand.
It's the reason this is forbidden, the feeling he's never been able to hit just right from touching her, Sam, heavy beneath his skin, heat pooling low in his stomach.
"Jesus," he manages, fingers tight on the counter.
Sachiel laughs, low, like she knows something he doesn't. Dean gets it when Sam stumbles into the kitchen, flushed, holding Marjorie in his arms. Then she's sliding forward, head down, an otter again. He watches Sachiel meet her, slow, then has to look away; between them, it's obvious, affection he can feel like adrenaline.
"Hey," Sam says, stepping forward, hands out. He's uncertain, but there's a smile pulling up the corner of his mouth, and Dean feels everything click into place.
Sam backs him up against the counter, easy, focused, and Dean unwinds his scarf slowly, like waiting is going to make a difference.
"Well," Sam says, soft, and Dean glances at their daemons; Marjorie's a leopard, so close their fur blends together.
"Well," Dean says, and when Sam tilts his face up and kisses him, it's warm, steady pressure and the answer to something he's been turning over for years.
Sam kisses like he does everything else, more intense than Dean's used to, all heat and slow swipes of his tongue. He nudges Dean back against the sink as he licks into his mouth, hungry, and spreads a hand against Dean's back, pressing their hips together. Sam's unbuckling Dean's belt before Dean manages to get Sam's coat off, so Dean has to push him back for a second.
"Hold on," he manages, laughing, shoving Sam's winter jacket off his shoulders. Sam flushes all over, down beneath his collar.
"It's been three fucking years," he manages, squirming when Dean slides his hands up under his shirt, "so can we -"
Dean laughs, again, and shoves him backwards into the living room, down onto the couch, and unbuttons Sam's jeans, damp from the snow.
"Take it easy," he says, sliding to his knees, mouth against the warm skin of Sam's stomach. Dean gets a hand into Sam's boxers, wrapping his fingers around him, already half-hard, and strokes until Sam's making low, soft noises, hips pushing up into Dean's hand.
"Fuck, Dean," Sam manages, breathing hard when Dean licks his way up Sam's cock. Sam's hips jerk when Dean slides his mouth down over the head, fast and wet and a little messy, and Dean barely sucks at all before Sam's coming down his throat, hands fisted against the leather cushions.
After, Sam pushes him down and sprawls out beside him. He pulls Dean's jeans off and runs his fingers up and down Dean's dick until he can't breathe, then strokes him off between warm, wet kisses, until Dean comes all over Sam's hands.
"Yenta," Sam says to Sachiel, dryly amused; she's curled up in the winter sun with Marjorie, breathing hard. She doesn't even bother to protest, just flicks her tail at him, and Dean falls asleep listening to the low rumble of her purr and Sam's steady breathing against his shoulder.
That afternoon, Dean's doing dishes in the kitchen, not thinking about much other than hot water and soap, when he hears Sam push aside his book at the table.
"Marjorie," he says, thoughtful, maybe, and she untangles herself from Sachiel and goes to him. Sam cups her face in his hands, rubbing his thumb behind her ears, and Dean rinses a glass, warm all over.
"I think," Sam says.
"Hm," Marjorie says, and Dean sees her shift out of the corner of her eye, then turns around without entirely meaning to, feeling the soft pull between them.
Sam lets go and Marjorie turns toward him, soft and quiet and beautiful, and Dean kneels down as she pads across the kitchen. He touches her, hesitant, letting her press up into his hands. He can feel Sam's smile from a cross the room.
"A coyote," he says, quiet.
"A coyote," Marjorie echoes, certain, and it's just right.