Big Bang Fic: The Long Way Down (2/2)
Title: The Long Way Down (2/2)
Author(s): cajun_chick411
Crossover: Reaper
Disclaimer: I don't own SPN and I don't own Reaper!
Type: Gen
Word Count: 15,600~
Characters/Pairings: Sam Oliver/Crossroads Demon (briefly)
Warnings: As a rating, I would say PG-13
Spoilers: Season 1 of Reaper and Seasons 1-3 of SPN
Artist: davincis_girl
Link to Art: here!
Summary: When Sam Oliver is killed on the job, his journey through hell introduces him to several interesting characters as he tries to figure out whether or not he really belongs. A series of vignettes that connect towards a common end.
Author’s Notes: First, I'd like to thank davincis_girl for the wonderful artwork for this story, and ittykat for helping me beta this story (even if I wasn't able to implement more than the most basic of suggestions, thank you mono and finals). I'm generally a oneshot writer, 2,000-5,000 words at the most, so this was a challenge for me, but a good one! I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope that someone out there enjoys it :)
Part One is, here!
Sam hadn't known Maria Gonzales very well, if at all, really, so for her presence in Hell to shatter his world view would have been a slight extreme, but that didn't stop the continued sounds of her Spanish prayers running through his head from chipping away at the foundations. Every so often he couldn't help wondering if that hadn't been the Devil's plan, and of course that only made him want to put the whole experience out of his head, but the less he tried to think about it, the more it came to mind.
"The house always wins, kid," Sam could hear the Devil laughing all too loudly in the dark recesses of his brain. His insistent need to always be right was getting old.
He'd been removed from the cell soon after his conversation with Dean and sent back to Earth, the Crossroads Demon looking none too happy to see him again.
"You were down there almost five years. Daddy knock some sense into you?" was the first thing she asked when they met once again.
"Shut up." Sam brushed past her, headed down the familiar dirt path that led to the crossroads where they did the dirty work.
She laughed, calling out, "sounds like you grew a pair," before striking out behind him in the same direction.
Crossroads lore had to have been abundant wherever they were (Sam couldn't place it, and simply assumed somewhere down south judging from the nighttime humidity) and they didn't have to wait long at all after sunset for a young woman to show up, bag and small gardening shovel in hand. She got down on her hands and knees unabashedly and started digging into the ground. It wasn't long before the hole was deep enough for her to plant the bag inside and quickly cover it back up. She stood back up after that, waiting almost too expectantly for the things that went bump in the night to show up and grant her her wish.
As much as he didn't want to admit it, Sam knew one thing for sure: these people did it to themselves.
"I don't do women," the Crossroads Demon leaned easily against a tree just behind Sam, eyes flashing black as she smiled wickedly. "She's all yours."
Sam shook his head. "I'm not a demon."
"Don't even try that excuse," she tossed her head back, laughing heartily. "You're the son of Satan. Demon or not, any deal made with you is going to take. Go on. Pucker up. You're lucky, she's cute." Far too cute to be selling her life away, but Sam didn't say that. His reluctant walk forward began instead as he told himself that maybe, just maybe, he could get her to change her mind, take the bag back, and run as far as she could in the other direction.
Except since his twenty-first birthday, Sam could count on one hand the amount of times things had actually worked out the way he wanted them to.
He didn't know when he'd become invisible in the first place or when he'd broken that shroud of magic, but the girl jumped when he walked out of thin air not ten feet in front of the spot where she'd buried her spell.
"Hi."
"Hi."
It was his first soul and Sam, being Sam, was making it painfully obvious.
"Are you…"
"Yeah."
She couldn't have been that much older than him if she was a day. Clouds covered most of the moonlight he might have used to see by, but Sam could make out enough to make his stomach lurch at the fact that she was standing in front of him, ready to essentially make a deal with the Devil. His eyes met her brown ones and from there he began taking in her dark skin, full lips, slightly upturned nose, and small ears almost hidden behind long hair. Even this much, he didn't want to know. Worst of all was the Denny's nametag on her shirt that read 'Cora'. The last thing he needed was a name to put to the soul.
You used to do this all the time, he tried telling himself. But he knew that this was completely different. This girl had never been to Hell and she wasn't trying to escape. Yet.
"I want out of this town," Cora said. Her words, equally desperate and bold, dripped down over a thick Southern accent. "I wanna be discovered. I can sing, see, but here no one knows and they don't care. But my grandma always used to tell me 'bout the crossroads. Gris-gris bag and a little dirt and you get what you want. Said my cousin did it before I was born… moved to Europe and we never heard from her again. Probably 'cause she found something better over there. That's what I want, something better. So you're gonna make me a singer."
Sam could only assume that they'd never heard from this cousin because at some point the hell hounds had come for her as they did for all who made deals. They're all down here for a reason…
"You don't want me to do this." Sam looked at her before pointing at the pile of dirt where the bag lay underneath. "Seriously, you should dig that thing up."
"I thought you said were the-"
"I am." Sam cut her off, not wanting to actually hear her call him a demon. "But I'm not like- I don't want you to do something that you're going to regret."
"Oh no," she said, her voice determined. "I'll regret staying in this town more. I want it. I know it can happen. There're stories about this spot a mile long."
"I'm not a genie, It's not free."
Cora nodded. "I know. You want my soul, don't you? And not the one outta my shoe like Br'er Rabbit," she laughed almost bitterly at her own joke. "You can have it. What do I need it for?"
"…to live?" Sam felt as if the answer was obvious.
"I'd rather live famous without it."
Sam didn't know what he was supposed to say to that or how he was supposed to convince someone so set on doing something that it was the worst possible thing they could do to themselves. He would've given anything to own his soul, or even to have the illusion of owning it. "You'll only have ten years left if you do this. You get ten years of fame and whatever, but when it's up you'll die and you'll go to hell," he finally said in the bluntest manner possible. "I mean that's not-obviously that's not what you want, right?"
"Ten years is a long time," she answered simply, shrugging her shoulders. "I want to make a deal."
Those are the words, Sam. Do it. The Crossroads Demon's voice seemed to float through the air on the breeze for his ears only. Cora gave no indication that she'd heard the voice and just stood in front of him, waiting. Sam looked over his shoulder toward the clump of trees he'd walked out of. He could see the demon there, leaning against her tree and waiting. She looked as impatient as Cora did pleading, both wanting him to get on with the task at hand but for completely different reasons. Sam would've preferred to be anywhere else. Contrary to popular belief, we do not have forever. Hurry up.
"Hell is worse than you think, trust me. It’s-" He paused as he struggled to think of a way to put exactly what he'd experienced into words, but he couldn't. Failing at that, he separated himself, or tried to at least, as he attempted to describe the experiences of others. But that was impossible as well. Torture, beatings, flames licking at your feet while demons poked at you with whatever they felt fit well into their hands that day, the Devil making it his business to single handedly and thoroughly ruin your life… well, it was most likely that the last was only him, but the point remained the same.
Sam didn't know how to put it into words and Cora seemed to catch that hitch in his voice. Before he was able to figure out how he intended to explain why she didn't want to do this, she was speaking again. "I want to make a deal. Ten years, right? You make me a star."
She's an idiot, Sam thought.
That's really not your problem, the demon answered.
Maybe not, but Sam couldn't help thinking it partially was, after all he was in charge of bargaining for her soul. But she was an idiot. Some would probably say he was just biased given what his own parents had done, but in his mind that didn't matter. Hell was Hell, no matter which was you sliced it and Sam didn't understand why anyone would want to go there purposely, even if it was ten years down the line. Ten years still meant it was coming, and he could only imagine that the closer it got the more it felt like a freight train hurtling towards you. Nothing you could do, nothing you could say to avoid it, all because you'd made one stupid choice even after being warned by the one who was going to take your soul into his hands.
Cora was twice the idiot, as far as Sam could tell. He could only guess that those of Lilith's ilk didn't go around warning their victims before striking and sealing their deals. He'd tried to do her a favour, but she had whatever defect there was in humanity that made them go against the grain and take the candy from the stranger, or in this case the deal from the demon. They all wanted the easy way out.
If that was the case, then did they deserve it? No, that was the Devil talking.
But if it was her choice then wasn't it better than what his father did on a regular basis. She had summoned him, not the other way around. He hadn't walked into an AA meeting with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand and a grin on his face like some people he knew. They'd been laying in wait at the crossroads, but the woman in front of him begging for a change in life had been the one to do the summoning. Sam cast a glance back to the mound of dirt in the center of the crossroads. She'd collected the ingredients for the bag, dug the hole, and muttered the spell. He couldn't feel guilty for being an inevitable consequence of a stupid decision. After all, if it wasn't him it would be someone. Most likely the demon leaning in the trees. She'd do it, even if she didn't particularly like kissing other women. Like she'd said, at least Cora was cute.
"Well?" Cora asked and Sam looked at her, determined to find some sort of nervousness or regret in her eyes. The problem was, there was none and he hated it, but it was hard to have sympathy for someone who would willingly do this not after what his parents had done. As far as he could tell, she wasn't ill, she wasn't dying -yet, anyway-she just didn't like working at Dennys. "Fuck it."
"What?"
Sam looked up and from the way Cora jumped back he knew that his reflection had changed and that he probably didn't want to know how. But at least, he thought to himself, she was finally scared. It was a deal with the Devil. You were supposed to be scared. "Fine."
"It's a deal?" He almost laughed when the woman offered up her hand, as if a simple shake was going to do it. There was a lot she had to learn about Hell.
Looking at her hand, he shook his head. "It takes more than a handshake."
"Are you going to take it now?"
"Take what?"
"My soul."
"Uh, no. I meant-" Prolonging the entire thing was certainly possible, but Sam cut himself off. Why explain when he could just do and then get out of there. They couldn't possibly have more than one customer per crossroads per night, the legends and stories couldn't be that popular and there couldn't be that many people who believed them. He figured it had to be different, driving all the way out into the middle of nowhere to burry a bag in the middle of the road, than having the Devil himself turn up in your living room.
He stared at her again, briefly wondering what she was seeing in him that put that look in her eyes, but still not entirely wanting to know.
Tick, tock, tick, tock… the demon's voice sounded slightly.
It was just a kiss. It wasn't like kissing Andi, no, but it was just a kiss. No more, no less. And she'd asked for it. It was her choice, her decision to accept the kiss that would send her to Hell in ten years time. That only slightly helped the eerie feeling that washed over him as he grabbed Cora by the arm, pulling her in close and quickly placing his other hand on her cheek as their lips met.
It wasn't until he had her lower lip between his teeth --having already taken the kiss much further than he'd meant it-that he felt it, a small tendril of power winding around him slowly as their lips continued to meet. For a moment he contemplated pulling away, wanting to know if there were objects floating and orbiting around them. It felt almost like that, at least the few tastes he'd gotten from his completely uncontrolled telekinesis, but there was something more sinister about this. It crawled up through him, from his stomach. Sam would have sworn he could feel it latching tiny hands as it worked its way up through his throat, pushing its way out through his mouth and into hers where it grabbed onto every piece of who she was and worked on ingraining itself within her until, by the time they'd pulled away, Sam could practically see the taint of the deal surrounding her. A faint change to her aura that would mark Cora as a member of this obscene fraternity to any demons who encountered her, and to the Hounds of Hell who would eventually come for her mortal soul…
…At one forty-three in the morning, ten years from now.
Sam grabbed her again, leaning back in to press his lips up against hers as he willed the process to begin anew. He could feel it, power again crawling out of him towards her ready to go and steal a few more years of her life away.
But before he could become too comfortable or too involved, he felt a hand on his shoulder and it proceeded to wrest him away from Cora with a force and grip Sam couldn't help but acquiesce to.
When he turned around, it was the demon, not Cora who faced him. He could see the other woman still there, but quickly realised that as soon as he'd been pulled from her, she'd lost the ability to see him. He recognized the look on her face, obviously wondering whether or not she'd just dreamed the entire encounter.
A soft hand on his face gently steered his vision away from the mortal woman. "Well?" asked the Crossroads Demon.
Instead of answering, Sam leaned in and kissed her. It was just as deep and just as purposeful as the kiss she'd interrupted and the one before that, and he kept it going waiting for that feeling of power that Cora had provided. The demon only responded in kind, pulling him closer with a hand that rested on the back of his head and one around his shoulder. He waited for something to happen. Anything to rekindle the surge of power he felt missing. But nothing happened.
The demon pulled away just briefly, only to return and trace a trail of kisses up his cheek towards his ear. Her hand threaded through his hair as she leaned in to whisper to him, "As much as I enjoy this, you can't take my soul, Sam. Stop trying."
Throwing cold water over his head would have been equally as effective. "What are you…?"
"First soul," she said simply, tracing her thumb across his face, just underneath his eyes. Something she saw there appeared to make her smile. "Your father'll be proud."
And there was the ice to accompany the water. "He's not my-" He stopped himself. That argument, given what he'd just done, was null and void. "No he won't."
"You enjoyed it." She pressed her body up against his and kissed him again. Almost immediately Sam could feel his power looking for something to latch onto within her. But she was a demon and there was nothing there so it just stayed there screaming for release in other ways, and as she continued to kiss him the other ways slowly became more than apparent.
"So?" he managed to pull away for only seconds.
"It felt good, didn't it?" she asked almost innocently. Her hand moved gently across his scalp. "You even went back in for a second helping. That's an overachiever if I've ever seen one." She laughed at her own joke before kissing him again, this time allowing her hands to wander.
In his own defense, Sam would cite the fact that she was a Crossroads Demon. Temptation came naturally to her as a tool of the trade. He could have stopped her and stopped what happened next, but she was doing everything to make that look like the least desirable of options. The longer she stayed attached to him the more determined the power inside of him was to have a place of release, even if it wasn't through the taking of a soul. She had to know this.
Sam barely felt the ground hit his knees when they both fell, He could see Cora, still confused, wandering away from them in the corner of his eye, but when he tried to watch her the demon very firmly redirected his gaze towards her and a few purposeful squeezes made sure that his attentions stayed on her until some time later when they'd both successfully quelled his need for release.
---
"It's about survival, I get it. I respect that, but don't be afraid to admit that you're starting to like it."
Sam was a known presence around the 'office'. It wasn't unusual to see him where it had all started, seated cross-legged in the corner on the floor of a cell studying what was going on in front of him.
"I am not enjoying it."
"Deny it all you want, Samuel. You're the one sitting on my floor watching me work."
"You have a nice ass."
"I know that, and it doesn't change the fact that it's not my ass you're looking at. It's gone past obligation at this point. You're daddy's little boy. If you hated it so much you'd have asked for a switch by now. You've done it before."
That wasn't worth arguing over and even as he opened his mouth to do it, Sam knew there was no point. This was what? Job the eighth… ninth… tenth? He'd lost count.
"You go from job, to job, to job… and I don't think it's because you hate them anymore. Is it?
Sam liked Bela Talbot about as much as he liked anyone else he'd met in Hell, which was to say not very much at all. He thought she talked too much. She thought he was in denial. It wasn't the sort of thing where one of them had to be right and one of them had to be wrong which was bothersome because there was every possibility that they could both be right. Bela's accusation was far more worrisome than his own against her. After all, he was the one taking souls weekly.
He told himself it was because he liked what happened after doing the deed, not the power he used during it. Even if what occurred between he and the demon was a direct result of his desire to continue what the bargaining over souls had already begun.
It was a conscious decision when he decided not to think about that. He stood up instead, wandering closer to Bela and the man on her rack. He was unconscious. "Who is this?"
"I've not got a clue," Bela answered, going through a chest of supplies that Sam knew all too well from his time on the rack. Her fingers ran slowly over tools with the same loving touches he knew Alistair gave them. She turned around only when Sam took a few steps closer. "But I wouldn't worry about it. He touched children."
"If you don't know who he is then how do you know that?" Sam asked.
"Because they're the only ones I get," she answered simply. "I know what to do with them. And I'm willing to admit, unlike you, that I enjoy it."
That didn't earn her many points in Sam's mind, not that much would. "You've got no idea what you're talking about."
"That's not what I've heard." Bela, on her knees, continued rustling through the tool chest. Now he was staring at her ass. "If you haven't figured it out by now, demons talk down here and you're right up there with the Boy King."
"The who?" Sam decided just seconds after asking that it wasn't important. "I don't enjoy it, it just…" his voice trailed away as he walked closer to the rack.
"Hmm?"
"It doesn't count after you explain it to them."
"Explain what to who?"
Sam found himself poking at the man's thigh, wondering if he would move. When he didn't Sam stopped, jerking his hand back to his side as if he'd only just realised what he was doing. "I mean, it doesn't count if you tell them what they're signing up for, tell them about everything they're going to see and experience down here, and then they still want to go through with it. If they can't understand that selling their soul to the Devil after you explain exactly what that means, then it doesn't count if I enjoy it. It's not my fault."
"Well it's never been your fault." He could practically hear Bela rolling her eyes. "And you're right. Some of us were stupid. We all got what we deserved-and some of us get a bit of time off for good behaviour."
"Good behaviour? What's that mean to Alistair… screaming loud enough?"
"Keeping the screams to yourself," she said before laughing. "The way they tell it, you'd still be on there if he hadn't intervened."
"Gee, thanks." That was probably the nepotism the Devil had been so worried about.
After pulling everything she'd been looking for out of the chest, Bela got up off the floor. She dusted off her jean clad thighs and looked him straight in the eye as she picked up one of the knives that she'd just picked out, blade first. She held it out to him so that he could take the hilt. "You are who you are, Samuel. You're the Devil's little boy, and you've got to be to survive down here. I don't know why you would try to be anything else. You like what you like. Deal with it. You're not running away from me like you have the others because you're scared of what you might find out about yourself.
she thrust the knife towards his hand again, looking at him expectantly until he wrapped his hand around it." Here. Let's see what else you enjoy."
---
It turned out there was a lot he enjoyed.
"I'm proud of you, Sammy." Five words he'd never liked to hear the Devil say before, but now here they were, and it was hardly the first time they'd crossed his lips. Sam supposed that between a steady stream of sex with a demon, and a daily routine that more often than not included time spent in a room with knives, blood, and the sounds of the screaming condemned, the words had reason to be come far more commonplace in his life.
Besides, what was he supposed to do when even the angels told him this was his destiny?
"I like where you're going. Does me good to see, y'know?" The Devil stood by the sidebar in his office, pouring two glasses of scotch. There was a bit of blood on his face marring his usually impeccable appearance, and one or two white feathers were clinging to his suit jacket. "Even with all the meshugas out there. Here," he handed one of the glasses to Sam. "You look like you need a drink."
He neglected to make any comment that the Devil sounded like someone's grandmother and instead just took the offered glass. He really did need it. "What the hell was that about?"
"Raid of angels. They happen."
"They… happen?"
"Every millennia or so. It's not a huge thing, but the paperwork's murder."
Sam drained his glass at that. Decades in hell and every so often something still managed to take him off guard. "Why?"
"The big man upstairs decided he wanted someone back," the Devil answered with a shrug. "You win some, you lose some. I put up a fight, kill a few of them for appearances, but here's a secret, Sammy: I don't really give a hoot."
"Who was it?" Sam sat down easily in front of his desk. It was hardly anything like the scene when he'd first arrived, tired after ten years of torture and angry. Now he crossed his legs, leaned back against the plush leather, and while he wasn't happy to be here, he accepted it. He turned the glass over in his hands and waited patiently for the Devil to answer his question. That he could accept having a conversation with the Devil was, in itself, a vast improvement.
The Devil knew this, he had to. "Dean Winchester. Honestly, the minions are obsessed with him and his brother. Business-wise it'd be nice to have them both, sure, especially since the big man's so interested in Dean, but it ain't necessary." He laughed, taking a sip from his scotch. "So I put up a fight, chop off a few wings, tempt a few holier-than-thou asses while they're down here, and let the rest of them get away with what they want. Alistair loses a pet project and believe me, he'll be bitching about that one at staff meetings for weeks, but in the end it all works out. I replaced one human soul with three angelic ones, and another one on the way."
"Another one?"
"He'll be down here soon. Three months tops. Want to put some money on it? He was with the one you stopped to have a chat with-don't look so surprised, Sammy. I can smell angel on you," he laughed again and raised an eyebrow in Sam's direction. "Don't lie to your dear old dad."
Sam had to stop himself from spitting out some sort of snide remark in reply. The 'you're not my father' line had gotten old decades ago. Lying to the Devil was something else he'd learned not to do early on. "Yeah, I talked to one." And those two or so minutes had told Sam more than all his decades in hell.
"Want to share?"
"Not really." It wasn't a lie. It was the honest truth.
"No, Sammy," The Devil emptied his glass, the rest of the brown liquid disappearing down his throat in one last gulp. He set the heavy tumbler down on the table with an audible thump and looked pointedly at Sam. "I want to hear what Castiel said to you."
"He didn't tell me his name."
"What did he say?"
It wasn't something that Sam wanted to revisit, his talk with the angel Castiel. It hadn't been long and it hadn't -perhaps-been the friendliest thing in the world, but it had happened.
Sam knew an angel when he saw one. The wings tended to give that sort of thing away along with the whole aura of a divine presence that surrounded them and seemed to scare off so many of the demons that had originally swelled up to fight against them. Only the strongest, most determined stayed in the fray, the rest skulking back to defend their right to the sinners they had strung up by meat hooks and chains. But Sam knew, watching them, that if it came down to it they would give those up as well, rather than die. There were plenty of souls in Hell. Most were taken aback when it turned out that the invading angels didn't want to take their tortured souls from them.
Just the one.
And for a moment Sam had found himself in a stare down with an angel of the lord, as that angel held tightly to Dean's shoulder with just one hand. The soul Dean had been working on remained tethered to chains from the ceiling, blood dripping from the various wounds that had been inflicted over the course of the session. Dean had no choice but to drop his tools as soon as the angel's death grip slammed down on his shoulder. Sam dropped his out of pure fear tinged with a good deal of guilt.
The clanging of the knife against the floor of the cell was all too audible against the silence which Sam found himself breaking, with two words.
"Why him?"
"I'm sorry?"
Sam pointed at Dean, nearly limp in Castiel's grip. "Why him?"
"You mean why not you." He could have sworn that the angel next to him, one who took the form of an imposing, dark skinned man, was laughing underneath his breath. If anything he seemed to find this amusing. Sam was glad someone did.
"Because this is his path, and this," Castiel answered shortly, nodding around the room. "Is yours, Samuel, son of Lucifer."
"I belong here."
"I'm sorry," the Devil looked up from the sidebar where he was once more pouring a drink. "I think I missed that. You what?"
"He said I belonged here."
The Devil grinned. "He tells you that and suddenly you want to believe it? I've been telling you that for years, kiddo."
He didn't protest. "I know."
"And now you believe it?
"What am I supposed to believe?" Sam asked blankly, the words devoid of the anger or disbelief that could have filled the space. He stared up at his father and shook his head. "It's different when it comes from an angel."
Rolling his eyes, the Devil grabbed Sam's glass and started to pour him a second drink. "I think I'm insulted, possibly on behalf of my entire population," he said with a short laugh. "Look around you, Sammy. Past the office, past the minions, past the bureaucracy. Think about where you've been spending time. Think about the cell those angels just dragged your friend out of. You have the blood of the soul you were torturing on your shirt. You bargain with people for their souls knowing first hand the consequences of a deal with the Devil, and then fuck the demon that harvests them on the spot where they've sold you their lives and you enjoy it. I saw you out there, just now, put a knife through an angel, one of the holiest of beings. You stepped over him when he fell, Sam. You defended Hell. You defended your home and your place as my son, and you doubted the fact that you belong here? Were you that deluded? Because if that's the case, then maybe I need to send Castiel a thank you note.
"But I don't think you were that deluded," He placed the glass in Sam's hand, smiling and very obviously shaking with laugher as he did. "Deluded, no. Denial… maybe. But I'm glad we're over that, because I'll be honest… it's boring. Watching you enjoy yourself and then turn around to go sulk in your room because you enjoy using the powers I gave you? Makes me feel damned unappreciated for one, it doesn't do you any good. You've hit your stride down here, Sammy, and you don't belong anywhere else. If it takes an angel of the Lord to make you realize that, then fine. But now that you've got it through your thick skull that you are my son, I don't want to hear anything else about it."
"Now." The Devil leaned a hip against his desk and stared down at Sam. "You're going to finish your drink. Then you're going to go oversee the cleanup that little skirmish caused. After that, I believe there's a soul that needs collecting somewhere in Paris and I think you should take that demon friend of yours with you. Think of it as a mini-vacation, father to son. You need a break, I understand that. Take it. Come back refreshed. Because, Castiel was right. You belong here and contract on your soul or not you, my kid, were meant to serve at my side."
After that? There was nothing to do but down yet another glass of scotch. "Pick-me-ups are not your thing, are they?"
"I'm the Prince of Darkness, Sammy. Finish your drink and get going," he answered in his typical 'that should be obvious' tone that Sam often thought he didn't use on anyone but him.
With a smile and slight wave of his hand he nodded towards Sam and pointed towards the office door. "You've got work to do."
Author(s): cajun_chick411
Crossover: Reaper
Disclaimer: I don't own SPN and I don't own Reaper!
Type: Gen
Word Count: 15,600~
Characters/Pairings: Sam Oliver/Crossroads Demon (briefly)
Warnings: As a rating, I would say PG-13
Spoilers: Season 1 of Reaper and Seasons 1-3 of SPN
Artist: davincis_girl
Link to Art: here!
Summary: When Sam Oliver is killed on the job, his journey through hell introduces him to several interesting characters as he tries to figure out whether or not he really belongs. A series of vignettes that connect towards a common end.
Author’s Notes: First, I'd like to thank davincis_girl for the wonderful artwork for this story, and ittykat for helping me beta this story (even if I wasn't able to implement more than the most basic of suggestions, thank you mono and finals). I'm generally a oneshot writer, 2,000-5,000 words at the most, so this was a challenge for me, but a good one! I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope that someone out there enjoys it :)
Part One is, here!
Sam hadn't known Maria Gonzales very well, if at all, really, so for her presence in Hell to shatter his world view would have been a slight extreme, but that didn't stop the continued sounds of her Spanish prayers running through his head from chipping away at the foundations. Every so often he couldn't help wondering if that hadn't been the Devil's plan, and of course that only made him want to put the whole experience out of his head, but the less he tried to think about it, the more it came to mind.
"The house always wins, kid," Sam could hear the Devil laughing all too loudly in the dark recesses of his brain. His insistent need to always be right was getting old.
He'd been removed from the cell soon after his conversation with Dean and sent back to Earth, the Crossroads Demon looking none too happy to see him again.
"You were down there almost five years. Daddy knock some sense into you?" was the first thing she asked when they met once again.
"Shut up." Sam brushed past her, headed down the familiar dirt path that led to the crossroads where they did the dirty work.
She laughed, calling out, "sounds like you grew a pair," before striking out behind him in the same direction.
Crossroads lore had to have been abundant wherever they were (Sam couldn't place it, and simply assumed somewhere down south judging from the nighttime humidity) and they didn't have to wait long at all after sunset for a young woman to show up, bag and small gardening shovel in hand. She got down on her hands and knees unabashedly and started digging into the ground. It wasn't long before the hole was deep enough for her to plant the bag inside and quickly cover it back up. She stood back up after that, waiting almost too expectantly for the things that went bump in the night to show up and grant her her wish.
As much as he didn't want to admit it, Sam knew one thing for sure: these people did it to themselves.
"I don't do women," the Crossroads Demon leaned easily against a tree just behind Sam, eyes flashing black as she smiled wickedly. "She's all yours."
Sam shook his head. "I'm not a demon."
"Don't even try that excuse," she tossed her head back, laughing heartily. "You're the son of Satan. Demon or not, any deal made with you is going to take. Go on. Pucker up. You're lucky, she's cute." Far too cute to be selling her life away, but Sam didn't say that. His reluctant walk forward began instead as he told himself that maybe, just maybe, he could get her to change her mind, take the bag back, and run as far as she could in the other direction.
Except since his twenty-first birthday, Sam could count on one hand the amount of times things had actually worked out the way he wanted them to.
He didn't know when he'd become invisible in the first place or when he'd broken that shroud of magic, but the girl jumped when he walked out of thin air not ten feet in front of the spot where she'd buried her spell.
"Hi."
"Hi."
It was his first soul and Sam, being Sam, was making it painfully obvious.
"Are you…"
"Yeah."
She couldn't have been that much older than him if she was a day. Clouds covered most of the moonlight he might have used to see by, but Sam could make out enough to make his stomach lurch at the fact that she was standing in front of him, ready to essentially make a deal with the Devil. His eyes met her brown ones and from there he began taking in her dark skin, full lips, slightly upturned nose, and small ears almost hidden behind long hair. Even this much, he didn't want to know. Worst of all was the Denny's nametag on her shirt that read 'Cora'. The last thing he needed was a name to put to the soul.
You used to do this all the time, he tried telling himself. But he knew that this was completely different. This girl had never been to Hell and she wasn't trying to escape. Yet.
"I want out of this town," Cora said. Her words, equally desperate and bold, dripped down over a thick Southern accent. "I wanna be discovered. I can sing, see, but here no one knows and they don't care. But my grandma always used to tell me 'bout the crossroads. Gris-gris bag and a little dirt and you get what you want. Said my cousin did it before I was born… moved to Europe and we never heard from her again. Probably 'cause she found something better over there. That's what I want, something better. So you're gonna make me a singer."
Sam could only assume that they'd never heard from this cousin because at some point the hell hounds had come for her as they did for all who made deals. They're all down here for a reason…
"You don't want me to do this." Sam looked at her before pointing at the pile of dirt where the bag lay underneath. "Seriously, you should dig that thing up."
"I thought you said were the-"
"I am." Sam cut her off, not wanting to actually hear her call him a demon. "But I'm not like- I don't want you to do something that you're going to regret."
"Oh no," she said, her voice determined. "I'll regret staying in this town more. I want it. I know it can happen. There're stories about this spot a mile long."
"I'm not a genie, It's not free."
Cora nodded. "I know. You want my soul, don't you? And not the one outta my shoe like Br'er Rabbit," she laughed almost bitterly at her own joke. "You can have it. What do I need it for?"
"…to live?" Sam felt as if the answer was obvious.
"I'd rather live famous without it."
Sam didn't know what he was supposed to say to that or how he was supposed to convince someone so set on doing something that it was the worst possible thing they could do to themselves. He would've given anything to own his soul, or even to have the illusion of owning it. "You'll only have ten years left if you do this. You get ten years of fame and whatever, but when it's up you'll die and you'll go to hell," he finally said in the bluntest manner possible. "I mean that's not-obviously that's not what you want, right?"
"Ten years is a long time," she answered simply, shrugging her shoulders. "I want to make a deal."
Those are the words, Sam. Do it. The Crossroads Demon's voice seemed to float through the air on the breeze for his ears only. Cora gave no indication that she'd heard the voice and just stood in front of him, waiting. Sam looked over his shoulder toward the clump of trees he'd walked out of. He could see the demon there, leaning against her tree and waiting. She looked as impatient as Cora did pleading, both wanting him to get on with the task at hand but for completely different reasons. Sam would've preferred to be anywhere else. Contrary to popular belief, we do not have forever. Hurry up.
"Hell is worse than you think, trust me. It’s-" He paused as he struggled to think of a way to put exactly what he'd experienced into words, but he couldn't. Failing at that, he separated himself, or tried to at least, as he attempted to describe the experiences of others. But that was impossible as well. Torture, beatings, flames licking at your feet while demons poked at you with whatever they felt fit well into their hands that day, the Devil making it his business to single handedly and thoroughly ruin your life… well, it was most likely that the last was only him, but the point remained the same.
Sam didn't know how to put it into words and Cora seemed to catch that hitch in his voice. Before he was able to figure out how he intended to explain why she didn't want to do this, she was speaking again. "I want to make a deal. Ten years, right? You make me a star."
She's an idiot, Sam thought.
That's really not your problem, the demon answered.
Maybe not, but Sam couldn't help thinking it partially was, after all he was in charge of bargaining for her soul. But she was an idiot. Some would probably say he was just biased given what his own parents had done, but in his mind that didn't matter. Hell was Hell, no matter which was you sliced it and Sam didn't understand why anyone would want to go there purposely, even if it was ten years down the line. Ten years still meant it was coming, and he could only imagine that the closer it got the more it felt like a freight train hurtling towards you. Nothing you could do, nothing you could say to avoid it, all because you'd made one stupid choice even after being warned by the one who was going to take your soul into his hands.
Cora was twice the idiot, as far as Sam could tell. He could only guess that those of Lilith's ilk didn't go around warning their victims before striking and sealing their deals. He'd tried to do her a favour, but she had whatever defect there was in humanity that made them go against the grain and take the candy from the stranger, or in this case the deal from the demon. They all wanted the easy way out.
If that was the case, then did they deserve it? No, that was the Devil talking.
But if it was her choice then wasn't it better than what his father did on a regular basis. She had summoned him, not the other way around. He hadn't walked into an AA meeting with a bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand and a grin on his face like some people he knew. They'd been laying in wait at the crossroads, but the woman in front of him begging for a change in life had been the one to do the summoning. Sam cast a glance back to the mound of dirt in the center of the crossroads. She'd collected the ingredients for the bag, dug the hole, and muttered the spell. He couldn't feel guilty for being an inevitable consequence of a stupid decision. After all, if it wasn't him it would be someone. Most likely the demon leaning in the trees. She'd do it, even if she didn't particularly like kissing other women. Like she'd said, at least Cora was cute.
"Well?" Cora asked and Sam looked at her, determined to find some sort of nervousness or regret in her eyes. The problem was, there was none and he hated it, but it was hard to have sympathy for someone who would willingly do this not after what his parents had done. As far as he could tell, she wasn't ill, she wasn't dying -yet, anyway-she just didn't like working at Dennys. "Fuck it."
"What?"
Sam looked up and from the way Cora jumped back he knew that his reflection had changed and that he probably didn't want to know how. But at least, he thought to himself, she was finally scared. It was a deal with the Devil. You were supposed to be scared. "Fine."
"It's a deal?" He almost laughed when the woman offered up her hand, as if a simple shake was going to do it. There was a lot she had to learn about Hell.
Looking at her hand, he shook his head. "It takes more than a handshake."
"Are you going to take it now?"
"Take what?"
"My soul."
"Uh, no. I meant-" Prolonging the entire thing was certainly possible, but Sam cut himself off. Why explain when he could just do and then get out of there. They couldn't possibly have more than one customer per crossroads per night, the legends and stories couldn't be that popular and there couldn't be that many people who believed them. He figured it had to be different, driving all the way out into the middle of nowhere to burry a bag in the middle of the road, than having the Devil himself turn up in your living room.
He stared at her again, briefly wondering what she was seeing in him that put that look in her eyes, but still not entirely wanting to know.
Tick, tock, tick, tock… the demon's voice sounded slightly.
It was just a kiss. It wasn't like kissing Andi, no, but it was just a kiss. No more, no less. And she'd asked for it. It was her choice, her decision to accept the kiss that would send her to Hell in ten years time. That only slightly helped the eerie feeling that washed over him as he grabbed Cora by the arm, pulling her in close and quickly placing his other hand on her cheek as their lips met.
It wasn't until he had her lower lip between his teeth --having already taken the kiss much further than he'd meant it-that he felt it, a small tendril of power winding around him slowly as their lips continued to meet. For a moment he contemplated pulling away, wanting to know if there were objects floating and orbiting around them. It felt almost like that, at least the few tastes he'd gotten from his completely uncontrolled telekinesis, but there was something more sinister about this. It crawled up through him, from his stomach. Sam would have sworn he could feel it latching tiny hands as it worked its way up through his throat, pushing its way out through his mouth and into hers where it grabbed onto every piece of who she was and worked on ingraining itself within her until, by the time they'd pulled away, Sam could practically see the taint of the deal surrounding her. A faint change to her aura that would mark Cora as a member of this obscene fraternity to any demons who encountered her, and to the Hounds of Hell who would eventually come for her mortal soul…
…At one forty-three in the morning, ten years from now.
Sam grabbed her again, leaning back in to press his lips up against hers as he willed the process to begin anew. He could feel it, power again crawling out of him towards her ready to go and steal a few more years of her life away.
But before he could become too comfortable or too involved, he felt a hand on his shoulder and it proceeded to wrest him away from Cora with a force and grip Sam couldn't help but acquiesce to.
When he turned around, it was the demon, not Cora who faced him. He could see the other woman still there, but quickly realised that as soon as he'd been pulled from her, she'd lost the ability to see him. He recognized the look on her face, obviously wondering whether or not she'd just dreamed the entire encounter.
A soft hand on his face gently steered his vision away from the mortal woman. "Well?" asked the Crossroads Demon.
Instead of answering, Sam leaned in and kissed her. It was just as deep and just as purposeful as the kiss she'd interrupted and the one before that, and he kept it going waiting for that feeling of power that Cora had provided. The demon only responded in kind, pulling him closer with a hand that rested on the back of his head and one around his shoulder. He waited for something to happen. Anything to rekindle the surge of power he felt missing. But nothing happened.
The demon pulled away just briefly, only to return and trace a trail of kisses up his cheek towards his ear. Her hand threaded through his hair as she leaned in to whisper to him, "As much as I enjoy this, you can't take my soul, Sam. Stop trying."
Throwing cold water over his head would have been equally as effective. "What are you…?"
"First soul," she said simply, tracing her thumb across his face, just underneath his eyes. Something she saw there appeared to make her smile. "Your father'll be proud."
And there was the ice to accompany the water. "He's not my-" He stopped himself. That argument, given what he'd just done, was null and void. "No he won't."
"You enjoyed it." She pressed her body up against his and kissed him again. Almost immediately Sam could feel his power looking for something to latch onto within her. But she was a demon and there was nothing there so it just stayed there screaming for release in other ways, and as she continued to kiss him the other ways slowly became more than apparent.
"So?" he managed to pull away for only seconds.
"It felt good, didn't it?" she asked almost innocently. Her hand moved gently across his scalp. "You even went back in for a second helping. That's an overachiever if I've ever seen one." She laughed at her own joke before kissing him again, this time allowing her hands to wander.
In his own defense, Sam would cite the fact that she was a Crossroads Demon. Temptation came naturally to her as a tool of the trade. He could have stopped her and stopped what happened next, but she was doing everything to make that look like the least desirable of options. The longer she stayed attached to him the more determined the power inside of him was to have a place of release, even if it wasn't through the taking of a soul. She had to know this.
Sam barely felt the ground hit his knees when they both fell, He could see Cora, still confused, wandering away from them in the corner of his eye, but when he tried to watch her the demon very firmly redirected his gaze towards her and a few purposeful squeezes made sure that his attentions stayed on her until some time later when they'd both successfully quelled his need for release.
---
"It's about survival, I get it. I respect that, but don't be afraid to admit that you're starting to like it."
Sam was a known presence around the 'office'. It wasn't unusual to see him where it had all started, seated cross-legged in the corner on the floor of a cell studying what was going on in front of him.
"I am not enjoying it."
"Deny it all you want, Samuel. You're the one sitting on my floor watching me work."
"You have a nice ass."
"I know that, and it doesn't change the fact that it's not my ass you're looking at. It's gone past obligation at this point. You're daddy's little boy. If you hated it so much you'd have asked for a switch by now. You've done it before."
That wasn't worth arguing over and even as he opened his mouth to do it, Sam knew there was no point. This was what? Job the eighth… ninth… tenth? He'd lost count.
"You go from job, to job, to job… and I don't think it's because you hate them anymore. Is it?
Sam liked Bela Talbot about as much as he liked anyone else he'd met in Hell, which was to say not very much at all. He thought she talked too much. She thought he was in denial. It wasn't the sort of thing where one of them had to be right and one of them had to be wrong which was bothersome because there was every possibility that they could both be right. Bela's accusation was far more worrisome than his own against her. After all, he was the one taking souls weekly.
He told himself it was because he liked what happened after doing the deed, not the power he used during it. Even if what occurred between he and the demon was a direct result of his desire to continue what the bargaining over souls had already begun.
It was a conscious decision when he decided not to think about that. He stood up instead, wandering closer to Bela and the man on her rack. He was unconscious. "Who is this?"
"I've not got a clue," Bela answered, going through a chest of supplies that Sam knew all too well from his time on the rack. Her fingers ran slowly over tools with the same loving touches he knew Alistair gave them. She turned around only when Sam took a few steps closer. "But I wouldn't worry about it. He touched children."
"If you don't know who he is then how do you know that?" Sam asked.
"Because they're the only ones I get," she answered simply. "I know what to do with them. And I'm willing to admit, unlike you, that I enjoy it."
That didn't earn her many points in Sam's mind, not that much would. "You've got no idea what you're talking about."
"That's not what I've heard." Bela, on her knees, continued rustling through the tool chest. Now he was staring at her ass. "If you haven't figured it out by now, demons talk down here and you're right up there with the Boy King."
"The who?" Sam decided just seconds after asking that it wasn't important. "I don't enjoy it, it just…" his voice trailed away as he walked closer to the rack.
"Hmm?"
"It doesn't count after you explain it to them."
"Explain what to who?"
Sam found himself poking at the man's thigh, wondering if he would move. When he didn't Sam stopped, jerking his hand back to his side as if he'd only just realised what he was doing. "I mean, it doesn't count if you tell them what they're signing up for, tell them about everything they're going to see and experience down here, and then they still want to go through with it. If they can't understand that selling their soul to the Devil after you explain exactly what that means, then it doesn't count if I enjoy it. It's not my fault."
"Well it's never been your fault." He could practically hear Bela rolling her eyes. "And you're right. Some of us were stupid. We all got what we deserved-and some of us get a bit of time off for good behaviour."
"Good behaviour? What's that mean to Alistair… screaming loud enough?"
"Keeping the screams to yourself," she said before laughing. "The way they tell it, you'd still be on there if he hadn't intervened."
"Gee, thanks." That was probably the nepotism the Devil had been so worried about.
After pulling everything she'd been looking for out of the chest, Bela got up off the floor. She dusted off her jean clad thighs and looked him straight in the eye as she picked up one of the knives that she'd just picked out, blade first. She held it out to him so that he could take the hilt. "You are who you are, Samuel. You're the Devil's little boy, and you've got to be to survive down here. I don't know why you would try to be anything else. You like what you like. Deal with it. You're not running away from me like you have the others because you're scared of what you might find out about yourself.
she thrust the knife towards his hand again, looking at him expectantly until he wrapped his hand around it." Here. Let's see what else you enjoy."
---
It turned out there was a lot he enjoyed.
"I'm proud of you, Sammy." Five words he'd never liked to hear the Devil say before, but now here they were, and it was hardly the first time they'd crossed his lips. Sam supposed that between a steady stream of sex with a demon, and a daily routine that more often than not included time spent in a room with knives, blood, and the sounds of the screaming condemned, the words had reason to be come far more commonplace in his life.
Besides, what was he supposed to do when even the angels told him this was his destiny?
"I like where you're going. Does me good to see, y'know?" The Devil stood by the sidebar in his office, pouring two glasses of scotch. There was a bit of blood on his face marring his usually impeccable appearance, and one or two white feathers were clinging to his suit jacket. "Even with all the meshugas out there. Here," he handed one of the glasses to Sam. "You look like you need a drink."
He neglected to make any comment that the Devil sounded like someone's grandmother and instead just took the offered glass. He really did need it. "What the hell was that about?"
"Raid of angels. They happen."
"They… happen?"
"Every millennia or so. It's not a huge thing, but the paperwork's murder."
Sam drained his glass at that. Decades in hell and every so often something still managed to take him off guard. "Why?"
"The big man upstairs decided he wanted someone back," the Devil answered with a shrug. "You win some, you lose some. I put up a fight, kill a few of them for appearances, but here's a secret, Sammy: I don't really give a hoot."
"Who was it?" Sam sat down easily in front of his desk. It was hardly anything like the scene when he'd first arrived, tired after ten years of torture and angry. Now he crossed his legs, leaned back against the plush leather, and while he wasn't happy to be here, he accepted it. He turned the glass over in his hands and waited patiently for the Devil to answer his question. That he could accept having a conversation with the Devil was, in itself, a vast improvement.
The Devil knew this, he had to. "Dean Winchester. Honestly, the minions are obsessed with him and his brother. Business-wise it'd be nice to have them both, sure, especially since the big man's so interested in Dean, but it ain't necessary." He laughed, taking a sip from his scotch. "So I put up a fight, chop off a few wings, tempt a few holier-than-thou asses while they're down here, and let the rest of them get away with what they want. Alistair loses a pet project and believe me, he'll be bitching about that one at staff meetings for weeks, but in the end it all works out. I replaced one human soul with three angelic ones, and another one on the way."
"Another one?"
"He'll be down here soon. Three months tops. Want to put some money on it? He was with the one you stopped to have a chat with-don't look so surprised, Sammy. I can smell angel on you," he laughed again and raised an eyebrow in Sam's direction. "Don't lie to your dear old dad."
Sam had to stop himself from spitting out some sort of snide remark in reply. The 'you're not my father' line had gotten old decades ago. Lying to the Devil was something else he'd learned not to do early on. "Yeah, I talked to one." And those two or so minutes had told Sam more than all his decades in hell.
"Want to share?"
"Not really." It wasn't a lie. It was the honest truth.
"No, Sammy," The Devil emptied his glass, the rest of the brown liquid disappearing down his throat in one last gulp. He set the heavy tumbler down on the table with an audible thump and looked pointedly at Sam. "I want to hear what Castiel said to you."
"He didn't tell me his name."
"What did he say?"
It wasn't something that Sam wanted to revisit, his talk with the angel Castiel. It hadn't been long and it hadn't -perhaps-been the friendliest thing in the world, but it had happened.
Sam knew an angel when he saw one. The wings tended to give that sort of thing away along with the whole aura of a divine presence that surrounded them and seemed to scare off so many of the demons that had originally swelled up to fight against them. Only the strongest, most determined stayed in the fray, the rest skulking back to defend their right to the sinners they had strung up by meat hooks and chains. But Sam knew, watching them, that if it came down to it they would give those up as well, rather than die. There were plenty of souls in Hell. Most were taken aback when it turned out that the invading angels didn't want to take their tortured souls from them.
Just the one.
And for a moment Sam had found himself in a stare down with an angel of the lord, as that angel held tightly to Dean's shoulder with just one hand. The soul Dean had been working on remained tethered to chains from the ceiling, blood dripping from the various wounds that had been inflicted over the course of the session. Dean had no choice but to drop his tools as soon as the angel's death grip slammed down on his shoulder. Sam dropped his out of pure fear tinged with a good deal of guilt.
The clanging of the knife against the floor of the cell was all too audible against the silence which Sam found himself breaking, with two words.
"Why him?"
"I'm sorry?"
Sam pointed at Dean, nearly limp in Castiel's grip. "Why him?"
"You mean why not you." He could have sworn that the angel next to him, one who took the form of an imposing, dark skinned man, was laughing underneath his breath. If anything he seemed to find this amusing. Sam was glad someone did.
"Because this is his path, and this," Castiel answered shortly, nodding around the room. "Is yours, Samuel, son of Lucifer."
"I belong here."
"I'm sorry," the Devil looked up from the sidebar where he was once more pouring a drink. "I think I missed that. You what?"
"He said I belonged here."
The Devil grinned. "He tells you that and suddenly you want to believe it? I've been telling you that for years, kiddo."
He didn't protest. "I know."
"And now you believe it?
"What am I supposed to believe?" Sam asked blankly, the words devoid of the anger or disbelief that could have filled the space. He stared up at his father and shook his head. "It's different when it comes from an angel."
Rolling his eyes, the Devil grabbed Sam's glass and started to pour him a second drink. "I think I'm insulted, possibly on behalf of my entire population," he said with a short laugh. "Look around you, Sammy. Past the office, past the minions, past the bureaucracy. Think about where you've been spending time. Think about the cell those angels just dragged your friend out of. You have the blood of the soul you were torturing on your shirt. You bargain with people for their souls knowing first hand the consequences of a deal with the Devil, and then fuck the demon that harvests them on the spot where they've sold you their lives and you enjoy it. I saw you out there, just now, put a knife through an angel, one of the holiest of beings. You stepped over him when he fell, Sam. You defended Hell. You defended your home and your place as my son, and you doubted the fact that you belong here? Were you that deluded? Because if that's the case, then maybe I need to send Castiel a thank you note.
"But I don't think you were that deluded," He placed the glass in Sam's hand, smiling and very obviously shaking with laugher as he did. "Deluded, no. Denial… maybe. But I'm glad we're over that, because I'll be honest… it's boring. Watching you enjoy yourself and then turn around to go sulk in your room because you enjoy using the powers I gave you? Makes me feel damned unappreciated for one, it doesn't do you any good. You've hit your stride down here, Sammy, and you don't belong anywhere else. If it takes an angel of the Lord to make you realize that, then fine. But now that you've got it through your thick skull that you are my son, I don't want to hear anything else about it."
"Now." The Devil leaned a hip against his desk and stared down at Sam. "You're going to finish your drink. Then you're going to go oversee the cleanup that little skirmish caused. After that, I believe there's a soul that needs collecting somewhere in Paris and I think you should take that demon friend of yours with you. Think of it as a mini-vacation, father to son. You need a break, I understand that. Take it. Come back refreshed. Because, Castiel was right. You belong here and contract on your soul or not you, my kid, were meant to serve at my side."
After that? There was nothing to do but down yet another glass of scotch. "Pick-me-ups are not your thing, are they?"
"I'm the Prince of Darkness, Sammy. Finish your drink and get going," he answered in his typical 'that should be obvious' tone that Sam often thought he didn't use on anyone but him.
With a smile and slight wave of his hand he nodded towards Sam and pointed towards the office door. "You've got work to do."