themegalosaurus:

Valentines 2018 ficlets: #2: Sam/Rowena (requested by @stargazingbros )

“I could teach you,” she says, and he says, “No thanks.”

She looks at him appraisingly, eyes narrowing over the rim of her teacup. “You do magic all the time, you know. Already.”

“I know,” says Sam. It’s true. Even the devils’ traps are magic of a sort.

“So then,” she says, with a purr at the edge of her voice. “What’s a little skills development, between friends?”

“We’re not friends,” Sam reminds her. They’re not. He just needs to keep an eye on her, lately, to make sure that she doesn’t turn bad. He told Dean he’d take her out if he had to. He will. (Dean’s out. It’s Valentine’s Day. He’ll be out all night. So that makes it easier for Sam to be here, now, in a Massachusetts teashop with a red-headed witch.)

“Och,” she says. “Samuel. You can’t pretend we’re not allies, not now.” She puts her hand on his where it’s resting on the table; hers pale and tiny against him, sharp-clawed. She looks up at him, and a light flickers lilac at the back of her eyes. “I could help you, Sam.”

Sam doesn’t want to know.

“Don’t pretend you don’t long for it,” Rowena says. “Real power. Power that you could do something with. Think about him, Sam, about Lucifer, how he made you feel. Wouldn’t you like to know that you could cause him pain?” As she speaks, her composure wavers and her lip curls in a grimace that’s almost alien. Something squeezes in Sam’s chest.

Rowena clasps her fingers tight around his wrist and looks up at him, cat-eyes gleaming. “You’ve got something in you, Sam Winchester. I can feel it. You could do something wonderful.” She leans in closer. “We could do wonderful things together.”

There is very little that Sam would like more than the knowledge that he could inflict damage on Lucifer; real damage, painful, searing, irreversible damage, the kind that fucks somebody up in a way that they can’t be unfucked from. He’s dreamt about it again and again over the last few years, spent nights floating in a sweet relief that evaporates on waking, leaving him heavy with the knowledge of his own utter vulnerability. What Rowena’s offering… it’s worth a lot. But Sam’s not an idiot. Hasn’t he been here before? A woman. A secret. The promise of power.

And yet. And yet.

It’s hot in the tearoom, and damp from the rain outside. The air clings to Sam’s face like wet cotton wool. It’s hard to breathe through it.

“Defensive spells only,” he says.

Rowena smiles. She traces a red fingernail over the white skin of his wrist, the blue vein underneath it. “Oh, yes,” she says.