“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.
don’t think about how terrible it must have been for Sam to be strapped to that table in the padded cell in Sam, Interrupted. don’t think about him remembering being strapped to a table in When the Levee Breaks. don’t think about him wondering if he was actually there again.
I don’t why, but Sam being a stomach sleeper and Jared consistently portraying him as such since the pilot is so satisfying and it’s just another reason why we don’t deserve either of them.
Rowena: How do you deal with [your memories of Lucifer]? Sam: I guess I don’t…deal with it. Not really. I mean… I’ve pushed it down and I… The world kept almost ending, so I keep pushing it down. I don’t know… I don’t really talk about it. Not even with Dean. I mean, I could. You know, he’s listen, but… It’s not something I really know how to share. Even if you do get the book. Even if you do get your power back, it won’t matter. You won’t ever be able to change what happened. You won’t be able to change how helpless you felt. Or how helpless you feel. You’re still going to get scared… and that feeling… that feeling never goes away. Rowena: Never? Sam: Never.
Sam waits until Dean is in his room, and then double checks that his own door his locked before he dials the number; he knows he could go to Dean and tell him just how awful all this makes him feel, and he knows Dean would listen, but Dean can’t get it– through no fault of Dean’s own– and Sam needs to talk to someone who understands the feeling.
“Samuel, how lovely to hear from you,” Rowena’s voice travels through the phone, hazy and velvet, and Sam has never been happier to hear her voice. He can’t be bothered to heed Dean’s warning that she isn’t their friend; right now she’s what he’s got, and he believes in her anger as much as he believes in his own.
“Rowena,” he says, “please tell me that spell worked.”
There is a long pause on the other end of the line, filled with Sam’s hammering heart and the gentle static fuzz, the anticipation, the fear that never goes away, before he practically hears Rowena’s smile along with the words, “Don’t you worry, Sam– I won’t make his death quick.”
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