You had a vague understanding of what the family business was. He spared you the gory details, but you did his laundry. You’d seen his scars. You knew that what he did was inherently dangerous.
What you didn’t realize was how beautifully insidious that danger could be.
That he was being slowly drained of his humanity.
Pairing: Ruby x demon blood!Sam Winchester x civillian!fem reader (not polyship)
CW: 18+ MDNI, heavy angst, toxic relationship, codependency, some smut (pinv), addiction, infidelity, pet names, canon violence/gore, some domestic violence, biting & drawing blood, marking, mean sam. If season 4 was upsetting this might not be the fic for you.
a/n: This started as a little kernel of an idea and just exploded in my notes app. Apparently, I like poking around in painful topics and seeing what pokes back.
.✦ ݁˖ 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 .✦ ݁˖
It started with little things.
Things anyone would miss. Hunter or civilian.
His eyes lingering on his phone screen when normally it’d be on the charger by now. Forgotten as soon as he walked through your door.
He didn’t see the way you frowned at him in the kitchen. Too engrossed at whatever was keeping his mind on the road.
“Sam, I haven’t seen you in a week, c’mere.” You wrapped your hand around two of his thick fingers and pulled. There was an almost obnoxious level of whine in your voice that made you cringe, but it always did the trick on him.
“Yeah, yeah, hold on, sweetheart.”
Tossing his phone aside, he quickly wet his lips before cradling your head in his hands and crashing his lips against yours. Seeing you in one of his old shirts beaming up at him made him forget whatever had happened when he was gone.
It was always this way when Sam came home from a hunting trip with his brother. You’d spend nearly every second together once Dean dropped him off at your doorstep. The first few hours were normally spent in bed or in the shower, depending on the condition he came home in.
He’d given you the monsters-are-real talk.
You had a vague understanding of what the family business was. He spared you the gory details. But you did his laundry. You’d seen his scars. You knew that what he did was inherently dangerous.
What you didn’t realize was how beautifully insidious that danger could be.
That he was being slowly drained of his humanity.
It was little things, here and there.
The way his fingers tapped an erratic rhythm on his thigh.
You were curled up at his side on the couch. He had one arm wrapped around you, holding you tightly against him. Everything was perfect.
The sound of his fingertips tapping against the worn denim kept demanding your attention.
You watched as his eyes tracked the movements on the TV screen, but he wasn’t really watching. He was thinking. So hard that you could almost hear the gears turning in his mind.
He sucked in a breath like he’d been caught drifting off.
He flexed his hand a few times to dispel the nervous movement and relaxed it at his side. He pulled you closer and pressed a kiss to the crown of your head as you settled into him again. Even though he was home, his mind was still on the road.
Cracks appeared when you were most vulnerable to each other.
When he’d be buried inside you—typical after he came back from a trip—splitting you open on his thick cock. Hitting that special spot with every thrust. Right as he felt your walls start to pulse around him he’d rake his teeth across your throat. Using enough force to only pinch the skin. He’d feel you tense around him and dig your nails a little deeper into his broad shoulders. Pushing him to fuck you with abandon while he chased his own high.
Sam had never been rough with you before and it caught you off guard. It wasn’t enough to scare you and it didn’t really hurt.
But you noticed him slipping a little more each time.
Beginning to pass the pleasure-pain threshold. Always waiting until you were close to the edge before sucking an openmouthed kiss into your neck or shoulder before biting down. Then soothing with a pass of his tongue.
With his face pressed against you, he couldn’t see the way you’d wince. He just felt the way your cunt would spasm and hear the tiny breath you sucked in amidst your soft moaning.
As time went on, it got worse. Until finally, he drew blood. Your pained yelp hit him like a bolt of electricity. He pulled back and saw you pressing your palm tightly to your collarbone. Pulling your hand away you were horrified to see a smear of red across your shaky palm.
He studied you with a look of horror when he noticed the tiny bruises and bite marks in different states of healing blooming across your skin. His eyes traced them like a roadmap of his progression towards depravity.
“Sam, that really hurt.” Your voice shook and your chin quivered as you looked up at him.
He left to grab you a warm washcloth to help clean you up. Before he left the bathroom he caught his reflection in the mirror. For a brief second he could have sworn his eyes had blackened. After peering closer, he shook the image from his mind and chalked it up to lack of sleep and overwrought nerves.
Or maybe a guilty conscience.
Because when he sank his teeth into you while you writhed beneath him, he wasn’t thinking about you. In his mind he was in a rundown motel room with Ruby. The demon whose blood he’d been drinking to help prevent the apocalypse. Saving the world. Saving you.
At least that’s what he told himself.
Why he was sleeping with Ruby was a question he didn’t have the answer to.
It has just sort of happened. He was completely disgusted with himself when he crossed that line. One that he had never crossed with a partner before. Let alone with a demon wearing the meat suit of a woman.
It might have been the promises she whispered into the shell of his ear. When her plush lips would graze his skin just enough to make him shiver.
“We’re so close, Sam. You’re almost strong enough to take Lilith down. Just a little more.”
Maybe the way her painted nails would rake through his hair while she smiled down at him. Offering praises while he wrapped his lips around the cut on her arm. Praises that made his cock twitch in his jeans.
“You’re such a good boy, Sammy. Takin’ what you need.”
It was something he didn’t know he needed to hear. Her words were soft fingers gently twisting themselves around in his brain. Convincing him that what he was doing was righteous. That his ability was for good. Not a harbinger for chaos and misery.
She’d almost convinced him that you were working against him. That you were just slowing him down.
“Why are you still wasting your time with her? She’d never understand your gift. She’d just call you a freak. She’s exactly like your brother.”
She’d already frayed the bond of brothers to the breaking point. His isolation was almost complete. With how strung out he had become, it was only a matter of time before he crossed another line.
Like most times he came home, you’d start a load of laundry. He was terrible about emptying his pockets before putting his clothes in the wash.
You hollered as much through the closed bathroom door to which he returned an oh, thanks baby.
Pulling his clothes out of his duffle bag, a strange metallic flask clattered on the hardwood floor. You cocked your head at the sight. Sam wasn’t much of a drinker and you were sure it must have been Dean’s. Or maybe it was a relic of his father’s..
Curiosity drove you to open the lid and inspect it with a quick whiff. You were prepared to be greeted with the strong smell of alcohol. Instead, the bitter, metallic odor caused your face to twist in surprise.
You glanced over your shoulder first to make sure you were still alone. Satisfied, you shook it and the sound told you there was clearly liquid in it
Perplexed, you walked to the kitchen sink to pour the contents out. A quiet gasp escaped you when you saw what were clearly blood droplets forming in the sink.
You jumped at Sam’s voice booming from the doorway. The flask landed in the sink with a startling crash. In two strides he was on you. Rough hands wrapped around your arms, jolting you twice and nearly lifting you up to his level.
You hadn’t noticed how sunken and red-rimmed his eyes were until he was inches away from your face. Water droplets that still clung to his hair made you flinch when they reached your skin. His jaw was clenched tight while his eyes flicked between yours. The tears in your eyes became heavy enough to crest your lids and trail down your cheeks.
His grip on your arms tightened. Hard enough to feel a soft crunch of muscle rubbing against bone.
“Don’t go through my things, d’you hear me? Ever.”
You only managed a shaky nod. He released his grasp on you suddenly and you caught yourself on the counter. His chest heaved slightly as he released an exasperated breath. He paced for a moment, raking his fingers through his wet hair and turning back to you.
Your teeth pinched your lower lip to stop it from shaking. Without the gentle giant facade, you realized how naturally fear came to you. How truly imposing his figure could be. How easy it would be for him to break you.
His face softened when he noticed you shrinking in front of him.
“Shit,” he groaned. “c'mere, honey.”
You flinched from his outstretched hand.
The same hand that would stroke your back gently when you had a rough day.
The same one that had felt your forehead for a fever when you were sick.
It was like your body was warning you that this hand didn’t belong to the man you loved. But someone who was living a double life. Someone who wasn’t completely human anymore.
The words made his blood turn to ice. Rage born from fear boiled to the surface first.
“What?” His voice landed like a bite.
“I saw the text messages. Who is she?” You asked, feeling braver now. He couldn’t deny what you saw with your own eyes.
He squared his shoulders in front of you again. Ready to flip the script on you.
“So you’re going through my phone now, too?” He scoffed. “And you’re scared of me?”
He looked baffled by your insecurity. As if he wasn’t the one who created it by abandoning your trust.
The bravery you had sown was gone. Now replaced by embarrassment and self doubt. Even though in your heart you knew you weren’t wrong in your suspicions.
He held his hand up to stop you.
“—I don’t need this right now.”
With that, he grabbed his duffle bag and left. Ignoring every attempt you made to keep him with you. Where you knew he was safe.
The sound of the door slamming behind him faded along with the muffled footsteps of him jogging down the front steps.
All that was left was a painful silence that reminded you that you were losing him.
If you hadn’t lost him already.
You’d copied Dean’s number down from Sam’s phone. That was the only reason you violated his privacy. Because you needed him to fill in the blanks for you. Surely he would know what was going on with his brother.
You rolled your eyes at the demeaning pet name.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. But I’m working on it, okay?”
Really, he didn’t want to ruin the only good thing in Sam’s life by telling you what a freak he’d become. Sam had promised him that he was done with Ruby. Clearly, that wasn’t the case anymore.
But he was going to set his brother straight.
He just had to find him first.
Days turned into a week. Then two weeks.
Every day was longer than the last. Every night your bed was colder.
You picked up extra shifts, trying to stay as busy as possible. Anything that kept you out of the house where all you could do was hope.
Hope that he might stumble through the front door at any moment.
Hope that he’d call you back. If only to tell you he hated you.
Even working sixty hours a week, you had to go home at some point. When you got home, you closed the door and pressed your back against it. Bracing yourself for another long night of anxiety and restlessness.
Looking down, your heart fluttered at the sight of Sam’s shoes by the door.
You hurried through each room, hoping the universe wasn’t playing a cruel trick on you.
You finally found him on the floor of the bathroom. You immediately rushed to his side, ignoring the fact that he was clearly sick, and wrapped your arms around his chest.
His hand found your arm again, loosely this time, as he tried to anchor himself to you.
“M’so sorry.” He groaned at a volume barely above a whisper.
Two weeks ago, you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to grovel like this. To hold the man who had held you so cruelly. At that moment, you realized you were as sick as he was. When you love someone so deeply and completely, it feels traitorous not to be.
You helped him to bed, which was pitiful to watch for a man of that stature. You helped him change into something clean and dry. Got him to drink some water. Then watched him fall asleep for the first time in what must have been days.
Once he was asleep, you quietly got up to take care of yourself after working twelve hours—for the fifth day in a row.
While getting ready to take a shower, you heard the unmistakable sound of a cell phone buzzing against a hard surface. You found Sam’s phone on the floor next to the toilet, probably having fallen from his pocket when he was dry heaving.
Dread flooded your body. Whoever was calling him was making it harder to ignore what he had been doing behind your back.
The incoming call ended and you quickly grabbed his phone and brought it into the kitchen to put it on the charger. As soon as you turned your back, his phone started buzzing again.
Curiosity won out. You spun on your heels and snatched his phone off the charger.
Why wouldn’t he answer a call from his brother? He was probably worried about him. You would just let him know Sam was safe with you.
“Hey, um, Sam’s here. He was here when I got home.”
You glanced around again to make sure Sam hadn't gotten up. While satisfied, you still spoke in a hushed tone.
“He’s sick, Dean. I don’t know what’s wrong with him...but he’s really sick.”
Then came the full, unadulterated truth. Demon blood—not a street name for any kind of drug you’d ever heard of. God, how you wished it was, though. And Ruby was his whorish puppet master. His dealer for blood, sex, and manipulation.
You waited for Dean to roar with laughter and tell you it was all a joke. That never happened. He just gave you the watered-down explanation of why, but it still managed to be overwhelming.
“Well, it sounds like he’s kicking it, but I don’t think it’ll be as easy as sleeping one off.”
Your head was thick with all of the questions you didn’t want answers to.
“Listen. I know that’s probably not what you wanna hear, but this is about more than him being a shitty boyfriend.”
“I can take care of him.”
You heard a sympathetic grumble.
You ended the call and took a deep breath. Trying to convince yourself you’d made the right choice.
If Sam would just stay with you, things would work themselves out. Nothing bad happened to him when he just stayed home. The world wasn’t ending. Heaven and Hell weren’t battling for control of the planet.
As soon as you slid into bed behind him, you passed out. Like you’d finally come home after being thousands of miles away.
At some point in the night, Sam had woken up drenched in a cold sweat. Feeling like his body was trying to turn itself inside out.
Out. He needed to get out.
He barely glanced back toward your sleeping form as he stumbled out of the bedroom and moved toward the door.
He found his phone on the charger and grabbed it without questioning how it got there. He was already scrolling through his contacts looking for Ruby’s.
A familiar creaking floorboard grabbed his focus.
There you were. Sleepy-eyed and draped in his T-shirt with your hair in a messy bun.
The sight of him with his phone and jacket in hand made your stomach drop. Normally, he’d apologize for waking you up and guide you back to bed.
“I gotta go, Y/N.” He said quietly. His eyes couldn’t linger on you for long. It was too painful.
“Why? So you can go back to Ruby?” Fear shattered the words and made them sharper than they should have been.
He scoffed and shook his head while pocketing his phone. He moved toward the door again and panic gripped you by the throat.
“Sam, please don’t go. I’m sorry. Please.”
You grabbed his hand again. The size difference made you feel even more childish as you tried to stop him from leaving.
His jaw clenched at the feeling of your soft hands pawing at him. Making this even more agonizing for him.
“Just stop,” he growled through his teeth.
Grabbing you by the shoulders, he manhandled you away from the door like a small child he’d grown frustrated with.
“Trust me when I tell you—I’m no good for you right now.”
He paused for a moment to make sure the words had time to reach you.
Once he crossed the threshold, you disobediently followed him out the front door. The cold ground bit into your bare feet as you called after him. You stopped when you saw a pretty little brunette idling in a car out front. It had to be Ruby, based on the knowing grin she wore.
He turned to you again before climbing into the passenger seat.
“I’m sorry. I really am.”
At that moment, grief felt like it had the ability to be lethal. All you wanted was for the earth to open up and swallow you whole and drag you down. Down to whatever circle of hell Sam had fallen to.
Dean could hardly understand you when you finally forced yourself to go inside and call him. He made it over to your house to try and clean up yet another mess his brother had created.
He let you cry on his shoulder while clinging to him. Once you had tired yourself out, he covered you up and waited til you fell asleep before slipping out to find Sam.
You were the only good thing in Sam’s life. The only thing he had to look forward to after a long day. Secretly, Dean thought you were his brother’s ticket to an apple pie life.
The fact that he’d left you a broken mess on the sidewalk meant that Sam was farther gone than he realized.
Dean promised he would fix this, but you knew there were some things people couldn’t come back from.
A few weeks later, Dean called you. He gave you an address and begged you to meet him there. After some persuasion and reassurance that you would be safe, you reluctantly agreed.
You were greeted by an older man that you recognized as Bobby. A man who had essentially been a father figure to the brothers.
He watched as your shoulders sagged and tears filled your eyes again. He gently caught your wrist before you could turn to leave.
“He’s alive. He needs to see you. Just give him a few minutes. Please?”
You nodded while trying to gather your composure to face Sam again.
Your footsteps echoed throughout the chamber as you slowly approached the door. The painful knot in your throat nearly choked you when you tried to swallow around it. Your eyes burned at the sight of him.
His normally bright and vibrant eyes were sunken and red.
The soft skin that used to glow radiantly was ashen and clammy.
His humanity was fading along with his life force.
As soon as he laid eyes on you, he rushed to the door. His trembling fingers threaded desperately through the metal bars.
It was clear that he saw you as his ticket to freedom.
His passage back to Ruby.
Dean and Bobby could see you were having the desired effect. They traded hopeful glances. Maybe you could get through to him where they couldn’t.
“Oh, Sammy,” you whispered to keep your voice from breaking. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Hey, baby,” he beamed at the sight of a familiar face. Someone who loved him. Someone who would always be there for him. “What’re you doing here?”
You smiled tearfully as you gently grazed his fingers. They were cold. Like he was already gone.
Dean’s face dropped immediately as he uncrossed his arms and pushed himself away from the wall.
“What?” A look of confusion and frustration twisted Sam’s face.
“I have to let you go, Sam,” you said, even though your hand tightened around his. “You have to let me let you go.”
“No, why? You can’t leave me here! They’re gonna kill me—”
His voice was strained. Anger and fear clawed for dominance. You withdrew your hand from his and wiped at your face.
“Because I can’t survive hating you. I should hate you. But I can’t. I can’t let you hurt me anymore.”
You turned your back to keep yourself from taking the words back.
It was like the last drop of his humanity evaporated in an instant. Like you were the final tie to who he used to be, and it had snapped.
His hand slamming against the metal door was deafening and made everyone flinch. The facade of the helpless boyfriend crumbled and his jaw tightened into a snarl.
“Wait, you can’t go.” Dean was almost groveling.
You shot him a pained look when you realized you were just a tool for manipulation. A weapon that misfired.
The echoing screams chased you from the basement as you fought to hold yourself together. Dean followed, pleading with you to stay. To change your mind.
“Please… he’s gonna die if we can’t fix him. I’m sorry I lied. But you can’t leave.”
You were almost running by the time you got outside. You opened your car door and he caught it with his hand.
“Dean, can’t you see? He’s already gone.” The words hit you as hard as they did him. “You can’t want him to get well more than he does.”
Dean looked as broken as his brother. As badly as you wanted to, this wasn’t something you could fix. You’d nearly lost yourself while trying to keep him.
The only way to preserve your memory of Sam was by leaving. You only hoped that Dean would make the same choice.
a/n: lmk if you think I should write another part :') sorry if it's a little shit, my kid forgot how to sleep i guess?
.✦ ݁˖ 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 .✦ ݁˖
@staley83 @winchesterfields67 @ferncloud0191
