The Feast is like no other. There are hundreds of heaping plates on tables, full of rich food and bread; goblets full of the finest juices and wines; a fountain spills the most crystal-clear of waters and hundreds of people – human or otherwise – wait their turn to speak with the god that reigns this Midsummer.
"I am Loki," they said at midnight and twenty hours in, after people prostrated themselves, offered their money, their livelihoods, their very souls for their wishes – Sam is brought to his altar, from the back of a room that hasn't let anyone leave since the clock struck twelve.
"I offer possibility," says the demon in human skin. "In exchange, I want help stopping the Apocalypse of Christian-Judeo Lore."
Loki is in the form of man, Sam notes. Out in a street, in the normal world, if he wore average clothes and an ordinary smile, he could pass as a small, mild-mannered dude. Here, though, he is Loki and it shows, brown hair neatly braided past his shoulders and green paint tracing shapes and stories across his chest, arms and legs.
He's also not wearing a single item of clothing, unlike Sam, who's still in his fucking pyjamas.
"Oh?" Loki leans forwards, "What possibility comes in the form of a mortal man?"
"His name is Samuel Winchester and he'll be the Vessel of Lucifer…the Devil," the demon says and Sam, who had been napping earlier, before they finally came to this point in the line, takes a confused moment to absorb that. "If he is changed beyond repair, then Lucifer cannot fight Michael, yada yada…I took a risk coming here."
"I'm sure you did," Loki replies, frowning, now. Not good, Sam thinks, wincing as the demon unties the ropes and cuts the zip-ties beneath the ropes, too. His hands come free and his shoulders ache.
Vessel of the Devil, he thinks. Great. Gods are real, apparently and so is Lucifer…which could also mean Heaven is around up top, too. Extra great. More things to fight, more things to burn…
"It'd be dangerous for me, personally, if word got around that I did it," Loki tells them both.
"You're known for taking risks," the demon mutters, eyeing Loki up.
"I am. What's in it for me?"
"Uh…you do know who Sam Winchester is, right?" the demon replies, eyebrows rising. "He's…he's the last of the Campbell's, except his brother. Hunters. They were famous a couple hundred years back for having an actual demigod in their bloodline, one of the Greeks. I researched this thoroughly, planned it out and got extra lucky when Sam Winchester showed the signs."
Demigods? Sam frowns, rubbing at his wrists. Signs?
"Which god?" Loki's eyebrows rise.
The demon leans in-
The demon is summarily smoked. Caput. There are screams and light burns out of his skull as Loki plasters his hand over his forehead. When it's done, the demon crumples to the ground and Sam is left there, startled.
"What did he mean?" Sam asks Loki, who watches the body for a moment before clicking his fingers, making it disappear. Something else fiddles at his brain… "and the Campbell's, my mom's family, they weren't hunters, were they?"
"What is your wish, Sam Winchester? That I answer your questions?" Loki replies, looking at him, looking up at down. Sam shivers, feeling like someone's trod on his grave, but he's aroused, too – because that was a look. Loki was definitely checking him out and Sam has no idea if that's good or not. "There's a price, you know."
"I was just kidnapped by a demon out of my bed in my pyjamas, to be used as payment in some kind of ultra-weird anti-Apocalypse scheme started by a demon who kidnapped my out of my bed in my pyjamas." Sam purses his lips tightly, reigning his anger in as his mind works quickly. "The demon owed me answers and you killed it, so that's on you, now."
"Ha!" Loki sits up straight, eyes bright. "You're a clever one, aren't you? Flipped that around on me, didn't you? Alright – three answers. Choose your questions wisely."
Sam gapes, briefly, then thinks desperately and slowly – too slowly. He swallows, nervous, shutting his eyes tight and trying to think what his dad would ask, what Dean would ask- what should he fucking ask?
"Time's a-ticking, Samsquatch."
"Sorry," Sam says, contrite. He wants out. He wants to go…he figures it out. "Is this deal redeemable at a later date?"
"…could be," Loki eyes him carefully and there, Sam can see him checking his pecs out – his pyjamas are made up of his boxers and a tight muscles shirt, after all – and oh look, his on-view-for-everyone-to-see dick is hard as hell, "though I might want something small in return for my troubles to find you out in the big, bad world."
"I'll give you a blow-job," Sam replies smartly, the only thing giving away his over-confident bravado being the red flush on his cheeks. He's got his shifty-eyes under control right now, at least. Loki looks surprised.
"Really?" he asks, like he hasn't already been given six today in full view of the entire hall. "Redeemable when I fulfil the deal?"
"Or before, if you like," Sam says, voice muddled and quieter, now, the embarrassment setting in.
Loki checks him out again, dick up, then flourishes his hand. A paper contract appears and he holds it out, wiggling it for Sam to take. Stepping forwards, Sam reaches, only to find him being pulled onto the god's lap, who wiggles and gives Sam an immediate boner at the way his cock rubs against Sam's boxers.
Hand running through Sam's long hair, Loki pouts, batting his eyelids. "Pretty please? Can't I get a show?"
"You're already getting one," Sam mutters, forgetting that there's an entire hall behind him as he smirks, glancing downwards at the tent in his pants. Loki sighs at the sight of it.
"A kiss? Please? You're gorgeous, I just want to eat you up…not literally," he adds on the last bit in a more serious voice, grimacing. "I'm not like the others. Eating humans isn't my thing."
"…good?" Sam says, a little more at ease even as he realises he means that other gods eat humans. Loki keeps pouting at him and Sam rolls his eyes. "I'm not kissing you."
"I'll deal you for it," Loki wheedles, causing the young hunter to snort.
"Yeah, sure," he says sarcastically, "I get custody of our first-born child."
"Deal!" Loki replies gleefully and before Sam knows it, there are lips on his and hands on his neck, holding him in place as Loki eagerly makes out with him. Despite everything, Sam enjoys it and only backs out when Loki's dick gets uncomfortably close to his own through his boxers. When he pulls away, Loki is appropriately flustered, grinning.
"We done?" Sam asks, panting.
"Sure, honey-buns," Loki coos. "I'll be back for that blow-job at a later date, probably within the year. If not, in the next three. I'll remember you, don't worry, handsome." He gently pushes Sam away, smirking as he does and Sam…
Well, Sam tries not to look at Loki as he waits for the midnight bell to toll – but it's pretty hard when he's deadly sure Loki's doing the same.
"Three questions?" Dean humours him, asking Dad in the car with him. "Dad says ask about the yellow-eyed demon: where he is, how to kill him and why he killed Mom."
Sam grimaces, but it's a good suggestion. He writes it down in his notebook, ignoring Dean and their dad's shared question as to why he's asking them. Instead, he turns it back on Dean.
"What would you ask for, Dean?" Sam tries to prod in the right way, knowing that Dad is in the car with him, that Dean would say anything to get Dad's approval. "It's just a game, Dean."
"Your first phone-call since you left and it's to play games," Dean snorts. "I suppose it's better than arguing. Fine, since we're playing chit-chat…I'd ask how to fix every break the Impala could ever get. Maybe, ask where the best burger in America is made and…"
"And?" Sam pushes.
"And…and about revenge for Mom." Dean says and Sam thinks it's a waste that he asked, until Dean goes on. "We could have had normal lives if she hadn't been murdered. Sure, hunting's great for the world and all, we could still have done it if we ever stumbled across all this supernatural shit – but I would want Mom back. I'd want balance between my hunter life and my normie life. Hey, maybe I'd have gotten into Stanford too, if I weren't so focused on keeping you safe."
"You could have," Sammy murmurs quietly. He thinks of his brother, who's clever and would have done well if he'd just had the right support, the right environment…Dean had time enough to get his GED with a year and a half's work on top of a lifetime of nothing. Dean definitely could have gotten into Stanford if he worked for it. "You could have."
"…thanks, but I don't think so, Sammy."
"You could have gotten in," Sam insists, gritting his teeth. "I'm being honest."
"Well, I'm being realistic." Dean snaps. "So, what else? Got more games to play? Are you going to apologise or what?"
"I'm never going to apologise for leaving Dad," Sam snaps and Dean gets one sentence out before he hears their Dad, ordering him to hang up.
"I'm talking about apologising for leaving me, asshole!"
The words spin in his mind. Stanford, Dean, leaving Dean – and of course, Loki, who could appear at any time in the next three years. Sam knows one thing for sure, though and that's how one of his questions is going to be about Yellow-Eyes.
The other two? He'll have to figure that out before Loki appears.
His Dad had a good point though, a different, underlying point when he spoke through Dean: where, how and why. Pointed questions – ones Loki couldn't wriggle out of. Dean's questions are easy to answer without telling him a single thing about mechanics or food; Loki would probably say 'hard work' and 'you already know' or some simple shit that would piss the hell out of his brother and not really answer him, truly.
Question one, then, about Yellow-Eyes, had to be fool-proof. Loki-proof. Perfect.
"If only I was a law student," Sam says to himself, lips tugging upwards into a smile.
He makes a game out of it for his fellow law students. He makes up cases and gives them the key: one question that the witness has to answer correctly – truthfully, but really, correctly – down to the last word. It's like a tongue-twister, watching his peers argue over the perfect question for each case. He pulls out variations applicable to his mother's murder twice – but general small-talk brings it up over and over again at least eight times.
When they ask what he's writing, Sam tells them the truth. "I'm keeping score of the best argument."
Three months pass before he finally writes down the Perfect Question One. His second and third questions are still unreal to him, so just in case, he writes down two more variations of Perfect Question One. Then, something occurs to him – the demon said stuff about the Campbell's and Lucifer himself.
New monsters. New…new information about mom's family.
If his mother's family were a line of Hunters, like the demon implied, boasting a demigod of their own – what other secrets did they hide? Was it even true? Question Two becomes a dig into his mother's family, who – by all recorded accounts – were a guarded, but large family who all died in the decade before Sam was born. It's more than suspicious, it's a downright conspiracy.
He plays perfect question with his friends again, who like the change in direction from mafia and murder to paternity lawsuits. They get bored of it, though, as all fads are exposed to. It's only during an art elective Sam takes, when he gets talking to one of his more introspective classmates, that they give him an idea.
Could asking about the family history – births, the most supernatural factoids and deaths – for the last few generations of the Campbell's work? That demon said centuries, but a century can have as little as two generations, one if the dude is really old when they have kids. Sam plots and comes up with Perfect Question Two.
Perfect Question Three is easier than the first and more information-heavy than the second. Perfect Question Three is, what are all the secrets of Heaven and Hell relating to me and my immediate family?
Loki had sworn he'd answer Sam's question – and if he gave him a blow-job before asking, the god would be a little more bound than before.
…piece of pie, Sam thinks, closing his notepad and tucking it in between the rest of them.