Title: Bittersweet Centuries

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairings: Sam/Ruby & Past Sam/Jess

Genre: Romance/Angst

Rating: Teen

Summary: Sam loses himself in her because he can't afford to take the alternative, to linger in dreams of his ex-girlfriend and deceased brother. He's not the man he used to be, no use in denying it.

A/N: Set post Season 3 yet pre Season 4. I've been wanting to do a decent sized Sam pov for a while, so here it is. Happy Birthday Sam!

Sam dreams of her on the darkest nights, Jess, head muddled with malicious intents yet every time he pushes through the black sludge with his bare hands, he can just about make her out, her aura enshrouded in the brightest hues even though if he turns his head to the side a little he can see the woman that came after her, an identical facade but there is nothing about her that's not smothered in lust, hate, jealousy.

And Sam, at the time, had reciprocated those very same emotions. Still does.

While it may be true that Ruby is manipulative, she isn't just that, she's a demonic entity that the youngest Winchester has fallen in love with. What makes it so real is that he loves her no matter what she looks like at any moment in time, and this very notion had been put to the test.

It doesn't matter if the girl he goes to bed with and sometimes wakes up in the morning next to has blonde hair or brunette, cerulean blue or charcoal black eyes. What matters is that she's there, especially on the nights where he dreams of the purest and most perfect girl back from his Stanford days.

It's more than painful to see her because even though the image is only a memory, despite the fact that she's eternally smiling, laughing, watching him with those huge joy-filled, love-filled eyes, to know that all that love had once been for life, for him, it doesn't change the fact that he is no longer that person. He had been left broken when she had gone, but Dean had filled him back up to wholeness again, had made him feel more pain and love and happiness and loss than he had ever felt with Jessica or anyone else for that matter. Dean took everything, gave everything, it was such an endless cycle with him.

An endless cycle he thrived on.

And then he went to hell, taking from him and giving nothing back in return. And seeing Ruby again, even in a different vessel, with a different voice and highly altered looks, she makes him remember the last year he had with Dean, the last painful, unbearably frustrating year.

He wants her, wants someone so freaking badly and he will take anything he can get his frantic hands on because Dean stole everything from him; his brother, his love, his life and screw all that he once had to say when he was still alive about trusting demons being a terrible thing, let alone finding a reason to love one.

His brother isn't alive anymore, Sam realizes that. He's gone. Dead and gone.

And because he can't get him back, he's going to do the next best thing: get vengeance. He'll spill gallons of blood if he has to, milk Ruby for all she's worth because he simply won't be able to fight alone. Not this time. And yeah, maybe Sam Winchester is sinking down into a filthy, laden with undesirable intentions love. Maybe the lust is too overpowering, the lack of flaws in Ruby so senseless it takes his breath away and leaves him passing out into oblivion.

So what?

Now when Jess looks at him, that sweet, beautiful girl he had been lucky enough to love for a very short period of time, all he can envision himself as is miserably, thickly tainted with evil, demonic passions, a lack of sympathy because of Ruby, because of loving Ruby without having to be forced against his will to.

If Dean were here now, he would have a helluva time explaining that to him.

He feels guilty because a piece of him, forever tucked away inside, will always love Jess. He doesn't love her now though, can't bring himself to love her after all that's happened since...

Since she left him with his cocky, annoying brother, too old to still be drivable Chevy Impala, their missing dad and a reason to trade his happy ass apple-pie life and get back into the then dreaded family business. Back then, if he had been able to pick between the two he would have chosen her. After a while of being with Dean, of seeing more and more as each treacherous, busy day went by of how much he truly adored his big brother after all, he wouldn't have.

Now though? He really has no clue.

Because Jess didn't deserve to be burned alive on the ceiling.

And Dean shouldn't have had to go to hell for him.

So Sam Winchester stays with Ruby, focuses on getting revenge for his brother even though he starts to lose that mission a little along the way, starts to forget who he really is, what his brother even looks like and sounds like because he hasn't been in his dreams since the first week after he was buried.

The dirt thrown over his pale, lifeless corpse, hazel eyes that matched his own forever closed, unseeing. Everything about him still perfect, every patch of skin still his Dean.

Sometimes Sam pictures laying down in the ground beside him, hugging Dean so hard he suffocates right then and there.

Most nights he floats towards unconsciousness and stares unwaveringly at Jess when he manages to get any sleep at all, marvels at how much the same she still looks, of how there is no deception. She remains smelling of sugar cookies and a home that's so vague now he barely remembers once imagining it

Sam looks at Ruby, doesn't look away when she slits her arm open with the knife that flashes silver in the sunlight to feed his want, his lust. He needs this now, needs it to not think of Dean or Jess, to forget just for a long, beautiful moment that this life isn't supposed to be his and that this is not who he is meant to be.

The youngest Winchester drifts to Dean sitting next to him in the Impala, grinning and jamming along to Led Zeppelin on the radio, the smell of whiskey, gunpowder and cheeseburgers overpowering, welcoming. The scent of her blood brings it all rushing back, slamming him fiercely in the face for an ephemeral moment before the bittersweet taste starts to suck it away for good.

He just smiles, moans, let's everything... go.

FIN