Author's note: Thanks so much to Larkafree2, Maknatuna, Nicolene B, QuietCrash, Lady Grelka, Crazy as a Cheshire Cat, LeeMarieJack and SummerMistedDragon for last chapter's reviews!
Special thanks to Treeni for beta-reading!
3
Dean had been quick to pick Sam up after Sam located his phone and told Dean the bare minimum he could get away with. Technically saying that Sam had been knocked out and restrained by the teenage witches was just as true as saying that he had no idea where they currently were. Dean hadn't asked how exactly Sam managed to get free and Sam hadn't volunteered the information. At least not this far.
"Look, Dean, about what happened back there..." Sam stated with a sigh after he had some time to think things through. He had to let Dean in on this, even if Sam didn't know exactly what 'this' was yet. An entity who sure looked and acted a lot like Gabriel was out there, even if he insisted that he was Loki. No matter what exactly was up with that situation, it was something Dean should know about. Especially since said entity declared ownership of Sam. It was anybody's guess what would come out of that.
"It's okay, Sammy," Dean interrupted his brother with a dismissive gesture, "You got out of there and we'll catch them eventually. They're teenagers, they can't hide forever."
Sam nodded and smiled halfheartedly. Chances were the teenagers weren't even in hiding, but already in the middle of their punishment, but that was another can of worms entirely. Sam would think about opening that one after he dealt with the first.
"Yeah, sure, just..." Sam tried once more. He had to do whatever he could to sound as casual as possible. Dean wouldn't like the news either way, but maybe Sam could get an explanation in before Dean insisted on summoning Loki and having another helping of Trickster on a skewer. Not that it ever did them any good to stake him before.
"Hey, let's not make this a bigger affair than it has to be," Dean replied in a no-nonsense tone. Dean stepped closer to Sam, put a hand on his baby brother's shoulder and made sure he had Sam's full attention before he added, "Something like this could've happened to either one of us at any time, right?"
Thanks to Cas -though to be fair, the angel hadn't exactly known that he was supposed to keep quiet about it- Dean had to come clean about the great wall of Sam, the only thing standing between Sam and insanity, death, or worse. It was only natural that Sam would be a little insecure once things didn't go according to plan. Besides, this was only their second case since Sam got his soul back. All in all nothing too bad had happened, nothing that couldn't have happened long before Sam ever went to hell anyway. They had to hold on to their little victories wherever and whenever they could get them!
"Yeah, right," Sam agreed, forcing a smile on his face. Sam was reasonably sure that Dean knew exactly that the smile was fake, but he probably figures Sam only felt bad about three teenagers getting the jump on him. One more thing that was technically true then.
"I'll go drive around town, maybe if we're lucky I'll spot them, otherwise I'll just get us some grub," Dean patted Sam's shoulder once more before he walked toward the door, only turning back briefly to ask, "Burgers alright?"
The moment Dean closed the door behind himself Sam buried his face in his palms. The half-truths were piling up already and Sam just knew they were going to break his neck sooner or later. They always did. Only, how was he supposed to come clean to Dean when it looked like Dean wanted to believe in the half-truths so much?
"Lying to Dean-o, are we?" Loki clicked his tongue disapprovingly. It looked like Hel had annoyed Loki enough to decide he would rather check on his newest human than talk to her anymore just in time to witness some interesting things going on. It also seemed Sam's hunter instincts and training made him pull a gun on any beings suddenly appearing in his room. Loki felt benevolent enough to let that slide with just a comment in retaliation, "Geez, Sam-I-am, you'd think I was some kind of monster instead of your beloved god."
Sam groaned and tucked his gun back into the waistband of his jeans. It didn't look like he was in immediate danger and even if he was he stood no chance to kill Gabriel, or Loki anyway. Actually thinking about it, the god deciding that he wanted to eat Sam after all might just solve some problems then.
"I'm not... I was trying to tell him!" Sam finally replied defensively. Not that trying would get him any bonus points once all this inevitably blew up in his face.
"About that," Loki commented seemingly casually as he unwrapped a candy bar, "Don't."
"What?" Sam asked, clearly taken aback, "You never said..."
"New rule, just came up with it," Loki explained with a shrug. He never pretended not to be very fickle, nobody could say he did. Compared to other gods, he was pretty humane in his fickleness at least, Sam should better learn to value that quality of his new god. Thinking about it, maybe the hunter could use a reminder about the nature of their relationship, so Loki added, "As my faithful worshiper, you'll of course follow my rules dutifully."
"Worshiper? I thought it was more like 'slave'," Sam huffed. He was tempted to slap Loki's wrist to get the god to stop looking through his documents and notes, but Loki's statement made it seem like a really bad idea to defy him this openly just then. It didn't really matter if Loki saw everything Sam had collected about the recent murder spree -that turned out to be sacrifices for the very Norse god standing in front of the hunter- anyway. Nothing there should be news to Loki. Though, to be honest, there probably wasn't much at all that was really news to Loki.
Loki pulled his half eaten candy bar from his mouth and cocked his head at Sam before he asked, "Whatever gave you that idea, Big Bird?"
The word slave had never fallen as far as Loki knew and he was pretty damn sure he would remember that. He had propositioned the hunter, but that was something else entirely, unless of course Sam's idea of a fun time between two consenting adults involved being someone's. It was highly unlikely, but Loki would be lying if he said he didn't like the idea. Especially since Sam had brought it up so openly.
"The whole 'You belong to me now' -thing was a pretty damn good clue," Sam deadpanned. The urge to at least tell Loki to stop going through their things was rising as the god picked up one of Dean's discarded t-shirts between two fingers just to drop it unceremoniously a second later.
"Obviously it wasn't, since you got the wrong idea," Loki snarked back, before he stopped looking for new things to inspect to fully focus on Sam for a moment, "But if you want to view yourself as my slave that's fine by me. I bet a collar would suit you well, something with my name on a little silver plate."
Sam shuddered visibly at the unbidden mental picture that popped into his head before he could stop himself. At least the casual way at which Loki immediately went back to combing through whatever personal items he could find around the motel room didn't make it look like the god had been too serious. Still, Sam was just too exhausted to deal with any of that right now. His life really was complicated enough without Loki complicating it further.
"Look, I really don't know when Dean will come back..." Sam stated, trying to sound a little meek at least. Realistically, he couldn't throw Loki out of the room. Maybe he could try an angel banishing sigil, but if that didn't work he would only have an annoyed god on his hands instead of the annoying one that was inspecting Sam's choice of ammunition just then.
"He's only been gone for a minute, Stretch," Loki replied casually, "It's called fast food, but it's not that fast."
Sam nearly jumped up from the bed to save his laptop from Loki, but before he could move a muscle Loki only snapped and made a news website appear on the screen. The headline revealed that three teenage terrorists had been arrested at the airport that evening. Sam would bet good money on the fact that he knew exactly who those three teenagers were and who got them arrested.
"You just made up a rule that says Dean can't know about all this, I'm just trying to make sure I stick to it," Sam explained in a more heartfelt nice tone. At least he and Dean would be able to leave town and declare the case closed for them now. The teenagers were arrested and Sam had the visible proof to show to his older brother.
"Nice try," Loki chuckled as he stepped away from the laptop for the hunter's peace of mind, "But you're not completely wrong. Still, you'll have to make some time for me in your schedule. I plan to pester you now and then."
Loki would prefer to meet up with the hunter outside of cheap motel rooms anyway. They didn't have that kind of relationship after all, though Loki considered asking Sam if he was sure he still didn't want to take the one night stand instead of the eternal worship. Then again, at this point Loki didn't think he wanted to get rid of the human that quickly.
"And what am I going to tell Dean?" Sam asked nearly a little helplessly. As Loki knew Sam already tried to come clean to Dean and it just didn't work. Now he wasn't even allowed to tell Dean what was going on, but just disappearing for a couple of hours or more without giving any kind of reason was just not something Sam did. Dean wouldn't let him get away with that even if he tried to act like he was forming a new habit. Years or not, Dean still hadn't let go of Ruby.
"Don't know, don't care, your problem," Loki shot back, before he saw Sam's dejected, sort of lost expression and softened his tone some, "Okay, can't say I'm not helpful. You met a nice, curvy blonde with a great personality you'd really like to spend some time with. Switch it up a bit for the different towns you go to. Voila."
Technically everything Loki just advised Sam to tell his brother was true... from a certain point of view. Loki himself had no problems lying to people, but it looked like Sam was more of the kind who preferred Jedi-truths.
"No, no, that's just not going to happen," Sam protested even before he made the conscious decision to do so. That sounded too much like a lie Sam might have told during the time he had allowed Ruby to string him along. Matters were different in the current case, but that didn't mean Sam could fall back into old patterns like that. It simply felt too wrong.
"Excuse me? You're really not good at this whole 'I'm your god, you do as I say' -thing," Loki huffed, throwing his arms in the air for good measure. To be honest though, Sam's habit of challenging Loki was one of the things that made the hunter interesting in the first place. It also made him very frustrating at times, but they hadn't reached that point yet. Hey, Loki had managed to stand over a hundred Tuesdays of Sam stubbornly refusing to just accept the inevitable, this was child's play by comparison.
"Not telling Dean about what happened back there is one thing, but I'm not going to... I can't lie to him and go sneaking around behind his back like that," Sam tried to explain in a way Loki would maybe understand, "It never ends well and I just can't do that to him again."
Sam wasn't even sure what he was hoping for here. The best case scenario was that Loki would give up on meeting him -ever- but that was too unlikely to even hope for. There had to be some solution that didn't require Sam to repeat grave mistakes of the past though. Maybe if Loki kept popping in when he was sure Dean wasn't there... it was only marginally better than actively lying to Dean about where he was going, but it should be bearable for some time at least.
"Huh," Loki commented, sounding nearly impressed, "Looks like someone learned a lesson along the way. Not exactly the lesson I was trying to teach you, but still..."
Of course, accepting Dean's death and really moving on with his life those couple of years ago would have prevented Sam from ever falling for Ruby's trap in the first place. However, not hiding his demon blood addiction might have done some good in the great scheme of things as well, so the lesson learned was close enough to a win for Loki to feel like rewarding the hunter.
"Fine. Tell Dean whatever the hell you want, I don't care," Loki shrugged casually, before he added seriously, "But don't expect me to meet up with him or any of your other hunter friends."
The last thing Loki needed was to have Dean Winchester on his ass, so to say. Sam was fun -or had the potential to be fun anyway- and a challenge, Dean was overbearing and too trapped in his black and white mentality. Besides, the chance of ending up on a stake again seemed higher with Dean Winchester. Even if Dean knew just as well as his younger brother that he couldn't kill Loki like that, it seemed sort of likely that he would try just for the hell of it. No one ever said that those things felt good just because they didn't kill him.
"I've had enough troubles with my daughter over you," Loki added on second thought. Hel would most likely explode if Loki started to hang out with both Winchesters and he really didn't feel like not speaking to his daughter for a decade or several dozen. Hel could be overbearing -maybe she should go for a coffee with Dean some time- but she still was his beloved daughter!
"Your... daughter?" Sam asked, all too obviously surprised. The moment the words left his mouth and even before Loki rolled his eyes at him, Sam already knew he had said something wrong again.
"Next time we meet I'll whack you over the head with a mythology book, so help me... me," Loki snarked. Of course, the books were wrong on many accounts, but Sam seemed to miss the bare basics! Loki hadn't questioned the hunter on why Baldur really had a beef with Loki or something alike. Not having the correct answers to a question like that would have been acceptable, but not knowing the name of Loki's daughter... They did study up on him when they -tried to- go after him right? Or did they just survive with sheer dumb luck?
"No, I... Hel, right?" Sam cleared his throat awkwardly. Since he apparently was meant to know the answer, the one found in mythology seemed like a safe bet. It was just surprising that Gabriel, or Loki, or whoever he exactly was actually had a child, or most likely several. Sam shrugged apologizing before he added, "I just didn't know what parts of the myths were true. I mean, you're obviously not strapped to a rock and being poisoned over and over again..."
"You humans have too much imagination sometimes," Loki laughed. Generally, it was a safe bet that all the noble and heroic myths were somewhat untrue. Sometimes the gods themselves had been the ones to make sure the stories were written that way. It never hurt to make sure good publicity was spread as far as possible and over time.
"So, you've got a wolf, a snake and a horse for sons?" Sam asked curiously. This was something they could actually talk about, if Loki really insisted on meeting Sam regularly. If the god was willing to share the true stories behind some myths that might actually be useful and interesting. Of course, first Sam had to somehow explain the whole thing to Dean, now that he was allowed to once more. Only thinking of that gave Sam a stress induced headache, even though technically -and wasn't that a word Sam would start to hate very quickly?- he got what he wanted.
"Did I say something wrong again?" Sam frowned a moment later. It took him shamefully long to notice the hurt look on Loki's face. The question about his sons had clearly brought this change in mood on, there was no doubt about it. This time it didn't look like Sam simply got the facts wrong either.
"Touchy subject," Loki answered, literally shrugging the hurt off until he could look at the human with his characteristic -though not heartfelt- little smirk.
"It's about the horse, right?" Sam huffed out a chuckle, before he was done thinking his statement through. The look on Loki's face hadn't been one of a man who was somewhat embarrassed about giving birth to an eight legged horse. It had been much closer to the look on Gabriel's face when he spoke about his brothers fighting.
"Something like that," Loki replied too quickly, "Know what, your brother could come back any moment. I'll let you know when I want to see you."
The god was gone before Sam could say another word. It probably was better that way.