"Is he speaking in tongues?"
"You speaking in tongues? And God dammit, Piper, get away from him."
Piper rolled her eyes and ignored her husband to continue wiping the blood off of Sam's face with a damp cloth. Dean had beaten him to a pulp, and even if he wasn't human, he still looked enough like Sam that she couldn't suppress the need to clean him up.
Sam's brow furrowed. "No! Are… Are you diagnosing me?"
"You'd better hope he can," Dean said darkly.
"You really think this is-"
"What?" Dean snapped. "You think that there's a clinic out there for people who just pop out of hell wrong?" Piper felt his hands on her shoulders and she let him pull her away from his brother. She gave him a pass, because no matter what he said, he did get tunnel vision when it came to Sam. Piper blamed John Winchester. Take care of Sammy, indeed, she thought bitterly
Dean pointed at Sam. "He asks, you answer! Then you shut your hole. Got it?"
Castiel turned back to Sam. "How much do you sleep?"
Sam hesitated, then, "I don't."
Piper blinked. "At all?"
"Not since I got back."
"And it never occurred to you that there might be something off about that?!" Dean snarled.
Sam rolled his eyes, and the gesture was so familiar that it made Piper's heart ache, even through her shock. "Of course it did, Dean. I, I just never told you."
"What?"
Castiel tilted his head and considered Sam closely. "Sam, what are you feeling right now?"
Sam scoffed. "I feel like my nose is broken."
The angel shook his head. "No, that's a physical sensation. How do you feel?"
"Well, I think-"
"Feel," Castiel insisted.
Sam blinked. "I… Don't know."
Castiel stood and began to unbuckle his belt. Piper's eyes widened, and she saw similar confusion on Sam and Dean's faces. "What-"
Cass ignored all three of them and leaned down to fold the belt in half and put Sam's mouth. "Bite down on this. If there is some place that you find soothing, you should go there. In your mind."
Piper couldn't help her little squeak when Cass sank his hand through Sam's chest. Dean's arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her close. She turned and buried her face in his chest, unwilling to watch one of her two favorite people on the planet be tortured.
When the grunting ceased, she turned back around. "Did you find anything?"
Cass was rolling his sleeve back down. "No."
"So that's good news?" Dean asked hopefully.
"I'm afraid not. Physically, he's perfectly healthy."
Piper cocked an eyebrow. "But?"
Castiel sighed. "It's his soul. It's gone."
Dean blinked, then scoffed. "Um, I'm sorry. One more time. Like I'm five. What do you mean, he's got no-"
"Somehow," Cass interrupted firmly, "when Sam was resurrected, it was without his soul."
"Do you know where it is?" Piper asked.
"My guess is still in the cage with Michael and Lucifer."
Piper's eyes widened. Oh, no. Poor Sam. Being trapped in a cage with two pissed off archangels did not sound like a good time.
"So… Is he even still Sam?" Dean asked, horrified.
"Well, you pose an interesting philosophical question."
xxxxx
"I saw you walk that alpha out the door, Sam. Now, call me crazy, but that seems weird."
Piper leaned against the Impala and watched the brothers face off. They had found out that Samuel had come back with his soul, and that he had no clue why he'd been brought back, either. At least, he claimed to have no clue. Piper harbored suspicions.
The Campbell clan had been planning a hunt when they'd pulled up, so the three of them had tagged along. It had seemed to go fine, but they'd witnessed Sam, Samuel, and Christian shoving the blindfolded alpha vamp into a van before driving away. Not, however, before Samuel had told Piper and Dean that the vamp was already being burned.
Something was definitely up with her in-laws.
Sam sighed. "Oh."
Dean scowled. "Oh?"
"You guys weren't supposed to know about that."
"Know about what, Sam?" Piper asked softly, shooting Dean a quelling look. Even if Sam was sans emotions right then, there was no reason to be a dick. Unfortunately, Dean had the capacity to really shine as a dick, so she tried to mediate.
"It's just something Samuel's been doing. Catching things, taking them somewhere, grilling them for info."
Dean scoffed. "'Grill.' Torture, right? And not telling us, that was his idea?"
"No, it was mine," Sam said simply.
Piper frowned. "What? Why?"
"Because you'd mess it up." At Dean's indignant noise, he elaborated. "You shoot first, ask questions later, and we needed to ask questions."
"Oh, I'd ask questions, all right," Piper said softly, anger fizzing beneath her skin. "Like 'what the fuck is going on?' And, 'why are we torturing monsters when we should just be killing them?""
Dean was nodding. "You know, I don't care if you've got soullnessness or the fuckin' mumps, man. You know better than this! Do you even want your soul back?"
Sam frowned. "How does that have anything to do-"
"Have you been to the place where Samuel takes them?" Piper interrupted. "Have you sat in on these 'interrogations?'"
"No, but I hear-"
"And it never occurred to you that this is really shady?" Dean snapped
"He's our grandfather."
"Yeah, yeah, a guy who talks a good game. But you can't assume that family means the same thing to him as it does to us. He's not Dad." Dean studied his brother for a long moment before realization dawned on his handsome face. "You don't see it, do you?"
"What?"
"You've got no instinct. I mean, you are seriously fucked up."
Sam's eyebrows went up. "Thanks."
Dean shook his head. "I'm not kidding, man. Nobody's forcing you to work with us, okay? But if we do this, we drive the bus, we call the shots, and you tell us everything. Whether you think it's important or not. Because, and you'll have to trust me here, you don't know the difference." He threw his hand in the air. "Or, you know what, go. Go with Samuel, see how that goes. It's up to you."
xxxxx
"You don't know anything about me, son."
Piper kept her shotgun trained on Samuel as Dean spoke. "So, what's so important that you're the king of hell's cabana boy, huh? What'd he offer you? Girls? Money? Hair?" She would have laughed if not for the seriousness of the situation.
"I got my reasons," Samuel snapped. He looked over to Piper. "You gonna make a move, sweetheart? Go ahead."
She pumped the shotgun without flinching. "Or what, exactly?" she asked softly, never wavering.
Samuel sighed. "Or nothing. I'm not gonna do anything to you guys. You kids… You're my family. So the way I see it, you've got two choices. Put a bullet in your husband's grandfather, or step aside."
Piper stared him down for a long moment before dropping her gun. They didn't kill humans. That wasn't their job.
So she was surprised when she heard a gun cock. She looked over and her eyes widened when she saw Sam holding his pistol to Samuel. "He sold us out," Sam said tonelessly.
Dean came to stand next to his brother. He put his hand on Sam's and guided the gun down, away from Samuel. "I know, let it go."
"Why?" Sam asked sharply.
Instead of answering, Dean looked at Samuel. His face was hard and angry. "Get out of here," he said, his voice soft and dangerous. The three of them watched him leave, then turned toward each other.
"What do we do now?" Piper asked.
"Well, we can't work for Crowley," Dean said, as if it was obvious.
"Are you sure about that?" Piper asked gently, putting her hand on Dean's arm. She didn't see how many other options they had, not if they wanted Sam's soul back.
Dean shook his head. "I don't think you understand. Demons bone you every time."
"Oh, no, I get it," Sam insisted, "I do, believe me. I'm just running the math here. Do we really have another choice?"
Dean shrugged. "We could stab him in his throat."
"And get my soul back how? I'm just saying, seems like we gotta play ball, at least for the moment."
Dean ran his hand through his hair. "Man, I have done some stupid things in my time, but punching a demon's clock?"
"Just until we find a way around it," Piper said soothingly.
Sam nodded. "And then we track Crowley down and give that son of a bitch what's coming to him."
xxxxx
Dean hated this. He hated that Sam didn't have a soul, he hated that Piper was in the backseat and not next to him, and he hated working for fucking Crowley.
"So, the vic's a real class act," Sam said, while looking at the police reports. "Owned a bunch of slum-grade apartments. Couple of houses, too."
Frustrated beyond belief, Dean snapped. "So this is it? This is… this is what you're gonna do?"
Piper sighed from the backseat, and Sam frowned. "What am I doing?"
"Crowley. He's so far up our asses, we're, we're, we're coughing sulfur. But you, you're just gonna work the case?"
Dean knew that Piper was frustrated that he didn't seem to be able to power through it, but he just couldn't.
He couldn't stop thinking about the last normal day they'd had together. They'd had the day off, so they'd spent the morning in whatever the hell a farmer's market was. He'd just followed his wife around, watching her laugh with people, lighting up everyone around her. Then they'd gone home and crashed on the couch. Dean had woken up on his back, with Piper curled up on top of him, with Monster curled up on her back. It had been the most peaceful he'd ever felt.
And now, a few short weeks later, they were working for the king of hell.
"Well, he's got us by the short and curlies," Sam protested. "What else are we supposed to do?"
"It's just, you know, man, I…" Dean took a deep breath. "I'm working for a demon now. I don't even know who you are, I just… I need a second to adjust."
He felt Piper's arms wrap around him from behind, and her cheek came to press to his. He felt himself relax under her touch. No matter how frustrated she may or may not have been, her soft skin pressed to his made something deep in him feel lighter every time.
"Look," Sam said softly. "This is a crap situation. I get it. But, Dean, I am still me. Same melon, same memories. I, I still like the same music. I still think about Suzie Heizer."
Piper smiled. "Biology class Suzie Heizer?"
Sam grinned at her. "Can you blame me? Look, I know you don't trust me. And I can't take back what I did. But I'm going to prove it to you. I'm still your brother."
xxxxx
"I'll never look at a dog the same," Dean said, shuddering. "Makes you wonder, though, huh?"
Piper smiled at him from her place next to Sam. They were sitting at a picnic table next to a river, and it was kind of peaceful. Piper missed peaceful.
The case had been… Fucked, to put it lightly. A shapeshifter living with a family, a huge "pack" of shapeshifters turning families. They'd damn near died in that warehouse. Piper had almost gotten eaten by a Doberman, of all things.
"What?" Sam asked.
Sam was still soulless and just so slightly off. It had been a rough couple of days.
"How many packs are out there?" Dean asked as he took the seat across from them. "What if they're all just waiting for the signal, you know?"
Sam shrugged, then looked at Dean. "So, I was thinking. You were right."
Dean frowned. "About?"
"I'm not your brother. You were right."
Piper's eyes widened, and Dean met her gaze and tilted his head. She received the silent signal, got up from where she was sitting, and moved over to sit next to Dean. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"Um," Sam said after watching her move, "All that 'blah, blah, blah' about being the old me? Shit. Like, Piper? That whole…" He waved his hand at the two of them, indicating Piper's moving seats. "Thing that just happened? I've been acting like I care about that. I don't. I couldn't care less."
"Is this supposed to make us feel better?" Piper asked faintly.
Sam shrugged. "You wanted the real me. This is it. I don't care about them. I don't even really care about you." Piper slipped her arm around Dean's waist when she felt him flinch.
"Except that… I need your help. And you're clearly not gonna stick around for much longer unless I give it to you straight, so... I've done a lot worse than you know. I've killed innocent people in the line of duty. But I'm pretty sure it's not something the old me could've done. And maybe I should feel guilty. But I don't."
"Sam," Dean said tightly. "Get to the punchline."
Sam nodded. "I don't know if how I am is better or worse. It's different. You get the job done, and nothing really hurts. That's not the worst thing. But I've been thinking. And it was... It was kinda harder. But there are also things about it I remember that I... Let's just say I think I should probably go back to being him."
They were silent for a long time before Dean spoke again. "That's… Very interesting. It's a step."
"So?"
"We do what we got to do. And we get my brother back."
xxxxx
Hi, beautiful readers! Here are my notes:
I own only Piper Finley, the original character. I don't own Supernatural or any of the characters. (heartbroken).
Reviews, comments, and kudos give me life and keep me going.
And, as always, thank you for reading, you beautiful, beautiful people.
**I am SO sorry this update took so long. This was a busy week for me. I don't know if anyone cares about the particulars, but I got my first tattoo last week (yay! and ow!), and also last week, a two week old puppy came into my care. She's very healthy and doing well, but her sister came to me a few days later, and she's extremely small and sick. They require round-the-clock care, so I've been pretty out of it. But they're doing a lot better! I've got some experienced in neonatal care for pets, so I think they're gonna be fine. :) Thanks for sticking with me, beautiful readers!
**Is this okay for S6 and 7? I'm really just kind of picking and choosing the parts of episodes that move the overarching plot along. There are a couple of episodes we'll get into deeper, but this is the plan for now. Thoughts?
