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Title: 40 Days and 40 Nights Pt. 2
Part 1 here
Rating: PG-13 this chapter
Pairing: Steve (The Second Coming)/Sam (Reaper)
Summary: A crossover that I felt appropriate given the characters' circumstances. The whole fic is finished. Set after the Reaper season 1 finale. Sam encounters a mysterious stranger on the road.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
He already knew. Just a kid, yet he already knew what awaited him, sweet 21 years old, barely a legal adult and yet he was in every possible way. Already seen more darkness and fear in a few, scant months than most can survive in a lifetime, and it had taken its toll. Sadness crowding his eyes, resignation sloping his shoulders, furious frustration tensing his hands, making them clench at odd moments when he drove, foot wanting to press just a little harder on the accelerator, but he held back, restraining himself, always so restrained when it counted and Steve shouldn’t know so much about him just from a glance. He felt filthy for snooping into Sam’s soul without his knowledge, but the thoughts just keep pouring into his head without a care and he feared that he knew Sam better than his own friends, yet Sam didn’t even know who Steve really was. It was unfair, a bad turn on his part, but he couldn’t stopper his own mind. Sam’s name burned in his mind before he set foot on that plane in Heathrow after six hours of trains and buses and aimless, jolly wandering on the motorway, no doubt looking like a madman high on too many drinks and his own giggly insanity and so he’d been, a reckless grin twitching on his face for minute after maddening minute, jerked away only by the crushing weight of his purpose springing tears to his itching eyes, yet wait just a little longer and there was the smile again and he knew where to set his feet, where to shout and cry and scramble for the few coins he had left in his pocket after buying that last round so he could get a train ticket from whatever the town he was in was called and on to London to catch a flight to Seattle. Why Seattle? The pigeon gurgling next to him had as much chance of knowing as he did. Something was there. What that was? Who knows!
Until the name appeared to him. Sam. Sam Oliver. Just that. A name. That’s all. Didn’t bother him. Bet he’d know when he landed. He didn’t, but he had a direction, at least. South. Just keep going south. South and more south until he could go south no more and his legs bent under him, exhaustion and cold tearing through his limbs as his body demanded sleep. Now. Never mind the wild animals. Never mind the wind cool with the last remnants of spring driving through the thin fabric of his clothes. It wouldn’t matter soon. Not come sunup. Not when a car pulled over and three boys slipped out and one would turn out to be Sam Oliver, son of the Devil, Reaper for hell, yet also a nice, sweet guy who liked to help people when he didn’t need to and play video games with a bowl of popcorn sitting on the couch next to him until the sun came up. Sam who glanced away shyly whenever he tried to coax a favor out of someone but didn’t have the confidence that he would get his way. Sam whose smile made grandmothers want to pinch his cheeks. Sam who stood firm and made the best out of a soul launching a ball of flame at him, winning despite all odds that screamed that he should be lying on the pavement with every bone in his body broken. Sam who invited him to tag along despite his friend’s wary looks and well founded words of warning. Granted, not the most intelligent thing to do, inviting a total stranger into your car, but he’d felt it, hadn’t he? What Steve had shown him. What Steve wished Sam would feel instead of the doubt gnawing its way inside? And he hadn’t demanded an answer. He’d simply trusted. Trusted that Steve wouldn’t turn out to be some nutter waiting to murder them in their sleep. Steve couldn’t help but be intrigued by that, by the timid, inquisitive looks Sam cast over the rearview mirror, by his casual jokes and oddly nonintrusive questions, by the relaxed way he slumped on his seat whenever he enjoyed some joke Steve made.
How could this boy be an agent of evil? Forget his blood. His goodness was palpable to any divine being a mile around. What more proof could there be but that the notion of being the devil’s son burned through the any peace of mind he had a hope of achieving? This is why Steve came. Why his spirit told him to get on that plane. To help Sam. But how? How could he save Sam’s soul? He shut his eyes, searched inside the maelstrom of new found knowledge roaring in his head, but the threads flew by too quickly, all slipping from his fingers and Steve clenched his hands, frustrated by his own inability to see his own future, but his puny human brain couldn’t contain the whole of creation. Trying brought only pain, all knowledge squeezed on the head of a pin like a metal rod driving through his skull.
||||
“Okay, Sam. Intervention time.”
“Intervention? For what?”
Some ten minutes after Steve fell asleep in the back of the car, Sock forced Sam to pull over, complaining that he had to take a leak, never mind that they’d left the last rest stop 30 minutes before and that they were still traveling through forest that might very well toss a bear their way, and given their usual luck, it probably would. Careful to open and shut their doors as quietly as they could (not that this was very possible when the left driver door had developed a grating creak that squealed like an apprentice banshee whenever it opened), they snuck out into the woods, or rather Sock and Ben dragged Sam away as if the car was going to spontaneously explode like in some tacky action flick.
“For Steve,” Sock pressed, both figuratively and literally, for he poked Sam on the shoulder with an painful insistence, as if this should be more obvious than the sky being blue. “What the hell is going on between you and that guy? You pick up some random guy off the street and suddenly you’re all smiling and buddy buddy like boyfriend and boyfriend. The fuck, man?”
“I’m not smiling at him as if he were my boyfriend. I’m just being nice.”
“That is what it looks like, Sam,” Ben cut in. “I don’t know about you, but the man keeps staring at you like he wants to kiss you or something.”
“He doesn’t stare at me like that.”
Except that he did. Long, tender glances caught from the corner of Sam’s eyes, making a sudden but surprisingly welcome heat swell in his limbs at the feel of those cerulean eyes on him.
“Think about it, Sam,” Sock said. “If Steve were a girl, would you think he was into you? Yes or no?”
“I--I don’t know.“
“Yes or no, Sam?”
Sam crossed his arms, rubbing his right side, then tucked his hands into his pockets, perfectly aware of just how guilty he looked, for there was only one truthful answer to that question.
“Okay, so I might have noticed something. But it’s not like he’s going to jump me in the middle of the night or anything.”
“How do you know?”Sock interjected. “He could be checking out your weak spots, plotting the best way to get Ben and me out of the way and you into the backseat. How do you know he’s not dreaming about you right now, all cozied up in your car, sniffing your alluring man scent from the cushions, imagining dear old Sammy rubbing himself all... over...him.”
He trailed off, an awkward silence descending over them as no one who quite manage to look at any one else in the eye, though Sam’s own reaction had much less to do with his friend picturing him in such an explicit situation in any capacity at all and much more with him picturing it himself in blinding Technicolor. The backseat against his back, Steve’s weight pressing him down, his mouth on Sam’s mouth, hands stroking down, rubbing hips against each other... Okay! Whoa. Pants were getting a little tight there. Not good. Calm down, body. C’mon, please?
“Anyway,” Sock said with deliberate force, thankfully not looking anywhere near enough in that direction to notice anything amiss. “You get the point, right? You can’t just believe everyone’s all goodness and bright sunshine.”
“I don’t. He’s just not—Well, he doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy. I mean, haven’t you guys noticed something odd about him?”
“You mean besides leaving his country to come to the middle of nowhere Oregon on a whim and getting lost in the woods with no money or means of transportation?” Ben asked. “C’mon, Sam, that doesn’t sound like the most stable personality.”
“That’s not what I mean. There’s something... That first time when we took him to eat. He looked at me and I felt this peace come out of nowhere. It was weird. Like I was everywhere at once, swimming in the universe, and I felt so happy.”
“Swimming in the universe?”Ben raised a skeptical brow.
“Are you sure he didn’t slip some LSD into your drink when you weren’t looking? They do that, you know. To soften you up.”
“No. Besides, you bought the drinks. They were never out of our sight. One of us would have seen him. But that’s not what I’m trying to say. I think Steve might be an angel.”
Ben and Sock fell silent for a second, exchanging dubious glances.
“Why would an angel pal around with you?” Ben said. “You’re the spawn of Satan.”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s some divine plan going on or something. Steve, the other Steve, he saved me after he became an angel.”
“Yeah, but we met him when he was still a demon,” Ben said. “You were on the same side, kind of.”
“Can you have two angels named Steve?” Sock asked. “I thought it was a ‘everyone gets a unique name’ kind of thing.”
“But Steve was a demon for a while, right, so God could have created another angel named Steve.”
“But this guy?”
“Why not?” Sam asked. “Look at his smile. Doesn’t it seem kind of divine to you?”
“Maybe he’s just a really happy person.”
“That happy?” Sock asked. “C’mon, Benji. How many people do you know who are that happy and aren’t tripping on something?”
A creepy creak whistled through the trees.
“Do you guys hear something?”
“Stop avoiding the subject, Sam.”
“No, guys, really, there’s—“
And now they heard it too, the shrill shrieking of a beast grinding it’s teeth in slavering anticipation before ripping some hapless creature’s throat open.
“I don’t think that’s a bear,” Ben mumbled as they cringed against each other, turning every which way trying to see what the hell that freaky thing was. Not a bear. Not a mountain lion, either. Nothing any of them had ever seen in any nature documentary had ever sounded this... demonic.
“Oh shit,” Sam cried out as two huge, ominous shadows swooped down and knocked them off their feet. Something hard wrapped around Sam’s throat, so hot that he panicked that it would scorch right through his skin and he tried to scream as a fierce demon face glowered at him, but he couldn’t breathe, much less scream. He grabbed at the thing’s hand, scrabbling at the stone-like fingers, but it only tightened, and black spots stabbed at his vision. He barely felt his body leave the ground, the thing raising him up so that he hung, feet kicking desperately, but how could his wimpy, human blows have any effect against a demon? There was nothing he could do. Ben’s and Sock’s cries scarcely reached him through a filter clouding over his eardrums, the world diminishing into one fading pinprick far, far away in his tunneling vision.
“Let them go.”
Wha? His body shook like a ragdoll as the demon turned away from him and faced... Steve? He forced his blurry vision to focus, confirming that yes, indeed, it was Steve standing there a few feet away, glaring at the demon with the same fell command that pierced the Devil’s eyes, but somehow this one felt stronger still. If Sam had been able to whimper, he would have. The other demon backed off from Ben and Sock, his former growl dulled to a low gurgle like a whipped dog. Even the one that held him trembled, his grip faltering on Sam’s throat, but one claw tightened over Sam’s carotid artery.
“Now.”
Steve’s voice darkened an extra decibel and the demon flew backwards as if it’d been smacked away, smashing against a tree with so much force that it almost split it in half. It screamed, then both demons shot off into the sky so fast that within seconds they weren’t visible at all.
“Steve?” Sam muttered, voice shaky and Steve quickly turned towards him, giving him a grimacing smile.
“Sorry I took so long. I didn’t know they were coming for you so soon. I woke up with the shrieking.”
“You didn’t know? Why would you know in the first place?”
“How are you floating three feet above the ground?”
Sam turned at Ben’s voice, then looked down and gasped (not screamed, gasped, though his voice might have been a bit shriller than usual), for the ground stood much farther away than it should be.
“Oh, sorry,” Steve said again and Sam glided to the ground, stumbling on shaky legs. “I didn’t want you to fall and risk twisting your ankle.”
“You,” Sam stuttered, well and truly freaked now. “You ordered them to leave. Demons. You ordered demons.”
“Yes, I did.” Steve grinned with the pleased expression of someone who had just discovered that he could lift a car with one hand and not even get tired.
“Are you an angel?”
Steve dug his hands in his pockets with a humble shrug.
“Nah, I’m no angel. I’m human, like you.”
“Then how’d you do that?!” Sock cut in, rushing towards Steve, looking like he was this close from attacking Steve with a bear hug and proclaim his name to all that came near, regaling them with the fantastic and incredible tale of Stephen Baxter, demon slayer. “Dude, that was fucking awesome. Those bastards ran away with their tails between their legs. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. What are you? An angel? A demon? Did the Devil send you to look after dear old Sammy here?”
“No, I’m just human. 100 percent.”
“C’mon, not with those powers you were throwing around just now. The commanding voice, telekinesis, hovering Sam around. You had the whole thing going.”
“Well, I didn’t want to say this so soon, but,” Steve paused, the grin fading as an awkward expression crept into his eyes. “I am the son of God.”
A silence so thick fell over the group that Sam fancied he could hear his own shocked heartbeat.
“The what?” Sam mumbled.
“The son of God?” Ben finished.
“No way,” Sock stood back to admire Steve, then he broke into a huge, little boy grin. “I take it back. Now this,” he pointed at Steve with both index fingers for emphasis, “is the coolest thing ever.”
“But how can you be the son of God?” Sam asked.
“The second coming,” Ben said, gaping at Steve with a quiet awe that suffused his entire face. “The son of God is meant to come back at some point.”
“Yeah. But I’m not Jesus. I’m someone else. I’m really just discovering this now. I had no idea until a few days ago.”
“Really?” Sock asked. “No star in the sky or dirty little manger or having your face pop up in random stuff?”
“No, none of that, I’m afraid. One day I just knew. That’s basically it.”
“And you came all the way over to our neck of the woods and ran into us. How awesome is that?”
Sock and Ben peppered Steve with questions, which he replied to in a modest, almost embarrassed manner, casting Sam an occasional worried glance, but Sam didn’t speak a word, shock gripping his entire system. The whole exchange tumbled against his brain like waves crashing against the hull of a boat, rocking it back and forth in ever more violent motions, threatening to capsize it at any moment. The son of God. Why would the son of God be here helping him? Shouldn’t he be smiting Sam down or something equally biblical and tormenting? Why help him, spawn of Satan, servant of the Fallen One, abettor of evil even if he really didn’t want to be and he sought satisfaction from catching souls for the Devil through the comforting fact that it helped innocent people? Why was he here?
next part
Part 1 here
Rating: PG-13 this chapter
Pairing: Steve (The Second Coming)/Sam (Reaper)
Summary: A crossover that I felt appropriate given the characters' circumstances. The whole fic is finished. Set after the Reaper season 1 finale. Sam encounters a mysterious stranger on the road.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own words.
He already knew. Just a kid, yet he already knew what awaited him, sweet 21 years old, barely a legal adult and yet he was in every possible way. Already seen more darkness and fear in a few, scant months than most can survive in a lifetime, and it had taken its toll. Sadness crowding his eyes, resignation sloping his shoulders, furious frustration tensing his hands, making them clench at odd moments when he drove, foot wanting to press just a little harder on the accelerator, but he held back, restraining himself, always so restrained when it counted and Steve shouldn’t know so much about him just from a glance. He felt filthy for snooping into Sam’s soul without his knowledge, but the thoughts just keep pouring into his head without a care and he feared that he knew Sam better than his own friends, yet Sam didn’t even know who Steve really was. It was unfair, a bad turn on his part, but he couldn’t stopper his own mind. Sam’s name burned in his mind before he set foot on that plane in Heathrow after six hours of trains and buses and aimless, jolly wandering on the motorway, no doubt looking like a madman high on too many drinks and his own giggly insanity and so he’d been, a reckless grin twitching on his face for minute after maddening minute, jerked away only by the crushing weight of his purpose springing tears to his itching eyes, yet wait just a little longer and there was the smile again and he knew where to set his feet, where to shout and cry and scramble for the few coins he had left in his pocket after buying that last round so he could get a train ticket from whatever the town he was in was called and on to London to catch a flight to Seattle. Why Seattle? The pigeon gurgling next to him had as much chance of knowing as he did. Something was there. What that was? Who knows!
Until the name appeared to him. Sam. Sam Oliver. Just that. A name. That’s all. Didn’t bother him. Bet he’d know when he landed. He didn’t, but he had a direction, at least. South. Just keep going south. South and more south until he could go south no more and his legs bent under him, exhaustion and cold tearing through his limbs as his body demanded sleep. Now. Never mind the wild animals. Never mind the wind cool with the last remnants of spring driving through the thin fabric of his clothes. It wouldn’t matter soon. Not come sunup. Not when a car pulled over and three boys slipped out and one would turn out to be Sam Oliver, son of the Devil, Reaper for hell, yet also a nice, sweet guy who liked to help people when he didn’t need to and play video games with a bowl of popcorn sitting on the couch next to him until the sun came up. Sam who glanced away shyly whenever he tried to coax a favor out of someone but didn’t have the confidence that he would get his way. Sam whose smile made grandmothers want to pinch his cheeks. Sam who stood firm and made the best out of a soul launching a ball of flame at him, winning despite all odds that screamed that he should be lying on the pavement with every bone in his body broken. Sam who invited him to tag along despite his friend’s wary looks and well founded words of warning. Granted, not the most intelligent thing to do, inviting a total stranger into your car, but he’d felt it, hadn’t he? What Steve had shown him. What Steve wished Sam would feel instead of the doubt gnawing its way inside? And he hadn’t demanded an answer. He’d simply trusted. Trusted that Steve wouldn’t turn out to be some nutter waiting to murder them in their sleep. Steve couldn’t help but be intrigued by that, by the timid, inquisitive looks Sam cast over the rearview mirror, by his casual jokes and oddly nonintrusive questions, by the relaxed way he slumped on his seat whenever he enjoyed some joke Steve made.
How could this boy be an agent of evil? Forget his blood. His goodness was palpable to any divine being a mile around. What more proof could there be but that the notion of being the devil’s son burned through the any peace of mind he had a hope of achieving? This is why Steve came. Why his spirit told him to get on that plane. To help Sam. But how? How could he save Sam’s soul? He shut his eyes, searched inside the maelstrom of new found knowledge roaring in his head, but the threads flew by too quickly, all slipping from his fingers and Steve clenched his hands, frustrated by his own inability to see his own future, but his puny human brain couldn’t contain the whole of creation. Trying brought only pain, all knowledge squeezed on the head of a pin like a metal rod driving through his skull.
||||
“Okay, Sam. Intervention time.”
“Intervention? For what?”
Some ten minutes after Steve fell asleep in the back of the car, Sock forced Sam to pull over, complaining that he had to take a leak, never mind that they’d left the last rest stop 30 minutes before and that they were still traveling through forest that might very well toss a bear their way, and given their usual luck, it probably would. Careful to open and shut their doors as quietly as they could (not that this was very possible when the left driver door had developed a grating creak that squealed like an apprentice banshee whenever it opened), they snuck out into the woods, or rather Sock and Ben dragged Sam away as if the car was going to spontaneously explode like in some tacky action flick.
“For Steve,” Sock pressed, both figuratively and literally, for he poked Sam on the shoulder with an painful insistence, as if this should be more obvious than the sky being blue. “What the hell is going on between you and that guy? You pick up some random guy off the street and suddenly you’re all smiling and buddy buddy like boyfriend and boyfriend. The fuck, man?”
“I’m not smiling at him as if he were my boyfriend. I’m just being nice.”
“That is what it looks like, Sam,” Ben cut in. “I don’t know about you, but the man keeps staring at you like he wants to kiss you or something.”
“He doesn’t stare at me like that.”
Except that he did. Long, tender glances caught from the corner of Sam’s eyes, making a sudden but surprisingly welcome heat swell in his limbs at the feel of those cerulean eyes on him.
“Think about it, Sam,” Sock said. “If Steve were a girl, would you think he was into you? Yes or no?”
“I--I don’t know.“
“Yes or no, Sam?”
Sam crossed his arms, rubbing his right side, then tucked his hands into his pockets, perfectly aware of just how guilty he looked, for there was only one truthful answer to that question.
“Okay, so I might have noticed something. But it’s not like he’s going to jump me in the middle of the night or anything.”
“How do you know?”Sock interjected. “He could be checking out your weak spots, plotting the best way to get Ben and me out of the way and you into the backseat. How do you know he’s not dreaming about you right now, all cozied up in your car, sniffing your alluring man scent from the cushions, imagining dear old Sammy rubbing himself all... over...him.”
He trailed off, an awkward silence descending over them as no one who quite manage to look at any one else in the eye, though Sam’s own reaction had much less to do with his friend picturing him in such an explicit situation in any capacity at all and much more with him picturing it himself in blinding Technicolor. The backseat against his back, Steve’s weight pressing him down, his mouth on Sam’s mouth, hands stroking down, rubbing hips against each other... Okay! Whoa. Pants were getting a little tight there. Not good. Calm down, body. C’mon, please?
“Anyway,” Sock said with deliberate force, thankfully not looking anywhere near enough in that direction to notice anything amiss. “You get the point, right? You can’t just believe everyone’s all goodness and bright sunshine.”
“I don’t. He’s just not—Well, he doesn’t strike me as that kind of guy. I mean, haven’t you guys noticed something odd about him?”
“You mean besides leaving his country to come to the middle of nowhere Oregon on a whim and getting lost in the woods with no money or means of transportation?” Ben asked. “C’mon, Sam, that doesn’t sound like the most stable personality.”
“That’s not what I mean. There’s something... That first time when we took him to eat. He looked at me and I felt this peace come out of nowhere. It was weird. Like I was everywhere at once, swimming in the universe, and I felt so happy.”
“Swimming in the universe?”Ben raised a skeptical brow.
“Are you sure he didn’t slip some LSD into your drink when you weren’t looking? They do that, you know. To soften you up.”
“No. Besides, you bought the drinks. They were never out of our sight. One of us would have seen him. But that’s not what I’m trying to say. I think Steve might be an angel.”
Ben and Sock fell silent for a second, exchanging dubious glances.
“Why would an angel pal around with you?” Ben said. “You’re the spawn of Satan.”
“I don’t know. Maybe there’s some divine plan going on or something. Steve, the other Steve, he saved me after he became an angel.”
“Yeah, but we met him when he was still a demon,” Ben said. “You were on the same side, kind of.”
“Can you have two angels named Steve?” Sock asked. “I thought it was a ‘everyone gets a unique name’ kind of thing.”
“But Steve was a demon for a while, right, so God could have created another angel named Steve.”
“But this guy?”
“Why not?” Sam asked. “Look at his smile. Doesn’t it seem kind of divine to you?”
“Maybe he’s just a really happy person.”
“That happy?” Sock asked. “C’mon, Benji. How many people do you know who are that happy and aren’t tripping on something?”
A creepy creak whistled through the trees.
“Do you guys hear something?”
“Stop avoiding the subject, Sam.”
“No, guys, really, there’s—“
And now they heard it too, the shrill shrieking of a beast grinding it’s teeth in slavering anticipation before ripping some hapless creature’s throat open.
“I don’t think that’s a bear,” Ben mumbled as they cringed against each other, turning every which way trying to see what the hell that freaky thing was. Not a bear. Not a mountain lion, either. Nothing any of them had ever seen in any nature documentary had ever sounded this... demonic.
“Oh shit,” Sam cried out as two huge, ominous shadows swooped down and knocked them off their feet. Something hard wrapped around Sam’s throat, so hot that he panicked that it would scorch right through his skin and he tried to scream as a fierce demon face glowered at him, but he couldn’t breathe, much less scream. He grabbed at the thing’s hand, scrabbling at the stone-like fingers, but it only tightened, and black spots stabbed at his vision. He barely felt his body leave the ground, the thing raising him up so that he hung, feet kicking desperately, but how could his wimpy, human blows have any effect against a demon? There was nothing he could do. Ben’s and Sock’s cries scarcely reached him through a filter clouding over his eardrums, the world diminishing into one fading pinprick far, far away in his tunneling vision.
“Let them go.”
Wha? His body shook like a ragdoll as the demon turned away from him and faced... Steve? He forced his blurry vision to focus, confirming that yes, indeed, it was Steve standing there a few feet away, glaring at the demon with the same fell command that pierced the Devil’s eyes, but somehow this one felt stronger still. If Sam had been able to whimper, he would have. The other demon backed off from Ben and Sock, his former growl dulled to a low gurgle like a whipped dog. Even the one that held him trembled, his grip faltering on Sam’s throat, but one claw tightened over Sam’s carotid artery.
“Now.”
Steve’s voice darkened an extra decibel and the demon flew backwards as if it’d been smacked away, smashing against a tree with so much force that it almost split it in half. It screamed, then both demons shot off into the sky so fast that within seconds they weren’t visible at all.
“Steve?” Sam muttered, voice shaky and Steve quickly turned towards him, giving him a grimacing smile.
“Sorry I took so long. I didn’t know they were coming for you so soon. I woke up with the shrieking.”
“You didn’t know? Why would you know in the first place?”
“How are you floating three feet above the ground?”
Sam turned at Ben’s voice, then looked down and gasped (not screamed, gasped, though his voice might have been a bit shriller than usual), for the ground stood much farther away than it should be.
“Oh, sorry,” Steve said again and Sam glided to the ground, stumbling on shaky legs. “I didn’t want you to fall and risk twisting your ankle.”
“You,” Sam stuttered, well and truly freaked now. “You ordered them to leave. Demons. You ordered demons.”
“Yes, I did.” Steve grinned with the pleased expression of someone who had just discovered that he could lift a car with one hand and not even get tired.
“Are you an angel?”
Steve dug his hands in his pockets with a humble shrug.
“Nah, I’m no angel. I’m human, like you.”
“Then how’d you do that?!” Sock cut in, rushing towards Steve, looking like he was this close from attacking Steve with a bear hug and proclaim his name to all that came near, regaling them with the fantastic and incredible tale of Stephen Baxter, demon slayer. “Dude, that was fucking awesome. Those bastards ran away with their tails between their legs. That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life. What are you? An angel? A demon? Did the Devil send you to look after dear old Sammy here?”
“No, I’m just human. 100 percent.”
“C’mon, not with those powers you were throwing around just now. The commanding voice, telekinesis, hovering Sam around. You had the whole thing going.”
“Well, I didn’t want to say this so soon, but,” Steve paused, the grin fading as an awkward expression crept into his eyes. “I am the son of God.”
A silence so thick fell over the group that Sam fancied he could hear his own shocked heartbeat.
“The what?” Sam mumbled.
“The son of God?” Ben finished.
“No way,” Sock stood back to admire Steve, then he broke into a huge, little boy grin. “I take it back. Now this,” he pointed at Steve with both index fingers for emphasis, “is the coolest thing ever.”
“But how can you be the son of God?” Sam asked.
“The second coming,” Ben said, gaping at Steve with a quiet awe that suffused his entire face. “The son of God is meant to come back at some point.”
“Yeah. But I’m not Jesus. I’m someone else. I’m really just discovering this now. I had no idea until a few days ago.”
“Really?” Sock asked. “No star in the sky or dirty little manger or having your face pop up in random stuff?”
“No, none of that, I’m afraid. One day I just knew. That’s basically it.”
“And you came all the way over to our neck of the woods and ran into us. How awesome is that?”
Sock and Ben peppered Steve with questions, which he replied to in a modest, almost embarrassed manner, casting Sam an occasional worried glance, but Sam didn’t speak a word, shock gripping his entire system. The whole exchange tumbled against his brain like waves crashing against the hull of a boat, rocking it back and forth in ever more violent motions, threatening to capsize it at any moment. The son of God. Why would the son of God be here helping him? Shouldn’t he be smiting Sam down or something equally biblical and tormenting? Why help him, spawn of Satan, servant of the Fallen One, abettor of evil even if he really didn’t want to be and he sought satisfaction from catching souls for the Devil through the comforting fact that it helped innocent people? Why was he here?
next part
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