Devilc's Den 2.0

Title: Introductio in Analysin Daemonium Infinitorum pt 12
Fandom: SPN-FNL
Pairing: Sam/Tim (Sam/Tim/Dean in a few places)
Rating: Adult (Here there be smut!)
Length: 50k words

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven

Author's Note: This is the cleaned up master version of a story I began writing for MiniNano back in November 2007. Sam Winchester is racing against time to save his brother Dean's life, and he's got Tim Riggins along for the ride ... and a bit more. ;)

The plan was to finish it and post it before the end of S3 of SPN and S2 FNL -- obviously that didn't happen.

Thank you to tartysuz and ixchel55 for their swift beta.

Legalese: SPN and FNL are copyright their respective copyright holders. This work is a labor of whatiffery, not a labor of lucre.




They pulled up to Bobby's door just as the sun started sinking low in the sky, the Impala running on fumes, Sam's bladder about to burst.

"For the record," Dean announced as he stepped out of the car, "I'm just doing this so the car doesn't get trashed."

"I don't give a damn why you're doing this," Bobby said as he hustled down from the porch, sawed off shotgun in hand, "just so long as you get your ass in the house before sundown."

"Where's Tyra and Landry?" Tim asked as soon as they hit the porch.

"In their room. Working on something." Bobby sighed heavily.

Sam bumped into Tyra on his way to the bathroom. Her face looked puckered and strained and (for an aching moment) made him think of Jess cramming for a final.

(But why did she look so strained, he wondered bitterly. It's not as if she knew Dean well. His impending horrific potential death really wouldn't mean much to beyond the abstract ... okay, it would be a terrible thing to witness, but still.)

He shook his head, drew a deep breath and blew it out his nose. He didn't have time for that -- brooding solved nothing and he needed to focus on the here and now.

"Sam. You've got to see this," Tim said breathlessly as soon as he stepped back into the hall.

~oo(0)oo~

Sam didn't bother to even try and contain his whoop when he saw it. Granted, Dean didn't look so happy to be in it, but ...

"I feel like the Bubble Boy." He groused.

"Better here than in H-- than in a worse place," Bobby replied.

Dean tsked skeptically and then flopped into the bunk built into the side of the wall. "I can see them, you know." His voice only shook a little. "There's a whole pack of them just outside the door. Howling and whining. Their eyes ... they want me so bad." He closed his eyes.

"Nothing's getting in there," Bobby said. "Walls of cold iron, rings of salt, devils traps, and even some of that special mojo that Landry and Tyra have cooked up."

Sam had to admit he was impressed. It was a supernatural Fort Knox. "It's just for a few days, Dean."

"Yeah, and what if it isn't?" Dean swallowed hard. "What if -- would you want to spend the rest of your life in solitary?"

Want to? No. But would he if he had to? Yes. "Think of it as being a medieval monk," Sam said flatly and spun on his heel. He wasn't going to argue with Dean about this. Not now. Not ever. Dean was going to live through this. Period.

Bobby reached over, grabbed a box off the shelf, and opened it. "Wolfsbane," he said, pulling a twig out. "I want those mangy curs out of my house." Dipping it in holy water, he began using it to sprinkle the holy water as he chanted in Latin. Sam grabbed his own twig. The occasional hiss and yelp, plus directions from Dean, let them know when the room was clear. Bobby placed the twigs on the door frame. "That'll keep 'em out of here."

When Sam got upstairs he found Tim laying salt in front of the windows and doors. "Can't hurt," he said, flashing Sam a thin smile.

~oo(0)oo~

"What now?" Sam asked when they all got back to the front room.

Bobby raised an eyebrow as if to say "you're an idijt" and said, "We wait."

But Sam didn't want to wait. "What's the plan? What are we doing?"

"We're waiting," Tim spoke from his position slouched against the kitchen door. "If the stakes weren't so high, I'd reach for a six pack."

Sam sighed.

"Sun sets in a few minutes." Bobby said.

Tim murmured, "I suppose that thing about they have until midnight to claim your soul is --"

"It's an old wives tale." Sam and Bobby spoke in unison.

Tim said nothing. Just pursed his lips thoughtfully and dry scrubbed his hands.

With a muffled groan Bobby stood and headed into the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with three bottles of Pabst Blue Ribbon. "We might as well," he muttered. "Sometimes there's just no substitute for a cold beer." After he took his first swallow he looked at Tim and said, "Nice bit of bling there on your neck."

Tim absently stroked the left panther head with his thumb a few times, flicked his eyes over to Sam for a moment before fixing Bobby with a level gaze. "Yeah, it's a keeper."

Bobby smiled tightly and said, "So long as I don't catch you two fooling around on the kitchen table like some other idiots I know, it's all good."

And that was that. They sipped at their beers and the room grew so quiet that they could hear Bobby's old Regulator clock ticking away on the mantle.

They all jumped a few minutes later when a sharp rap came at the door. Ruby. Not so impossibly golden and perfect as on the Astral Plane, in fact she showed signs of having been in a scuffle.

Bobby nodded in acknowledgment and put a gap in the salt.

"I'm sorry," she said to Sam as soon as she stepped through.

Sam nodded. "You did what you could."

"Boy did I ever." She smiled thinly and brushed at the dirt on the front of her jeans. "Where is he? Can I see him?"

~oo(0)oo~

"Impressive," she said dryly, upon seeing the safe room.

Dean took the beer that Tim brought for him, but asked if Bobby could bring down something a little stiffer. "I think that getting skunked is the only thing that will drown out the sound."

~oo(0)oo~

"Guys, who is this?" Tyra asked a little nervously as soon as they all came back up stairs.

"It's Ruby," Sam explained, "She's --" Ruby must have flicked her eyes because Tyra and Landry jumped back as if stung. "-- not like the others. Believe it or not, she's here to help. She's tried to help me find a way to break Dean's deal."

"Really?" Landry arched a skeptical eyebrow.

"Really." Sam replied.

They sat down next to him on Bobby's battered and threadbare loveseat. Tyra shuffled uneasily and whispered something in Landry's ear. He shrugged and murmured something back. They both looked at their watches and then at the clock. She whispered again. Landry replied, loud enough for Sam to hear, "I don't know."

"Something you two love birds want to share with us?" Bobby asked.

Flustered, Tyra stammered no. The fidgeting resumed.

Tim stood up and said, "Tyra, Landry, it looks like we're in for a long night. Why don't you help me make some coffee?"

Landry blinked at that, then something resigned came over him as he stood.

Sam counted to 60 before getting up and heading into the kitchen. A quick glance confirmed that the coffee maker was on. He saw Tim, back to him, in the entry of the utility room.

"What's going on?" He had to strain to hear Tim's voice as he tiptoed across the floor.

"What do you mean, what's going on?" Landry whispered.

"Don't bullshit me," Tim hissed. "I might not have known you all my life, but Tyra's hiding something."

Sam crossed his arms and glared at them over Tim's shoulder. The first splash of coffee hissed into the pot.

Tyra muttered something under her breath and studied her fingernails. Tim didn't say anything, just fixed his gaze on her. Sam tried to do the same to Landry, but he whipped around and gripped the sink.

His voice barely above a whisper, Sam said, "That's my brother's life hanging in the balance. If there's something going on? I need to know."

"Tyra," Tim said, low and soft. Pleading.

"We summoned a demon," Landry murmured.

"You what?!" Sam and Tim gasped.

Tyra drew a deep shuddering breath, studied her hands for a moment, then met their eyes with a clear, direct gaze. "We made a bargain." She swallowed. "We found out the name of the demon with the contract."

"Do you have any idea of what --" Sam began.

"Yes, Sam, we do," Landry cut in. "We do. It's not just you Hunters in the field who face danger."

"Look," Tyra said, "we summoned her and nothing happened. We've been waiting and ... in a little bit we'll try again, or maybe -- maybe you can help us. Show us what we got wrong."

"We didn't get anything wrong," Landry hissed between clenched teeth. "We've done this enough times before to know what we're doing."

"I hope it didn't cost you too much," Tim said, voice laced with regret.

Tyra smiled bitterly. "We can't say. Part of the deal."

"Nothing that's going to bite us in the ass. We thought this deal through before we agreed and insisted on a lot of clarifications before we agreed to it." Anger colored Landry's voice. "Look, it's not like we were born yesterday."

"Which demon did you make the deal with?" Sam asked.

"Ones that are rarely active in this reality -- they call themselves Wolf, Ram, and Hart."

"This reality?"

Landry's eyes got an eager gleam in them as he drew in a deep breath.

"And there's my cue to check the coffee," Tim said, backing away from the door.

"This reality?" Sam prompted when Tim opened the cupboard above the coffee maker.

Landry gestured excitedly as he spoke. "Well, you see, all of creation, the multiverse, is kind of like a snowflake, and in each dimension --"

"Landry, hon, perhaps this isn't the best time to explain the shape of reality --"

"The perceived shape of reality, Tyra."

"Whatever," she groaned. "Look, Sam, there's more than one dimension, one reality. Just take our word for it."

Sam gave a wry smile. "Yeah, I could see how most science journals wouldn't take a proof of string theory based on the occult."

Tyra's lips quirked in amusement.

"Dean likes cream and sugar, right?" Tim asked from behind the refrigerator door.

Inwardly Sam smiled. For a guy who liked to rag on him for being all "girly", Dean liked his coffee full of cream and sugar. "Yeah." He stood back to let Tyra and Landry out of the utility room the buzzer sounded on coffee maker. "About what time did you summon the demon?" he asked as they passed.

"A few minutes before sunset," Landry replied, "Why?"

Sam's knees buckled. Tissue thin, the words fell from his lips, "That's not Ruby in there."

"What?!" Landry gasped.

But Sam was already in motion. Grabbing Tim by the arm, he hauled him towards the back door and whispered in his ear, "Get the emergency bag out of the car."

He then pulled Landry and Tyra back to the utility room. Mouth as dry as the Sahara, he whispered, "That's not Ruby, that's whoever you summoned and there's not a Devil's Trap to hold her. I'm going to put a line of salt and a hex across this door, but you have got to be prepared to move."

"But, Sam, she is trapped," Tyra whisper-hissed back, eyes alight with excitement.

"Listen to me," Landry said, gripping his arm tightly, eyes burning with fanatical urgency, "She's trapped. I just need to tighten the snare is all. I'm going to duck down the hall. I need you to keep her in whatever chair she's in. Bring her coffee. Make small talk. Sit on her damn lap if you have to." He pushed past Sam.

Her face frozen in a tight smile, Tyra whispered that they'd explain in a moment, and then helped him grab mugs and fill them with coffee. They stepped into the living room just as Tim came back into the kitchen with the bag and the shotgun.

(Shit.)

Sam looked over his shoulder and with his eyes, told Tim to duck out of sight, praying as he had never prayed that Tim would understand. Through a mouth that felt numb as wood, he spoke, "So, how do you take your coffee?"

"Black, of course." Not-Ruby smiled and winked.

Tyra, bless her, actually managed to smile back at the joke and set the cup down next to not-Ruby without spilling any.

But not-Ruby's smile twisted, turning poisonous. "Tell Tim to step into the room."

Tim did, shotgun cocked and ready.

Fuck! Whatever Landry was doing, Sam hoped it was done, or close enough because this was about to go south.

"Rock salt?" Not-Ruby laughed. "How quaint." She took a sip of her coffee. "I suppose this is where we cut the shit?"

"Did I turn two pages here?" Bobby asked, setting his cup aside.

"Yes," Landry said, bustling into the room with a sheet of paper, "But we'll get everybody on the same page ASAP." He and Tyra shared a conspiratorial smile.

"That's not Ruby," Tyra said. "Her name is Lilith and she's here for Dean."

Tim leveled the gun at Lilith.

Lilith rolled her eyes white and scoffed. "Silly boy, that's not going to stop me."

"Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose," Tim snarled under his breath.

"Such bravado, I love it!" Lilith purred and gestured almost idly.

Nothing happened.

She gestured again, more frantically and then leaped off the easy chair, rebounding back into it almost instantly. Smoke poured out of the mouth of her host body and filled an invisible cylinder, swirling angrily for several moments before flooding back in. Eyes blazing with rage and hate, Lilith shrieked at Sam, "What have you done?!"

The steady calm of his voice surprised Sam. "I haven't done anything. Neither has Dean. I have no idea what's going on here."

"We did it," Landry said.

It was Bobby's turn to glare at Tyra and Landry, "I thought I told you --"

"Yes, you did," Tyra said. "But this is tested. It will hold."

"You can put the gun down, Tim," Landry said.

"I want to shoot her, just on general principles," Tim growled. "Also, I'm not taking chances."

Tyra circled over to him and gently pushed the barrel towards the floor. "She's not going anywhere until we let her," she said, voice clear and sweet.

With a loud bang, a thin crack opened in the plaster of the ceiling -- but it didn't extend past the diameter of the circle.

"It's not a Solomon's Seal, hon." Tyra flashed a patronizing smile at Lilith.

"Although it works on the same principles," Landry said almost absentmindedly before he collected himself. "See, there's a reason that 'in the beginning was the word.' Language describes reality. Writing and speaking words are one way to use a language to shape reality, and that's the principle that a Solomon's Seal works off of. It describes trapping a demon inside the boundaries of the unbroken circle."

Which explained, of course, why Lilith had tried to break the ceiling -- Sam had seen that trick used before by very powerful demons to break loose by literally breaking the circle.

"Mathematics is also a language describing reality. What I have here," Landry indicated the sheet of paper, "is an equation that describes a cylinder and where it is in terms of a set of geographic coordinates and it describes how a demon named Lilith is bound within it across an infinite number of dimensions --"

Bobby chuckled. "Well I'll be -- that's why you two were so all fired up about the county property maps!"

Tyra smiled tightly. "That's what we were doing all those days, Bobby. We were triangulating just about every square inch of your property."

Landry beamed at Tyra. "See, I told you that Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry had uses beyond just being busy work."

"So what now?" Sam asked.

"That depends on Lilith," Landry said. "If she agrees to release Dean from the terms of the deal and let him and Sam live, I'll write a new equation, one that releases her into the dimension of my choice."

"Or, she can spend eternity sitting on Bobby's old lounge chair," Tyra said brightly.

"Well, not eternity," Landry corrected. "Eventually, like the paper, it's going to crumble, but considering that this is 100% cotton rag fiber and I wrote it using Noodler's Bulletproof ink which is waterproof, fraudproof, and archival? And I've got a mylar sleeve standing by?"

"It's going to be a long fucking time," Sam said, grinning ear to ear. He stepped over to Tim and took the shotgun. "Let's see if I can't help her make up her mind." In a smooth motion born of years of practice, he leveled the gun at her and fired.

Lillith screamed and writhed in agony as the salt tore into her.

"And there's more where that came from," Sam said. "I could go all night if I had to."

"I've also got a piece of chalk," Tyra said, "If I draw a Solomon's Seal around you, we can compel your cooperation."

At a look from Bobby, Landry murmured, "I'm still working on that bit -- magimatical notation has a few limitations."

"Let Dean go," Sam said. "Call off the hellhounds and promise you won't seek revenge or retribution of any kind."

"Get real," Lilith snarled. "I'll let Dean out of his deal and go back to Hell. But anything beyond that? No."

"Fair enough." Sam said.

Landry addressed her. "So, we have a deal then. I'll rewrite the equation on the understanding that you release your claim on Dean and don't consider this a violation of any previous pacts with him."

"Yes." She snarled the word.

"And you swear this by your true name and the name of the Adversary?"

Hate twisted her mouth into something ugly. "Yes!" She lashed out one last time with her powers, but all she succeeded in doing was shredding Bobby's old chair.

"Good," Landry said as if nothing had happened. "Give me a few moments to re-do this and you'll be good to go."

~oo(0)oo~

It was almost anti-climatic. Landry hadn't even set the pen aside when thick black smoke boiled out of the body the demon had worn.

"I can't believe we pulled it off!" Tyra gasped, taking the paper from Landry's hand.

"I wonder who she was," Landry said in a hushed tone, indicating the body of the woman on the chair.

Bobby cleared his throat. "Nothing for her now but a good send off."

But Sam got what Landry was trying to say. Somebody was probably looking for this woman. But to try to give them, whoever they were, a measure of closure would cause more problems than it would solve. Tim's eyes mirrored the sentiment back at him. The world wasn't fair that way. Bobby had it right, time to start gathering the wood for her cremation.


~oo(0)oo~

Dean guffawed when he saw the piece of paper, then, a calculating glint entered his eyes. "She's still bound ... right?"

"Yeah," Landry replied. "As long as that equation is intact, she can only go to Hell --"

"Or what's left of Bobby's easy chair." Tim snickered.

"Same difference," Sam said.

"And as soon as Bobby drags that chair away?" Landry grinned wickedly. "Well ... right now she can only manifest as a column of smoke, unless we happen to have a body there for her to slip into."

"So, Bobby," Dean said, "You got a nice secure file cabinet down here in your panic room? Because, if I'm understanding this right, she's as good as permanently banished until something happens to that paper."

Landry scratched his chin thoughtfully and said, "Y'know, I never did agree to destroy or rewrite this equation. I'll fetch a mylar."

"Serves the bitch right," Dean said.

"And no more chairs in that spot," Bobby noted. "I don't want one of us being possessed, even if she can't go anywhere or do anything with the body."

~oo(0)oo~

"So what now?" Sam asked Tim as he sank into the couch.

Tim laughed he sat down next to Sam and popped the top off a fresh beer. "I say we rest up a week or two down in the privacy of the panic room --" he gave Sam a lewd wink "and then we take your dad's old truck and go Hunting -- just you and me."

Sam drew a breath to quash that notion but then hesitated. Hunting ... without Dean. It just didn't seem right, but Tim had a point. It was time for him to figure out who he was outside of Dean. "It will be a hell of a honeymoon," he replied.

Tim grinned. "I wasn't exactly thinking of it like that, but yeah." He leaned forward, fishing Sam's laptop out of the bag. "I'll see if I can find something with a heart-shaped bed or mirrors on the ceiling."

Sam laughed. "And then we can go to San Francisco."

"Y'know, a lot of people used to joke about who was finally going to get a collar on Tim Riggins," Tyra said as she strode into the room. "I just didn't think it would happen literally." She held her hands out for the laptop. "Hand it over, Riggs, I'll at least make sure you two get AAA rated places."

"So you like my torc?" Tim asked, a bit of tease in his tone.

"Yep," Tyra said, not looking up. "And when I get you booked, I'm going to see if I can find myself one just like it --" She flashed a wicked grin "-- to put around Landry's neck."

~oo(0)oo~

That night as he curled around a soundly sleeping Tim down in the panic room, Sam pondered the fact that he never thought he'd get a happily ever after, and this certainly wasn't what most people's idea of that looked like, but ....

Dean needed an extended break from Hunting, and he could help Bobby train Landry and Tyra in field work. They'd never be hardcore Hunters, but they'd need to know what to do if they had to take on a case or found themselves in the middle of one. Bobby also wanted to work with Landry on writing down and codifying magimatical notation. Sam snickered at the title that Landry had already come up with: Introductio in Analysin Daemonium Infinitorum .*

Bobby probably wasn't going to get the peace and quiet he claimed he longed for, not unless he took a vacation, and nah, he was too happy to do that.

Tim stirred and rolled over, Sam looked down to see Tim studying him with an intensely thoughtful look on his face. "No regrets," Tim said solemnly.

"None," he replied, and then, "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose."

Tim smiled and kissed him before closing his eyes and tucking his head against Sam's shoulder.

Yeah, so this didn't look a damn thing like most other people's happily ever afters.

But it was here and it was his.

And damned if he wasn't going to make the most of it.




----

* Yes, the title is a reference to Euler's Introductio In Analysin Infinitorum