1838
Arizona


One foot crossed the threshold of the dark room, and Sam jerked to a stop as a cold, thin blade came to rest lightly at the base of his throat.

"You're looking for the wrong hunter, boy." A deep, growling voice spoke out from the blackness. Sam squinted, and followed the line of the blade until it faded beyond sight. He didn't dare even swallow; the long blade hovered over thin skin with dangerous intent.

Gathering his nerve, Sam's voice was steady when he replied. "I'm looking for Jensen Ackles."

The blade moved forwards slightly, and Sam took the motion as a signal to step fully into the room. He did so, his skin tightening slightly when the door closed behind him and the world went truly black.

"What do you want with him?" The blade, shimmering like a star, lowered until it caught at the leather band of Sam's satchel, and then followed the fastenings of his heavy coat until it once more came to settle at his collarbone.

Sam grinned.

"I came to tell him that he's a heartless son of a bitch, and I'm gonna fuck him till he can't see straight." The man in the darkness cursed as Sam sidestepped the hovering blade and wrapped his hand around the wrist that held it. The hunter cursed again, and dropped the blade before Sam could accidentally impale himself.

Pulling the hunter closer, close enough to see him in the dark, Sam wrapped his other arm around the man's waist and pressed their bodies together.

"And you couldn't have sent a telegram?" Jensen laughed, fingers finding purchase in Sam's long dark hair and tugging him forwards for a gentle kiss. "Samuel Colt. Well ain't you a sight for sore eyes? Come'er, boy." Sam's grip tightened around the man in his arms, the weariness of months on the road fading away with each passing second. "You certainly know how to make a body feel loved, Slim. You've come a helluva long way for a roll in the hay."

"Roll in the…Jesus Christ, Jensen. I'd heard you were dead." The fingers in Sam' hair were both soothing and insistent. Another kiss, harder this time, and longer, lips but no tongues.

"Now where'd you go getting a silly idea like that, hmm?" Jensen's tone was lightly scolding as he tugged at the ties on Sam's heavy leather coat. "Boy, you should know by now that it takes more than a little angry spirit to get rid of me."

Sam could feel soft, worn cotton under his fingers, and the heat of warm skin underneath. Jensen was wearing the battered maroon over-shirt Sam had left behind in Connecticut, his heavy work boots, and nothing else. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Sam could see the revolver-a model of his own design, and a belt load full of bullets on the bedside dresser. The long, deadly sword lay abandoned at the foot of the bed, and experience taught him that there'd be a dozen or so knives stashed around the cheep room.

Impatiently, he shed his coat like a second skin, casting it aside where it fell to half cover the antique sword Jensen had held at his throat. "I heard there was a great deal of fire, along with that spirit."

"So it got a little hot," Jensen shrugged, "You've been around for worse."

Jensen chuckled, his hands falling on the leather satchel at Sam's hip. Before he could remove it, Sam caught his fingers and held them between his own. "I've never asked you this before, and I'll never ask it again," he vowed. "Leave this life, come out of the darkness."

Jensen's fingers slid from Sam's. His smile was gentle, but lined with steel. "You know I won't."

Sam nodded slowly, unsurprised by the answer. "Then this is for you." He pressed the worn leather into Jensen's hands and watched the shadows play over the man's sharp features. The case fell open easily, and Jensen slid a solid wooden box from its confines.

He opened it, and a bright smile spread across his lips.

"A gun," he grinned, "you made me a gun. It's beautiful."

Inside the box was Sam's masterpiece, a weapon built of blood and sweat and ancient magic. He had first designed the gun years ago, when the feel of Jensen in his arms had been a new and thrilling sensation. It was why he had sailed for England, leaving Jensen behind to fight the darkness.

Jensen's fingers, his knuckles split and bruised from a fight, traced the outline of the symbols inscribed on the slender weapon. A pentagram and the Scutum Fidei on either sides of the barrel.

"Non timebo mala." The worlds were inscribed along the handle in elegant cursive; the first words Jensen had ever spoken to him. "I will fear no evil."

"Now you have no cause to." Sam whispered the words vehemently into the night, pushing aside the case and its thirteen bullets to pull Jensen close once more.

"Back into the saddle?" Jensen teased. He pressed a single kiss to the cool brass handle of the gun, and then Sam's lips.

"And deny you the chance to beat Hell into submission single handedly?" It was easy to fall back into kissing Jensen. The man hadn't changed much in the five years they had been apart. A few more scars, a little more darkness in his vivid eyes, but he was still the Jensen that had pulled Sam from Hell when he was sixteen. He knew exactly how to kiss, how to coax full lips open with gentle flicks from his tongue, and then things were back the way they were before.

He kissed Jensen the way he had wanted to when they had last been together. Back then there had been no time for warmth and love, just Jensen's hand a solid weight on his neck, a kiss that burned straight to his soul, and dark green eyes that said you had better come back to me.

"You remember when we were in Digger's Creak?" Sam asked breathlessly. Under Jensen's guiding hands, he shed first his heavy outer layers, then the soft blue undershirt. Jensen raised his arms as Sam tugged away the only garment that stood between their skin, and he let his hands fall to rest on Jensen's ass.

"Hmm," Jensen smiled, fingers toying with the silver crucifix that hung above a Y shaped scar on Sam's chest. "The vampire."

Sam snorted. "Trust you to remember things in hunts." He said fondly, and traced his thumb over Jensen's smiling lips. "I was thinking more about what came after."

"Oh, that's right." The gentle smile turned coy. "Someone's first time…"

"I remember how long it took to wear you down." Jensen had always said that it wasn't the right time, that Sam shouldn't rush into sex after a hunt, that it wouldn't mean anything. Back then, they'd been hunting something new every week. It had never been the right time.

A ghostly heat worked its way across Sam's chest before warm lips settled on his throat in a loving parody of a vampire's kiss. Sam groaned and tangled his hand in Jensen's unruly hair, tugging him backwards and claiming his lips. He tried to remember the emotions that fueled him after a successful hunt, and how his heart would pound so heavily in his ears he could barely hear Jensen moan when he fucked him.

"I need you." He whispered against Jensen's lips.

Jensen replied. "You have me."

"But for how long." Sam asked.

Jensen frowned, and opened his mouth to answer. Sam stopped him, kissing away confusion, distracting his lover in the only way he could. Jensen arched under his touch. His hedonism put at odds with his self-enforced lifestyle of brutality, Jensen liked sex as much as he liked the hunt.

That had always been their way. Wild and passionate, even that first time. Jensen had never been known for his restraint, and Sam rarely encouraged it.

As Jensen moved to kick off his boots, Sam held him still. "Leave them on." He enticed playfully, drawing a wide grin from Jensen and prompting nimble fingers to work at the ties on his leather pants.

"You're a strange one, Slim."

"And you love it." Wrapping his arms around Jensen's waist, he dragged them both forwards, twisting until they landed sideways on the small bed. It was too dark to see the color of the bedspread, and for a moment, Sam contemplated lighting the oil lamp. He wanted to see Jensen properly, in the light and away from the darkness.

He didn't leave the bed though, opting instead for a slow kiss and tangled embrace until finally Jensen began to squirm against him.

"Still angry with me?" Jensen asked as they broke their kiss.

The truth was Sam could never stay angry with Jensen. Not even with ten thousand miles and a hundred bittersweet memories between them.

"No." He admitted, one hand reaching to caress a tight nipple.

"Still want to fuck me until I can't see straight?"

"Definitely." Sam nodded into Jensen's shoulder, his fingers tip toeing along Jensen's lean hip to settle between firm buttocks.

"Then you'd better get on with it before Miss Ella comes up to air the room." Jensen taunted cheekily.

Sam rolled his eyes but sat upright on the bed. Fastening one hand under each of Jensen's armpits, he hauled the hunter into the centre of the bed and rolled himself to lie flush along Jensen's back.

A soft 'oomph' and a tempting moan was all the invitation he needed to fasten his lips against the top of Jensen's spine, fingers brushing aside the wild hair that touched his shoulders.

"Heard you got into a little confrontation down in Texas." Sam continued to talk, knowing he could ask Jensen anything right now and be denied nothing. "Have fun with the Mexicans?"

"They're even crazier than the Sioux." Jensen admitted. He gasped and moaned, Sam's fingers easily remembering just where to turn their attentions. The soft strip of flesh between ribs, the place where fluid muscle gave way to the swell of his ass, Sam stroked and liked them all.

"I thought you liked the Indians." Jensen shifted when Sam nudged him onto his knees. "They certainly like you."

"They like hunters." Jensen's voce was muffled against the heavy comforter, his fingers clenching against the patchwork. Grinning into the darkness, Sam spread Jensen's ass with one hand and circled his tongue against the small opening laid bare.

Whatever sound Jensen made was lost against the bed, and Sam took that as a signal to continue, his tongue bathing the heated skin and darting between the tight muscle. When Jensen's knees threatened to give way, he wedged a shoulder between trembling legs, holding the hunter still long enough to slide a saliva-wet finger inside tight, wet heat.

Latin curses that had amused him as a teenager spilled into the bedding, the words jumbled until they lost all meaning entirely. Happy enough to listen, Sam continued to work two, then three fingers in besides the first, his other hand stroking soothing lines along strong thighs. He continued until the trembling became full on shudders and took Jensen's cock in hand in time to catch the hunter's release in his fingers.

"Remember Baja, the skin walker. You fucked me outside, in the brightest sun I ever saw." He could have come from hearing the ragged breaths that escaped into the air. Rolling Jensen over, he used the hunter's release to ease his cock into Jensen's ass, not stopping until he was close enough to kiss full lips and whisper into a trembling mouth. "I would stay with you forever in the sun."

Heavy eyelashes were damp with sweat and tears, but there was weariness beneath them that Sam could never dissipate. "But not in the darkness." Jensen sighed.

"Not anymore." Sam agreed.

He fucked Jensen slow and deep, remembering their hunts, and the times between. Remembering a morning in a barn alongside the Colorado River, when Jensen had smiled brightly and they'd made love and laughed for so long it felt strange to venture out into the world. Able fingers laced between his own, a strength in them that Sam would never have. Skin moved against skin, slick and warm, something real, something he could keep with him when the cold became too much.

With a silent sigh he came, and stayed inside Jensen until the hunter trembled for the final time, and gasped into Sam's shoulder.

****

Morning brought the smell of freshly baked bread and cool milk from the basement store of the building. Jensen was awake, picking at a small buttered loaf and flicking through a thick stack of maps. He smiled when Sam stumbled out of bed and into the patchwork-covered armchair besides the small table.

"Morning."

Sam grunted and downed his milk before a smile could be worked into place. A small shake of the head was the only response he received from Jensen, and the hunter turned back to his papers.

Ripping off a lump of springy bread, Sam peered over Jensen's shoulder. "A hunt?" He asked.

Jensen shrugged his shoulder, wrinkling the line of the leather-worked over shirt he wore. "Maybe," he admitted. One finger traced a line along a winding river and tapped impatiently over a blank spot in the map. "Maybe not."

"But you're going" Sam knew his lover too well. Jensen had been known to travel thousands of miles on the rumor of a hunt. Jensen's horse, a wild and damn near untamable beast named Tempest, lived for the long journey across open land, and Jensen went wherever the hunt took him. Even into the vast lands of Mexico.

"I'm going." Jensen nodded. He lifted his head, and Sam saw the faint marks of his incessant kisses along the line of Jensen's neck. "You could come with me." Sam knew better than to disregard the flatness of Jensen's offer. A part of him wanted to. A bigger part knew he couldn't.

He coughed, and cleared his throat, unable to bare the look in Jensen's eyes any longer. "About the gun," he said.

"What about it?" Jensen frowned.

"Use it sparingly. Once the bullets are gone, it's useless to you."

"It's the same model as the one I got from Paterson, it doesn't take the same rounds?"

With a sigh, Sam slid from his chair and circled Jensen's until he could wrap his arms around the man's neck and torso, pressing his cheek into Jensen's soft, sun-brushed hair. If he looked into Jensen's eyes, he'd let the truth run free. Neither of them could afford that.

"Fire one of the bullets I gave you from that gun, and it will kill anything."

"Bullets tend to have that effect." Jensen pointed out, though he tipped his head and curled into Sam's touch.

"No," Sam sighed, savoring the feeling of Jensen in his arms, and knowing that it might be the last time he would. "I mean, it will kill anything." He whispered the last word, and on cue, Jensen twisted around and took his face between his hands, eyes bright and urgent. Afraid.

"What did you do?" He demanded, knowing as well as Sam the magicks needed to create such a weapon. After all, everything Samuel Colt had leaned about the occult, he had learned from Jensen. Rumors even had it that Jensen had been taught by Dean Winchester, a legend in the hunting world. They both understood the implications. "Sam?" Jensen's fingers were a vice squeezing tighter, and his voice was as harsh as the wild wilderness outside.

"I always knew I wasn't cut out for the life you lead." Sam hated to admit it, hated to admit that maybe Jensen's love wasn't enough for him, but it was the truth. With every hunt they had taken, every kill, something inside of him had grown colder and colder, until one day he had looked upon the gates of Hell, and known the truth.

Something was coming. Something darker and more terrifying than anything they had seen before. He wasn't a warrior. He couldn't fight it the way Jensen could. All he could do was hand his lover the tools to do the job, and pray.

"Sam," Jensen whispered sadly, fingers brushing Sam's cheekbones. "You've opened the gates to a world you can't possibly imagine."

"No," Sam shook his head. "I just made the key."

****

Okay, notes time! I've tried hard to keep everything as factual as possible. This story is set in 1838; two years after Samuel Colt supposedly made his super gun. It's taken Sam a few years to track Jensen down. No emails or GPS back then, unfortunately, and the railroads that made traveling easier didn't really come into their own until the end of the century.

Jensen's little run in with the Mexicans is, of course The Battle of the Alamo, and to the best of my knowledge, Baja has been known by some variation of the name from the beginning of the sixteenth century.

As for the Colt, when Papa Winchester gave that yummy little speech, he said that Colt made the gun for a hunter. He obviously knew about things that went bump in the night in order to make the gun, but he made it for a hunter. I've taken this to imply that he knew hunters, and he made the gun as a gift for one of them. Naturally, this led to porn.

End notes. Please, feel free to beat me with a historical textbook if you so please. :D I enjoy it.

Companion story written by TempestQuill called Standy By You Forever