So We Might Live Anew Part 2
Not that protecting his vessel matters, really, Gabriel thinks, snapping himself out of there. He’s been the Trickster for so long, he figures he wouldn’t be able to use a vessel at all. All he’s got left of his past life is a few annoying instincts and a more annoying family that he’s tried his damnedest to forget.
At this point, that he’s had a soft spot since they met for the boy who’s supposed to be the devil’s meatsuit is only ironic in that Alanis-Morissette-really-just-bad-luck way. He realizes it was probably just his grace trying to reach out to its vessel from behind centuries of blood sacrifices and Trickster’s judgements; it’s enough to make him feel thoroughly used, though there’s no one to blame for it.
He finds himself back in the haven he spent centuries building to perfection, infusing it with pagan spells for hiding and protection. The walls ripple as though he disturbed them with his arrival. Anna’s still there, sitting at a table and working out plans for her infiltration of Faerie. She smiles at him.
“It’s not the end of the world, you know.” She pauses. “Well, ok, it is, but you don’t need to look so down. We’ll figure this out. Besides, Heaven might still take you back. If anyone should be worried, it’s me.”
Gabriel rolls his eyes at her attempt to improve his mood. He snaps up a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and plops down on a couch the room conveniently manifests for him.
“As if I’d want to go back to Heaven. I seriously doubt they’d welcome me with open arms; I’m not exactly the prodigal son, y’know. Too long slumming it down here, I’ve got human all over me or something.”
“I think you’ve got a particular human all over you,” Anna says cheekily, looking up from her plans.
Gabriel points his spoon at her and half-heartedly glares before returning to his ice cream. She has a point, but whatever. Just because she has a clean slate with her vessel (and that’s an intimate relationship, isn’t it? being made to have another being inside of you) and has a much better chance of having a good relationship with her doesn’t mean he’s going to. He’s only going to keep an eye on Sam so those assholes can’t get him. It doesn’t have to mean anything. He doesn’t see much more of Anna for a while after that.
Things seem to go on as normal for Sam and Dean (or, as normal as things can be when the Apocalypse is happening). Except, Gabriel keeps turning up when hunts go bad. He’s helpful, in the way that an attack cat is helpful, which means he keeps Sam from dying and occasionally ganks something in some way that manages to be both horrifying and hilarious. Most of the time, Sam just knows he’s there, can sense his presence (which is weird, and when did he get freaky archangel sensing powers?). He’s not sure why Gabriel shows up those times, but it is kind of nice knowing there’s someone there who’s not immediately out to kill him.
A few weeks after Carthage, they run into Meg. Apparently, she’d been looking forward to seeing them there, which Sam takes to mean she was looking forward to torturing them gruesomely and then turning them over to Lucifer. She is a demon, after all.
She’s got Sam tied up and woozy and Dean knocked out, and Sam remembers he still hasn’t talked with her about that whole possessing him thing she did years ago. It’s a weird thought, but he is the potential meatsuit for her boss; he wonders if that would make things awkward between them and if there’s a protocol to follow there. Then he realizes this is not the most productive line of thought, but he’s a hair’s breadth from passing out here, so he thinks it can be excused.
Sam thinks this would be a good time for Gabriel to show up, and then suddenly he’s there. A breeze blows through the room and Meg is gone along with her goons.
“We gotta stop meeting like this, kiddo,” Gabriel says in Sam’s ear, and Sam blacks out.
He comes to, blinking away memories of a dream where he’d lost...something (a coin?), and was frantically searching for it. He and Dean are back in their motel room, Dean still passed out, and Gabriel is building a castle out of unnaturally bright cupcakes. There’s even a moat with a drawbridge made of licorice sticks. Castiel is hovering by Dean’s bed and staring suspiciously at the rainbow of cupcakes.
Sam would never admit it, but he likes coming to after a bad job (and let’s face it, they’ve been getting worse as the Apocalypse continues) and seeing Gabriel there, just because he wants to be. He tells Sam it’s because he’s got nothing better to do, but Sam thinks it’s really because he’s lonely. Gabriel’s been apart from anyone who knows the real him for millennia; Sam remembers how it feels to cut all ties to your old life, to not be able to talk to anyone about who you used to be. It’s a particular kind of loneliness when even those you’re closest to can’t know the real you.
“Well, since you’re now awake, Samsquatch, I’m going to leave you boys to whatever it is you do,” Gabriel says when he notices that Sam’s regained consciousness. “Love to stick around and chat, but you know how it is, things to see, people to do.” He winks, and snaps himself away.
Sam’s a little disappointed that Gabriel never seems to stick around.
They’re on a hunt when it happens. Of course, they’re always on a hunt it seems, so it’s not that much of a shocker. At first Sam had thought it was a mermaid (which had amused Dean to no end), now he’s not so sure. It’s the middle of winter and there’d been six drownings in the past week; all that had been found were the victims’ livers, floating in the lake in the middle of town.
They’ve split up, Dean talking to the victims’ families, Sam researching in the little museum set up down by the lake, when he hears it. It starts out softly, and he puts it out of his mind as the background music they tend to play in places like this. It’s got a haunting, longing sound to it, though, and as the minutes drag by the music only grows louder. It gets into Sam’s head in a way he can’t fully articulate, and before he knows it Sam’s out of the museum and walking towards the lakeshore.
It’s a cloudy day, snow on the ground, but the lake isn’t frozen over yet; his breath puffs out in little clouds in front of him. As he gets nearer the lake, the music grows louder, more insistent. It fills his head completely and the only thing he wants to do is go to whoever is playing this music, to be with them so they aren’t so lonely.
The music draws him around the lake towards a small inlet, hidden by a stand of pine trees. A man is there, violin in hand, obviously the source of the music. He sees Sam and stops playing, but the music lingers on, keeping Sam entranced. The man smiles and it’s all teeth.
“I was hoping you’d show up,” he says, voice lilting with an accent Sam can’t place. “You don’t know how difficult it is to get to you, do you? We’ve been trying for weeks. We need you, or, rather, we need what you can get us.”
The music’s still echoing in Sam’s head and the man looks so earnest, so beseeching, Sam wants desperately to help him with whatever he’s after. “Anything,” he tells the man, “just tell me what you need. I’ll do it.” The urge to prostrate himself in front of this man in supplication, in offering, is almost overwhelming but deeply ingrained instincts against just that fight him every step of the way.
The man grins wildly then, his face twisting so he looks more creature than human. He’s suddenly in Sam’s face as though the distance between them was never there; he’s as tall as Sam, but deceptively thin for all the strength with which he grabs Sam’s arm. He can feel the bones grind against each other, and he knows this should worry him, but he can’t seem to muster up any care.
“Just stand there,” the man says, sliding one hand over Sam’s chest, “I’ll do all the work. He’ll have to come, this way.” With that, the man (monster! Sam’s mind tries to interject) presses his fingers into Sam’s stomach, just under his ribs. He pushes up and in, and blood starts to ooze down the man’s arm but he must be working some kind of pain control mojo, because Sam can’t feel a thing. He notes absently that the man’s mouth is widening beyond normal human proportions.
“Just need to remove that pesky liver,” the thing says, “carries too many toxins for my taste. Don’t worry, I’m sure--”
A bright flash is followed by a thunderclap and then the thing is gone, the only proof that it was there the hole in Sam’s gut, currently being held closed by a pissed off archangel.
“Are you an idiot?! No, don’t answer that, of course you are. When those asshole faeries are after you, why would you ever think it’s a good idea to go around unprotected? You might have a death wish, but I don’t.” Gabriel goes on for a while in that vein, but Sam tunes him out as he slowly comes out of the trance that thing had put him in.
“Gabriel,” he interrupts with a gasp when the pain hits, “you think you could fix me up?”
“Not like I have much of a choice, do I? You Winchesters are always in need of saving - worse than that Daphne chick, I swear,” Gabriel complains, though he’s gentle when he fixes the hole in Sam, his touch lingering longer than is strictly necessary. “Thought you’d be more prepared than that, though. Have some anti-faerie stuff going for you or something.” He rolls his eyes.
Sam lifts his shirts to check where the hole had been, but he’s completely healed. “I was prepared - am prepared. Got iron, salt to spill, the whole deal. What was that thing?” He gestures in the direction of where the creature had been.
“Iron and salt only help you if you can use ‘em. If they get you enchanted first, you’re screwed, and not in the fun way.” Gabriel looks thoughtful. “Well, usually not in the fun way.
“Anyway, that was a nix. It’ll get you with it’s music, and before you know it, all that’s left of you is a liver out in that lake. Pretty nasty things, could have got me if I wasn’t expecting it. But, you know, I was, which is the whole point. I obviously can’t leave you alone anymore, since I’m the only one who seems to care about your safety here.”
The idea that Gabriel cares about his safety warms Sam, though he supposes he should have realized it sooner. The angel had been showing up more and more often to get them out of bad spots, and been staying afterwards longer each time. It makes him feel like Gabriel thinks of him as more than a potential meatsuit, which he hopes is true. Either way, Gabriel’s attention feels much better than anything Lucifer’s ever tried to get him to say yes. And Gabriel’s not even trying to convince him to do anything, anymore.
“But if I was more careful, you wouldn’t need to come around anymore and I’d miss your hilarious sense of humor,” Sam says, simperingly.
“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” Gabriel smirks, and Sam is only slightly surprised to be bantering with an archangel.
“If you didn’t check up on me, I might just need to go looking for Lucifer to fulfill my angelic needs.”
Gabriel’s face shuts down immediately, any trace of humor gone at that statement and Sam knows he said something wrong. “No,” he says harshly, “that won’t be happening. Ever. He can’t take you; I won’t let him.” His presence seems to increase to fill the entire clearing and Sam doesn’t know whether it’s the Trickster-God or the archangel making this declaration; he’s never seen angels be possessive like this but Gabriel seems to defy most angelic behavior.
“Ok,” Sam says, watching Gabriel’s face carefully, “ok.”
After that, Gabriel sticks with them most of the time. He leaves at night though, because, he says, angels don’t sleep and sleeping people are boring. As luck would have it, then, the next time the faeries come for Sam is at night.
Cas is off on another hunt for God. Sam and Dean are just coming back to their motel after yet another salt’n’burn when the lights appear. They’re small specks of light, floating off towards the marshy area behind the motel, almost like ghost orbs except they can see them with their bare eyes. Dean gestures in their direction, mouthing that they should check them out and Sam sighs but goes along with it. They’re still armed from the recent ghost hunt; what’s the worst that could happen?
The lights lead them around the swamp to a small hill covered in thorn bushes. There’s a square of light shining out of the hill, which is something Sam never thought he’d see. He’s reminded of hobbits living in hills, but knows they’re not real. The lights are mesmerizing, as is the light, and now the sounds of a wild party are coming out of the hill. Both he and Dean are drawn irresistibly towards it.
As they approach, beautiful, but only vaguely human shaped, creatures appear out of the side of the hill, beckoning them further in. If either of them were in their right minds, this would be the point at which they turned tail and ran the opposite direction; this is obviously a gathering of supernatural creatures and all they’re prepared for is some ghosts at best. But the lights have woven some sort of spell over them, and any thoughts of fleeing are pushed out of their minds before they can fully arrive.
Inside, the hill is hollowed out. Tables groaning with food line the walls. Beautiful creatures of all shapes and sizes mingle in the middle of the floor, dancing or talking. Lights like the ones they followed hover over the festivities, giving an ethereal glow to the whole thing.
“Dude, this is awesome,” Dean says, and Sam has to agree. He feels like he’s forgetting something, but whatever it is slips away from him. Whatever, it must not be that important, he thinks.
“I’m gonna go check out the food,” Dean tells Sam, already walking that way. Sam follows.
The food looks amazing. He doesn’t recognize most of it, but he sees various meats piled high on one end of a table. Another table is covered in various types of fruit, many of which he’s never seen before; it’s by far the most colorful table, and the most tempting to Sam. Dean, of course, immediately heads to a table that’s loaded down with what looks like pies and puddings.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” comes a slick voice from behind Sam. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before...” the voice trails off, obviously waiting for Sam to respond. He turns to see a small man, dressed to the nines in a deep, almost blood, red old English officers’ outfit. The man’s dark hair is covered with a three-cornered hat, and he grins widely at Sam, offering his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees Dean is also being approached by someone, a lady in a green dress with so many ruffles he can barely see her body.
“Um, I’m Sam,” he tells the man, taking the offered hand. The man, instead of shaking his hand as Sam expects, turns it and kisses the back with a little flourish and bow. Sam blushes and stutters out, “uh...pleased to meet you?”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” the man responds, looking Sam over in a way that’s almost hungry.
“This one’s mine, Seamus,” interrupts the woman that had been talking to Dean. “He’s got a brother; I’m taking them both for the night.” She grins wickedly, and Sam begins to feel a little of that nervousness he probably should have felt earlier.
Seamus pouts a little, but capitulates easily to the woman’s request. She leads both Sam and Dean over to a mostly unoccupied part of the dance floor where another woman stands, obviously waiting for them.
“Um, ladies, I don’t-” Sam starts, when the first woman taps both he and Dean in the middle of the forehead. Sam blinks, startled, to see Anna and Jo where the two ladies had been. “What was that?”
“I gave you a bit of the Sight, so you can see through faerie glamour,” Anna says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you boys fell for it that easily; we’re going to have to discuss your gullibility. Later. Now, take a good look at where you actually are.”
They turn around and Sam blanches. Dean gags. The creatures are no longer beautiful; most of them have claws, and mouths wider than their faces really should allow. Some look like they’re made of tree bark while others are shaped more like boulders with a faint mossy covering. A few have hollow backs showing through their tattered clothes. Others have the legs of deer or the snapping faces of birds of prey. The food tables are still covered, but now Sam can see that the meat looks suspiciously human and the fruits are all rotten. The desserts are similarly bloody or covered in Sam doesn’t even want to know what.
“I almost ate that!” Dean exclaims, disgusted.
“Yes, but I got to you before you could be so stupid, so,” Anna replies, shrugging.
“This is what you guys have been doing this whole time? Going to these things?” Sam asks.
“Yep, and let me tell you, you’ve got it easy out there,” Jo says. “You’re still hunting, not being hunted; I hate having to be on the other side of the equation. If it wasn’t for Anna, I’d have gone crazy with all these...things around.” She smiles softly and grabs Anna’s hand.
“But now we’ve got to get you guys out of here without causing too much trouble. Just play along,” Anna says, squeezing Jo’s hand in return. Jo practically glows at Anna’s attention, and Sam is suddenly jealous of their connection. Why can’t he be that close with Gabriel? But he dismisses the jealousy quickly and turns his attention back to Anna.
“We’re gonna have so much fun together, aren’t we boys?” she’s saying, leading them back towards the entrance.
“Definitely,” Jo joins in, “do you have one in mind, or should we share?” she says, turning to Anna. Anna gives them both an appraising look.
“I think we should share this time, make it more...interesting since they’re brothers.” They both grin wickedly at that, sharing a look.
Finally, they’re out of the hill. Anna and Jo lead the boys around to the backside of it before Anna zaps them away.
Part 3
At this point, that he’s had a soft spot since they met for the boy who’s supposed to be the devil’s meatsuit is only ironic in that Alanis-Morissette-really-just-bad-luck way. He realizes it was probably just his grace trying to reach out to its vessel from behind centuries of blood sacrifices and Trickster’s judgements; it’s enough to make him feel thoroughly used, though there’s no one to blame for it.
He finds himself back in the haven he spent centuries building to perfection, infusing it with pagan spells for hiding and protection. The walls ripple as though he disturbed them with his arrival. Anna’s still there, sitting at a table and working out plans for her infiltration of Faerie. She smiles at him.
“It’s not the end of the world, you know.” She pauses. “Well, ok, it is, but you don’t need to look so down. We’ll figure this out. Besides, Heaven might still take you back. If anyone should be worried, it’s me.”
Gabriel rolls his eyes at her attempt to improve his mood. He snaps up a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and plops down on a couch the room conveniently manifests for him.
“As if I’d want to go back to Heaven. I seriously doubt they’d welcome me with open arms; I’m not exactly the prodigal son, y’know. Too long slumming it down here, I’ve got human all over me or something.”
“I think you’ve got a particular human all over you,” Anna says cheekily, looking up from her plans.
Gabriel points his spoon at her and half-heartedly glares before returning to his ice cream. She has a point, but whatever. Just because she has a clean slate with her vessel (and that’s an intimate relationship, isn’t it? being made to have another being inside of you) and has a much better chance of having a good relationship with her doesn’t mean he’s going to. He’s only going to keep an eye on Sam so those assholes can’t get him. It doesn’t have to mean anything. He doesn’t see much more of Anna for a while after that.
Things seem to go on as normal for Sam and Dean (or, as normal as things can be when the Apocalypse is happening). Except, Gabriel keeps turning up when hunts go bad. He’s helpful, in the way that an attack cat is helpful, which means he keeps Sam from dying and occasionally ganks something in some way that manages to be both horrifying and hilarious. Most of the time, Sam just knows he’s there, can sense his presence (which is weird, and when did he get freaky archangel sensing powers?). He’s not sure why Gabriel shows up those times, but it is kind of nice knowing there’s someone there who’s not immediately out to kill him.
A few weeks after Carthage, they run into Meg. Apparently, she’d been looking forward to seeing them there, which Sam takes to mean she was looking forward to torturing them gruesomely and then turning them over to Lucifer. She is a demon, after all.
She’s got Sam tied up and woozy and Dean knocked out, and Sam remembers he still hasn’t talked with her about that whole possessing him thing she did years ago. It’s a weird thought, but he is the potential meatsuit for her boss; he wonders if that would make things awkward between them and if there’s a protocol to follow there. Then he realizes this is not the most productive line of thought, but he’s a hair’s breadth from passing out here, so he thinks it can be excused.
Sam thinks this would be a good time for Gabriel to show up, and then suddenly he’s there. A breeze blows through the room and Meg is gone along with her goons.
“We gotta stop meeting like this, kiddo,” Gabriel says in Sam’s ear, and Sam blacks out.
He comes to, blinking away memories of a dream where he’d lost...something (a coin?), and was frantically searching for it. He and Dean are back in their motel room, Dean still passed out, and Gabriel is building a castle out of unnaturally bright cupcakes. There’s even a moat with a drawbridge made of licorice sticks. Castiel is hovering by Dean’s bed and staring suspiciously at the rainbow of cupcakes.
Sam would never admit it, but he likes coming to after a bad job (and let’s face it, they’ve been getting worse as the Apocalypse continues) and seeing Gabriel there, just because he wants to be. He tells Sam it’s because he’s got nothing better to do, but Sam thinks it’s really because he’s lonely. Gabriel’s been apart from anyone who knows the real him for millennia; Sam remembers how it feels to cut all ties to your old life, to not be able to talk to anyone about who you used to be. It’s a particular kind of loneliness when even those you’re closest to can’t know the real you.
“Well, since you’re now awake, Samsquatch, I’m going to leave you boys to whatever it is you do,” Gabriel says when he notices that Sam’s regained consciousness. “Love to stick around and chat, but you know how it is, things to see, people to do.” He winks, and snaps himself away.
Sam’s a little disappointed that Gabriel never seems to stick around.
They’re on a hunt when it happens. Of course, they’re always on a hunt it seems, so it’s not that much of a shocker. At first Sam had thought it was a mermaid (which had amused Dean to no end), now he’s not so sure. It’s the middle of winter and there’d been six drownings in the past week; all that had been found were the victims’ livers, floating in the lake in the middle of town.
They’ve split up, Dean talking to the victims’ families, Sam researching in the little museum set up down by the lake, when he hears it. It starts out softly, and he puts it out of his mind as the background music they tend to play in places like this. It’s got a haunting, longing sound to it, though, and as the minutes drag by the music only grows louder. It gets into Sam’s head in a way he can’t fully articulate, and before he knows it Sam’s out of the museum and walking towards the lakeshore.
It’s a cloudy day, snow on the ground, but the lake isn’t frozen over yet; his breath puffs out in little clouds in front of him. As he gets nearer the lake, the music grows louder, more insistent. It fills his head completely and the only thing he wants to do is go to whoever is playing this music, to be with them so they aren’t so lonely.
The music draws him around the lake towards a small inlet, hidden by a stand of pine trees. A man is there, violin in hand, obviously the source of the music. He sees Sam and stops playing, but the music lingers on, keeping Sam entranced. The man smiles and it’s all teeth.
“I was hoping you’d show up,” he says, voice lilting with an accent Sam can’t place. “You don’t know how difficult it is to get to you, do you? We’ve been trying for weeks. We need you, or, rather, we need what you can get us.”
The music’s still echoing in Sam’s head and the man looks so earnest, so beseeching, Sam wants desperately to help him with whatever he’s after. “Anything,” he tells the man, “just tell me what you need. I’ll do it.” The urge to prostrate himself in front of this man in supplication, in offering, is almost overwhelming but deeply ingrained instincts against just that fight him every step of the way.
The man grins wildly then, his face twisting so he looks more creature than human. He’s suddenly in Sam’s face as though the distance between them was never there; he’s as tall as Sam, but deceptively thin for all the strength with which he grabs Sam’s arm. He can feel the bones grind against each other, and he knows this should worry him, but he can’t seem to muster up any care.
“Just stand there,” the man says, sliding one hand over Sam’s chest, “I’ll do all the work. He’ll have to come, this way.” With that, the man (monster! Sam’s mind tries to interject) presses his fingers into Sam’s stomach, just under his ribs. He pushes up and in, and blood starts to ooze down the man’s arm but he must be working some kind of pain control mojo, because Sam can’t feel a thing. He notes absently that the man’s mouth is widening beyond normal human proportions.
“Just need to remove that pesky liver,” the thing says, “carries too many toxins for my taste. Don’t worry, I’m sure--”
A bright flash is followed by a thunderclap and then the thing is gone, the only proof that it was there the hole in Sam’s gut, currently being held closed by a pissed off archangel.
“Are you an idiot?! No, don’t answer that, of course you are. When those asshole faeries are after you, why would you ever think it’s a good idea to go around unprotected? You might have a death wish, but I don’t.” Gabriel goes on for a while in that vein, but Sam tunes him out as he slowly comes out of the trance that thing had put him in.
“Gabriel,” he interrupts with a gasp when the pain hits, “you think you could fix me up?”
“Not like I have much of a choice, do I? You Winchesters are always in need of saving - worse than that Daphne chick, I swear,” Gabriel complains, though he’s gentle when he fixes the hole in Sam, his touch lingering longer than is strictly necessary. “Thought you’d be more prepared than that, though. Have some anti-faerie stuff going for you or something.” He rolls his eyes.
Sam lifts his shirts to check where the hole had been, but he’s completely healed. “I was prepared - am prepared. Got iron, salt to spill, the whole deal. What was that thing?” He gestures in the direction of where the creature had been.
“Iron and salt only help you if you can use ‘em. If they get you enchanted first, you’re screwed, and not in the fun way.” Gabriel looks thoughtful. “Well, usually not in the fun way.
“Anyway, that was a nix. It’ll get you with it’s music, and before you know it, all that’s left of you is a liver out in that lake. Pretty nasty things, could have got me if I wasn’t expecting it. But, you know, I was, which is the whole point. I obviously can’t leave you alone anymore, since I’m the only one who seems to care about your safety here.”
The idea that Gabriel cares about his safety warms Sam, though he supposes he should have realized it sooner. The angel had been showing up more and more often to get them out of bad spots, and been staying afterwards longer each time. It makes him feel like Gabriel thinks of him as more than a potential meatsuit, which he hopes is true. Either way, Gabriel’s attention feels much better than anything Lucifer’s ever tried to get him to say yes. And Gabriel’s not even trying to convince him to do anything, anymore.
“But if I was more careful, you wouldn’t need to come around anymore and I’d miss your hilarious sense of humor,” Sam says, simperingly.
“Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” Gabriel smirks, and Sam is only slightly surprised to be bantering with an archangel.
“If you didn’t check up on me, I might just need to go looking for Lucifer to fulfill my angelic needs.”
Gabriel’s face shuts down immediately, any trace of humor gone at that statement and Sam knows he said something wrong. “No,” he says harshly, “that won’t be happening. Ever. He can’t take you; I won’t let him.” His presence seems to increase to fill the entire clearing and Sam doesn’t know whether it’s the Trickster-God or the archangel making this declaration; he’s never seen angels be possessive like this but Gabriel seems to defy most angelic behavior.
“Ok,” Sam says, watching Gabriel’s face carefully, “ok.”
After that, Gabriel sticks with them most of the time. He leaves at night though, because, he says, angels don’t sleep and sleeping people are boring. As luck would have it, then, the next time the faeries come for Sam is at night.
Cas is off on another hunt for God. Sam and Dean are just coming back to their motel after yet another salt’n’burn when the lights appear. They’re small specks of light, floating off towards the marshy area behind the motel, almost like ghost orbs except they can see them with their bare eyes. Dean gestures in their direction, mouthing that they should check them out and Sam sighs but goes along with it. They’re still armed from the recent ghost hunt; what’s the worst that could happen?
The lights lead them around the swamp to a small hill covered in thorn bushes. There’s a square of light shining out of the hill, which is something Sam never thought he’d see. He’s reminded of hobbits living in hills, but knows they’re not real. The lights are mesmerizing, as is the light, and now the sounds of a wild party are coming out of the hill. Both he and Dean are drawn irresistibly towards it.
As they approach, beautiful, but only vaguely human shaped, creatures appear out of the side of the hill, beckoning them further in. If either of them were in their right minds, this would be the point at which they turned tail and ran the opposite direction; this is obviously a gathering of supernatural creatures and all they’re prepared for is some ghosts at best. But the lights have woven some sort of spell over them, and any thoughts of fleeing are pushed out of their minds before they can fully arrive.
Inside, the hill is hollowed out. Tables groaning with food line the walls. Beautiful creatures of all shapes and sizes mingle in the middle of the floor, dancing or talking. Lights like the ones they followed hover over the festivities, giving an ethereal glow to the whole thing.
“Dude, this is awesome,” Dean says, and Sam has to agree. He feels like he’s forgetting something, but whatever it is slips away from him. Whatever, it must not be that important, he thinks.
“I’m gonna go check out the food,” Dean tells Sam, already walking that way. Sam follows.
The food looks amazing. He doesn’t recognize most of it, but he sees various meats piled high on one end of a table. Another table is covered in various types of fruit, many of which he’s never seen before; it’s by far the most colorful table, and the most tempting to Sam. Dean, of course, immediately heads to a table that’s loaded down with what looks like pies and puddings.
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” comes a slick voice from behind Sam. “I don’t think I’ve seen you here before...” the voice trails off, obviously waiting for Sam to respond. He turns to see a small man, dressed to the nines in a deep, almost blood, red old English officers’ outfit. The man’s dark hair is covered with a three-cornered hat, and he grins widely at Sam, offering his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam sees Dean is also being approached by someone, a lady in a green dress with so many ruffles he can barely see her body.
“Um, I’m Sam,” he tells the man, taking the offered hand. The man, instead of shaking his hand as Sam expects, turns it and kisses the back with a little flourish and bow. Sam blushes and stutters out, “uh...pleased to meet you?”
“Oh, the pleasure is all mine, I assure you,” the man responds, looking Sam over in a way that’s almost hungry.
“This one’s mine, Seamus,” interrupts the woman that had been talking to Dean. “He’s got a brother; I’m taking them both for the night.” She grins wickedly, and Sam begins to feel a little of that nervousness he probably should have felt earlier.
Seamus pouts a little, but capitulates easily to the woman’s request. She leads both Sam and Dean over to a mostly unoccupied part of the dance floor where another woman stands, obviously waiting for them.
“Um, ladies, I don’t-” Sam starts, when the first woman taps both he and Dean in the middle of the forehead. Sam blinks, startled, to see Anna and Jo where the two ladies had been. “What was that?”
“I gave you a bit of the Sight, so you can see through faerie glamour,” Anna says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I can’t believe you boys fell for it that easily; we’re going to have to discuss your gullibility. Later. Now, take a good look at where you actually are.”
They turn around and Sam blanches. Dean gags. The creatures are no longer beautiful; most of them have claws, and mouths wider than their faces really should allow. Some look like they’re made of tree bark while others are shaped more like boulders with a faint mossy covering. A few have hollow backs showing through their tattered clothes. Others have the legs of deer or the snapping faces of birds of prey. The food tables are still covered, but now Sam can see that the meat looks suspiciously human and the fruits are all rotten. The desserts are similarly bloody or covered in Sam doesn’t even want to know what.
“I almost ate that!” Dean exclaims, disgusted.
“Yes, but I got to you before you could be so stupid, so,” Anna replies, shrugging.
“This is what you guys have been doing this whole time? Going to these things?” Sam asks.
“Yep, and let me tell you, you’ve got it easy out there,” Jo says. “You’re still hunting, not being hunted; I hate having to be on the other side of the equation. If it wasn’t for Anna, I’d have gone crazy with all these...things around.” She smiles softly and grabs Anna’s hand.
“But now we’ve got to get you guys out of here without causing too much trouble. Just play along,” Anna says, squeezing Jo’s hand in return. Jo practically glows at Anna’s attention, and Sam is suddenly jealous of their connection. Why can’t he be that close with Gabriel? But he dismisses the jealousy quickly and turns his attention back to Anna.
“We’re gonna have so much fun together, aren’t we boys?” she’s saying, leading them back towards the entrance.
“Definitely,” Jo joins in, “do you have one in mind, or should we share?” she says, turning to Anna. Anna gives them both an appraising look.
“I think we should share this time, make it more...interesting since they’re brothers.” They both grin wickedly at that, sharing a look.
Finally, they’re out of the hill. Anna and Jo lead the boys around to the backside of it before Anna zaps them away.
Part 3