Come as You Are 1/6
Come as You Are
Summary: Unable to re-age Sam, Dean decides it's time to start hunting with his thirteen year old brother in tow. But things don't go according to plan. Sequel to Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Chapter One
Dean's fist flies towards Sam's face.
Reacting swiftly and moving on the balls of his feet, Sam ducks under an outstretched arm. He whirls around and stomps on the back of his brother's knee, which buckles, and Dean stumbles, off balance. With a rush of excitement, Sam presses his advantage, aiming another kick at his brother's back, but already, Dean is prepared. Before Sam can land his blow, Dean drops forward to one knee, twists, and a long leg lashes out and sweeps the ground. Sam barely manages to jump out of the way before it bowls him over, and then Dean is back on his feet, closing in. Sam dodges another swinging fist, then another, and another, and almost another but Dean jabs with his left when Sam expects a right and it catches him square in the nose.
“Ow!” Sam stumbles backwards. His hands fly to his face and his stinging sinuses. “That hurt!” he complains.
Dean rolls his eyes. “I barely touched you,” he scoffs, but Sam notices that Dean doesn't really relax until Sam moves his hands. “See? It's not even bleeding.”
“Still hurt.”
Dean grins. “Want Cas to kiss it better for you?”
Castiel stands in the shade of a nearby tree, watching the sparring session.
“I do not need to kiss someone in order to heal them,” Castiel informs Sam seriously. Dean barks out a laugh.
“I'm fine.” Sam waves off the angel's questioning look and shakes out his fists, turning back to Dean. “Let's go again.”
Dean's mouth drops open.”Again? Seriously? We've been at it for-” Dean looks to Castiel, who obediently answers for him.
“An hour and thirty-six minutes.”
“An hour and- Jesus Christ, aren't you worn out by now?” With the back of his hand, Dean wipes at the sweat glistening on his brow.
“Maybe you're just getting old,” Sam suggests innocently, after making sure that he's standing out of Dean's reach.
“Maybe you should respect your elders,” Dean shoots back, so Sam turns to Castiel.
“How old are you, Cas?” he asks the angel, ignoring Dean's indignant 'I meant me, brat.'
“Older than you can imagine,” Castiel tells Sam. “Older than the earth and the stars. Older than the cosmic dust that makes up this universe.”
“Wow,” Sam says.
“Yes, yes, we're all very impressed,” Dean says flippantly. “I'm starving though. I say we break for lunch.”
Sam has to hide his disappointment. He was doing so well.
“You just don't want to spar because I almost beat you this time,” he accuses Dean, only half teasing.
“Oh sure, that must be it,” Dean agrees sarcastically. “I'm definitely terrified that my pint-sized baby brother might beat me in a sparring match.”
“My size is what makes it so embarrassing for you.”
“Sam did appear to come close to 'knocking you on your ass' that time,” Castiel tells Dean seriously, using air quotes. Sam stifles a giggle.
“Why are you ganging up on me?” Dean complains indignantly, gathering up the various weapons he'd discarded before he and Sam had begun their hand-to-hand training. “Whose side are you on?”
“Was I supposed to pick sides?” Castiel asks.
“Oh, never mind.” Dean shakes his head in exasperation but Sam can see that he's grinning a little. “I'm going to make lunch. You wanna stay here?”
He directs his question at Sam, who's already nodding. Dean doesn't keep him locked up in the bunker 24/7 anymore but he still doesn't get to spend as much time outside as he'd like. Recycled air has nothing on fresh.
“Be back inside in twenty,” Dean instructs. “Got that? Cas, keep an eye on him.”
Dean slings the weapons bag over his shoulder and heads towards the bunker, pausing just a moment to call back to Sam. “You did good, Sammy.”
Sam has to work to not look too pleased by the praise, because Dean would tease the crap out of him if he knew how stupidly happy it makes Sam when he manages to impress his older brother. He turns away from Dean, towards the lake, and drops down to sit cross-legged on the grass, watching the sunlight dance across the water.
After a moment, Castiel comes and sits next to him, straight and stiff and out of place in his suit and trench coat. He stares out at the lake.
“Do you really think I came close to beating Dean?” Sam asks curiously.
Castiel bobs his head in a slight nod. “I think it was a possibility. You have improved greatly since Dean began to train you.”
Sam plucks a blade of grass. He isn't sure he believes the angel. Maybe Castiel is just being nice. Then again, do angels even understand the concept of deception as encouragement? White lies? Sam twists the grass around his index finger, considering this.
“Do angels always tell the truth?” he asks. “Is it, like, a rule or something? Can angels lie?”
Castiel's posture doesn't change but Sam senses a stiffening of his demeanour, a darkening of the angel's mood. Sam bites his lip, regretting the question. Maybe it's a rude thing to ask an angelic being. He's about to apologize when Castiel answers.
“Angels can lie,” he confirms, speaking slowly as if choosing his words with extreme care. “But they can manipulate with the truth, as well. If they wanted to, an angel could lead you astray without ever speaking a falsehood.”
Sam frowns, puzzled. He untwists the blade of grass. “Why would an angel want to lead someone astray? Don't you all, uh, do God's work?”
Castiel looks away from the glassy lake. His unblinking gaze seems to look right into Sam's soul. “Not all of us.”
A shiver slips icily up Sam's spine, even though it's warm out and he's still heated from the work out. He looks away, unnerved, and thinks back to bible lessons with Pastor Jim. “Oh, like Lucifer? He was an angel, wasn't he? Before he challenged God and got banished? Or is all that just myth?”
Castiel rises abruptly to his feet. “I do not believe Dean would approve of this conversation.”
Sam blinks up at him. “Why not?”
“We should return to the bunker,” the angel says, turning away, even though it can't have been the allotted twenty minutes.
Too confused to argue, Sam gets to his feet as well, slowly brushing stray bits of grass from his jeans. Maybe Castiel thinks that Sam is too young to be discussing the devil, worried that Dean will hold him accountable should Sam get scared and end up having nightmares or something. Last month, Castiel had told Sam about creatures called Leviathan that could swallow a person whole and take their place so that no one would even know that they were missing, and maybe because it reminded him so much of the shifter that had pretended to be Dean, Sam had had trouble sleeping for a week. Eventually he resorted to creeping down to the garage and curling up in the back seat of the Impala, something he hadn't done since his early days in the bunker. Dean had been furious at Castiel when he found out.
Sam doesn't want to get Castiel into trouble so he follows the angel back to the bunker and he doesn't bring up Lucifer again.
XXX
“What do you think?”
Dean, doing his usual check of the morning news over breakfast, slides the laptop across the table and turns the screen towards Sam.
Sam chews absently on a piece of toast as he reads, and then re-reads, the article carefully. Dean has been asking for his opinion more and more often and Sam is all too aware of the responsibility that comes with the privilege, especially after he overheard Dean on the phone to a hunter named Garth one day, asking him to look into the rash of graveyard vandalism spreading across Indiana that Sam theorized was the work of ghouls.
Dean has devoured his plate of scrambled eggs and toast and is tapping impatient fingers against his coffee mug by the time Sam decides on his answer.
“It sounds like a restless spirit, tied to something at the high-school. Maybe the first missing girl was killed there.”
Dean nods. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“The kids at the school might know something. Some ghost story they scare each other with that could have more truth than they realise.”
Dean sets down his mug and rocks back in his chair, arching an eyebrow. “Wouldn't it be handy if I knew a hunter that could go undercover in a haunted high-school?”
Sam's heart does a funny little skip.
“Seriously? We're going on a hunt?” Suspicion wars with excitement. “But I haven't beat you at sparring yet.”
Dean scoffs. “Dude, you are never going to beat me at sparring. I'm way too good. But I think you can hold your own against a dead chick.” He leans forward, elbows on the table, and grins across at Sam. “What d'ya say? You wanna go save some people, hunt some things?”
Sam drops his toast. “When do we leave?”
Chapter Two