Friends and Enemies, PG-13, Sam/Anna, feat. Castiel and Dean
Anna really seems to hold onto it for a second, sick determination setting her jaw. Then she turns around and punches out a window. Castiel startles.
As she turns back, she can’t meet his eyes. She’s breathing heavily, and he wonders if she just doesn't care enough to stop it.
“I had to believe it, Castiel. You know what it’s like. I couldn’t just… lie. They can tell. I had to really believe it.”
His confusion is clearing. Castiel nods hesitantly, feeling ill at ease. “You were able to… escape, by being released.” She nods, still looking at the floor. “And to do so, you had to wish Sam Winchester dead. Do you still?”
Her eyes meet his desperately for a moment, then flicker away. “I won’t kill him.”
It is an inexact response, hesitantly offered. It seems genuine.
“What assurance do we have?” Castiel doesn’t want to ask, but of course he must.
Some of her determination seems to return, but the dead-eyed resolution is nowhere to be found. Castiel’s mouth opens involuntarily at what he sees instead - an uncommon rage, so potent he tenses for a fight even though it is plain her target is nowhere near.
“There’s nothing you have up there that isn’t theirs, nothing you own that you can keep, nothing you cherish that they can’t destroy. Yes, I wanted Sam dead. I had to, and I knew that. I,” she flinches slightly, “I think I hate him.” She faces him full-on, the look in her eyes such that he cannot even blink to shield himself. “Those feelings are nothing - nothing - to how I feel about heaven.”
He can’t help shaking slightly at the menace he hears in her voice. One side of her mouth twitches into the shade of a smile.
“That’s how you know you can trust me.”
“Well, okay then!” Dean steps cheerfully into view. Castiel turns, still dazed. Anna narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Guess that settles that. Welcome to the team.”
“You said they weren’t…” Anna trails off, and Castiel feels ashamed, though the deceit was necessary and justifiable. She rallies. “Dean. And Sam is nearby too, I guess.”
Sam emerges behind his brother. He gives a flat smile and an uncertain wave. Castiel frowns and gives himself a shake, re-accustoming himself to Winchester ways.
“Rage against the heavens, huh?” Dean nods approvingly. “Definitely agree with you there.” His head tilts to the side and back in lieu of a shrug. “I mean, no sharp objects for you for awhile. But, yeah, I buy it. Heaven, right? What’s not to hate?”
Sam’s smile falters while Dean is speaking, but then his eyes return to Anna with renewed focus.
“So,” Anna offers. “Where’s base camp?”
Dean turns, a beckoning motion with one hand. “C’mon.”
Anna falls into step behind him like a lost child, not knowing what else to do. She and Sam share occasional awkward glances followed by sustained periods of walking in silence, which is also awkward. Castiel follows them by himself, contemplative. He is uncertain as to the wisdom of their current course of action. His wariness is soothed somewhat by his awareness that the feeling is universal.
She’s hardly spoken as they explain to her their plans (such as they are), only nodding slightly. They get her a room (the one attached to theirs is free), not really sure if that makes any sense, but for the moment she’s a girl with girl-parts, so they can’t share. They’re worried heaven will find her, until Castiel realizes and shares that none of them can do anything to protect Anna that she cannot do herself. He mentions Enochian runes, and she nods dismissively. After that, it’s assumed she’s taken care of the issue on her own.
When Dean is about to turn on the TV just to relieve the silence (and isn’t this fun), Sam turns to Anna and brightly asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Then he winces, because that came out way less sympathetic than he meant it.
“It’s just…” he struggles under her stare. “Well, we’ve all had hard times, so if you wanted to share, I mean…” He is not helping. Anna turns away.
“Thank you, Sam.” She gets up and walks over to her room.
Sam turns and sees Dean glaring at him. He gives a wide-eyed shrug of helplessness, like that time Dean found him wildly shoveling salad into his mouth so it would all be gone by the time Dean got back from the bathroom. (Only, with less lettuce.) Dean motions after Anna, in a motion serious and disapproving but still too similar to his often used are-you-gonna-hit-that-or-can-I? Sam throws up his hands, following to knock on Anna’s door as he peers inside.
He closes the door, walks over and sits next to her. He wishes he had a plan. Any plan, really.
“Phanua,” she announces to the room at large.
Sam turns to her and his eyebrows shoot up, mouth pursing, in the picture of eager attentiveness. “Hmm?”
She turns to him. “My real name. In case you were wondering.”
Sam’s jaw drops, and his eyes go big. “Phanuel? The… archangel?”
She shrugs gently. “Sure, if you want. Phanua kind of rhymes, though.” He swallows. “I know - pretty good, right?” She smiles. “Angel of Penance. Surprise, surprise.”
Sam nods slowly. “Wow,” he manages. It’s enough to turn her smile kind.
“Last year, I was confused, lost, scared, and alone, and when Dean needed me, it… helped.” She sighs. “Now I’m glad I gave him my mercy while I still could.” He reaches over, hoping to comfort with a touch, and her hand shoots out to stop him.
She looks blankly at his hand, caught by the wrist in hers, for a long second. Then her gaze meets his, and she notices his strained expression.
“Oh,” she realizes, releasing his hand from a too-tight grip. “Sorry.” He lowers his arm, rubbing his sore wrist, still wincing slightly.
“Yeah,” he responds.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she explains. “I still… it was eons, Sam,” her face twists with shame. “I look at you and I just, I just hate you. I’m sorry.” She huffs frustration. “I’m sorry.” She says again, only this time it’s louder, and angrier, like the climax of an argument.
“We’re going to beat them.” Sam states it as fact.
“We’d damn well better,” Anna spits. Sam looks at her in shock. The look she returns might be anger or grief. “After everything they did to me, Sam, and my God, what they did to you? Our parents are all dead because of them. You never had a home because of them, and I never will again. Dean went to Hell - ”
“Stop.” Sam can barely get the word out, and now he can feel the fury in him too, and maybe this was her intention all along.
She stands up. “No, Sam. It won’t ever stop. From now on, this is our lives. This is - ”
He slaps her.
His mouth falls open. It wasn’t a serious blow, but Jesus, he just slapped -
She punches him.
He looks up at her from the floor for a moment, eyebrows furrowed. She looks at him, and at first he thinks she’s about to cry. But then she steels her jaw and shoots him a challenge with her eyes (no damage from the slap, she’s still an angel after all), and he surges up, hands on her shoulders, shoves her back into a wall. She bounces off, not betraying any pain, and pushes him back violently, so he stumbles. He meets her with an honest-to-god punch, but she shrugs it off, and more than returns it. They block the next few blows, and she grabs his arm and twists it behind him for a moment, but then he dislodges her. They tip over onto the bed, still grappling. He’s below her at first, but he gets both her wrists in one hand and flings her down beside him, instantly on top of her. Her head hit the wall on her way down, and she doesn’t care. She grabs his shirt in both hands, and for one blinding moment she’s kissing him.
And then she hoists him off her and heaves him back onto the floor.
He’s up again before his next breath, hurting all over, and he’s pretty sure his nose is bleeding. He regards her, gasping for air. She waits, and there’s still anger in her face, but he sees a black smile there, too, smug like a cat’s.
He charges her, but she uses his momentum and swings around atop him. Close quarters now, they’re wrestling, and for reasons Sam doesn’t understand he’s fighting with all the fury he can muster. But Anna is an angel, and unlike Ruby she isn’t holding back. At least, not as much.
Sam is pinned, heart beating furiously, gulping breaths in and out. So when Anna slides her hands up his arms to his chest, he grabs her face with both hands and kisses her. They roll, neither below the other for more than a few seconds at a time. Sam is trying to get their clothes off, but when he isn’t fast enough Anna does it for him, using enough strength to rip (even the denim, and that’s a trick). His hands push her shoulders onto the mattress one minute, and one of hers presses crushingly down onto his chest the next. Even as her legs lock around him and their rutting becomes something more, she’s resisting, a constant stream of small blows, her teeth in his neck as he bottoms out. She gasps involuntarily, head tilted back, and he presses his face to the side of her neck and they achieve peace for a few blessed thrusts. Then she yanks his hair back and now she’s above him, both of them still struggling, resisting, releasing. She sits up suddenly, back arching in pleasure, and after a moment Sam follows her.
She collapses on top of him, and neither can move.
Something feels the smallest bit better, he notices, a bit later. Something in him, in that knot of rage that he can always feel whenever he looks for it. It’s hard to say, but it somehow feels… looser. He frowns, confused, and sends her a questioning look. She’s been staring off drowsily, and takes a second to focus back in on him.
“I thought you couldn’t forgive anymore,” he asks quietly. She smiles ruefully.
“Sam, this isn’t you being forgiven.” And he doesn’t know what to make of her expression when she continues, “This is you learning to forgive.”
Coda:
Something’s been bothering Sam, and he asks over coffee the next morning.
“So, how did you know not to bust in, guns blazing? Must’ve sounded like a brawl from in here.”
Dean arches his eyebrows, and waits a beat. “I didn’t.”
Sam frowns. Then his eyes go wide. “Wait…”
“Yeah.” Dean cuts him off. “I know. Honestly, Sammy, it’s great to see you’re back in the saddle, but - give a guy a little warning next time, huh?”
Dean gives his shoulder a slap on his way to the bathroom. Sam is still staring at the wall, utterly mortified. Dean turns on the water and loads himself up with shaving cream. Sam is still blushing as Dean starts to whistle.
As she turns back, she can’t meet his eyes. She’s breathing heavily, and he wonders if she just doesn't care enough to stop it.
“I had to believe it, Castiel. You know what it’s like. I couldn’t just… lie. They can tell. I had to really believe it.”
His confusion is clearing. Castiel nods hesitantly, feeling ill at ease. “You were able to… escape, by being released.” She nods, still looking at the floor. “And to do so, you had to wish Sam Winchester dead. Do you still?”
Her eyes meet his desperately for a moment, then flicker away. “I won’t kill him.”
It is an inexact response, hesitantly offered. It seems genuine.
“What assurance do we have?” Castiel doesn’t want to ask, but of course he must.
Some of her determination seems to return, but the dead-eyed resolution is nowhere to be found. Castiel’s mouth opens involuntarily at what he sees instead - an uncommon rage, so potent he tenses for a fight even though it is plain her target is nowhere near.
“There’s nothing you have up there that isn’t theirs, nothing you own that you can keep, nothing you cherish that they can’t destroy. Yes, I wanted Sam dead. I had to, and I knew that. I,” she flinches slightly, “I think I hate him.” She faces him full-on, the look in her eyes such that he cannot even blink to shield himself. “Those feelings are nothing - nothing - to how I feel about heaven.”
He can’t help shaking slightly at the menace he hears in her voice. One side of her mouth twitches into the shade of a smile.
“That’s how you know you can trust me.”
“Well, okay then!” Dean steps cheerfully into view. Castiel turns, still dazed. Anna narrows her eyes in suspicion. “Guess that settles that. Welcome to the team.”
“You said they weren’t…” Anna trails off, and Castiel feels ashamed, though the deceit was necessary and justifiable. She rallies. “Dean. And Sam is nearby too, I guess.”
Sam emerges behind his brother. He gives a flat smile and an uncertain wave. Castiel frowns and gives himself a shake, re-accustoming himself to Winchester ways.
“Rage against the heavens, huh?” Dean nods approvingly. “Definitely agree with you there.” His head tilts to the side and back in lieu of a shrug. “I mean, no sharp objects for you for awhile. But, yeah, I buy it. Heaven, right? What’s not to hate?”
Sam’s smile falters while Dean is speaking, but then his eyes return to Anna with renewed focus.
“So,” Anna offers. “Where’s base camp?”
Dean turns, a beckoning motion with one hand. “C’mon.”
Anna falls into step behind him like a lost child, not knowing what else to do. She and Sam share occasional awkward glances followed by sustained periods of walking in silence, which is also awkward. Castiel follows them by himself, contemplative. He is uncertain as to the wisdom of their current course of action. His wariness is soothed somewhat by his awareness that the feeling is universal.
She’s hardly spoken as they explain to her their plans (such as they are), only nodding slightly. They get her a room (the one attached to theirs is free), not really sure if that makes any sense, but for the moment she’s a girl with girl-parts, so they can’t share. They’re worried heaven will find her, until Castiel realizes and shares that none of them can do anything to protect Anna that she cannot do herself. He mentions Enochian runes, and she nods dismissively. After that, it’s assumed she’s taken care of the issue on her own.
When Dean is about to turn on the TV just to relieve the silence (and isn’t this fun), Sam turns to Anna and brightly asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Then he winces, because that came out way less sympathetic than he meant it.
“It’s just…” he struggles under her stare. “Well, we’ve all had hard times, so if you wanted to share, I mean…” He is not helping. Anna turns away.
“Thank you, Sam.” She gets up and walks over to her room.
Sam turns and sees Dean glaring at him. He gives a wide-eyed shrug of helplessness, like that time Dean found him wildly shoveling salad into his mouth so it would all be gone by the time Dean got back from the bathroom. (Only, with less lettuce.) Dean motions after Anna, in a motion serious and disapproving but still too similar to his often used are-you-gonna-hit-that-or-can-I? Sam throws up his hands, following to knock on Anna’s door as he peers inside.
He closes the door, walks over and sits next to her. He wishes he had a plan. Any plan, really.
“Phanua,” she announces to the room at large.
Sam turns to her and his eyebrows shoot up, mouth pursing, in the picture of eager attentiveness. “Hmm?”
She turns to him. “My real name. In case you were wondering.”
Sam’s jaw drops, and his eyes go big. “Phanuel? The… archangel?”
She shrugs gently. “Sure, if you want. Phanua kind of rhymes, though.” He swallows. “I know - pretty good, right?” She smiles. “Angel of Penance. Surprise, surprise.”
Sam nods slowly. “Wow,” he manages. It’s enough to turn her smile kind.
“Last year, I was confused, lost, scared, and alone, and when Dean needed me, it… helped.” She sighs. “Now I’m glad I gave him my mercy while I still could.” He reaches over, hoping to comfort with a touch, and her hand shoots out to stop him.
She looks blankly at his hand, caught by the wrist in hers, for a long second. Then her gaze meets his, and she notices his strained expression.
“Oh,” she realizes, releasing his hand from a too-tight grip. “Sorry.” He lowers his arm, rubbing his sore wrist, still wincing slightly.
“Yeah,” he responds.
“You shouldn’t do that,” she explains. “I still… it was eons, Sam,” her face twists with shame. “I look at you and I just, I just hate you. I’m sorry.” She huffs frustration. “I’m sorry.” She says again, only this time it’s louder, and angrier, like the climax of an argument.
“We’re going to beat them.” Sam states it as fact.
“We’d damn well better,” Anna spits. Sam looks at her in shock. The look she returns might be anger or grief. “After everything they did to me, Sam, and my God, what they did to you? Our parents are all dead because of them. You never had a home because of them, and I never will again. Dean went to Hell - ”
“Stop.” Sam can barely get the word out, and now he can feel the fury in him too, and maybe this was her intention all along.
She stands up. “No, Sam. It won’t ever stop. From now on, this is our lives. This is - ”
He slaps her.
His mouth falls open. It wasn’t a serious blow, but Jesus, he just slapped -
She punches him.
He looks up at her from the floor for a moment, eyebrows furrowed. She looks at him, and at first he thinks she’s about to cry. But then she steels her jaw and shoots him a challenge with her eyes (no damage from the slap, she’s still an angel after all), and he surges up, hands on her shoulders, shoves her back into a wall. She bounces off, not betraying any pain, and pushes him back violently, so he stumbles. He meets her with an honest-to-god punch, but she shrugs it off, and more than returns it. They block the next few blows, and she grabs his arm and twists it behind him for a moment, but then he dislodges her. They tip over onto the bed, still grappling. He’s below her at first, but he gets both her wrists in one hand and flings her down beside him, instantly on top of her. Her head hit the wall on her way down, and she doesn’t care. She grabs his shirt in both hands, and for one blinding moment she’s kissing him.
And then she hoists him off her and heaves him back onto the floor.
He’s up again before his next breath, hurting all over, and he’s pretty sure his nose is bleeding. He regards her, gasping for air. She waits, and there’s still anger in her face, but he sees a black smile there, too, smug like a cat’s.
He charges her, but she uses his momentum and swings around atop him. Close quarters now, they’re wrestling, and for reasons Sam doesn’t understand he’s fighting with all the fury he can muster. But Anna is an angel, and unlike Ruby she isn’t holding back. At least, not as much.
Sam is pinned, heart beating furiously, gulping breaths in and out. So when Anna slides her hands up his arms to his chest, he grabs her face with both hands and kisses her. They roll, neither below the other for more than a few seconds at a time. Sam is trying to get their clothes off, but when he isn’t fast enough Anna does it for him, using enough strength to rip (even the denim, and that’s a trick). His hands push her shoulders onto the mattress one minute, and one of hers presses crushingly down onto his chest the next. Even as her legs lock around him and their rutting becomes something more, she’s resisting, a constant stream of small blows, her teeth in his neck as he bottoms out. She gasps involuntarily, head tilted back, and he presses his face to the side of her neck and they achieve peace for a few blessed thrusts. Then she yanks his hair back and now she’s above him, both of them still struggling, resisting, releasing. She sits up suddenly, back arching in pleasure, and after a moment Sam follows her.
She collapses on top of him, and neither can move.
Something feels the smallest bit better, he notices, a bit later. Something in him, in that knot of rage that he can always feel whenever he looks for it. It’s hard to say, but it somehow feels… looser. He frowns, confused, and sends her a questioning look. She’s been staring off drowsily, and takes a second to focus back in on him.
“I thought you couldn’t forgive anymore,” he asks quietly. She smiles ruefully.
“Sam, this isn’t you being forgiven.” And he doesn’t know what to make of her expression when she continues, “This is you learning to forgive.”
Coda:
Something’s been bothering Sam, and he asks over coffee the next morning.
“So, how did you know not to bust in, guns blazing? Must’ve sounded like a brawl from in here.”
Dean arches his eyebrows, and waits a beat. “I didn’t.”
Sam frowns. Then his eyes go wide. “Wait…”
“Yeah.” Dean cuts him off. “I know. Honestly, Sammy, it’s great to see you’re back in the saddle, but - give a guy a little warning next time, huh?”
Dean gives his shoulder a slap on his way to the bathroom. Sam is still staring at the wall, utterly mortified. Dean turns on the water and loads himself up with shaving cream. Sam is still blushing as Dean starts to whistle.