Fic: Fell Over, Repeatedly (Or: Part Two - Fanboy Sam Finally Talks to Castiel)
Title: Fell Over, Repeatedly (Or: Part Two - Fanboy Sam Finally Talks to Castiel)
Author: tawg
Word count: ~3,600
Rating: PG
Characters/pairings: Sam and Castiel (friendshippy, bordering on crushing), Dean, Crowley, Gabriel. References to previous Sam/Balthazar and Castiel/Balthazar.
Notes: Takes place a few weeks after Fell Into It.
Summary: Castiel is not a man of many words. Sam is not a man with great self-preservation instincts. Sam thinks they might be friends.
For a while, it seemed like there were two distinct periods of Sam’s life: ‘Before Fallen’, and ‘In Love With Fallen’. And then he had gotten the job rejiggering small scenes, and his life had been split into: ‘OMG dream job’, and ‘everything that came before’. And then there was that incredibly awkward period that Sam fell into smack in the middle of Balthazar’s birthday party, and his life was split into: ‘before Balthazar had stuck his tongue into Sam’s mouth’, and ‘after Sam had returned to the party and it had taken just one look before the whole room assumed that Sam had been thoroughly rogered in the hallway’. (Though, technically that last one split Sam’s life into three distinct periods, the middle one being: ‘that amazing part of Sam’s existence where freaking Balthazar had been kissing Sam like they were both dying and had nothing to lose’.)
There had been teasing. There had been so much teasing. From Ellen asking him how it finally felt to being part of the crew, to Gabriel sneaking up on him while he was talking to someone and spraying disinfectant in his mouth.
“It’s not like that,” Sam had protested to Dean.
“Dude, I don’t care. Whatever.”
“But we didn’t… you know. It wasn’t like that.”
“Please stop telling me about this.”
“I’m not like that.”
Dean had sighed, and looked over at Sam. “I know, okay? And everyone else will figure it out. We’re all just blowing off steam since Cas is being such a bitch over getting dumped.” Dean turned back to the car he was waxing. “There’d be nothing wrong with it if you did get laid, though. You spend way too much time with your dolls.”
“They’re action figures,” Sam had hissed, but Dean was laughing loud and easy, covering up the protest. It was both an upside and a downside, working with Dean.
But Sam did make an effort to play into the jokes instead of recoiling away from them. Dean was right, there had been a significant change in the atmosphere on set, and it all came from the angry storm cloud that was Castiel. He was still a perfect professional when shooting his scenes, but it was plain as day that he was in a permanently filthy mood. Had been since the party, and probably would be for the rest of his life. Which, in theory, should not affect Sam at all. Sam just tinkered with scripts. He had no real business being around the actors anyway.
But, in reality, he was the new kid on set. And when there was a job that no one wanted to do? They bullied Sam into doing it. Even Dean, who was probably the only person Sam had witnessed having a conversation with Castiel about something non-work related, was using Sam as a go-between.
Which was how Sam ended up being the one handing Cas the new pages to learn, running over to his trailer with a different pair of shoes for Michael to wear, taking him breakfast because he’d stopped going and getting it himself and Jo was worried that he’d make himself sick if he didn’t eat regularly. Sam did his best to be bright and friendly and professional, but Castiel had a glower that made Sam think of the wrath of god and the possibility of a smiting. It got more than a little stressful. It got to the point where Sam just had to say something.
“Look,” he said, the plastic tray of black tea and breakfast gripped firmly in his hands. “I’m sorry if I upset you. And the birthday party. With the-”
“You didn’t upset me,” Castiel replied without looking up from his Sudoku book. “You didn’t even surprise me.”
“Well, I’m sorry about whatever has you upset then.” Sam took a deep breath, and continued. “You seem like a great guy and all, but you’re being a real dick right now. So, I’m not going to be bringing you stuff anymore. If people are too scared of you to do their jobs, you’ll just have to pick up the slack on your own.” Sam put the tray down, and stepped back out of striking range.
Castiel stared at the tray, giving no sign that he’d even heard Sam’s impassioned speech. “Toast,” he said at last.
“What?”
“I get toast for breakfast.”
“Oh, right.” Sam pushed his bangs out of his eyes, using the pause to get his brain on the right track. “The toaster is fritzing and burning everything that goes near it. I got you granola instead because I heard you like it.”
Castiel pulled the lid off the little plastic tub of granola, started at the contents, and then looked up at Sam. His gaze was unwavering and it made Sam’s breath catch in his throat. Castiel was handsome, in a not-of-this-earth, pretty-because-it’s-deadly kind of way. But Castiel just nodded at Sam, a small understated motion, and said a solemn, “Thank you.”
Sam bid a hasty retreat, and spent the rest of his morning hiding in the AD trailer doing re-writes.
After that… It wasn’t a massive change. Cas spent less time holed up in his trailer and more time working about the set. He nodded at Sam when he saw him, which is how most people figured out that Sam had prodded him into reigning in his temper.
“You make out with him, too?” Dean asked as he stole a cherry tomato from Sam’s salad.
“Oh Christ, do not even joke about that,” Sam replied.
“You worried Balthazar will get jealous?” No, Sam was worried people would talk about him again and work would go back to being super-awkward.
“Shut up, Dean. Just stop talking completely.”
“Dean,” a rough voice from behind them called. Sam cringed in on himself, because that voice?
“Yeah, Cas?” Dean called back. That voice belonged to one person Sam really hoped hadn’t been eavesdropping.
“Rufus wants the Crossfire ready in the next hour.”
“Yeah yeah,” Dean grumbled, hauling himself off the beat-up couch that he and Sam had been eating lunch on. Sam looked over his shoulder at Castiel, who was giving Sam a thoughtful look.
“You need anything?” Sam asked.
“That’s not your job,” Castiel replied.
“Well, yeah, but. If there’s something that needs doing, I mean.” They were shooting one of Cassie’s scripts this week, and her work tended to be really tight. She had incredible precision for writing a procedural episode. It gave Sam a little time to slack off.
Castiel gave Sam one last, considering look. “I’ll let you know,” he finally replied and walked away without another word.
And then… And then things got a little weird. Balthazar, who was nice to everyone and had an easygoing kind of charm to his nature, spent more time talking to the people working on set. Not that he didn’t talk to them anyway, but he was kind of like the welcome wagon for the incredible number of guest stars and extras they had filtering through the set each week. But more time talking to the crew meant more time talking to Sam. It wasn’t… It wasn’t anything deep or meaningful, but Sam soon felt comfortable going up to Balthazar and starting a conversation with him, got used to the pleased way he’d laugh when reading through Sam’s re-writes. Sam could pretty much get through a conversation without having flashbacks to Balthazar shoving him against a wall and how painfully arousing that had been.
(The highlight of Sam’s sex life, and there had not actually been any sex involved. Dean was right. Sam needed to get out more.)
But Castiel was also seeking him out. For small, legitimate things, like asking if he could use a different word just here, because while Michael was an emotionally distant character he was also succinct and plain in his speech. Or, when Sam had to cram two scenes into one because the second location they were planning on using suddenly became unavailable, he’d ask Sam if the characters were to be in the same position for the second conversation or if they should be standing closer. Which, given that Sam knew that Castiel knew what his character should be doing at any given time better than anyone else, was amazingly flattering.
Sam was checking his e-mail on his phone and idly watching Gabriel talk a few extras through the weighting of the mostly actor-friendly weapons he constructed when Castiel showed up. He wasn’t due to film for several more hours, and was wearing black exercise pants and an entirely ordinary grey t-shirt. He walked to the edge of the fall mats Gabriel had laid out, and toed his shoes off. Sam had only ever seen the actor in button up shirts before. Now there were forearms and feet, and his clavicles could be glimpsed at the collar of his shirt. Sam watched as Castiel did some completely commonplace stretches, and then reached for Michael’s sword.
“He’s going to be up here, okay?” Gabriel said to Castiel, stretching his hand above his head. “He’s gonna be big, and you need to aim high.”
Castiel made a slow, experimental swing of the sword towards Gabriel’s hand, and his mouth turned downwwards in distaste. “This isn’t going to work,” he said.
“It’ll be fine,” Gabriel assured him. “Just like before, but aim higher.”
Castiel had the tip of the sword resting against the mat between his naked feet, resting both hands on it as if it were a cane. “How tall is he?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel replied. “Somewhere between six and a million feet tall.” Castiel grimaced. “Look, we could set up a dummy or something?” Gabriel offered. And then Castiel’s eyes fell on Sam. And then Gabriel turned to see what Cas was staring at. And then Gabriel’s eyes lit up. Sam had a sinking feeling.
“Hey, gigantor,” Gabriel called out. “Get over here.” Sam made a pretence of looking about, as if there were some other hulking mass lurking about that they could have been talking to. Gabriel threw one of Castiel’s shoes at Sam. Sam scowled, picked up the projectile, and carried it over to the pair.
“You remember how to fall on these mats, right?” Gabriel asked. It had been one of Sam’s early lessons, Jo and Gabriel teaching him how to flop onto the stack mats without hurting himself. (The key was to fall with relaxed muscles.)
“If I say ‘no’, will you let me leave?”
“Not a chance,” Gabriel said, pulling Sam into position in front of Castiel. “Here, let me just get you some pads.”
Sam stared at Castiel. Castiel stared back. “If I sneak away now,” Sam said slowly, “would you let me?”
One corner of Castiel’s mouth quirked upwards, and his eyes were sparkling blue under the mediocre lighting of the non-set sections of their soundstage. “I won’t hurt you,” Castiel replied, and there was a kind of warmth in his voice.
Sam swallowed nervously. He loved the fight scenes in Fallen. They were just so quick and so graceful, with those swords flashing and moving easily. They were like an incredibly brutal dance. But, Sam could happily live out his life without being caught in the middle of a storm of swords. When you spend enough time watching things getting impaled and torn open on screen, and then see some of the bruises that the stunt people walk away with, the thrill of being anywhere near that happening had a tendency to wear off.
But by then Gabriel was back, sliding chest and shoulder pads over Sam’s head and strapping them in place. “Shouldn’t I have a helmet or something?” Sam asked. “Since he’s going to be aiming for my head.”
“Nah,” Gabriel said. “You’ll be fine. Just stay perfectly still, okay? Don’t move a muscle.”
Sam nodded, a sense of unease flooding him. But Castiel gave him another one of those small smiles, and Sam took a deep breath. He should be calm. This was no big deal. It was pretty much just an aiming exercise, right? Cas would keep it nice, and slow, and safe, and-
And Castiel ripped the sword up from the mat, twisted around as quick as a snake, and sent the sword hurtling towards Sam’s head. Sam ducked with a frightened yelp, and heard the ‘swoosh’ of the blade passing above him. Castiel followed through on the turn, twisting over his back leg and using his front leg to deliver a hard kick to Sam’s shoulder. Sam topped backwards onto the mat, Castiel thudded to his knees beside him, and Sam saw the tip of the Michael sword cutting through the air right towards his face.
Thankfully, Sam absolutely failed to get stabbed in the head. He opened one eyes, lowered the hands he had raised to protect his face, and looked up at Castiel. The tip of the sword was about an inch from the end of Sam’s nose. Then Castiel rolled back onto his feet in a fluid motion, let the sword dangle by his side, and offered a hand to Sam to help him up. Sam eyed it warily, but he could hear Gabriel and Dean completely failing to smother their laughter at his perfectly justified fear, and he was keen to get out of his vulnerable position.
“Sorry,” Castiel said. He expression was clam and unrepentant, but then he looked down and to one side, his eyes flicking back to Sam, watching for a reaction.
“I just got hazed, didn’t I?” Sam asked, feeling dizzy as adrenaline and relief at not being killed by a freaking prop sword of all things flooded through his system.
“Yes,” Castiel said in that quiet way of his, raising his head when Sam failed to hulk out and threaten to smash all of the things in retaliation. “If it helps, I’ve done it to nearly everyone.”
Sam considered this. “Even Dean?”
Castiel’s mouth quirked again in an almost-smile. “He screamed. Chuck thought it was a car alarm going off.” Sam snorted a laugh, ducking his head to hide what he knew was a goofy, giddy, glad-I’m-not-dead-and-not-the-only-wimp smile. “Could you stay?” Castiel asked. “I actually do need to practice.”
“Well…” A glance at Castiel, with his serious blue eyes and intent patience was Sam’s undoing. “Sure. But don’t try to kill me this time.”
“I’ll do my best,” Castiel replied seriously.
And within twenty seconds Sam was flat on his back once again. “Great work,” Gabriel called over. “Keep it up. Especially the screams. They’re important so we know he hasn’t killed you.”
“Did you learn this in the army?” Sam asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
“No,” Castiel replied, hauling Sam to his feet again. “I did judo for a while.”
“Oh,” Sam said, filing the fact away. “Cool. Were you any good?” And then the world around Sam shifted, and he was flat on his back again. “Wait, never mind,” he said weakly.
Sam tried to scowl at Cas as he climbed to his feet, but it was hard to be annoyed in the face of the quietly happy air around Castiel. It wasn’t a malicious joy, no smirking conceit. But amusement, perhaps pride at his own form, fondness at Sam’s tolerance. “How about you try and teach me to not just fall over all the time?” Sam suggested. “It might make things a little more interesting.”
And Castiel did. He taught Sam about widening his stance, how to absorb a blow. Judo, Castiel explained, was all about blocking. It was an art of self-defence. “Then how do you attack with it?” Sam asked, genuinely curious.
This time, when Castiel quite literally floored him, he did it slowly. Sam saw the push to his shoulder coming, felt Castiel nudging at his ankles with a soft kick, and allowed himself to be lowered onto the mat. Cas was strong for his size, though Sam got the sense that a lot of his strength came from the way he balanced himself.
“Okay,” Sam said, looking up at Castiel. “I think I can block that. Maybe?”
Castiel looked down at Sam, his head tilted to one side and his lips awry, like he was trying to press down a smile and failing. “You have to get up first,” he replied. When Sam tried, he found one arm kicked out from under him, the other yanked up and across, and suddenly he was lying on his stomach with one wrist pinned to a shoulder blade and the easy weight of Castiel sitting on his lower back. Sam swallowed thickly, and counted backwards from ten.
“Is the submission hold judo, too?”
“Pro-wrestling,” Castiel replied.
“I didn’t know you were a wrestling fan?”
“I’m not,” Cas returned. “But I saw a lot of it when I was in the army.”
“Ah,” Sam said, one cheek smooshed against the stack mat. “So you did learn this from your time in uniform.”
Castiel made a humming noise in response. He seemed content to pin Sam indefinitely. Sam tried to twist away, but pulling against Castiel’s grip on his wrist sent ‘Not Good’ messages all the way up his arm, and Castiel was too firmly seated for Sam to throw him off. Eventually Sam had to resort to the classic little brother technique of kicking his heels back and drumming them against Castiel’s back.
“Alright,” Sam said when he’d exhausted himself. “Teach me how to get out of this one.”
“Your left arm is free,” Castiel replied. “Use it.”
Sam flailed around, but there was nothing within his reach to grab and Castiel’s weight in the middle of his back was too solid to shift. He tried tugging at Castiel’s clothes to dislodge him, but the only part of Cas that he could get any kind of grasp on was Castiel’s foot. And Sam realised that, in their fun, mildly embarrassing, and potentially spank-bank worthy scuffling, Cas had never laid down any rules about fighting dirty. He grabbed Castiel’s bare foot and skittered his short nails over the sole. Castiel jerked, and Sam did it again, tickling with the determined experience of a little brother who knew his big brother’s one vulnerability.
Castiel shifted, trying to tuck his foot back out of Sam’s reach, and Sam pushed up abruptly, unseating Castiel for a moment. Sam managed to flip onto his back, getting his hands to Castiel’s sides and tickling, watching Castiel squirm, his face wonderfully surprised and perplexed. Castiel had obviously never been in a tickle fight before. Sam got one hand up into his armpit, the other digging in to the soft skin behind Castiel’s knee, and Cas burst out laughing.
Sam had never heard Cas laugh before. He was a quiet, solemn kind of person, and Sam knew that the small smiles he’d seen were as extreme an expression of happiness as Cas ever wore. But now... he was like a different person, his mouth wide with laugher and his eyes bright and dancing as he grappled with Sam’s wrists, tried to pull his hands away and fight him off. He had a nice laugh, clear and a little higher in pitch than Sam would have expected. It was handsome, and fun, and Sam couldn’t help grinning and laughing back as he tickled the man above him, as he tugged more sounds of happiness through those usually gruff and unforgiving vocal chords.
And then Cas managed to scramble backwards off Sam, sitting between Sam’s splayed legs, his own feet either side of Sam’s hips, the two of them short of breath and grinning like mad things. It was a perfect moment, that high of emotions that came with laughter and the joy that came with sharing it. And then Sam looked around, and noticed that a lot of people were watching them. All of the people were watching.
“If you lads have finished,” Crowley called over. “There is television to make. If you have a gap in your schedules, perhaps?”
Castiel gave Sam a fond look, another of his small smiles made all that more encompassing by his flushed face and the laugh lines by his eyes. He could be so freaking beautiful, lean lines and animal grace, and everything made soft and edible by happiness. Sam clambered awkwardly to his feet, sore muscles and the pads that had not offered anywhere near enough protection making his movements clumsy, and then he helped Castiel to his feet. Castiel squeezed Sam’s hand before letting go, gave him a warm, lingering look.
“And, Winchester,” Crowley called, “get back to your goddamn typewriter.” Sam ducked his head, and jogged off the mat. He passed Balthazar as he crossed the concrete floor, stripping the pads off. He nodded a greeting, but Balthazar didn’t see him. He was glaring at Castiel. And when Sam looked over his shoulder at Cas, looking small and rumpled by himself in the middle of the mats, he saw Castiel lift his chin in a muted, defiant gesture. Sam bit his lip and hurried back to the AD trailer.
He’d wanted Cas and Bal to acknowledge each other. He hadn’t wanted them to turn it into a standoff. Sam had the horrible feeling that, in getting Castiel to have a little fun, he’d somehow made things worse between them, like Balthazar had taken offence to Castiel having fun without him. It was a mess. And Balthazar had been exactly right at his birthday party - Sam was caught up in the middle of it now.
Author: tawg
Word count: ~3,600
Rating: PG
Characters/pairings: Sam and Castiel (friendshippy, bordering on crushing), Dean, Crowley, Gabriel. References to previous Sam/Balthazar and Castiel/Balthazar.
Notes: Takes place a few weeks after Fell Into It.
Summary: Castiel is not a man of many words. Sam is not a man with great self-preservation instincts. Sam thinks they might be friends.
For a while, it seemed like there were two distinct periods of Sam’s life: ‘Before Fallen’, and ‘In Love With Fallen’. And then he had gotten the job rejiggering small scenes, and his life had been split into: ‘OMG dream job’, and ‘everything that came before’. And then there was that incredibly awkward period that Sam fell into smack in the middle of Balthazar’s birthday party, and his life was split into: ‘before Balthazar had stuck his tongue into Sam’s mouth’, and ‘after Sam had returned to the party and it had taken just one look before the whole room assumed that Sam had been thoroughly rogered in the hallway’. (Though, technically that last one split Sam’s life into three distinct periods, the middle one being: ‘that amazing part of Sam’s existence where freaking Balthazar had been kissing Sam like they were both dying and had nothing to lose’.)
There had been teasing. There had been so much teasing. From Ellen asking him how it finally felt to being part of the crew, to Gabriel sneaking up on him while he was talking to someone and spraying disinfectant in his mouth.
“It’s not like that,” Sam had protested to Dean.
“Dude, I don’t care. Whatever.”
“But we didn’t… you know. It wasn’t like that.”
“Please stop telling me about this.”
“I’m not like that.”
Dean had sighed, and looked over at Sam. “I know, okay? And everyone else will figure it out. We’re all just blowing off steam since Cas is being such a bitch over getting dumped.” Dean turned back to the car he was waxing. “There’d be nothing wrong with it if you did get laid, though. You spend way too much time with your dolls.”
“They’re action figures,” Sam had hissed, but Dean was laughing loud and easy, covering up the protest. It was both an upside and a downside, working with Dean.
But Sam did make an effort to play into the jokes instead of recoiling away from them. Dean was right, there had been a significant change in the atmosphere on set, and it all came from the angry storm cloud that was Castiel. He was still a perfect professional when shooting his scenes, but it was plain as day that he was in a permanently filthy mood. Had been since the party, and probably would be for the rest of his life. Which, in theory, should not affect Sam at all. Sam just tinkered with scripts. He had no real business being around the actors anyway.
But, in reality, he was the new kid on set. And when there was a job that no one wanted to do? They bullied Sam into doing it. Even Dean, who was probably the only person Sam had witnessed having a conversation with Castiel about something non-work related, was using Sam as a go-between.
Which was how Sam ended up being the one handing Cas the new pages to learn, running over to his trailer with a different pair of shoes for Michael to wear, taking him breakfast because he’d stopped going and getting it himself and Jo was worried that he’d make himself sick if he didn’t eat regularly. Sam did his best to be bright and friendly and professional, but Castiel had a glower that made Sam think of the wrath of god and the possibility of a smiting. It got more than a little stressful. It got to the point where Sam just had to say something.
“Look,” he said, the plastic tray of black tea and breakfast gripped firmly in his hands. “I’m sorry if I upset you. And the birthday party. With the-”
“You didn’t upset me,” Castiel replied without looking up from his Sudoku book. “You didn’t even surprise me.”
“Well, I’m sorry about whatever has you upset then.” Sam took a deep breath, and continued. “You seem like a great guy and all, but you’re being a real dick right now. So, I’m not going to be bringing you stuff anymore. If people are too scared of you to do their jobs, you’ll just have to pick up the slack on your own.” Sam put the tray down, and stepped back out of striking range.
Castiel stared at the tray, giving no sign that he’d even heard Sam’s impassioned speech. “Toast,” he said at last.
“What?”
“I get toast for breakfast.”
“Oh, right.” Sam pushed his bangs out of his eyes, using the pause to get his brain on the right track. “The toaster is fritzing and burning everything that goes near it. I got you granola instead because I heard you like it.”
Castiel pulled the lid off the little plastic tub of granola, started at the contents, and then looked up at Sam. His gaze was unwavering and it made Sam’s breath catch in his throat. Castiel was handsome, in a not-of-this-earth, pretty-because-it’s-deadly kind of way. But Castiel just nodded at Sam, a small understated motion, and said a solemn, “Thank you.”
Sam bid a hasty retreat, and spent the rest of his morning hiding in the AD trailer doing re-writes.
After that… It wasn’t a massive change. Cas spent less time holed up in his trailer and more time working about the set. He nodded at Sam when he saw him, which is how most people figured out that Sam had prodded him into reigning in his temper.
“You make out with him, too?” Dean asked as he stole a cherry tomato from Sam’s salad.
“Oh Christ, do not even joke about that,” Sam replied.
“You worried Balthazar will get jealous?” No, Sam was worried people would talk about him again and work would go back to being super-awkward.
“Shut up, Dean. Just stop talking completely.”
“Dean,” a rough voice from behind them called. Sam cringed in on himself, because that voice?
“Yeah, Cas?” Dean called back. That voice belonged to one person Sam really hoped hadn’t been eavesdropping.
“Rufus wants the Crossfire ready in the next hour.”
“Yeah yeah,” Dean grumbled, hauling himself off the beat-up couch that he and Sam had been eating lunch on. Sam looked over his shoulder at Castiel, who was giving Sam a thoughtful look.
“You need anything?” Sam asked.
“That’s not your job,” Castiel replied.
“Well, yeah, but. If there’s something that needs doing, I mean.” They were shooting one of Cassie’s scripts this week, and her work tended to be really tight. She had incredible precision for writing a procedural episode. It gave Sam a little time to slack off.
Castiel gave Sam one last, considering look. “I’ll let you know,” he finally replied and walked away without another word.
And then… And then things got a little weird. Balthazar, who was nice to everyone and had an easygoing kind of charm to his nature, spent more time talking to the people working on set. Not that he didn’t talk to them anyway, but he was kind of like the welcome wagon for the incredible number of guest stars and extras they had filtering through the set each week. But more time talking to the crew meant more time talking to Sam. It wasn’t… It wasn’t anything deep or meaningful, but Sam soon felt comfortable going up to Balthazar and starting a conversation with him, got used to the pleased way he’d laugh when reading through Sam’s re-writes. Sam could pretty much get through a conversation without having flashbacks to Balthazar shoving him against a wall and how painfully arousing that had been.
(The highlight of Sam’s sex life, and there had not actually been any sex involved. Dean was right. Sam needed to get out more.)
But Castiel was also seeking him out. For small, legitimate things, like asking if he could use a different word just here, because while Michael was an emotionally distant character he was also succinct and plain in his speech. Or, when Sam had to cram two scenes into one because the second location they were planning on using suddenly became unavailable, he’d ask Sam if the characters were to be in the same position for the second conversation or if they should be standing closer. Which, given that Sam knew that Castiel knew what his character should be doing at any given time better than anyone else, was amazingly flattering.
Sam was checking his e-mail on his phone and idly watching Gabriel talk a few extras through the weighting of the mostly actor-friendly weapons he constructed when Castiel showed up. He wasn’t due to film for several more hours, and was wearing black exercise pants and an entirely ordinary grey t-shirt. He walked to the edge of the fall mats Gabriel had laid out, and toed his shoes off. Sam had only ever seen the actor in button up shirts before. Now there were forearms and feet, and his clavicles could be glimpsed at the collar of his shirt. Sam watched as Castiel did some completely commonplace stretches, and then reached for Michael’s sword.
“He’s going to be up here, okay?” Gabriel said to Castiel, stretching his hand above his head. “He’s gonna be big, and you need to aim high.”
Castiel made a slow, experimental swing of the sword towards Gabriel’s hand, and his mouth turned downwwards in distaste. “This isn’t going to work,” he said.
“It’ll be fine,” Gabriel assured him. “Just like before, but aim higher.”
Castiel had the tip of the sword resting against the mat between his naked feet, resting both hands on it as if it were a cane. “How tall is he?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel replied. “Somewhere between six and a million feet tall.” Castiel grimaced. “Look, we could set up a dummy or something?” Gabriel offered. And then Castiel’s eyes fell on Sam. And then Gabriel turned to see what Cas was staring at. And then Gabriel’s eyes lit up. Sam had a sinking feeling.
“Hey, gigantor,” Gabriel called out. “Get over here.” Sam made a pretence of looking about, as if there were some other hulking mass lurking about that they could have been talking to. Gabriel threw one of Castiel’s shoes at Sam. Sam scowled, picked up the projectile, and carried it over to the pair.
“You remember how to fall on these mats, right?” Gabriel asked. It had been one of Sam’s early lessons, Jo and Gabriel teaching him how to flop onto the stack mats without hurting himself. (The key was to fall with relaxed muscles.)
“If I say ‘no’, will you let me leave?”
“Not a chance,” Gabriel said, pulling Sam into position in front of Castiel. “Here, let me just get you some pads.”
Sam stared at Castiel. Castiel stared back. “If I sneak away now,” Sam said slowly, “would you let me?”
One corner of Castiel’s mouth quirked upwards, and his eyes were sparkling blue under the mediocre lighting of the non-set sections of their soundstage. “I won’t hurt you,” Castiel replied, and there was a kind of warmth in his voice.
Sam swallowed nervously. He loved the fight scenes in Fallen. They were just so quick and so graceful, with those swords flashing and moving easily. They were like an incredibly brutal dance. But, Sam could happily live out his life without being caught in the middle of a storm of swords. When you spend enough time watching things getting impaled and torn open on screen, and then see some of the bruises that the stunt people walk away with, the thrill of being anywhere near that happening had a tendency to wear off.
But by then Gabriel was back, sliding chest and shoulder pads over Sam’s head and strapping them in place. “Shouldn’t I have a helmet or something?” Sam asked. “Since he’s going to be aiming for my head.”
“Nah,” Gabriel said. “You’ll be fine. Just stay perfectly still, okay? Don’t move a muscle.”
Sam nodded, a sense of unease flooding him. But Castiel gave him another one of those small smiles, and Sam took a deep breath. He should be calm. This was no big deal. It was pretty much just an aiming exercise, right? Cas would keep it nice, and slow, and safe, and-
And Castiel ripped the sword up from the mat, twisted around as quick as a snake, and sent the sword hurtling towards Sam’s head. Sam ducked with a frightened yelp, and heard the ‘swoosh’ of the blade passing above him. Castiel followed through on the turn, twisting over his back leg and using his front leg to deliver a hard kick to Sam’s shoulder. Sam topped backwards onto the mat, Castiel thudded to his knees beside him, and Sam saw the tip of the Michael sword cutting through the air right towards his face.
Thankfully, Sam absolutely failed to get stabbed in the head. He opened one eyes, lowered the hands he had raised to protect his face, and looked up at Castiel. The tip of the sword was about an inch from the end of Sam’s nose. Then Castiel rolled back onto his feet in a fluid motion, let the sword dangle by his side, and offered a hand to Sam to help him up. Sam eyed it warily, but he could hear Gabriel and Dean completely failing to smother their laughter at his perfectly justified fear, and he was keen to get out of his vulnerable position.
“Sorry,” Castiel said. He expression was clam and unrepentant, but then he looked down and to one side, his eyes flicking back to Sam, watching for a reaction.
“I just got hazed, didn’t I?” Sam asked, feeling dizzy as adrenaline and relief at not being killed by a freaking prop sword of all things flooded through his system.
“Yes,” Castiel said in that quiet way of his, raising his head when Sam failed to hulk out and threaten to smash all of the things in retaliation. “If it helps, I’ve done it to nearly everyone.”
Sam considered this. “Even Dean?”
Castiel’s mouth quirked again in an almost-smile. “He screamed. Chuck thought it was a car alarm going off.” Sam snorted a laugh, ducking his head to hide what he knew was a goofy, giddy, glad-I’m-not-dead-and-not-the-only-wimp smile. “Could you stay?” Castiel asked. “I actually do need to practice.”
“Well…” A glance at Castiel, with his serious blue eyes and intent patience was Sam’s undoing. “Sure. But don’t try to kill me this time.”
“I’ll do my best,” Castiel replied seriously.
And within twenty seconds Sam was flat on his back once again. “Great work,” Gabriel called over. “Keep it up. Especially the screams. They’re important so we know he hasn’t killed you.”
“Did you learn this in the army?” Sam asked, propping himself up on his elbows.
“No,” Castiel replied, hauling Sam to his feet again. “I did judo for a while.”
“Oh,” Sam said, filing the fact away. “Cool. Were you any good?” And then the world around Sam shifted, and he was flat on his back again. “Wait, never mind,” he said weakly.
Sam tried to scowl at Cas as he climbed to his feet, but it was hard to be annoyed in the face of the quietly happy air around Castiel. It wasn’t a malicious joy, no smirking conceit. But amusement, perhaps pride at his own form, fondness at Sam’s tolerance. “How about you try and teach me to not just fall over all the time?” Sam suggested. “It might make things a little more interesting.”
And Castiel did. He taught Sam about widening his stance, how to absorb a blow. Judo, Castiel explained, was all about blocking. It was an art of self-defence. “Then how do you attack with it?” Sam asked, genuinely curious.
This time, when Castiel quite literally floored him, he did it slowly. Sam saw the push to his shoulder coming, felt Castiel nudging at his ankles with a soft kick, and allowed himself to be lowered onto the mat. Cas was strong for his size, though Sam got the sense that a lot of his strength came from the way he balanced himself.
“Okay,” Sam said, looking up at Castiel. “I think I can block that. Maybe?”
Castiel looked down at Sam, his head tilted to one side and his lips awry, like he was trying to press down a smile and failing. “You have to get up first,” he replied. When Sam tried, he found one arm kicked out from under him, the other yanked up and across, and suddenly he was lying on his stomach with one wrist pinned to a shoulder blade and the easy weight of Castiel sitting on his lower back. Sam swallowed thickly, and counted backwards from ten.
“Is the submission hold judo, too?”
“Pro-wrestling,” Castiel replied.
“I didn’t know you were a wrestling fan?”
“I’m not,” Cas returned. “But I saw a lot of it when I was in the army.”
“Ah,” Sam said, one cheek smooshed against the stack mat. “So you did learn this from your time in uniform.”
Castiel made a humming noise in response. He seemed content to pin Sam indefinitely. Sam tried to twist away, but pulling against Castiel’s grip on his wrist sent ‘Not Good’ messages all the way up his arm, and Castiel was too firmly seated for Sam to throw him off. Eventually Sam had to resort to the classic little brother technique of kicking his heels back and drumming them against Castiel’s back.
“Alright,” Sam said when he’d exhausted himself. “Teach me how to get out of this one.”
“Your left arm is free,” Castiel replied. “Use it.”
Sam flailed around, but there was nothing within his reach to grab and Castiel’s weight in the middle of his back was too solid to shift. He tried tugging at Castiel’s clothes to dislodge him, but the only part of Cas that he could get any kind of grasp on was Castiel’s foot. And Sam realised that, in their fun, mildly embarrassing, and potentially spank-bank worthy scuffling, Cas had never laid down any rules about fighting dirty. He grabbed Castiel’s bare foot and skittered his short nails over the sole. Castiel jerked, and Sam did it again, tickling with the determined experience of a little brother who knew his big brother’s one vulnerability.
Castiel shifted, trying to tuck his foot back out of Sam’s reach, and Sam pushed up abruptly, unseating Castiel for a moment. Sam managed to flip onto his back, getting his hands to Castiel’s sides and tickling, watching Castiel squirm, his face wonderfully surprised and perplexed. Castiel had obviously never been in a tickle fight before. Sam got one hand up into his armpit, the other digging in to the soft skin behind Castiel’s knee, and Cas burst out laughing.
Sam had never heard Cas laugh before. He was a quiet, solemn kind of person, and Sam knew that the small smiles he’d seen were as extreme an expression of happiness as Cas ever wore. But now... he was like a different person, his mouth wide with laugher and his eyes bright and dancing as he grappled with Sam’s wrists, tried to pull his hands away and fight him off. He had a nice laugh, clear and a little higher in pitch than Sam would have expected. It was handsome, and fun, and Sam couldn’t help grinning and laughing back as he tickled the man above him, as he tugged more sounds of happiness through those usually gruff and unforgiving vocal chords.
And then Cas managed to scramble backwards off Sam, sitting between Sam’s splayed legs, his own feet either side of Sam’s hips, the two of them short of breath and grinning like mad things. It was a perfect moment, that high of emotions that came with laughter and the joy that came with sharing it. And then Sam looked around, and noticed that a lot of people were watching them. All of the people were watching.
“If you lads have finished,” Crowley called over. “There is television to make. If you have a gap in your schedules, perhaps?”
Castiel gave Sam a fond look, another of his small smiles made all that more encompassing by his flushed face and the laugh lines by his eyes. He could be so freaking beautiful, lean lines and animal grace, and everything made soft and edible by happiness. Sam clambered awkwardly to his feet, sore muscles and the pads that had not offered anywhere near enough protection making his movements clumsy, and then he helped Castiel to his feet. Castiel squeezed Sam’s hand before letting go, gave him a warm, lingering look.
“And, Winchester,” Crowley called, “get back to your goddamn typewriter.” Sam ducked his head, and jogged off the mat. He passed Balthazar as he crossed the concrete floor, stripping the pads off. He nodded a greeting, but Balthazar didn’t see him. He was glaring at Castiel. And when Sam looked over his shoulder at Cas, looking small and rumpled by himself in the middle of the mats, he saw Castiel lift his chin in a muted, defiant gesture. Sam bit his lip and hurried back to the AD trailer.
He’d wanted Cas and Bal to acknowledge each other. He hadn’t wanted them to turn it into a standoff. Sam had the horrible feeling that, in getting Castiel to have a little fun, he’d somehow made things worse between them, like Balthazar had taken offence to Castiel having fun without him. It was a mess. And Balthazar had been exactly right at his birthday party - Sam was caught up in the middle of it now.