Fic: Light the Length of August (Supernatural) 8/?

[broken_cinders]

Hello! I'm so sorry for the long time between updates! There are lots of excuses, but let's just say that it's been a bumpy month. It's a two-fer tonight to say I'm sorry. These two have given me some trouble, but I'm pleased to announce we're close to leaving Brookhaven. Dean is looming ever closer and you can bet things get interesting when he finds out.

Title: Light the Length of August - Chapter 8: No One to Impress
Fandom: Supernatural
Character(s): Sam, Cas, Dean
Pairing(s): Gen
Word Count: 4945
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it’s not mine. If you don’t recognize it, it still might not be mine. Any recognizable places or people have been fictionalized. I am not blind. I do not have any immediate acquaintances that are blind. Any mistakes on that front are entirely my own. If you spot an error, let me know. Research can only take me so far.
Summary: Sam thinks of himself as an intelligent guy. He knows life isn’t usually fair. He knows the job they do is dangerous. He knows for them there are no guarantees or ironclad promises. He also knows that time is running out to find his possibly demonic brother and help Cas. He doesn’t have time for another sucker punch from whatever higher power likes toying with him. He still wakes up in the hospital alone and blind.


Cas reached forward and stole a piece of Sam’s toast. The crust brushed against Sam’s knuckles as it was liberated from his plate. He could have probably stopped it if he wanted, but it was kind of nice. Instead, he grumbled at Cas for being awake and alert enough to be stealing toast at that time of the morning.

Cas wasn’t deterred in the least. “Just because you’re nocturnal doesn’t mean the rest of the world is.”

Sam grunted at that. He wasn’t wrong. Even now, weeks out from a hunt and following a routine that started somewhere around six o’clock, he still couldn’t begin to think about sleep until the early hours of the morning. He’d spent half the previous night lying awake in his bed. He kept thinking about what Helen had said.

He didn’t have the luxury of being lazy anymore.

Sam was a realist. He knew his strengths and he knew his weaknesses. He knew he tended to pull to the left when he was aiming his gun. He knew he was a thorough researcher. He knew he worried too much. He knew he could beat his brother at pool if he worked at it. And those were just the simple things. He’d spent years figuring out his faults. Some of them were just a part of him, for better or worse.

Sam had never called himself lazy.

He knew what Helen meant. Without his eyes, he was going to have to rely on memory and his critical thinking skills. Something about the comment though brought back all the years of fighting with his dad. John Winchester had accused Sam of blowing off training or research because he was selfish, lazy, and undisciplined. Sam had never been able to decide if he’d genuinely believed those thing or if he’d simply been trying to goad him into working harder to prove him wrong.

Sam had comforted himself as a kid by keeping a mental litany of all the things he could do. He doubted any other twelve year old was getting straight A’s, hitting a bullseye eight out of ten times, running ten miles a day before breakfast, researching obscure topics that occasionally weren’t in English, all while avoiding notice from CPS and well-meaning teachers. He had figured at the time that counted for something. He might not be Dean, taking care of a little brother or bringing in as much cash, but he could fend for himself and he had held onto that knowledge any time his dad started in on him.

What would Dad think of him now? True, he had helped save the world once or twice, but here he was. He had lost his brother, been injured in a frankly small time hunt, and now he was blind. He could hear the gruff tones of John’s voice echoing through the years as he reamed him out for being careless and not pulling his own weight.

Sam was jerked from his thoughts when, after crunching on his pilfered toast for a quiet minute, Cas asked, “What do you expect us to do today?”

“I have no idea. Knowing Helen, probably something mortifying.”

“Sam, you don’t have to be embarrassed about anything.”

“You say that now,” Sam said as he speared a forkful of fruit from his bowl. He was all too aware that yesterday he’d been grubbing along on the floor for three hours. Just the memory of it made him scowl.

“You are going to have to do things differently now. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

“I know,” Sam shrugged. He was about to change the topic to something less depressing when he caught the faint whiff of Helen’s perfume.

“Good morning,” she said brightly. Sam had noticed that she was always chipper. She was worse than Dean like that, and Sam was in no mood for it today. “Who do we have here?”

Helen settled into the seat next to Sam, a bit nearer than he might have liked. He could feel the light fabric of her shirt brushing against his bare arm. He shifted away under the pretense of turning to include her and gestured across the table towards Cas. “This is my cousin, Cas. Cas meet Helen, my life skills drill sergeant.”

“Alright cadet, watch the tone or you’ll be doing laps.”

Instead of replying, Sam busied himself with exploring the bottom of his bowl to make sure he had gotten all the fruit. It irked him to waste food and while he didn’t particularly care about breakfast, he knew he would probably need all the energy he could get for whatever the team was going to throw at them today.

Helen had paused, but when she didn’t get a response to her teasing she turned to address Cas directly. “I’m glad you could come today,” she said. Her tone was still light, but hints of her normal sternness were creeping back in. Trust Helen to dive in before breakfast was even finished. “We’re going to be working on ways you can help Sam effectively. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told him. Sam lives in a sighted world. That means he’s going to have to ask for help sometimes. That being said, he is probably going to be a lot more independent than you’re expecting. So you’re going to let Sam ask for what he needs and learn not to do it for him.”

“Come, on. Up,” she said, rising from her seat. “We’re going to be working in the kitchen for today’s lesson.”

Sam’s grip on his fork tightened. He was a disaster in the kitchen and that was even before everything had happened. “My brother once told me if I ever set foot in his kitchen again, he’d murder me,” Sam offered in a tired voice. Actually Dean had threatened to chain him up in the dungeon and leave him there for his own safety, but he didn’t feel inclined to explain why they had a dungeon and while Cas might not get the implicit sex joke in that, it surely wouldn’t escape Helen.

“It’s a good thing you won’t be in his kitchen then. We’re going to be in the teaching kitchen.” Helen rolled straight over his objections. When Sam didn’t offer anything more, she hesitantly asked, “Surely there’s something you know how to make.”

“I make salads,” Sam said, flatly. “And sandwiches. Maybe eggs.”

“Seriously? That’s just sad. You are a grown man. If you don’t know how to feed yourself at this point it’s just embarrassing. You’re going to learn. Now up,” she said as she pulled Sam to his feet.

Cas stood when he did and fell into step beside him. They traveled together down the hallway. It was nice to be able to walk alongside someone without having to be led.

They pushed into the kitchen through a set of swinging double doors that threatened to smack Sam in the face. He could immediately hear the difference in the space. It sounded open, although not as expansive as the dining hall.

Before he could go very far, Helen placed a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. “Here, I’ve got today’s challenge for you.”

Sam held his hand out when she said that. She placed what felt like a stiff sheet of cardstock onto his palm. Sam explored the card, but it remained stubbornly blank to him. “Not in Braille,” he observed.

“Walk before we run, Sam. Those lessons start tomorrow. No, this is a printed recipe. Technically three recipes. Your job is to fix us lunch for today. I’m mostly here to observe how it goes. I might step in occasionally to help you with some of the skills you might need, but otherwise you’re only going to have Cas.

“Cas, you’ve got one rule. You can only do what Sam asks you to. No describing anything unless he asks. No hints or pointers. You can talk about the weather if you want, but you can’t help. Got it?”

“Okay,” Cas said, sounding as intimidated by the task as Sam felt. Sam hesitated by the door, recipe sheet in his hand, and wondered what exactly he’d gotten himself into today. It was all fine and good to know where his shirts were or how to vacuum the floor. He got how organizing his money would make his life easier and not spilling soup down his front was more pleasant for everyone. This just sounded like a disaster waiting to happen.

“I’m really not kidding about this being a bad idea,” Sam said as he moved forward, exploring the space and building up a mental map of the area. He found an island in the middle surrounded by stools and across from it, the stove range with some extra counter space to the side. He could hear the hum of the refrigerator coming from the corner near the door. He knew there must be a pantry, but it eluded him in his brief search.

He stood tense and nervous by the island for a long moment, debating where to start. How was he supposed to do anything in here? There was a list a mile long of ways he could injure himself or someone else with the equipment in this room.

Sam squared his shoulders. He was here. He had to at least try to do this. Helen hadn’t led him wrong yet.

“Sam, relax,” Cas said. He stepped further into the room and up to the central island, not far from Sam. “Think of it like a hunt. Just tell me what you need.”

Cas was right. Cooking was a lot like spell work if you really considered it, and at least nothing in here would explode in foul smelling goo if he got it wrong. Hopefully. “Alright,” he said. His hands were cramping from their hold on his cane.

He held out the sheet that Helen had given him towards Cas’s voice and smiled half-heartedly. “Can you look over the recipe card? What do I need to know?”

Cas studied the recipes for a long moment. Sam shifted in place as he waited. One thing he was growing to hate were these long, interminable pauses. Without anyone talking or moving, it felt like he was alone. He couldn’t read the nonverbal cues that he’d so easily taken in before, and it left him adrift in the middle of the room.

Finally, Cas cleared his throat before diving into a description of the printed sheet. Sam’s focus narrowed onto his voice as he tried to take in all the details he needed. Cas was basically just reading out the skeleton of the recipes, and it was too much to process all at once. “Wait, Cas.”

Cas broke off midsentence. “What’s wrong?”

“Can we slow down a little? I don’t…” Sam scowled. “Just let’s back up. I can’t remember all that in one go.”

Cas quietly shifted and Sam realized he must have sat down on one of the stools at the counter. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know what you would need to know.”

Sam took a slow breath in and leaned against the countertop. What did he need to know? If he was doing spell work for a hunt, first he’d find the spell, then he’d gather the ingredients and figure out the timing. After that he’d put it all together first in a test run then in real life. He had their equivalent of the spell with the recipe card. Presumably they had the ingredients, which only left the timing. “Prep and cook times if they’re listed,” he said at last.

Cas read out the information and Sam began assembling a mental timeline. It sounded like an hour’s worth of work at most, but he knew it would take him at least twice that long to put it together. This session was three hours long. He could make spaghetti and meatballs in three hours.

He smiled a little, thinking about how Dean would grumble over his next decision. There was something missing from this plan and it was the one thing he knew he could actually make. He tilted his head and asked, “Is the kitchen fully stocked? Is there anything we can’t use?”

Helen spoke from a spot by the door. “You can use anything in here. Why?”

“That’s a lot of carbs. It would be nice to have something green to go with it.” He turned back to Cas. “Let’s make a salad. We should do that first since it’ll keep in the fridge.”

Decision made, Sam straightened and made his way to the refrigerator. He opened the door. The cool air washed over him. He reached a hand forward until his fingers found the first shelf. He gave it a cautious scan but mostly found paper cartons. He dropped his hand down, reaching for the bins that usually resided at the bottom for the vegetables.

He found the crisper drawers and pulled them open. In one he brushed over something leafy. It wasn’t the tight head he was expecting, but he thought it might still be lettuce. Under that he found what he was pretty sure was a cucumber and a bag of carrots.

Sam pulled them all out and turned back to the island with his haul balanced in his arms. He laid them out in order as he said, “Lettuce, cucumber, and carrots, right?”

“Yes,” Cas said.

Sam faltered. He knew what he wanted to do, but it seemed exceptionally complex without his sight. How was he supposed to find what he needed? Across the island from him, Cas rose to his feet. As he did, Helen tutted. “Plant your butt back on that stool unless Sam tells you otherwise.”

“Surely it makes more sense for me to help than to sit on a stool. I am perfectly capable of gathering the items we need for this task.”

“This isn’t about you. Sam can decide for himself if he needs help. Sit.”

There was a soft thump as Cas settled himself back on his stool. Sam ignored the conversation.

He knew he’d need a bowl, a cutting board, and a knife. He just had no idea where to look for any of that. He frowned, thinking back to Dean’s space at home. Bowls were likely in a cabinet somewhere. He made his way back to the counters beside the stove and reached an inquisitive hand up. He found the cabinet and began searching one by one. He huffed in frustration, only finding small table bowls. “Where would you keep a salad bowl?”

“Cabinet under the counter to the left of the stove,” Helen said. Dean kept pots and pan in the under-counter cabinets. He located the bowl and set it on the table. The cutting board, equally eluded him and he had to ask, but the knives he found in a butcher block with a quick sweep of the countertop. He brought everything to the open work space and gathered up the lettuce to wash. That done, he picked up his knife and frowned, thinking. He wasn’t a stranger to using a knife in the dark, but normally that was to attack, not to chop. While he was good at knowing where his limbs were in space, he didn’t want to chop off his fingers and he didn’t want to ask Cas to do it for him.

“Okay, Helen,” he said finally. “I’m not so sure about this part. What’s the best way not to lose my finger?”

She came to stand next to him and took the knife. She spent a minute showing him how to feel for the sharp edge by pushing the broad side gently across his palm and how to store it under his cutting board so he wouldn’t accidentally cut himself on the exposed blade. She talked him through tucking his thumb and using his fingers as a guide until he was chopping his vegetables into manageable pieces. It might not have been a salad worthy of Martha Stuart, but it was edible, and the small success made the bigger hurdles like working with a stove feel a bit more manageable.

There was something rather exposing about having Helen teach him how to chop vegetables like he was a kid again in front of an angel who was presumably old enough to have witnessed creation. It seemed like something that would be so far beneath Cas’s notice as to be completely pointless, but Cas surprised him. Sam figured if anything was going to hammer home just how lost of a cause he was, it would be a day spent seeing all the ways he was having to learn to compensate. Instead, Cas asked as many questions as Sam did. At one point Helen even invited him to work beside them.

“Stand here,” she said. Sam felt Cas move up beside him and pushed the chopping mat across to rest more in front of the angel. “Okay. Close your eyes and hold out your hand. I’m going to show you what I was telling Sam about feeling for the sharp edge of the blade.”

There was a short pause where Sam could hear the metal rasping against Cas’s palm under Helen’s guidance. Sam leaned up against the island where they were working. He propped his elbow on the countertop and rested his chin in his hand as he listened to Helen walk Cas through the same steps she’d just shown him. After a moment, Cas made several short chops, each one landing with a solid thump as he pushed the knife through the cucumber.

“That was disconcerting,” Cas said. He stepped back, giving Sam free reign of the counter again. Cas had immediately sat down after his turn with the knife and seemed to regard the whole lesson with a new seriousness.

With the salad made, they moved on to the more important elements of their lunch. Thanks to Cas’s help he found the hamburger and made the meatballs. As he was rolling them and placing them on the sheet, he offered the bowl to Cas. “Come on. If I have to put my hands in this, then so do you. It’s about like making cookies.”

Cas obliged, picking up the meat and rolling it between his hands. “You hated my cookies.”

Sam laughed, remembering that disastrous culinary misadventure. “Mint and orange just aren’t meant to go together like that,” he said. The cookies had tasted like furniture polish and had been nearly impossible to eat.

Sam rolled the last ball and placed it on the tray. He covered it over with plastic wrap and carried it to the fridge to keep while they made the sauce. He paused long enough to have Cas read the next set of ingredient then began to gather them. He even managed to get the pasta mostly made, only needing to have Cas help him line up the pasta maker on the stand mixer.

In the end, he sat down with Cas and Helen and enjoyed his meal.

“Cas,” Helen said as they polished off the last of their pasta. Sam knew that tone. She was about to do her recap that so often made Sam rethink their entire session. Sam leaned back and waited to hear how Cas would answer, curious despite himself. “What did you think of this morning’s exercise?”

“I was impressed by how much progress Sam has made,” Cas said, earnestly. Sam felt his ears heating at the observation. “He’s much more confident than he was just last week.”

“Did you find it difficult to step back?”

“In some ways, I suppose. Sam has always been very independent. He rarely asks for help even when he needs it. I was more surprised that he did ask.”

Before Sam could retort, Helen turned to him and asked, “And Sam? How did you feel you handled when you needed help?”

Sam took a moment to gather his thoughts. Finally, he said, “I’m glad Cas was there. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without him. On the other hand, I see what would need to change to make it manageable for being on my own.”

“Good. Next time we’ll really dig into some techniques and introduce you to some helpful tools. Once I clear you, you’ll be able to come down here and practice on your own, but not a moment before I say. You did well today, but you’ve got a ways to go.”

“I’d like that,” Sam said. He realized he really meant it. It would be nice to be more confident in the kitchen. He could hardly believe that there might be something he could be better at after losing his sight.

“So my turn,” Helen continued. “From what I observed, you two work well together. Cas, I’d suggest being a little more willing to ask Sam if there are ways you can help. Being hands off is fine - preferred even in certain situations - but if you know there are things that Sam might not know, it’s okay to offer that help as long as you are offering and not doing. Sam, you’re going to have to learn that sometimes it’s just easier to try and mess up. Being a bit more hands on is okay for you, too. You can taste and touch a lot more than you did. A little bit of finger in the soup isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

Sam felt his cheeks going red. “I didn’t want to just stick my hands in something that might get used to feed more than just us.”

They cleared up, and Helen sent them on to their next session. Sam took the lead and made his way to the open workroom that Rob usually met him in. It reminded Sam a bit of a gymnastics room, with soft mats that could be spread on the floor and moveable equipment that could be pulled out for various exercises. Cas kept up with him, quiet in the wake of Helen’s company.

Rob met them at the door with an easy greeting. “Hey, Sam. Helen said you’d be bringing a guest today.”

Sam took a moment to introduce them and heard them shifting to shake hands. “I’m glad you could come,” Rob said. “I’ve got a bit of a day planned for us.”

Sam groaned. “You only say that when I’m going to be bruised tomorrow.”

“It builds character.”

“I’ve got plenty of character,” Sam huffed. “Trust me.”

“Well today your bruises are going to depend on your cousin,” Rob said. Something in his tone was just a shade off. Sam was forcibly reminded of a mischievous Dean trying not to grin and give himself away while pulling a prank. “We’re going to play a little game. Think of it like an obstacle course.”

Sam frowned. Normally Helen was the one who framed their lessons as a game. Rob was usually more practical about his approach. “Okay. What aren’t you telling me?”

“You’re handing over your cane for the next three hours.”

Sam stiffened, his hands clenching around the handle of his cane as though he were afraid Rob would try to forcibly take it from him. “Wait, what?”

“Yep,” Rob said brightly. “Remember when we were working on how to walk with someone? This is the next step. Cas here is going to be your guide. We’re going to put both of you through your paces.”

“But Cas has already been guiding me.”

“Yes, and I’m sure he’s done fine with it, but we’re going to work on that whole working together thing. To that end I’ve set up a course. Cas, you’re going to guide Sam from one end to the other and back. But there’s a catch; you can’t describe the course ahead of time or the general layout. Now, before we do that, we’re going to go over some basics about the best ways to navigate when you’re leading someone. We’ll practice before I turn you loose.”

“Okay,” Cas said. He even sounded a little excited. Sam wasn’t sure how he felt. He trusted Cas. He knew his friend wouldn’t intentionally lead him astray but it was going to be frightening to try and go without his cane. It already felt like a part of him at this point.

Rob tapped his elbow. “Come on Sam. I’ll keep it safe. Trust me a little here. I promise you’ll be fine.”

Sam bit his lip but collapsed the cane and handed it over.

“Don’t pout. Think of it as another training exercise. What if something happens to your cane? What if you’re in an environment where you can’t carry it? What if you need to direct someone in the best way to lead you? We’re just building another skill set to help you navigate out there.”

“I know. I just don’t like being without it.”

“You’ll get used to that too. Now come on,” Rob said, turning to Cas. “Let’s talk about signaling that you want Sam to take your arm.”

Thus began an hour and half of guided practice where Sam learned the ins and outs of what a knowledgeable guide would be able to do. He relaxed into the work. If it had been anyone other than Cas, he would have been so on edge that he would have probably hurt himself, but Cas made him feel safe. By the time Rob let them try the full run of the course, Sam had fallen back into the conditioned mindset of training. It was a different type of skill, true, but the physicality of learning it wasn’t so foreign to him.

The course was demanding in a way that Sam hadn’t expected. He’d figured there would be some small steps and maybe something low that he would have to duck under. Instead, they’d done a full flight of stairs, crossed uneven ground, walked a seesaw, navigated under some sort of low hanging fabric, balanced across a narrow ledge, and bridged some sort of gap that Sam hadn’t gotten a good sense of. There had been a narrow doorway and even a rope swing. Sam had actually worked up a sweat, mostly because he couldn’t tackle it without thinking about running drills as a kid which made him want to sprint. Cas had caught on to his urgency and had accommodated.

About halfway through, Rob called out, “Whoah. Sam, what’s going on? You don’t get extra points for finishing fastest.”

Sam had frozen where he stood on a board. He took stock. He was breathing hard and his arms had started to accumulate sweat from his quick pace. He forced himself to shake out his muscles and relax a little. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. I’ll slow down.”

“It’s just,” Rob said as he moved to stand next to them. “The point is to find your rhythm and let Cas guide you, not storm the beaches of Normandy. What’s going through your head?”

Sam’s shoulders dropped. “It’s nothing, really. My dad was an ex-marine and he used to set drills up sort of like this for me and my brother. Loser had to do pushups. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but like I said, old habits die hard.”

“Okay,” Rob said. “Honestly, I don’t know how to respond to that. Do you want to stop?”

“What? No. It’s fine. I just got carried away. Sorry, Cas.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I never directly met your father, but he was certainly known for being intense.”

Sam laughed. “Yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”

“Sam,” Cas said quietly as Rob moved back to his spot by the door. “I know he pushed you and Dean hard. Are you sure this is okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Seriously. I promise I’ll let you set the pace this time.”

When Rob signaled them, they took off again, this time at something closer to a stroll. Sam let himself fall into step with Cas and trusted the other to lead him forward. It was easy and becoming more natural the longer they practiced. It was certainly a lot less hesitant than it had been at the hospital.

At the end Rob asked him, “So how do you feel about sighted lead?”

“Honestly? I’d rather use the cane, but I’m glad I know what to expect. And I trust Cas. It’s a relief to know that we have a solid system in place.”

“And Cas? How do you think it went?”

“It was enlightening. I was not sure what to expect, but I agree that it is a bit of a relief knowing that we can work together if we need to. Although I can see why it might make Sam nervous to be dependent on that mode of travel.”

“Good. Sounds like it was educational for everyone. Sam, remember it’s not a race. You don’t have anyone to impress besides yourself.”

Sam nodded. If he had a dollar for every time Rob had told him that, he wouldn’t need that fake credit card sitting in his wallet upstairs. As he was collecting his cane, something else occurred to him. “Rob? I just realized, I have my session with Kevin next. Is he expecting Cas?”

“Yep. Anytime we ask you to bring someone along, we all know that they will be there for the day.”

Sam nodded. He shook out his cane and turned to go, acknowledging Rob’s goodbye with a wave of his hand. Cas was already waiting for him at the door.

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