spn fic:"the difficult kind" (PG, Sam, Cas, Dean)
title: "the difficult kind"
author: fannishliss
rating: pg
pairings: this is friendship, but it is Sassy!
spoilers: general for s6 only
length: 1700 words
notes: I am a pinchhitter to provide the wonderful ratherastory with a Sassy gift -- this is not that story. I totally failed to abide by her prompts except that Sam be clever and use his hands. :P But it IS Sassy. So I hope y'all enjoy. Another story more to the point will still be forthcoming! the title refers to "The Difficult Kind" by Sheryl Crow, which I had on repeat while I wrote this story. It is very apropos for resouled Sam *nods*.
Summary: Sam and Dean fly to the rescue when Castiel needs help.
~*o*~
The Difficult Kind
Gun at the ready and gripped tightly in two hands, Sam pondered for a moment on locations.
Dilapidated old cabins, abandoned factories, dockyards, back alleys -- these were all prime locations for Sam, the places he’d spent his life cleaning up. But then again, there were calm houses in quiet suburban neighborhoods, golden light gleaming out from behind tasteful draperies. Dean tried the backdoor and the knob turned. Relying on their trusted telepathy they entered the house, a stronghold of demons, reeking to Sam’s nose with the odors of sulphur, blood, and terror. He wondered if Dean could smell it too, or if the years in Hell, or Dean’s stubborn powers of repression, had successfully blocked his sinuses.
The brothers crept into the house, sure only that they’d already lost the element of surprise.
Seconds ticked by as their combined vigilance reached into the darkness with every sense (excepting smell, as Sam had noted), trying to discern demons from shadows, the settling of a house from a stalker’s footfall. Dean went left, Sam right. They prowled in silence as Sam recollected the horrors of midnights, noons, mornings, evenings, afternoons. 7:58 pm is bedtime for third graders; the Winchester Brothers had been awakened from a midafternoon nap when Castiel screamed into Dean’s dreams a location and a shattering plea for help. True to their Winchester reflexes, they were loaded and on the way in nine minutes flat. But that had been four hours ago. With a demon, four hours can be a lifetime, all the lifetime a person has left.
How had Castiel fallen into this? How could a den of demons trap the head honcho of Heaven? What had been the lure?
Suddenly Sam got it. Shit, where had Dean gotten? Sam scurried to the left, as softly as his huge frame would carry him.
He was too late. Dean came flying backward through a door and Sam managed to catch him, but Dean was already out. Sam dragged him back and propped him in a corner, gun at hand for when he came to.
Sam drew his demon-killing knife (he no longer allowed himself to name the original owner) and cut himself on the forearm. He felt something like a mild electric shock travel through his bones, the cut of the knife stirring the demonic traces still lodged inside him at the cellular level. The tingling sensation was pleasant, actually, making him feel alert and ready for whatever awaited him. He remembered that sensation, swimming in it, the feeling that nothing could touch him, that he was nurturing a core of power in himself as vast as an ocean, all the power he’d ever need.
That power had been reduced to a tremor, a shot of adrenaline, a red flag. He wondered if he’d ever be rid of it. But the tremor was only in his brain -- his hands were steady, quick and sure as he painted with his own blood on the back of a door. Had a flash of something like it lit up inside his head? He wasn’t sure but he didn’t worry at it, just swallowed away the phantom memory of iron on his tongue, concentrating on the work of his hands as he completed the design, just in time. He swung the door back and Balthazar strolled in.
“How could you do it -- hand over another Angel to demons?” Sam spat. He’d been remembering Balthazar in little flashes, and what he remembered made him sick. To think what he’d almost done to Bobby -- what this so-called Angel had encouraged him to do -- Sam’s stomach clenched, and he tried to steel himself against his revulsion.
“Castiel came willingly enough when he thought I had something he wanted. If he had something I wanted in return, that’s just a bit of a turnabout, hm?” Balthazar’s smile was warm, his voice so calm and casual, but his eyes were hard as stone.
“What did you want from him?” Sam asked, horrified as to what the answer might be -- his sword? his wings? worse?
“Just his blood,” Balthazar said offhandedly, not even bothering to dissemble, and Sam saw red as he slammed his open hand against the sigil, banishing Balthazar for the time being. They really owed Anna for teaching them that trick.
The Angel’s grace tore free with a flash like lightning, and Sam heard several bodies thump to the ground in the next room, caught in the wash of it.
He sprang through the door before the rest of the demons knew what had happened. They were guarding Castiel, who was straining against his bonds, tied to a fiendish looking iron Devil’s trap, covered with Enochian symbols.
Sam had dispatched the three guarding Castiel, when Cas shouted for him to look out behind him. Swinging around, he caught one more in the gut just before it tried to brain him with a table leg.
“Are there any more?” Sam gasped to Castiel.
“No. The rest have fled. Please get me loose; these fetters are very uncomfortable.”
Sam hurried to work at the manacles that bound Castiel to the devil’s trap. His flesh was reddened and sore, broken where Cas had pulled against them, but also steaming slightly against whatever spellwork was engraved all over them to hold the Angel. Sam was grateful for his lockpicking skill when he had Castiel’s right wrist free in less than a minute. From there, Castiel opened the rest of his bonds by destroying the Enochian insignia with a touch.
Sam offered Castiel a shoulder as the weakened Angel staggered, but once outside the cursed circle inscribed on the floor, Castiel breathed easier and straightened up. He still looked tired, and furious, but no longer as drained.
“We came as soon as we could,” Sam offered, sorry it had taken them so long.
Castiel’s gaze fell upon Sam, and like always, Sam felt as if that gaze was sizing him up, inside and out. Castiel’s fierce stare measured Sam, and the Winchester prepared himself to come up wanting, but then the Angel blinked and Castiel’s hand was upon his shoulder.
“Thank you, Sam. I should have learned my lesson with Balthazar, or at least when you offered me the Ark of the Covenant...”
“I what?” Sam boggled. The Angel’s hand was hotter than normal on his shoulder. “Cas, are you all right? You have a fever, I think.”
Castiel’s face was flushed, but he said, “My vessel is heated because my Grace is replenishing the lost blood.”
“Are you okay? Do you need to rest?” Sam asked.
Castiel gazed at Sam, his head tilting slightly in that characteristic way that had always amused Sam. “I’ll be fine. I should hunt Balthazar down and destroy him for taking my blood... he’ll put it to some blasphemous use, no doubt....” Cas clenched his fists, but then as he continued to stare at Sam, he relaxed. “Sam, I hope you don’t mind me saying, that it is indeed a relief to have your soul back in place.”
Sam frowned, feeling the rush of shame for all the things he’d done and his dread of all the things he still didn’t know about. “Yeah, I guess...” He hid his eyes from Castiel’s appraisal.
“Your capacity to care about my well-being is very much appreciated,” Cas said, the warmth in his voice belying his overly formal words.
Sam looked up, and was shocked to recognize the loneliness deep in the Angel’s eyes. Castiel was an Angel of the Lord, and Sam -- well, he was an interesting hybrid at best, and abomination at worst, but they had one thing in common -- their tendency to buck the ordained order of things. Dean might call it Team Free Will, but Sam just called it doing what you had to do to look yourself in the eye every morning.
Looking at Castiel, Sam saw that same desire in the Angel to make things right. The burden he had taken on was too heavy for anyone to bear, even an Angel of the Lord. There was too much blood on Castiel’s hands, just like on his own; it was the blood of Castiel’s own brothers and sisters, who had lost faith in the order so long ago established for them, who sought to tear it all down, and only Castiel was left trying to fit all the jagged pieces back together.
This time Sam didn’t second guess himself, but leaned forward and took the slightly built vessel into his arms. It wasn’t at all like hugging Dean or Bobby. The Angel was like a marble statue, only moving as he willed himself to move. He seemed to sigh in Sam’s arms, and the vessel gave slightly, molding just a little into Sam’s embrace.
“I’ve done a lot this past year,” Sam whispered into Castiel’s ear. “Most of it I don’t even know about yet. But I’m still me. I still take care of my friends,” he said. Or die trying.
Castiel’s arms rose stiffly, and he gingerly returned Sam’s hug. Sam felt the irresistible strength barely contained by Castiel’s vessel, and Sam was reminded that this being in his arms wasn’t a man-- it wasn’t Jimmy Novak, who’d offered up his life to what he thought was his God--but an implacable soldier, eons old, with a moral code so black and white it was nearly incomprehensible to Sam. Still, they were friends somehow, so Sam hung on.
“Is this not awkward?” Castiel said, muffled by Sam’s shoulder.
“As long as Dean doesn’t catch us, it’s okay,” Sam assured him.
“Too late,” Dean groaned from the doorway. “You’re both too precious for this world.”
Sam stepped back, and Castiel breathed deep and did the same. There was light in his eyes again, and Sam told himself it wasn’t just the replenishment of his Grace.
“I’m needed elsewhere. I’m grateful that you came.” With this pronouncement, Castiel flapped away.
It was almost never midnight, and only an abandoned factory when they were lucky. Once again Sam and Dean were surrounded by bodies and a pressing need to get the Hell out of Dodge. Sam’s nose was still full of the odors of demons, sulphur, blood and terror. But he’d managed to free his friend, helped him find the strength to do what needed to be done, and that in turn gave Sam strength of his own. He patted his brother down, they wiped the place of prints, and in true Winchester fashion, they were two states over by morning.