A Covenant With Pie on the Side
Title: A Covenant With Pie on the Side
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairings: Sam/Castiel, Sam/Dean (past)
Rated: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1,900
Notes: Written for this prompt for spn_30snapshots. Follows the story of my Covenant 'Verse which should be read in order. The quote comes from an entry in I Wrote This For You.
A Covenant With Pie on the Side
When we get to the end of this, you're going to need to remind me whose turn it is to leave.
They get off the bus when Sam sees the painted window of a diner advertising pie and fries. It’s a strange thing for a diner to specialize in; pie and fries. He wonders as they’re getting off the bus if they come that way. Pie with fries on the side instead of ice cream; fries with pie instead of ketchup.
“What is funny?” Castiel asks him as they go inside the diner.
Sam holds the door for him and a bell tinkles. As he goes through the door, Castiel has his head tilted back to look for the source of the sound.
Sam grins at him and reaches up to flick the bell over their heads again with his finger.
“Nothing, I was just thinking maybe we’ll get pie and fries. You know… together,” Sam says.
Castiel raises his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Is this customary?” he asks.
Sam laughs and shakes his head. Even as he does, he’s thinking how Dean would laugh about it, too, and he’s a little sad. “We’ll just get ice cream and pie,” he says, leading Castiel to a booth near one of the back windows.
“I am confused,” Castiel confesses when he sits down across from Sam.
A waitress comes over with menus, but Sam shakes his head no and just orders them both pie alamode. “About what this time?” he asks when the waitress leaves.
“This is a date,” Castiel says.
“Well, kind of,” Sam hedges.
Castiel narrows his eyes on him. “As I understand it, a date is a kind of contrivance meant to make seduction easier,” he says as though Sam has not spoken.
Sam runs a hand over the back of his neck uncomfortably and shrugs.
“Sam Winchester, are you honestly trying to seduce me?” Castiel asks, tone clearly disbelieving.
“Why?” Sam asks, his own voice coming out a little defensive. “I mean… maybe. I don’t know.”
And he doesn’t know. There was a time when he would have known, when he knew himself right down to the marrow and did nothing without having a reason. He does a lot of things without definite reason these days. Most of what he does now is intended to relieve the lasting guilt that follows him everywhere, to quiet the ghosts both in his mind and following him down the halls of his apartment. Paper in the locking mechanisms, drops of melted, hardened glass piled up on the window sills and overflowing flower vases, Castiel, the only angel in all of creation who knows how, curled up to sleep by his side. And he wants him, but for a long time, the only person he ever wanted like that was Dean and now Dean’s gone and Sam’s mind is a little scrambled and frayed, so he doesn’t know if wanting and wanting are really the same thing.
Does he want Castiel or does he want him? He doesn’t know. All he knows is paper and glass; things that break and things that burn.
“When you do, will you tell me?” Castiel says.
Sam blinks at him and has to think about it before he knows what Castiel’s talking about. Is he trying to seduce him? “I’ll tell you,” he says. “I… I’m a little fucked up, Cas, you know?”
Castiel smiles faintly and casts his gaze through the window beside them to watch a woman walking a little dog go by. “It’s an amazing thing,” he whispers.
Sam blinks at him again, lost. “Um. Okay, what is?”
Castiel watches a man sitting on the sidewalk get up and hold out his hand to the woman with the dog, asking for money because he’s cold and everything’s falling apart and he hasn’t eaten in three days or drank anything other than gutter water in even longer. The woman pretends not to see him and walks faster, nearly dragging her little dog behind her to get away.
“Everything,” Castiel says. He takes a deep breath and turns back to Sam as the waitress returns with their pie and ice cream. “Did you know that before he died, before the war, your brother took me to a… whore house?”
The waitress is embarrassed by their conversation and trying to pretend she can’t hear it, but she leaves their pie and hurries away from their table.
“He did what?” Sam says, not paying the woman any attention as he picks up his fork and tries the pie. It is fresh and still a little warm inside where the apples are. “This is really good,” he says.
Castiel looks at his own pie with a frown. “Is it?” he says doubtfully.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “So Dean what? Tried to get you laid?”
“Tried to get me… I don’t believe I understand you,” Castiel says.
Sam makes a vague circular gesture with his fork, chewing his piece of pie. “You know… sex?”
“Yes,” Castiel says, understanding him now. “It was vastly unsuccessful.”
Sam quirks a brow at that. “Vastly?” he says. He points at Castiel’s pie with his fork. “You should eat that before the ice cream turns into a puddle.”
Castiel nods. “Vastly,” he confirms. He frowns down at his pie alamode and cuts off a piece of pie with his fork. He sniffs it, then following Sam’s example, he puts it in his mouth.
Castiel makes a soft surprised sound of pleasure at the taste and Sam’s attention fixes on him. Castiel’s eyes are closed and the tongs of the fork are still pressed to his bottom lip as a small, quietly happy smile curves his mouth.
Joking, Dean had a few times compared pie to sex. Sam had always been fairly sure he was exaggerating, though he was just glad Dean had never told him sex was like pie. That could have been awkward. Though not nearly as awkward as watching Castiel taste pie for the first time and make that noise like it’s the best thing in the world he’s ever tasted. Possibly, it is, Sam realizes. And pie may not be much like sex in Sam’s opinion, but Castiel eating pie like that is flat-out erotic as hell.
“This is so… Cas, are you still a virgin?” Sam asks, suddenly thinking of it and finding himself both shocked and really turned on by the idea.
Castiel opens his eyes and puts his fork down. He regards Sam with concentrated curiosity and licks sugary pie filling from his lips. “Something is wrong with me if I am, I take it,” he says. “Your brother seemed surprised as well.”
Sam stares at him quietly for a minute. “My brother?” he says.
Castiel looks back at him then contemplates his pie and melting ice cream. “Yes,” he says slowly. “It was why he tried to buy me a prostitute.”
“Oh,” Sam says, feeling slightly relieved.
Castiel stirs his fork around in the melted part of his ice cream and smiles to himself. “No,” he says.
Sam frowns at him. “No, what?”
“We were never that way,” Castiel says. “You thought so… Right now, for just a moment, you were thinking it.”
“I wasn’t,” Sam says.
Castiel scoops up some of the still frozen ice cream on the end of his fork and tastes it. He makes a low, pleased sound and Sam looks guiltily away from him, his mind going straight in the gutter.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Sam mutters.
Castiel smiles at him and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Though I find your reactions to my eating of this… whatever it is… somewhat amusing.”
“Pie and I’m so glad I amuse you,” Sam says.
“And flattering,” Castiel says.
“I thought you couldn’t read minds,” Sam says.
“I am not reading your mind, only your body,” Castiel says.
Sam flushes and looks down at his own pie, which he hasn’t eaten much of, sitting there on his plate in a pool of melted ice cream. He puts his fork down and steeples his fingers, pressing his mouth against them as he tries to think--with his mind.
“Dean will be angry,” he says after a few minutes of silence.
“Dean is always angry,” Castiel says. He puts his own fork down and pushes his plate away, turning his attention fully to Sam and more serious things than pie. “He is a spirit. He’s chosen this believing that if he doesn’t move on you’ll not move on and then nothing has to change.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Sam says, giving Castiel a tired, almost pleading look. Tell me it doesn’t have to really change, he begs with his eyes.
Castiel regards him sadly and shakes his head a little. What am I going to do with you? his eyes say back, and it’s a well-known expression that the angel wears often when he looks at Sam these days.
“Why would he want me to burn his bones then?” Sam asks.
“Because it must change,” Castiel says. “He would choose to stay, but you can make him go.”
“I don’t want him to go,” Sam says softly.
Castiel reaches a hand across the table to touch Sam’s cheek and Sam starts to smack it away, then takes his hand instead and clasps it in his own. “I know,” Castiel says.
“But he drives me crazy,” Sam says. “I want him to leave me alone.”
Castiel is fairly certain that Dean Winchester, spirit or not, is not fully to blame for Sam’s deteriorating mental state, but he’s not good for it either. He nods. “I know,” he says.
“I can’t move on yet,” Sam whispers, hand tightening in Castiel’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not be sorry,” Castiel tells him, gently squeezing his hand back.
“Cas… I don’t think this is a date after all,” Sam says. “I can’t… you know, seduce you.”
He laughs a little at that, but not like he thinks it’s really funny. It’s really not funny. Castiel smiles back at him and it’s that same kind of smile. “Go home,” he murmurs. “Roll the papers back up and slip them back into the locks so he can write you an apology. He will.”
Castiel slips his hand free of Sam’s fingers and stands. He leaves money for their pie on the table because he knows Sam sometimes forgets about things like money. Sam sits there at the table looking for all the world like Castiel just broke his heart and as Castiel goes by him and walks out of the diner, he runs his fingers through Sam’s disheveled hair. Sam leans into the touch just enough to reassure Castiel that all is not lost after all.
He has never doubted it, but Sam is in love with a ghost. He wants to be in love with an angel, but wanting does not make it so.
On the street before he takes wing, Castiel presses three hundred dollar bills into the hands of the man he watched through the window earlier begging from the woman walking her little dog. The man cries and tries to hug him, but Castiel shakes his head no and disappears.
Sam watches this from the diner window and slips his hand into the pocket of his jeans to run his fingers over the smooth surface of a blue piece of glass.
XXX
Fandom: Supernatural
Pairings: Sam/Castiel, Sam/Dean (past)
Rated: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1,900
Notes: Written for this prompt for spn_30snapshots. Follows the story of my Covenant 'Verse which should be read in order. The quote comes from an entry in I Wrote This For You.
A Covenant With Pie on the Side
When we get to the end of this, you're going to need to remind me whose turn it is to leave.
They get off the bus when Sam sees the painted window of a diner advertising pie and fries. It’s a strange thing for a diner to specialize in; pie and fries. He wonders as they’re getting off the bus if they come that way. Pie with fries on the side instead of ice cream; fries with pie instead of ketchup.
“What is funny?” Castiel asks him as they go inside the diner.
Sam holds the door for him and a bell tinkles. As he goes through the door, Castiel has his head tilted back to look for the source of the sound.
Sam grins at him and reaches up to flick the bell over their heads again with his finger.
“Nothing, I was just thinking maybe we’ll get pie and fries. You know… together,” Sam says.
Castiel raises his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Is this customary?” he asks.
Sam laughs and shakes his head. Even as he does, he’s thinking how Dean would laugh about it, too, and he’s a little sad. “We’ll just get ice cream and pie,” he says, leading Castiel to a booth near one of the back windows.
“I am confused,” Castiel confesses when he sits down across from Sam.
A waitress comes over with menus, but Sam shakes his head no and just orders them both pie alamode. “About what this time?” he asks when the waitress leaves.
“This is a date,” Castiel says.
“Well, kind of,” Sam hedges.
Castiel narrows his eyes on him. “As I understand it, a date is a kind of contrivance meant to make seduction easier,” he says as though Sam has not spoken.
Sam runs a hand over the back of his neck uncomfortably and shrugs.
“Sam Winchester, are you honestly trying to seduce me?” Castiel asks, tone clearly disbelieving.
“Why?” Sam asks, his own voice coming out a little defensive. “I mean… maybe. I don’t know.”
And he doesn’t know. There was a time when he would have known, when he knew himself right down to the marrow and did nothing without having a reason. He does a lot of things without definite reason these days. Most of what he does now is intended to relieve the lasting guilt that follows him everywhere, to quiet the ghosts both in his mind and following him down the halls of his apartment. Paper in the locking mechanisms, drops of melted, hardened glass piled up on the window sills and overflowing flower vases, Castiel, the only angel in all of creation who knows how, curled up to sleep by his side. And he wants him, but for a long time, the only person he ever wanted like that was Dean and now Dean’s gone and Sam’s mind is a little scrambled and frayed, so he doesn’t know if wanting and wanting are really the same thing.
Does he want Castiel or does he want him? He doesn’t know. All he knows is paper and glass; things that break and things that burn.
“When you do, will you tell me?” Castiel says.
Sam blinks at him and has to think about it before he knows what Castiel’s talking about. Is he trying to seduce him? “I’ll tell you,” he says. “I… I’m a little fucked up, Cas, you know?”
Castiel smiles faintly and casts his gaze through the window beside them to watch a woman walking a little dog go by. “It’s an amazing thing,” he whispers.
Sam blinks at him again, lost. “Um. Okay, what is?”
Castiel watches a man sitting on the sidewalk get up and hold out his hand to the woman with the dog, asking for money because he’s cold and everything’s falling apart and he hasn’t eaten in three days or drank anything other than gutter water in even longer. The woman pretends not to see him and walks faster, nearly dragging her little dog behind her to get away.
“Everything,” Castiel says. He takes a deep breath and turns back to Sam as the waitress returns with their pie and ice cream. “Did you know that before he died, before the war, your brother took me to a… whore house?”
The waitress is embarrassed by their conversation and trying to pretend she can’t hear it, but she leaves their pie and hurries away from their table.
“He did what?” Sam says, not paying the woman any attention as he picks up his fork and tries the pie. It is fresh and still a little warm inside where the apples are. “This is really good,” he says.
Castiel looks at his own pie with a frown. “Is it?” he says doubtfully.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “So Dean what? Tried to get you laid?”
“Tried to get me… I don’t believe I understand you,” Castiel says.
Sam makes a vague circular gesture with his fork, chewing his piece of pie. “You know… sex?”
“Yes,” Castiel says, understanding him now. “It was vastly unsuccessful.”
Sam quirks a brow at that. “Vastly?” he says. He points at Castiel’s pie with his fork. “You should eat that before the ice cream turns into a puddle.”
Castiel nods. “Vastly,” he confirms. He frowns down at his pie alamode and cuts off a piece of pie with his fork. He sniffs it, then following Sam’s example, he puts it in his mouth.
Castiel makes a soft surprised sound of pleasure at the taste and Sam’s attention fixes on him. Castiel’s eyes are closed and the tongs of the fork are still pressed to his bottom lip as a small, quietly happy smile curves his mouth.
Joking, Dean had a few times compared pie to sex. Sam had always been fairly sure he was exaggerating, though he was just glad Dean had never told him sex was like pie. That could have been awkward. Though not nearly as awkward as watching Castiel taste pie for the first time and make that noise like it’s the best thing in the world he’s ever tasted. Possibly, it is, Sam realizes. And pie may not be much like sex in Sam’s opinion, but Castiel eating pie like that is flat-out erotic as hell.
“This is so… Cas, are you still a virgin?” Sam asks, suddenly thinking of it and finding himself both shocked and really turned on by the idea.
Castiel opens his eyes and puts his fork down. He regards Sam with concentrated curiosity and licks sugary pie filling from his lips. “Something is wrong with me if I am, I take it,” he says. “Your brother seemed surprised as well.”
Sam stares at him quietly for a minute. “My brother?” he says.
Castiel looks back at him then contemplates his pie and melting ice cream. “Yes,” he says slowly. “It was why he tried to buy me a prostitute.”
“Oh,” Sam says, feeling slightly relieved.
Castiel stirs his fork around in the melted part of his ice cream and smiles to himself. “No,” he says.
Sam frowns at him. “No, what?”
“We were never that way,” Castiel says. “You thought so… Right now, for just a moment, you were thinking it.”
“I wasn’t,” Sam says.
Castiel scoops up some of the still frozen ice cream on the end of his fork and tastes it. He makes a low, pleased sound and Sam looks guiltily away from him, his mind going straight in the gutter.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Sam mutters.
Castiel smiles at him and shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Though I find your reactions to my eating of this… whatever it is… somewhat amusing.”
“Pie and I’m so glad I amuse you,” Sam says.
“And flattering,” Castiel says.
“I thought you couldn’t read minds,” Sam says.
“I am not reading your mind, only your body,” Castiel says.
Sam flushes and looks down at his own pie, which he hasn’t eaten much of, sitting there on his plate in a pool of melted ice cream. He puts his fork down and steeples his fingers, pressing his mouth against them as he tries to think--with his mind.
“Dean will be angry,” he says after a few minutes of silence.
“Dean is always angry,” Castiel says. He puts his own fork down and pushes his plate away, turning his attention fully to Sam and more serious things than pie. “He is a spirit. He’s chosen this believing that if he doesn’t move on you’ll not move on and then nothing has to change.”
“Maybe he’s right,” Sam says, giving Castiel a tired, almost pleading look. Tell me it doesn’t have to really change, he begs with his eyes.
Castiel regards him sadly and shakes his head a little. What am I going to do with you? his eyes say back, and it’s a well-known expression that the angel wears often when he looks at Sam these days.
“Why would he want me to burn his bones then?” Sam asks.
“Because it must change,” Castiel says. “He would choose to stay, but you can make him go.”
“I don’t want him to go,” Sam says softly.
Castiel reaches a hand across the table to touch Sam’s cheek and Sam starts to smack it away, then takes his hand instead and clasps it in his own. “I know,” Castiel says.
“But he drives me crazy,” Sam says. “I want him to leave me alone.”
Castiel is fairly certain that Dean Winchester, spirit or not, is not fully to blame for Sam’s deteriorating mental state, but he’s not good for it either. He nods. “I know,” he says.
“I can’t move on yet,” Sam whispers, hand tightening in Castiel’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not be sorry,” Castiel tells him, gently squeezing his hand back.
“Cas… I don’t think this is a date after all,” Sam says. “I can’t… you know, seduce you.”
He laughs a little at that, but not like he thinks it’s really funny. It’s really not funny. Castiel smiles back at him and it’s that same kind of smile. “Go home,” he murmurs. “Roll the papers back up and slip them back into the locks so he can write you an apology. He will.”
Castiel slips his hand free of Sam’s fingers and stands. He leaves money for their pie on the table because he knows Sam sometimes forgets about things like money. Sam sits there at the table looking for all the world like Castiel just broke his heart and as Castiel goes by him and walks out of the diner, he runs his fingers through Sam’s disheveled hair. Sam leans into the touch just enough to reassure Castiel that all is not lost after all.
He has never doubted it, but Sam is in love with a ghost. He wants to be in love with an angel, but wanting does not make it so.
On the street before he takes wing, Castiel presses three hundred dollar bills into the hands of the man he watched through the window earlier begging from the woman walking her little dog. The man cries and tries to hug him, but Castiel shakes his head no and disappears.
Sam watches this from the diner window and slips his hand into the pocket of his jeans to run his fingers over the smooth surface of a blue piece of glass.
XXX