[FIC] A Twist of Grace (1/?)
Title: A Twist of Grace (1/?)
Author: phaelsafe
Rating: R
Genre and/or Pairing: pre-Destiel (this part)
Spoilers: Takes place mid season six.
Warnings: blood, violence, language
Word Count: ~2275
Summary: Sam and Dean get caught during a hunt, and a spell to summon Castiel goes wrong.
His muscles spasm in protest as the vampire rips her fangs from the column of Sam's neck. Blood spills from the bite with every beat of his heart.
“What the hell?” She turns to her companions and asks, “Is it supposed to taste so-” her eyes roll back into her head, and she falls to the floor, suddenly caught by a seizure.
A woman with dark curls grabs a fistful of Sam's hair, and he is forced to look up into her flashing eyes. He assumes she is the matriarch, but she isn't very old. None of the vampires in the room are, and they don't seem to have a very good handle on the whole undead monster bit.
“What did you do to her?” she asks, snarling.
“I don't know,” he responds with a quick glance at the vampire on the floor. Her grip tightens painfully, threatening to rip his hair out. Sam glowers at the woman - Sarah, he thinks he overheard - and grits his response out through clenched teeth, “Really, I don't know!”
Sarah backhands him before stomping back to the other bloodsuckers. He tongues at the bloody split in his lip. Correction: she seems to understand her powers just fine, or maybe she just has one hell of a mean streak.
Twisting his wrists, Sam realizes he should be able to slip his left hand through the handcuff if he can just get his thumb right- there! He tries to muffle a groan as the sharp metal of the scrapes skin from wrist to knuckle away.
“Sammy, you okay?” whispers Dean.
Oh, good, Dean hasn't bled to death yet. “Yeah,” he whispers back. He glances at his brother and decides he doesn't like Dean's lack of color. “Are you?”
“ -but that demon said these two would be total pushovers.”
Dean and Sam fall silent as they try to listen in on the heated discussion, but the vampires switch topics.
“No,” Dean says, lolling toward Sam. His head feels too heavy as if just twisting it around requires more energy than he has. Which is probably the case since the vampires had started feeding from him first. “Man, come on! A sorority full of vampires? Who's brilliant idea was it to come to New Orleans in the first place?”
“Yours.” Sam rolls his eyes.
That the guys disappearing from Tulane might be a lead was Dean's suggestion. Though, in hindsight, a missing-person case from Louisiana was really out of place in an Indiana newspaper. Maybe Dean and his eternal sarcasm could wisecrack their way out of this situation.
“How are we supposed to turn them if he,” a blonde vampire gestures in their general direction, “makes us sick?”
“Not again.” Dean sighs. He ignores the guilt that flashes across Sam's face and looks down at the floor. “I'm, uh, I'm feeling a little light-headed here. You working on some kind of plan with that giant brain of yours?”
When Dean looks up to Sam, his eyes are glassy. Sam checks on the vampires again. Sarah smacks the blonde upside the head. He wonders why they haven't overheard him and Dean talking, but he's not going to complain about it.
“ -don't have to drink their blood to turn them. ”
He watches the squabbling for a few seconds longer to make certain the vampires are still distracted. “Not really, but uh,” he says before waggling his fingers at Dean. He jams his hands behind his back again as the women turn to contemplate the pair. Sarah narrows her eyes, raises her wrist to her mouth and opens it with her razor-like teeth.
“Shit. Sam?” Dean whines impatiently under his breath. The cure to turn a vampire back into a human was sketchy. He's not certain it will work a second time. Desperation sounds like a pretty good idea to Dean right about now.
The younger hunter glares at Dean in frustration. “I'm thinking, give me a second. Don't panic!” Sam retorts. He adds the last part because really, he's the one panicking as the vampire sets her sights on him.
There are seven other vampires in the room not including the one on the floor, and possibly more elsewhere in the building. Even if they could get Dean free of his restraints, there is no way they could fight their way out, and Sam is pretty certain that his brother is about to pass out. The muscle beneath his eye twitches, and his chest tightens suddenly when his gaze connects with Dean's. He's working with pretty terrible odds here.
The pressure to spontaneously pull miracles from his ass is overwhelming. Sam lowers his gaze to a point just beyond Dean's shoulder and thinks. The vampire strides toward him.
Dean's shoulder.
The moment Sam's face lights up Dean asks, “Is it going to work?”
“I don't know!” Sam answers as he analyzes his options. Damn, he forgot about the protective sigils on their ribs. “If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears. If not, I'm going to need you to pray really hard to Cas.”
Dean shakes his head and mutters something about siblings. Even though Sam probably has a better chance with the cure, Dean can't stand the thought of his brother having to go through any of it. He pointedly looks at the approaching vampire and musters up the energy to call out “Hey, snaggletooth! My night just ain't complete without someone trying to pull some preternatural bullshit on me. Come on, bitch,” he raises an eyebrow before finishing, “complete me.”
Sam can feel the moment her gaze flicks from himself to Dean. The only sharp edge he can find is the catch on the handcuffs, which isn't very sharp at all, and this won't be easy if he has to feel his way through it. He winces and pushes the metal into his palm; the thin skin tears apart as he etches. Scrunching his eyes shut, he hopes the symbol will be intact enough to work.
“I think I will start with you,” says the vampire. She pays no mind to how his bound arms catch on the back of the chair when she hauls Dean out of the seat. As she leans in to lick at the blood oozing from his neck, Dean clenches his jaw shut, twisting away as much as he can. She lifts her mangled arm up for him to inspect and orders, “Drink, you little fuck.”
With a disgusted shake of his head, Dean struggles to get away. She cuffs him upside the head for the trouble, then pushes a finger into his ruined carotid artery. Dean screams in pain. The vampire grabs his face and digs her nails into the joints of his jaw. With his mouth effectively forced open, she presses her bloodied wrist to his lips.
No one moves. No one breathes. No one makes a sound. The room is completely still. Sam stares in shock - at least until he hears Dean gag, then swallow.
“No!” he shouts, springing forward. He lashes out and catches the vampire in the face with the dangling cuff before shoving her away from Dean.
“Dean? Look at me!” He gets no response when he grabs and shakes his brother by the shoulders. “Dean, please!”
Sam wonders why the monsters haven't swarmed them yet. He glances over his shoulder to find Sarah sitting on the floor exactly where he had knocked her. She doesn't even twitch, but the look she is throwing at him - well, Sam is glad that vampires don't have psychic powers.
A groan from Dean grabs his attention, and he finds the other hunter staring intently at the matriarch. With Dean's head tilting at such an odd angle, the torn flesh of his neck gapes open, and Sam winces. As he assesses the damage he notes that Dean isn't bleeding anymore. They need help right now, but Dean is watching him. Sam had forgotten about his own injuries until his brother's green eyes flick to the blood seeping down his neck. Dean's pupils suddenly dilate.
Hunters definitely recognize the significance there.
“Oh, shit!” Sam blurts out as adrenaline floods through his system. He doesn't want to be eaten so he acts, pushes Dean's sleeve out of the way.
Dean suddenly crashes back into himself, and his eyes slip back into focus. The smell of blood is overpowering; it leaves him feeling dizzy and bemused. He can sense the other vampires in the room, feel their fear. “Sam, what are you-”
His words dwindle to little more than a sharp gasp as Sam presses his bloody palm to the hand-print on Dean's shoulder, then chants, “Ab Aeterno; a Caelo usque ad Terra alis aquilae. ZODAMRAN, O UMDGI, MERIFRI; I invoke thee, Castiel.”
An electric jolt passes between them, and Sam tightens his grip when Dean's knees buckle. Eyebrows draw down in confusion, Dean can only look up at Sam as the magic magnifies, careening around inside him like it's seeking a way out. He pulls at his bindings, but that proves to be a useless struggle against the handcuffs.
The energy finds an exit; his scar tingles as the spell rips open and widens the metaphysical bond there. Dean can feel Castiel's surprise when the magic grabs onto the angel and hauls him back to its point of origin. “Cas...” he chokes out. He knows the celestial being is hurtling towards them at meteoric speeds, and Dean is ground zero.
A holy fire races through Dean. It burns away the vampire blood in his veins. Castiel's grace surrounds and fills him, rushes in to replace the taint. He tries to repress the whine building in his throat, but it's not coming from him; it's coming from Castiel. It then resonates out from him as a wail tinged with angelic Voice.
Light streams from Dean's eyes, flows down his body in jagged lines and out from his shoulders in luminous arcs. Dean's voice crescendos until it cracks. His muscles tense up, and the cuffs finally snap under the not-quite-natural strain.
Castiel is trying to manifest, and Sam can see his image superimposed over Dean. Sam figures now would be a good time to step away, but he can't bring himself to do so. This isn't what he intended the spell to do, and he doesn't want to leave Dean to suffer the consequences alone.
"Evoke, not invoke," comes a smooth voice in response to his thoughts. "I swear, you humans would get possessed by demons less often if you'd learn the difference between the two," says a voice that sounds remarkably like Gabriel.
Sam has only a second to be shocked by the appearance of the archangel when he feels warm fingers ghost over the wound on his neck, healing it. Relief radiates from the touch, soothing his weary limbs, and Sam all but melts into it.
"Step aside," Gabriel says in a chipper tone.
That grates on Sam's nerves, and he scowls at Gabriel instead of complying.
"If you want me to fix this," Gabriel says, articulating his words before throwing Sam a deadly serious look, "then move."
Reluctant to let go of his brother, Sam finally steps back. He trails his fingers along until they end up clasped tightly around Dean's wrist.
An annoyed sound clears Gabriel's throat, and after prying Sam off and elbowing him away, he grips Dean by the wrist. He closes his eyes, his digits flexing as he concentrates. And then he's pulling.
Sam finds his arms full of one bewildered, blue-eyed angel.
Castiel assesses Sam. "Are you injured?" When Sam shakes his head, Castiel turns immediately on his heel. "Dean-"
Gabriel slides to the floor with an unconscious Dean. He cradles the hunter as best as he can, his arms looping awkwardly around what appears to be Dean's wings. Huge, blue-black, feathered wings. Astonished, his eyes dart up to meet Castiel's. "Uhm," he says, intelligently.
A yowl sounds from one of the still immobilized vampires, and Castiel flings his arm out. With a twist of his hand, flames explode from the matriarch. She is incinerated within seconds, and then a flare leaps from one vampire to the next until each one is dead.
Gabriel smirks, impressed while Sam gapes incredulously at the angel. "Maybe we should have questioned them before killing them?
"No. Come on," growls Castiel as he strides over and kneels to help Gabriel.
Sam follows. He crouches down and briefly checks Dean over. His brother is taking deep but ragged breaths; and though his pulse is a little weak, Dean seems relatively stable. Curiosity gets the better of Sam as he eyes the wings. "Is he-"
"I don't know. Let's get him somewhere safe," Castiel interrupts, distracted.
With a snap, Gabriel transports them back to their motel room.
Author: phaelsafe
Rating: R
Genre and/or Pairing: pre-Destiel (this part)
Spoilers: Takes place mid season six.
Warnings: blood, violence, language
Word Count: ~2275
Summary: Sam and Dean get caught during a hunt, and a spell to summon Castiel goes wrong.
His muscles spasm in protest as the vampire rips her fangs from the column of Sam's neck. Blood spills from the bite with every beat of his heart.
“What the hell?” She turns to her companions and asks, “Is it supposed to taste so-” her eyes roll back into her head, and she falls to the floor, suddenly caught by a seizure.
A woman with dark curls grabs a fistful of Sam's hair, and he is forced to look up into her flashing eyes. He assumes she is the matriarch, but she isn't very old. None of the vampires in the room are, and they don't seem to have a very good handle on the whole undead monster bit.
“What did you do to her?” she asks, snarling.
“I don't know,” he responds with a quick glance at the vampire on the floor. Her grip tightens painfully, threatening to rip his hair out. Sam glowers at the woman - Sarah, he thinks he overheard - and grits his response out through clenched teeth, “Really, I don't know!”
Sarah backhands him before stomping back to the other bloodsuckers. He tongues at the bloody split in his lip. Correction: she seems to understand her powers just fine, or maybe she just has one hell of a mean streak.
Twisting his wrists, Sam realizes he should be able to slip his left hand through the handcuff if he can just get his thumb right- there! He tries to muffle a groan as the sharp metal of the scrapes skin from wrist to knuckle away.
“Sammy, you okay?” whispers Dean.
Oh, good, Dean hasn't bled to death yet. “Yeah,” he whispers back. He glances at his brother and decides he doesn't like Dean's lack of color. “Are you?”
“ -but that demon said these two would be total pushovers.”
Dean and Sam fall silent as they try to listen in on the heated discussion, but the vampires switch topics.
“No,” Dean says, lolling toward Sam. His head feels too heavy as if just twisting it around requires more energy than he has. Which is probably the case since the vampires had started feeding from him first. “Man, come on! A sorority full of vampires? Who's brilliant idea was it to come to New Orleans in the first place?”
“Yours.” Sam rolls his eyes.
That the guys disappearing from Tulane might be a lead was Dean's suggestion. Though, in hindsight, a missing-person case from Louisiana was really out of place in an Indiana newspaper. Maybe Dean and his eternal sarcasm could wisecrack their way out of this situation.
“How are we supposed to turn them if he,” a blonde vampire gestures in their general direction, “makes us sick?”
“Not again.” Dean sighs. He ignores the guilt that flashes across Sam's face and looks down at the floor. “I'm, uh, I'm feeling a little light-headed here. You working on some kind of plan with that giant brain of yours?”
When Dean looks up to Sam, his eyes are glassy. Sam checks on the vampires again. Sarah smacks the blonde upside the head. He wonders why they haven't overheard him and Dean talking, but he's not going to complain about it.
“ -don't have to drink their blood to turn them. ”
He watches the squabbling for a few seconds longer to make certain the vampires are still distracted. “Not really, but uh,” he says before waggling his fingers at Dean. He jams his hands behind his back again as the women turn to contemplate the pair. Sarah narrows her eyes, raises her wrist to her mouth and opens it with her razor-like teeth.
“Shit. Sam?” Dean whines impatiently under his breath. The cure to turn a vampire back into a human was sketchy. He's not certain it will work a second time. Desperation sounds like a pretty good idea to Dean right about now.
The younger hunter glares at Dean in frustration. “I'm thinking, give me a second. Don't panic!” Sam retorts. He adds the last part because really, he's the one panicking as the vampire sets her sights on him.
There are seven other vampires in the room not including the one on the floor, and possibly more elsewhere in the building. Even if they could get Dean free of his restraints, there is no way they could fight their way out, and Sam is pretty certain that his brother is about to pass out. The muscle beneath his eye twitches, and his chest tightens suddenly when his gaze connects with Dean's. He's working with pretty terrible odds here.
The pressure to spontaneously pull miracles from his ass is overwhelming. Sam lowers his gaze to a point just beyond Dean's shoulder and thinks. The vampire strides toward him.
Dean's shoulder.
The moment Sam's face lights up Dean asks, “Is it going to work?”
“I don't know!” Sam answers as he analyzes his options. Damn, he forgot about the protective sigils on their ribs. “If you've got a better idea, I'm all ears. If not, I'm going to need you to pray really hard to Cas.”
Dean shakes his head and mutters something about siblings. Even though Sam probably has a better chance with the cure, Dean can't stand the thought of his brother having to go through any of it. He pointedly looks at the approaching vampire and musters up the energy to call out “Hey, snaggletooth! My night just ain't complete without someone trying to pull some preternatural bullshit on me. Come on, bitch,” he raises an eyebrow before finishing, “complete me.”
Sam can feel the moment her gaze flicks from himself to Dean. The only sharp edge he can find is the catch on the handcuffs, which isn't very sharp at all, and this won't be easy if he has to feel his way through it. He winces and pushes the metal into his palm; the thin skin tears apart as he etches. Scrunching his eyes shut, he hopes the symbol will be intact enough to work.
“I think I will start with you,” says the vampire. She pays no mind to how his bound arms catch on the back of the chair when she hauls Dean out of the seat. As she leans in to lick at the blood oozing from his neck, Dean clenches his jaw shut, twisting away as much as he can. She lifts her mangled arm up for him to inspect and orders, “Drink, you little fuck.”
With a disgusted shake of his head, Dean struggles to get away. She cuffs him upside the head for the trouble, then pushes a finger into his ruined carotid artery. Dean screams in pain. The vampire grabs his face and digs her nails into the joints of his jaw. With his mouth effectively forced open, she presses her bloodied wrist to his lips.
No one moves. No one breathes. No one makes a sound. The room is completely still. Sam stares in shock - at least until he hears Dean gag, then swallow.
“No!” he shouts, springing forward. He lashes out and catches the vampire in the face with the dangling cuff before shoving her away from Dean.
“Dean? Look at me!” He gets no response when he grabs and shakes his brother by the shoulders. “Dean, please!”
Sam wonders why the monsters haven't swarmed them yet. He glances over his shoulder to find Sarah sitting on the floor exactly where he had knocked her. She doesn't even twitch, but the look she is throwing at him - well, Sam is glad that vampires don't have psychic powers.
A groan from Dean grabs his attention, and he finds the other hunter staring intently at the matriarch. With Dean's head tilting at such an odd angle, the torn flesh of his neck gapes open, and Sam winces. As he assesses the damage he notes that Dean isn't bleeding anymore. They need help right now, but Dean is watching him. Sam had forgotten about his own injuries until his brother's green eyes flick to the blood seeping down his neck. Dean's pupils suddenly dilate.
Hunters definitely recognize the significance there.
“Oh, shit!” Sam blurts out as adrenaline floods through his system. He doesn't want to be eaten so he acts, pushes Dean's sleeve out of the way.
Dean suddenly crashes back into himself, and his eyes slip back into focus. The smell of blood is overpowering; it leaves him feeling dizzy and bemused. He can sense the other vampires in the room, feel their fear. “Sam, what are you-”
His words dwindle to little more than a sharp gasp as Sam presses his bloody palm to the hand-print on Dean's shoulder, then chants, “Ab Aeterno; a Caelo usque ad Terra alis aquilae. ZODAMRAN, O UMDGI, MERIFRI; I invoke thee, Castiel.”
An electric jolt passes between them, and Sam tightens his grip when Dean's knees buckle. Eyebrows draw down in confusion, Dean can only look up at Sam as the magic magnifies, careening around inside him like it's seeking a way out. He pulls at his bindings, but that proves to be a useless struggle against the handcuffs.
The energy finds an exit; his scar tingles as the spell rips open and widens the metaphysical bond there. Dean can feel Castiel's surprise when the magic grabs onto the angel and hauls him back to its point of origin. “Cas...” he chokes out. He knows the celestial being is hurtling towards them at meteoric speeds, and Dean is ground zero.
A holy fire races through Dean. It burns away the vampire blood in his veins. Castiel's grace surrounds and fills him, rushes in to replace the taint. He tries to repress the whine building in his throat, but it's not coming from him; it's coming from Castiel. It then resonates out from him as a wail tinged with angelic Voice.
Light streams from Dean's eyes, flows down his body in jagged lines and out from his shoulders in luminous arcs. Dean's voice crescendos until it cracks. His muscles tense up, and the cuffs finally snap under the not-quite-natural strain.
Castiel is trying to manifest, and Sam can see his image superimposed over Dean. Sam figures now would be a good time to step away, but he can't bring himself to do so. This isn't what he intended the spell to do, and he doesn't want to leave Dean to suffer the consequences alone.
"Evoke, not invoke," comes a smooth voice in response to his thoughts. "I swear, you humans would get possessed by demons less often if you'd learn the difference between the two," says a voice that sounds remarkably like Gabriel.
Sam has only a second to be shocked by the appearance of the archangel when he feels warm fingers ghost over the wound on his neck, healing it. Relief radiates from the touch, soothing his weary limbs, and Sam all but melts into it.
"Step aside," Gabriel says in a chipper tone.
That grates on Sam's nerves, and he scowls at Gabriel instead of complying.
"If you want me to fix this," Gabriel says, articulating his words before throwing Sam a deadly serious look, "then move."
Reluctant to let go of his brother, Sam finally steps back. He trails his fingers along until they end up clasped tightly around Dean's wrist.
An annoyed sound clears Gabriel's throat, and after prying Sam off and elbowing him away, he grips Dean by the wrist. He closes his eyes, his digits flexing as he concentrates. And then he's pulling.
Sam finds his arms full of one bewildered, blue-eyed angel.
Castiel assesses Sam. "Are you injured?" When Sam shakes his head, Castiel turns immediately on his heel. "Dean-"
Gabriel slides to the floor with an unconscious Dean. He cradles the hunter as best as he can, his arms looping awkwardly around what appears to be Dean's wings. Huge, blue-black, feathered wings. Astonished, his eyes dart up to meet Castiel's. "Uhm," he says, intelligently.
A yowl sounds from one of the still immobilized vampires, and Castiel flings his arm out. With a twist of his hand, flames explode from the matriarch. She is incinerated within seconds, and then a flare leaps from one vampire to the next until each one is dead.
Gabriel smirks, impressed while Sam gapes incredulously at the angel. "Maybe we should have questioned them before killing them?
"No. Come on," growls Castiel as he strides over and kneels to help Gabriel.
Sam follows. He crouches down and briefly checks Dean over. His brother is taking deep but ragged breaths; and though his pulse is a little weak, Dean seems relatively stable. Curiosity gets the better of Sam as he eyes the wings. "Is he-"
"I don't know. Let's get him somewhere safe," Castiel interrupts, distracted.
With a snap, Gabriel transports them back to their motel room.