Walk 5/7: We Built These Paper Mountains
Title: Walk
Author: safiyabat
Artist: chasingparallax
Characters & Pairing(s): Sam/Castiel; Sam, Castiel, Claire, Dean
Rating: M
Word Count: 32,417 / 4,946 (chapter)
Warnings: show-level violence, depression.
Summary: Sam makes some new friends
Sam watched Cas go, and shook his head. He had no idea what had just happened here, and given that it was Cas he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever fully understand. If the angel wanted to let him in on Secret Angel Business he’d do so, in his own time, probably at about the time that Secret Angel Business came back to bite Sam in the ass. “Alright, Claire. What brings you and Cas by this morning?” He stepped aside to let the teen into the room.
She glanced around. “You’re seriously hunting with a broken leg?”
Sam snorted. “You haven’t spent enough time with Dean. You haven’t heard the patented John Winchester response to injuries. ‘People are dying, boy. You willing to tell their families that you couldn’t get up off your lazy ass and save them because your damn leg was hurt, princess?’” He smirked, fairly impressed with his own impression of his father. “Trust me, this isn’t that big a deal.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes it sounds like your dad was two different people.”
Sam thought about it for a second. “That’s actually a pretty fair assessment. Seriously, Claire. I thought you were happy working with Dean and Cas. I wouldn’t have come out here to do these jobs if I’d known you wanted to ditch them.”
“That job’s done.” She shrugged her shoulders, blue eyes wide and innocent. For a moment, just for a second, Sam suspected her motives. “Cas and I figured you might want a hand with this one. He was worried about you. He thought you might be upset since you fought with Dean.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s not really his MO to be concerned about my feelings when I fight with Dean.” He grabbed some clothes and headed into the bathroom. “Let me get dressed, at least. We can grab breakfast or something.”
He threw some clothes on and brushed his teeth. Then he hobbled back out into the main room and grabbed Claire so they could go grab breakfast. Castiel had been staring into space as he sat behind the wheel of his Caddy, but he emerged to join them when Claire prodded him. Sam didn’t understand exactly why, if everything tasted like molecules, but he supposed he didn’t need to. Cas was going to do Cas things; it was part of what made him so endearing.
The little breakfast-and-lunch joint wasn’t too crowded when they arrived. They got a seat easily and ordered. As it turned out, the angelic sweet tooth carried through to breakfast items and maple syrup didn’t taste like molecules if it was pure enough, which made Sam shake his head a little. He stuck with yogurt and fruit, not that he ate much of it. “So, Sam,” Claire began. “How did you break your leg?”
He blushed. “Tree fell on it.”
“A tree fell on it?” The blonde raised an eyebrow. “While you were meditating in a forest, talking to little birdies like Snow White, or…”
Sam endured a momentary image of himself in Snow White’s dress, and banished it from his mind with coffee. “No. I was on a hunt.”
“A hunt.” Cas’ eyes narrowed as he squinted at him. “Sam, did you attempt to hunt that witch near Ravenna?”
Sam took a mouthful of yogurt. “I did hunt that witch near Ravenna.” He didn’t look right at Cas; he knew that the angel was still ashamed of having been caught up in Rowena’s spell.
“Did you find a counterspell?”
“No. It’s too fast acting, there is no counter. I did find some preventatives - think the barrier method - to prevent the spell from working on a person who is hunting a witch that might have that one in their arsenal. Then I threw a knife at his throat.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t a very complex hunt.”
Claire chuckled. “Dean is down there right now, hunting that same witch.”
Sam clenched his hand around his spoon, but forced it to relax. “He’ll find a pile of ashes and a couple of missing tree limbs from where I made a splint.”
Cas sighed. “Sam, I told you, you should leave this type of hunt to Dean.”
Claire buried her face in her hands. “Try not to speak, Castiel.”
“I did the hunt, Cas. Successfully, I might add.” Sam glared at him. “Sure, my leg is broken. But I’m pretty sure that Dean wouldn’t have gotten the same resources I did, because of where they came from. I’m not an idiot, Cas. I’m perfectly capable of hunting without a babysitter.”
“Your leg was broken.” The thing with the angel was that, for all he had lived through as a human and among humans, he still didn’t have human mannerisms yet. He didn’t move or gesticulate when he spoke, as a general rule, and he didn’t raise his voice when he spoke. “You were injured, Sam. You could still be out there in the woods, and no one would know. Even Dean would not take on a witch like that without backup.”
Sam snorted. “So who’s his backup now?”
Cas opened his mouth and shut it again.
“Exactly. I get that you’re not exactly president of my fan club, Cas. I understand that I’m the abomination, I’m the ‘second biggest screw up,’ the ‘boy with the demon blood.’ But I’ve been doing this job, whether I wanted to or not, my whole life and I don’t actually suck at it.” He kept his voice low so as not to attract attention, but anger coursed through his veins at the angel’s innocent expression. “I’m not going to tolerate the whole ‘junior hunters club’ treatment anymore. Either kill me or let me make my own way.” He threw enough cash for all three breakfasts and tip down onto the table and crutched his way out of the diner.
“Way to go, featherbrain,” he heard Claire tell Castiel as he left.
Sam returned to the motel and took some ibuprofen for his leg, which was throbbing horribly by this point. Tonight was going to suck, but he’d had worse and he needed to suck it up. He’d made a promise, and he was going to keep it. Besides, that fledgling vampire, if that was what they were dealing with, was going to cross the line sooner or later if they didn’t get help.
A small part of Sam wanted to point out that Cas would have already healed Dean’s leg, probably without all the lecturing too. But he didn’t waste energy being bitter about that. Cas didn’t often offer to heal Sam, generally only when Dean was around, and Sam almost never asked. He wasn’t here to mooch off their relationship and it wasn’t like the guy was a walking, talking morphine bottle or something. He was a sentient being in his own right; if he wanted to do something like that he’d offer.
He didn’t hear from Cas again for the rest of the day. He did get a text from Claire. Cas says he’s sorry for upsetting you.
Sam considered shooting his phone. He really isn’t, though.
She didn’t reply. He didn’t expect her to. If Cas had actually been sorry, he’d have done the texting himself. He knew how now, emoticons and everything.
He went to meet Tom at the appointed time, pushing the latest round of Angel Drama out of his mind to focus on the case. “Alright, we going to do this?” the vampire asked, grinning widely at the sight of Sam.
The sight was a little creepy. No one who actually knew Sam, knew who and what he was, was ever that happy to see him. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, we are. Let’s go get the right perfume going. Full disclosure, though. I’ve picked up a… uh, a friend of my brother’s showed up this morning. I didn’t fill him in on the plan but he’s kind of the smite first and ask questions later type.”
“’Smite first and…’” Tom repeated. “Wait - are we talking angel here?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’ll try to keep him out of the way but I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the situation.” He shrugged. “He thinks I’m incompetent because I don’t kill monsters on sight.”
Tom scratched his head. “Aren’t angels technically monsters?”
“Nothing technical about it.” Sam set his jaw. “This one’s just less of a dick than the rest. Let’s do this.” He closed his eyes and composed a silent prayer to Cas. Castiel, I’m sure you can hear this. Whatever you see or think you see, it’s a plan. Don’t interfere. I know you’re watching this.
The pair went into Boot and got a beer each, then ordered a shot that Tom “accidentally” spilled all over Sam. Now successfully reeking of cheap tequila, Sam hobbled out into the alleyway and slowly crutched between the buildings. All of the data said that the attack should come in this area, and the fledgling seemed to prefer people who had been drinking and were alone. Sam should be the perfect bait.
A lone young woman ducked out of the back door of a restaurant. The name had been scratched off the door; Sam suspected that the restaurant had been closed for some time, but he couldn’t be sure from back here. The woman’s clothes looked filthy, but she’d been dressed for a night out on the town at some point. Sam felt a moment of pity for the young vampire. “You look lost,” the girl told him.
“Could be,” Sam slurred. “I don’t s’pose you know how to get to the sshtadium from hre?”
She huffed out a little laugh and pounced.
Sam never failed to be surprised by the speed of vampires. It was a little bit of a turn on, to be honest, which probably meant that his pleasure, pain, and fear receptors in his brain were all kind of mixed up, but whatever. It was too late to fix them now. He had enough balance to spin, and his reflexes were still good enough that he was able to skate out of the way and let her hit the wall just as his machete rested against her neck.
Tom appeared at his side, rushing in from the mouth of the alley to pin the newly-created vampire against the wall with his own preternatural strength. The two hissed out their rage against each other with their fangs out in a display that sent the wrong kind of goosebumps up and down Sam’s spine. “Put ‘em away, both of you,” he snapped.
The vampires blinked at him, obeying his order. “Sorry,” Tom told him.
The younger vampire glared. “What the hell is this, the monster police?”
“Monster police. I like that.” Sam huffed out a little laugh. “You know what you’ve been doing.”
“I haven’t killed anyone!” she said, straining just enough against the machete that it created a thin line of blood.
“Cut that out,” Tom told her. “Neither one of us wants to kill you, but if you cut your own fool head off we can’t do anything about that.”
“We’re going to talk to you,” Sam said, meeting her eyes and letting some of what he’d been, the power he’d once wielded, show through. “We’re pretty sure we can help you. Can we trust you not to try to rip my throat out if I pull this back?”
She snarled. “Fine.”
He pulled the machete back, but didn’t put it away. “Alright. I’m Sam. This is Tom.”
“Megyn,” she spat after a minute, sullen and grudging.
“Alright, Megyn. I’m guessing that you’ve figured out by now what was done to you. Somehow you drank something and the colors seemed brighter, the light was too intense, the smells -“
She shuddered. “You can’t even begin to understand,” she said, holding her stomach. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
He nodded, putting a hand on her back almost as a reflex action. “I haven’t undergone that specific thing, but -“
“I have,” Tom grinned. “I figured you were new at this when I saw what was happening.”
“But I haven’t killed anyone!” Megyn protested, turning her head to look from the older vampire to the hunter.
“No. You have traumatized them all. I get that you’re trying. I do - believe me when I tell you that I get how hard it is to pull back when all you want is to drink until they’re dry.” Sam swallowed hard. Some days he still wanted to. “The thing is, you keep going on the way you are, you’re going to lose control. That’s going to bring you problems.”
“It’s already brought you problems. Fortunately it’s brought you problems in the best way possible,” Tom continued. “It brought you Sam Winchester. He’s a damn fine hunter, but he’ll listen and he’ll help you out if you’re not a danger to the public. If you can be helped. Other hunters, they’ll just chop off your head and play soccer with it. You’ve already seen that he’s capable.”
She nodded. “Didn’t expect that from a guy with a broken leg. Is it really broken?”
“Yep.”
She shuddered. “And you think you can help me… do what?”
Tom reached into his jacket and pulled out a blood bag. “I’m a big fan of A Negative myself.” He stuck a stiff tube into the bag.
“It’s like a sick kind of Capri-Sun,” Megyn observed, fangs descending.
“It is. But it’s safe, and it’s a hell of a lot better than drinking from struggling, angry people. Go on. It’s a freebie.”
Sam looked away. If he watched, he’d start thinking about flasks, and if he thought about flasks, he’d think about keeping a stash of demon blood on hand “just in case.” “So,” he said as he heard the young woman start slurping behind him. “I’m guessing that the one who made you didn’t exactly stick around to explain much of anything.”
“Nothing,” she confirmed. “You can turn around now.”
The bag was empty.
Sam reached into his jacket and pulled out a trocar. “Okay. First lesson? This is dead man’s blood. You can drink the blood of the living. Even if it’s outside of a living body, like donated blood, you can drink it. Don’t go thinking you can sneak into a morgue and take the stuff they empty out of a body. It acts as a very potent sedative on you folks. Anyone carrying it is a threat to you.”
Tom nodded. “The only thing that can kill you is beheading,” he added, wiping a little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “You’ll still feel pain, and if someone cuts off a limb or something you’ll have to put it back on, but the only thing you have to really worry about is losing your head.”
“You can survive on animal blood,” Sam added. “I don’t think it tastes great. But it’s an option if bagged blood gets scarce.”
“I’m not exactly looking to start up a nest,” Tom told her. “But I’m willing to stick around for a little while and help you get your footing.”
Sam frowned. “Do you remember anything about the one who made you - who sired you, I mean?”
Her expression darkened, and she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t even remember drinking whatever. I remember a mugging. That’s all.”
He exchanged glances with Tom. “He’s got to know that’s not right. Or she, I guess. No reason to assume they’re male.”
Tom acknowledged this with a nod of his head. “You thinking of hunting them?”
“No real clues to go on. I’ll look for similar attacks, but the kind of self-control Megyn’s exhibited? Most newly turned vampires don’t have that.” He gave her a little smile. “It’s pretty impressive. If I get any hints, I’ll try to do something about it but I’m not going Captain Ahab about it.”
Megyn grabbed his crutches for him. “Sorry about trying to, uh, drink your blood, Sam.”
“It’s cool. You’re not the first.” He passed his number to both vampires. “It looks like you guys have things well in hand. Give me a call if you need anything.”
With that, Sam made his way back to the motel.
Claire showed up the next morning with coffee and donuts. “Peace offering?”
He huffed out a little laugh. “You’ve got nothing to make peace for, Claire. Castiel isn’t your fault.”
“He kind of is, though. I mean, I encouraged him to come.” She blushed. “I knew he was worried about you.”
“Ah.” He broke his donut in half. “Claire, listen. Dean and Cas, they have a very special relationship -“
“Oh, gross!”
His face went scarlet. “They’re not - no. Dean’s straight. As much as anyone can be sure of another person’s sexuality, I’m pretty sure Dean’s straight. But they have this bond, right? This very profound bond,” he recalled with a roll of his eyes, “and Cas is always going to follow Dean’s lead. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
She smirked. “You’re pretty sure about that whole Cas following Dean thing.”
“I’ve had time to adjust.” He broke each half of the donut in half again. “It doesn’t rate dwelling on, okay? So. Tell me about the poltergeist. Dean’s okay, right?”
“Pssh. Yeah. I mean, it had him upside down up a tree by his underwear at one point, but you know. Cas fixed that.” She waved a hand. “It was intense,” she said after a moment. “I mean, really intense. You could feel the evil of the thing, you know?”
He nodded. “When I first started hunting with Dean again, after Stanford, we went back to the house where I was born. It had been haunted by a poltergeist. You could feel it miles away. It reached out - I forget where we were, but I could feel it’s presence states away.”
She looked at him a little oddly for that one, but nodded. “I’d never been around something like that. Angels, sure. Demons, when I was a kid. But that was just so different.”
He broke up the pieces of his donut, each into its own equal-sized little section. “Each creature we fight is different. That’s why it’s important to learn and understand.”
She nodded and slouched back in her chair for a moment, then leaned forward again. “So what was that last night? Cas said you didn’t kill a single vampire but got their numbers!”
Sam laughed out loud. “That’s rich. Yeah. Not everything that’s inhuman needs to be exterminated, Claire. The vampire who was here? She was actually trying her best not to kill people. She was very new at the whole vampire thing, but she was trying to be one of the good ones.”
“Dean seems to think that all monsters need killing.”
“Ask him when my turn is,” Sam spat out before he could stop himself.
Claire froze. “Uh, say what now?”
“Sorry. I just… look. Forget I said anything.”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Then ask Castiel what I am. The technical term, please.” He crumbled one of the donut pieces into crumbs. “So.” He forced a big smile onto his face. “What’s the plan? Still want to head out to Connecticut? Maybe someplace else? Or do you want to keep up with Dean and Castiel?”
“With lines like that I’m not sure I feel comfortable leaving you alone,” she told him. “’Ask him when my turn is?’ The hell does that mean, Sam?”
He sighed and broke up another section of donut. “They didn’t tell you? The demon blood - not just what you saw way back when, but what’s been in me since I was a baby and what I can do with it - makes me a monster. Dean told me years ago that it made him want to hunt me, that it meant I was a monster, that there was no saving me. He told me a few weeks ago, when Charlie was killed, he wished that it was me up on that pyre instead of her. And why not? At least she’s... you know? Clean.” Another section of donut met its end and he looked down. “Anyway. The whole point is that those vampires didn’t need to be taken out.”
Claire opened her mouth, then she sighed and shook her head. “But the other ones did?”
“Coming after you? Yeah. They did. In this case, Tom feeds on bagged blood. Megyn was newly turned. The attacks we were seeing in Cleveland were her way of trying not to harm her victims. Tom’s going to show her how to live like he does, and she’s going to do it, too.” He shrugged and crushed yet another donut section, feeling it turn to sand under his fingers.
“And you just trust them.”
“Tom was friends with a vampire I knew years ago. It’s possible to do. It’s hard to do, but if he was friends with Lenore then he’s got a better chance than most. And if, as a newly-turned vampire, Megyn was able to pull herself back and keep from draining her prey then she’s probably got the willpower to pull it off.” He ran a hand through his hair and took a sip of coffee. “That’s kind of…” He looked away, thinking. “That’s kind of a fundamental difference between my family and me, the way they do things and they way they see the world, versus the way I see the world.”
She bit her lip and took the donut remains away from him. “What do you mean?”
He hesitated for a second, trying to think of the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. “My dad, and now my brother, they have a very us-versus-them view of the world, of hunting. It’s humans versus everything else, right? With a very narrow definition of what makes someone human. Most hunters share that viewpoint. A witch, for example, isn’t human by that definition, because she has abilities beyond those of a typical suburban soccer mom. A psychic isn’t human either, according to most hunters.”
“Okay. You don’t agree.”
“I’d have to shoot myself then, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head. “I am psychic. I use elements of witchcraft all the time. For them - Dad, Dean, even Bobby - there was this war, this kind of all consuming need to fight. They’d lost something. I never had that. I lost someone too, eventually, but it was different.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s because I was always part of what they were fighting that I never got that whole ‘all non-humans must die’ mentality.
“Anyway, the whole point is that yes, there are some things that are completely evil. A black dog? It’s basically rabid. It’s always going to act out against people. It’s always going to need to be put down. Or a rawhead, or a poltergeist. Demons? They’re evil, they define evil, but sometimes you’ll want the same things. Don’t trust them without a lot of leverage.” He shivered. “Even then, never go against your gut.”
“And vampires can be okay sometimes?”
“Vampires can be okay sometimes. Anything with free will can be okay sometimes. Of course, anything with free will can also be a manipulative dick too. But hey.” He forced a little grin. “I guess I’d rather not kill someone - human or not - until they have to be killed, for public safety.”
“Makes sense, I guess. Except angels. I really don’t like them.” She glared at the door.
“As a general rule, I don’t either.”
They fell quiet for a moment. “Are you going to let him in?” she asked then.
“Who, Cas?” He snorted. “No.”
She sighed. “He’s really worried about you. He does care, you know.”
“He’s here to keep an eye on me for Dean, to make sure I don’t break the world again.” Sam stood up. “Which isn’t going to be an issue. So it’s not a problem, okay?”
Her face softened. “Is it really that hard to grasp that he actually cares about you for you? Because you’re a good person and he doesn’t want you to get hurt?”
Sam found himself reminded of Eleni’s words from a couple of nights before, but he shook his head. The situation was completely different. “Not Castiel. Not me. He’s got his priorities.”
“You think he can only care about one Winchester at a time.”
“I think he only does care about one Winchester at a time.” Sam forced a little smile. “Come on, Claire. Out with it. What’s really going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just he was worried about you and I thought it would be good for you to have someone watching over you and helping you out, you know? Showing you some affection or something.”
“Winchesters aren’t good with affection. It confuses us.” He opened up the laptop in his version of a subtle hint. “I think I found a good candidate for a haunting on Blennerhasset Island in West Virginia, if you’re interested.”
She made a face. “Okay-- wait. How are there islands in West Virginia?”
“It’s in the Ohio River. It should be a good one. It might be a haunting, it might be a cursed object, and we won’t know until we get there.”
She bit her lip. “I’ll go, if we can bring Castiel.”
He shook his head. “Cas means Dean, and then I’m twiddling my thumbs while Dean looks for something to throw him into a tombstone. No way.”
“What if I get him to promise not to bring Dean along?” the teen offered.
Sam sighed. “If you really want to spend time with Castiel, I mean, go ahead. I won’t try to stop you but I’m just -“
She rolled her head back on her shoulders. “Sa-am!” she whined, throwing her whole upper body into the act. “Come on! Just let me bring Castiel!”
“Ugh. Fine. But if he acts like a dick I’m banishing him to Heaven.” Sam rolled his eyes.
They left the next day, Sam finding an additional possible case in the Wayne National Forest that he opted not to share with anyone. Claire rode with Cas for the three-hour drive, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t a fan of that any more than he was a fan of the extra scrutiny.
“I assume you will want two rooms,” Castiel told him stiffly when they found a motel.
“I don’t object,” he said. “But why?”
“In case you seek out another woman.”
Claire blushed scarlet.
“That really bothered you that much?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
Cas pursed his lips together. “It’s behavior I expect from your brother. Not from you.”
“I’m going to go out and buy lady things,” Claire told them, then charged out the door without looking back.
Sam glared at the door, wondering why the teenaged escape artist was allowed such freedom and he was not. Still, he sat down at the table. “I get that Dean doesn’t approve of me having a sex life,” he said slowly, “and it had been years since I’d even tried, literally, but seriously. It’s just sex.”
“I understand that, Sam. It just surprised me. I was under the impression that you no longer had interests of a sexual nature.”
Sam opened his mouth. “Why would you make an assumption like that?”
“Your brother said you didn’t.”
“What would Dean know about it?”
“He knows everything about you.”
“Apparently not,” Sam smirked. “Look. It’s not something I ever did a lot of, the casual sex thing, but everyone needs a feeling of connection to another person, and that was the only way I was going to get it.”
“You don’t feel connected to Dean and to me?” Cas’ expression, usually so wooden, looked downright hurt. For a moment Sam wanted to take it all back.
Then he remembered why he was out here, alone. Remembered why his leg was in a cast and why Dean would never have been allowed to suffer such an indignity - not since Cas got off his God trip, anyway. “Cas,” he said, “no. I’m not part of what you and Dean have and we all know it. You work better without me and I’m not doing too badly by myself.”
“You have a broken leg!” the angel roared.
“So what?” Sam shot back. “So it’s broken! People get hurt on hunts and it’s never bothered you when I got hurt on hunts before! At least it’s a broken leg and not another concussion. Neither of which has anything to do with my sex life! I don’t get why you’re okay with Dean screwing anything that moves but the idea of me having one consensual encounter once in - is it three years? - is cause for alarm.”
“Like I said, it surprised me. I didn’t know you were looking for a sexual partner. I would have found you an acceptable partner had you asked.”
Sam stared at Cas. “What do you know about what I would want in a partner?”
“Well I know what you don’t want,” Cas spat back, and stormed out again.
All Sam could do was gape after Castiel like a fish. Cas couldn’t have meant what that sounded like. No, that would be too… too good. Too easy. Too convenient. Too much like something Sam wanted, and he knew better. That was just Cas’ typical inability to understand human communications.
He buried his head in his hands. This would have been hilarious if it had happened to someone else.
Back to Chapter Four -- On to Chapter Six
Author: safiyabat
Artist: chasingparallax
Characters & Pairing(s): Sam/Castiel; Sam, Castiel, Claire, Dean
Rating: M
Word Count: 32,417 / 4,946 (chapter)
Warnings: show-level violence, depression.
Summary: Sam makes some new friends
Sam watched Cas go, and shook his head. He had no idea what had just happened here, and given that it was Cas he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever fully understand. If the angel wanted to let him in on Secret Angel Business he’d do so, in his own time, probably at about the time that Secret Angel Business came back to bite Sam in the ass. “Alright, Claire. What brings you and Cas by this morning?” He stepped aside to let the teen into the room.
She glanced around. “You’re seriously hunting with a broken leg?”
Sam snorted. “You haven’t spent enough time with Dean. You haven’t heard the patented John Winchester response to injuries. ‘People are dying, boy. You willing to tell their families that you couldn’t get up off your lazy ass and save them because your damn leg was hurt, princess?’” He smirked, fairly impressed with his own impression of his father. “Trust me, this isn’t that big a deal.”
She shook her head. “Sometimes it sounds like your dad was two different people.”
Sam thought about it for a second. “That’s actually a pretty fair assessment. Seriously, Claire. I thought you were happy working with Dean and Cas. I wouldn’t have come out here to do these jobs if I’d known you wanted to ditch them.”
“That job’s done.” She shrugged her shoulders, blue eyes wide and innocent. For a moment, just for a second, Sam suspected her motives. “Cas and I figured you might want a hand with this one. He was worried about you. He thought you might be upset since you fought with Dean.”
Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s not really his MO to be concerned about my feelings when I fight with Dean.” He grabbed some clothes and headed into the bathroom. “Let me get dressed, at least. We can grab breakfast or something.”
He threw some clothes on and brushed his teeth. Then he hobbled back out into the main room and grabbed Claire so they could go grab breakfast. Castiel had been staring into space as he sat behind the wheel of his Caddy, but he emerged to join them when Claire prodded him. Sam didn’t understand exactly why, if everything tasted like molecules, but he supposed he didn’t need to. Cas was going to do Cas things; it was part of what made him so endearing.
The little breakfast-and-lunch joint wasn’t too crowded when they arrived. They got a seat easily and ordered. As it turned out, the angelic sweet tooth carried through to breakfast items and maple syrup didn’t taste like molecules if it was pure enough, which made Sam shake his head a little. He stuck with yogurt and fruit, not that he ate much of it. “So, Sam,” Claire began. “How did you break your leg?”
He blushed. “Tree fell on it.”
“A tree fell on it?” The blonde raised an eyebrow. “While you were meditating in a forest, talking to little birdies like Snow White, or…”
Sam endured a momentary image of himself in Snow White’s dress, and banished it from his mind with coffee. “No. I was on a hunt.”
“A hunt.” Cas’ eyes narrowed as he squinted at him. “Sam, did you attempt to hunt that witch near Ravenna?”
Sam took a mouthful of yogurt. “I did hunt that witch near Ravenna.” He didn’t look right at Cas; he knew that the angel was still ashamed of having been caught up in Rowena’s spell.
“Did you find a counterspell?”
“No. It’s too fast acting, there is no counter. I did find some preventatives - think the barrier method - to prevent the spell from working on a person who is hunting a witch that might have that one in their arsenal. Then I threw a knife at his throat.” He shrugged. “It wasn’t a very complex hunt.”
Claire chuckled. “Dean is down there right now, hunting that same witch.”
Sam clenched his hand around his spoon, but forced it to relax. “He’ll find a pile of ashes and a couple of missing tree limbs from where I made a splint.”
Cas sighed. “Sam, I told you, you should leave this type of hunt to Dean.”
Claire buried her face in her hands. “Try not to speak, Castiel.”
“I did the hunt, Cas. Successfully, I might add.” Sam glared at him. “Sure, my leg is broken. But I’m pretty sure that Dean wouldn’t have gotten the same resources I did, because of where they came from. I’m not an idiot, Cas. I’m perfectly capable of hunting without a babysitter.”
“Your leg was broken.” The thing with the angel was that, for all he had lived through as a human and among humans, he still didn’t have human mannerisms yet. He didn’t move or gesticulate when he spoke, as a general rule, and he didn’t raise his voice when he spoke. “You were injured, Sam. You could still be out there in the woods, and no one would know. Even Dean would not take on a witch like that without backup.”
Sam snorted. “So who’s his backup now?”
Cas opened his mouth and shut it again.
“Exactly. I get that you’re not exactly president of my fan club, Cas. I understand that I’m the abomination, I’m the ‘second biggest screw up,’ the ‘boy with the demon blood.’ But I’ve been doing this job, whether I wanted to or not, my whole life and I don’t actually suck at it.” He kept his voice low so as not to attract attention, but anger coursed through his veins at the angel’s innocent expression. “I’m not going to tolerate the whole ‘junior hunters club’ treatment anymore. Either kill me or let me make my own way.” He threw enough cash for all three breakfasts and tip down onto the table and crutched his way out of the diner.
“Way to go, featherbrain,” he heard Claire tell Castiel as he left.
Sam returned to the motel and took some ibuprofen for his leg, which was throbbing horribly by this point. Tonight was going to suck, but he’d had worse and he needed to suck it up. He’d made a promise, and he was going to keep it. Besides, that fledgling vampire, if that was what they were dealing with, was going to cross the line sooner or later if they didn’t get help.
A small part of Sam wanted to point out that Cas would have already healed Dean’s leg, probably without all the lecturing too. But he didn’t waste energy being bitter about that. Cas didn’t often offer to heal Sam, generally only when Dean was around, and Sam almost never asked. He wasn’t here to mooch off their relationship and it wasn’t like the guy was a walking, talking morphine bottle or something. He was a sentient being in his own right; if he wanted to do something like that he’d offer.
He didn’t hear from Cas again for the rest of the day. He did get a text from Claire. Cas says he’s sorry for upsetting you.
Sam considered shooting his phone. He really isn’t, though.
She didn’t reply. He didn’t expect her to. If Cas had actually been sorry, he’d have done the texting himself. He knew how now, emoticons and everything.
He went to meet Tom at the appointed time, pushing the latest round of Angel Drama out of his mind to focus on the case. “Alright, we going to do this?” the vampire asked, grinning widely at the sight of Sam.
The sight was a little creepy. No one who actually knew Sam, knew who and what he was, was ever that happy to see him. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, we are. Let’s go get the right perfume going. Full disclosure, though. I’ve picked up a… uh, a friend of my brother’s showed up this morning. I didn’t fill him in on the plan but he’s kind of the smite first and ask questions later type.”
“’Smite first and…’” Tom repeated. “Wait - are we talking angel here?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’ll try to keep him out of the way but I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of the situation.” He shrugged. “He thinks I’m incompetent because I don’t kill monsters on sight.”
Tom scratched his head. “Aren’t angels technically monsters?”
“Nothing technical about it.” Sam set his jaw. “This one’s just less of a dick than the rest. Let’s do this.” He closed his eyes and composed a silent prayer to Cas. Castiel, I’m sure you can hear this. Whatever you see or think you see, it’s a plan. Don’t interfere. I know you’re watching this.
The pair went into Boot and got a beer each, then ordered a shot that Tom “accidentally” spilled all over Sam. Now successfully reeking of cheap tequila, Sam hobbled out into the alleyway and slowly crutched between the buildings. All of the data said that the attack should come in this area, and the fledgling seemed to prefer people who had been drinking and were alone. Sam should be the perfect bait.
A lone young woman ducked out of the back door of a restaurant. The name had been scratched off the door; Sam suspected that the restaurant had been closed for some time, but he couldn’t be sure from back here. The woman’s clothes looked filthy, but she’d been dressed for a night out on the town at some point. Sam felt a moment of pity for the young vampire. “You look lost,” the girl told him.
“Could be,” Sam slurred. “I don’t s’pose you know how to get to the sshtadium from hre?”
She huffed out a little laugh and pounced.
Sam never failed to be surprised by the speed of vampires. It was a little bit of a turn on, to be honest, which probably meant that his pleasure, pain, and fear receptors in his brain were all kind of mixed up, but whatever. It was too late to fix them now. He had enough balance to spin, and his reflexes were still good enough that he was able to skate out of the way and let her hit the wall just as his machete rested against her neck.
Tom appeared at his side, rushing in from the mouth of the alley to pin the newly-created vampire against the wall with his own preternatural strength. The two hissed out their rage against each other with their fangs out in a display that sent the wrong kind of goosebumps up and down Sam’s spine. “Put ‘em away, both of you,” he snapped.
The vampires blinked at him, obeying his order. “Sorry,” Tom told him.
The younger vampire glared. “What the hell is this, the monster police?”
“Monster police. I like that.” Sam huffed out a little laugh. “You know what you’ve been doing.”
“I haven’t killed anyone!” she said, straining just enough against the machete that it created a thin line of blood.
“Cut that out,” Tom told her. “Neither one of us wants to kill you, but if you cut your own fool head off we can’t do anything about that.”
“We’re going to talk to you,” Sam said, meeting her eyes and letting some of what he’d been, the power he’d once wielded, show through. “We’re pretty sure we can help you. Can we trust you not to try to rip my throat out if I pull this back?”
She snarled. “Fine.”
He pulled the machete back, but didn’t put it away. “Alright. I’m Sam. This is Tom.”
“Megyn,” she spat after a minute, sullen and grudging.
“Alright, Megyn. I’m guessing that you’ve figured out by now what was done to you. Somehow you drank something and the colors seemed brighter, the light was too intense, the smells -“
She shuddered. “You can’t even begin to understand,” she said, holding her stomach. “I can hear your heartbeat.”
He nodded, putting a hand on her back almost as a reflex action. “I haven’t undergone that specific thing, but -“
“I have,” Tom grinned. “I figured you were new at this when I saw what was happening.”
“But I haven’t killed anyone!” Megyn protested, turning her head to look from the older vampire to the hunter.
“No. You have traumatized them all. I get that you’re trying. I do - believe me when I tell you that I get how hard it is to pull back when all you want is to drink until they’re dry.” Sam swallowed hard. Some days he still wanted to. “The thing is, you keep going on the way you are, you’re going to lose control. That’s going to bring you problems.”
“It’s already brought you problems. Fortunately it’s brought you problems in the best way possible,” Tom continued. “It brought you Sam Winchester. He’s a damn fine hunter, but he’ll listen and he’ll help you out if you’re not a danger to the public. If you can be helped. Other hunters, they’ll just chop off your head and play soccer with it. You’ve already seen that he’s capable.”
She nodded. “Didn’t expect that from a guy with a broken leg. Is it really broken?”
“Yep.”
She shuddered. “And you think you can help me… do what?”
Tom reached into his jacket and pulled out a blood bag. “I’m a big fan of A Negative myself.” He stuck a stiff tube into the bag.
“It’s like a sick kind of Capri-Sun,” Megyn observed, fangs descending.
“It is. But it’s safe, and it’s a hell of a lot better than drinking from struggling, angry people. Go on. It’s a freebie.”
Sam looked away. If he watched, he’d start thinking about flasks, and if he thought about flasks, he’d think about keeping a stash of demon blood on hand “just in case.” “So,” he said as he heard the young woman start slurping behind him. “I’m guessing that the one who made you didn’t exactly stick around to explain much of anything.”
“Nothing,” she confirmed. “You can turn around now.”
The bag was empty.
Sam reached into his jacket and pulled out a trocar. “Okay. First lesson? This is dead man’s blood. You can drink the blood of the living. Even if it’s outside of a living body, like donated blood, you can drink it. Don’t go thinking you can sneak into a morgue and take the stuff they empty out of a body. It acts as a very potent sedative on you folks. Anyone carrying it is a threat to you.”
Tom nodded. “The only thing that can kill you is beheading,” he added, wiping a little trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “You’ll still feel pain, and if someone cuts off a limb or something you’ll have to put it back on, but the only thing you have to really worry about is losing your head.”
“You can survive on animal blood,” Sam added. “I don’t think it tastes great. But it’s an option if bagged blood gets scarce.”
“I’m not exactly looking to start up a nest,” Tom told her. “But I’m willing to stick around for a little while and help you get your footing.”
Sam frowned. “Do you remember anything about the one who made you - who sired you, I mean?”
Her expression darkened, and she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t even remember drinking whatever. I remember a mugging. That’s all.”
He exchanged glances with Tom. “He’s got to know that’s not right. Or she, I guess. No reason to assume they’re male.”
Tom acknowledged this with a nod of his head. “You thinking of hunting them?”
“No real clues to go on. I’ll look for similar attacks, but the kind of self-control Megyn’s exhibited? Most newly turned vampires don’t have that.” He gave her a little smile. “It’s pretty impressive. If I get any hints, I’ll try to do something about it but I’m not going Captain Ahab about it.”
Megyn grabbed his crutches for him. “Sorry about trying to, uh, drink your blood, Sam.”
“It’s cool. You’re not the first.” He passed his number to both vampires. “It looks like you guys have things well in hand. Give me a call if you need anything.”
With that, Sam made his way back to the motel.
Claire showed up the next morning with coffee and donuts. “Peace offering?”
He huffed out a little laugh. “You’ve got nothing to make peace for, Claire. Castiel isn’t your fault.”
“He kind of is, though. I mean, I encouraged him to come.” She blushed. “I knew he was worried about you.”
“Ah.” He broke his donut in half. “Claire, listen. Dean and Cas, they have a very special relationship -“
“Oh, gross!”
His face went scarlet. “They’re not - no. Dean’s straight. As much as anyone can be sure of another person’s sexuality, I’m pretty sure Dean’s straight. But they have this bond, right? This very profound bond,” he recalled with a roll of his eyes, “and Cas is always going to follow Dean’s lead. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.”
She smirked. “You’re pretty sure about that whole Cas following Dean thing.”
“I’ve had time to adjust.” He broke each half of the donut in half again. “It doesn’t rate dwelling on, okay? So. Tell me about the poltergeist. Dean’s okay, right?”
“Pssh. Yeah. I mean, it had him upside down up a tree by his underwear at one point, but you know. Cas fixed that.” She waved a hand. “It was intense,” she said after a moment. “I mean, really intense. You could feel the evil of the thing, you know?”
He nodded. “When I first started hunting with Dean again, after Stanford, we went back to the house where I was born. It had been haunted by a poltergeist. You could feel it miles away. It reached out - I forget where we were, but I could feel it’s presence states away.”
She looked at him a little oddly for that one, but nodded. “I’d never been around something like that. Angels, sure. Demons, when I was a kid. But that was just so different.”
He broke up the pieces of his donut, each into its own equal-sized little section. “Each creature we fight is different. That’s why it’s important to learn and understand.”
She nodded and slouched back in her chair for a moment, then leaned forward again. “So what was that last night? Cas said you didn’t kill a single vampire but got their numbers!”
Sam laughed out loud. “That’s rich. Yeah. Not everything that’s inhuman needs to be exterminated, Claire. The vampire who was here? She was actually trying her best not to kill people. She was very new at the whole vampire thing, but she was trying to be one of the good ones.”
“Dean seems to think that all monsters need killing.”
“Ask him when my turn is,” Sam spat out before he could stop himself.
Claire froze. “Uh, say what now?”
“Sorry. I just… look. Forget I said anything.”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“Then ask Castiel what I am. The technical term, please.” He crumbled one of the donut pieces into crumbs. “So.” He forced a big smile onto his face. “What’s the plan? Still want to head out to Connecticut? Maybe someplace else? Or do you want to keep up with Dean and Castiel?”
“With lines like that I’m not sure I feel comfortable leaving you alone,” she told him. “’Ask him when my turn is?’ The hell does that mean, Sam?”
He sighed and broke up another section of donut. “They didn’t tell you? The demon blood - not just what you saw way back when, but what’s been in me since I was a baby and what I can do with it - makes me a monster. Dean told me years ago that it made him want to hunt me, that it meant I was a monster, that there was no saving me. He told me a few weeks ago, when Charlie was killed, he wished that it was me up on that pyre instead of her. And why not? At least she’s... you know? Clean.” Another section of donut met its end and he looked down. “Anyway. The whole point is that those vampires didn’t need to be taken out.”
Claire opened her mouth, then she sighed and shook her head. “But the other ones did?”
“Coming after you? Yeah. They did. In this case, Tom feeds on bagged blood. Megyn was newly turned. The attacks we were seeing in Cleveland were her way of trying not to harm her victims. Tom’s going to show her how to live like he does, and she’s going to do it, too.” He shrugged and crushed yet another donut section, feeling it turn to sand under his fingers.
“And you just trust them.”
“Tom was friends with a vampire I knew years ago. It’s possible to do. It’s hard to do, but if he was friends with Lenore then he’s got a better chance than most. And if, as a newly-turned vampire, Megyn was able to pull herself back and keep from draining her prey then she’s probably got the willpower to pull it off.” He ran a hand through his hair and took a sip of coffee. “That’s kind of…” He looked away, thinking. “That’s kind of a fundamental difference between my family and me, the way they do things and they way they see the world, versus the way I see the world.”
She bit her lip and took the donut remains away from him. “What do you mean?”
He hesitated for a second, trying to think of the best way to phrase what he wanted to say. “My dad, and now my brother, they have a very us-versus-them view of the world, of hunting. It’s humans versus everything else, right? With a very narrow definition of what makes someone human. Most hunters share that viewpoint. A witch, for example, isn’t human by that definition, because she has abilities beyond those of a typical suburban soccer mom. A psychic isn’t human either, according to most hunters.”
“Okay. You don’t agree.”
“I’d have to shoot myself then, wouldn’t I?” He shook his head. “I am psychic. I use elements of witchcraft all the time. For them - Dad, Dean, even Bobby - there was this war, this kind of all consuming need to fight. They’d lost something. I never had that. I lost someone too, eventually, but it was different.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s because I was always part of what they were fighting that I never got that whole ‘all non-humans must die’ mentality.
“Anyway, the whole point is that yes, there are some things that are completely evil. A black dog? It’s basically rabid. It’s always going to act out against people. It’s always going to need to be put down. Or a rawhead, or a poltergeist. Demons? They’re evil, they define evil, but sometimes you’ll want the same things. Don’t trust them without a lot of leverage.” He shivered. “Even then, never go against your gut.”
“And vampires can be okay sometimes?”
“Vampires can be okay sometimes. Anything with free will can be okay sometimes. Of course, anything with free will can also be a manipulative dick too. But hey.” He forced a little grin. “I guess I’d rather not kill someone - human or not - until they have to be killed, for public safety.”
“Makes sense, I guess. Except angels. I really don’t like them.” She glared at the door.
“As a general rule, I don’t either.”
They fell quiet for a moment. “Are you going to let him in?” she asked then.
“Who, Cas?” He snorted. “No.”
She sighed. “He’s really worried about you. He does care, you know.”
“He’s here to keep an eye on me for Dean, to make sure I don’t break the world again.” Sam stood up. “Which isn’t going to be an issue. So it’s not a problem, okay?”
Her face softened. “Is it really that hard to grasp that he actually cares about you for you? Because you’re a good person and he doesn’t want you to get hurt?”
Sam found himself reminded of Eleni’s words from a couple of nights before, but he shook his head. The situation was completely different. “Not Castiel. Not me. He’s got his priorities.”
“You think he can only care about one Winchester at a time.”
“I think he only does care about one Winchester at a time.” Sam forced a little smile. “Come on, Claire. Out with it. What’s really going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just he was worried about you and I thought it would be good for you to have someone watching over you and helping you out, you know? Showing you some affection or something.”
“Winchesters aren’t good with affection. It confuses us.” He opened up the laptop in his version of a subtle hint. “I think I found a good candidate for a haunting on Blennerhasset Island in West Virginia, if you’re interested.”
She made a face. “Okay-- wait. How are there islands in West Virginia?”
“It’s in the Ohio River. It should be a good one. It might be a haunting, it might be a cursed object, and we won’t know until we get there.”
She bit her lip. “I’ll go, if we can bring Castiel.”
He shook his head. “Cas means Dean, and then I’m twiddling my thumbs while Dean looks for something to throw him into a tombstone. No way.”
“What if I get him to promise not to bring Dean along?” the teen offered.
Sam sighed. “If you really want to spend time with Castiel, I mean, go ahead. I won’t try to stop you but I’m just -“
She rolled her head back on her shoulders. “Sa-am!” she whined, throwing her whole upper body into the act. “Come on! Just let me bring Castiel!”
“Ugh. Fine. But if he acts like a dick I’m banishing him to Heaven.” Sam rolled his eyes.
They left the next day, Sam finding an additional possible case in the Wayne National Forest that he opted not to share with anyone. Claire rode with Cas for the three-hour drive, leaving Sam alone with his thoughts. He wasn’t a fan of that any more than he was a fan of the extra scrutiny.
“I assume you will want two rooms,” Castiel told him stiffly when they found a motel.
“I don’t object,” he said. “But why?”
“In case you seek out another woman.”
Claire blushed scarlet.
“That really bothered you that much?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
Cas pursed his lips together. “It’s behavior I expect from your brother. Not from you.”
“I’m going to go out and buy lady things,” Claire told them, then charged out the door without looking back.
Sam glared at the door, wondering why the teenaged escape artist was allowed such freedom and he was not. Still, he sat down at the table. “I get that Dean doesn’t approve of me having a sex life,” he said slowly, “and it had been years since I’d even tried, literally, but seriously. It’s just sex.”
“I understand that, Sam. It just surprised me. I was under the impression that you no longer had interests of a sexual nature.”
Sam opened his mouth. “Why would you make an assumption like that?”
“Your brother said you didn’t.”
“What would Dean know about it?”
“He knows everything about you.”
“Apparently not,” Sam smirked. “Look. It’s not something I ever did a lot of, the casual sex thing, but everyone needs a feeling of connection to another person, and that was the only way I was going to get it.”
“You don’t feel connected to Dean and to me?” Cas’ expression, usually so wooden, looked downright hurt. For a moment Sam wanted to take it all back.
Then he remembered why he was out here, alone. Remembered why his leg was in a cast and why Dean would never have been allowed to suffer such an indignity - not since Cas got off his God trip, anyway. “Cas,” he said, “no. I’m not part of what you and Dean have and we all know it. You work better without me and I’m not doing too badly by myself.”
“You have a broken leg!” the angel roared.
“So what?” Sam shot back. “So it’s broken! People get hurt on hunts and it’s never bothered you when I got hurt on hunts before! At least it’s a broken leg and not another concussion. Neither of which has anything to do with my sex life! I don’t get why you’re okay with Dean screwing anything that moves but the idea of me having one consensual encounter once in - is it three years? - is cause for alarm.”
“Like I said, it surprised me. I didn’t know you were looking for a sexual partner. I would have found you an acceptable partner had you asked.”
Sam stared at Cas. “What do you know about what I would want in a partner?”
“Well I know what you don’t want,” Cas spat back, and stormed out again.
All Sam could do was gape after Castiel like a fish. Cas couldn’t have meant what that sounded like. No, that would be too… too good. Too easy. Too convenient. Too much like something Sam wanted, and he knew better. That was just Cas’ typical inability to understand human communications.
He buried his head in his hands. This would have been hilarious if it had happened to someone else.
Back to Chapter Four -- On to Chapter Six