Chevaux de Frise by peas_fics for <user site="livejournal.com"

[springflingmod.livejournal.com]

Title: Chevaux de Frise
Pairing: Sam & Cas
Rating: Gen
Any warnings: body modification



Crowley and Abaddon have left the bunker, leaving sulfur and silence in their wake. Sam seems not to notice either. Perhaps his cocoon of fatigue is too thick for them to penetrate; perhaps he has been too used to both for too long. Angelic senses provide no such insulation.

"Um. Do you need..." Sam trails off. What he has, you do not need.

He may be thinking the same of you.

"It is unlikely that Crowley will return tonight, but I should stand guard just in case."

Sam nods at the chair Dean left pushed out hours ago. Then he waits for several seconds, almost as still as the rest of the room.

“Sam. You should rest.”

Surely he must know how tired he is, but some humans need to be told such things.

Angels need to be told other things, but the general principle should apply.

“Yeah.” He thinks about it for another moment. “Thanks, Cas.”

You spend the rest of the night and much of the morning pressing against the sigils and spells woven into the bunker, trying not to hear Sam lose the fight against his dreams.

It proves difficult.

When Sam reappears, overchlorinated water drags his hair down his neck. “Morning, Cas.”

“Good morning.” At the very least, you have both seen worse mornings. You start to move toward him, and then remember: don’t. “Are you ready to start your healing?”

“Coffee first. Metaphysical interventions later.”

“Of course. Take your time.”

He does, though less out of comfort than necessity, coaxing out breakfast from a coffeemaker and toaster as old as the kitchen and eventually reemerging with a generous mug.

“You want some?”

“No, thank you. I never developed the taste for stimulants.”

“Guess you don’t need ‘em now.”

“No.”

Sam does, more than he will admit aloud, perhaps more than he realizes. He blows into the mug and takes a swallow. “So. Let’s get to healing.”

“You may want to sit. It’ll feel odd.”

He does. You touch his forehead with two fingers and reach deeper with grace, removing scar tissue left by Gadreel and knitting his lungs back together whole.

Sam takes his first deep breath in the better part of a year. “Yeah. Definitely odd.”

“But better?”

“Better. Thanks.” He rubs his neck, then pulls his elbow tight to his side and presses a hand on his chest before looking back up. “My tattoo’s gone.”

“Yes, that was….we needed Crowley to get through to you.”

Sam looks away again. “It’s not your fault, Cas. And it’s over. I just don’t want him getting back in.”

“Of course.”

“Can you put it back?”

“Not quite as easily as it was removed, I’m afraid. We’ll have to replace it with a new tattoo.”

“Figures,” Sam mutters, though you don’t really see how. “Can you do it here? I think the bunker has everything we need.”

And the bunker does, though it takes a little doing to find enough black ink that isn’t clumpy with time.

“Same place as the first one?” you ask as you twist a needle, a pencil, and some floss into an acceptable tool.

He nods before peeling off one shirt, then another, and settling into a wingback reading chair.

“I’m going to clear the area to prevent infection and anesthetize it a bit. Is that okay?”

“Yeah. That’s good,” Sam tells his right knee as you brush away bacteria and hair.

Grace remains useful, for some things.

“Do you need a picture to copy?”

“I know the old one.” Perhaps it’s wishful thinking to see Sam find the energy to chase a flicker of skepticism. “Angels have what humans refer to as an eidetic memory. I don’t need a drawing, unless you’d like to alter the design.”

Sam shakes his head, then tips it toward the needle. “Ready when you are.”

Grace remains useful to keep a hand swift and steady and an eye for evenness and proportion, things that were beyond the reach of the human who’d drawn Sam’s first tattoo. This one will lack the slight stoutness of the spoke that points due left and the orphaned drips of ink by the bottom right, flaws much harder to reproduce than to perfect. The sigil will be no more or less effective for these slight differences, but the change provokes a pang of regret.

“So why do you need to do it this way?”

“For the same reason all beings need to draw out devil’s traps by hand. There has to be some physical alteration of the area in order for the sigil to work.”

“You gave us those angel sigils five years ago.”

“In that case, the physical alteration was the carving. I suppose this marking would fit onto your skull, if you’d prefer.”

“I’ll stick with the ink.”

You hear, and he feels, another twelve hundred and seventy-two punctures before the ink runs dry again.

“Do you know of any variations?”

“To keep out an angel, you mean.”

Sam bites back – something, probably an impulse to apologize.

“None that I know of.” Then again, who would have tried to create one? “I’ve rarely seen more than one failsafe for such things.”

“Even when it’s not so safe.”

“Yes.”

After this, there is little left to fill in and less left to say.

“You know, Sam, we don’t know everything.”

Sam pauses in dressing his tattoo.

“The tattoos, the…permission, these are the only tools we know of against possession. That doesn’t mean they’re the only ways, or even the best ways.”

“Nothing’s written in stone, right?”

“Well, it may be on the tablets, but I think we can agree those are far from definitive.”

“It was a figure of speech, Cas.” Sam starts to pull on his second shirt, wrinkles his nose at the damp collar, and hangs it carefully on a chair instead. “Though maybe not as straightforward of one as I thought.”

“I believe it’s still apt.” Sam shrugs. “My point is, there might be another way, and if there is, we’ll find it.”

Sam looks at the needle lying on the table, then relaxes his shoulders and raises his eyes. “Or we’ll make our own.”

It’s a startling prospect to an angel, even one who has made a habit of falling: an invitation to become more human, to be accepted with grace. “Or, we’ll make our own.”