Summary: When Sam’s post-Gadreel healing is going more slowly than they would like, Castiel has a suggestion the Winchesters aren’t expecting. The consequences are even more unexpected, but it may be just what they need.
Canon divergent from the bridge scene at the end of Road Trip.
Rating: Explicit
Tags: sastiel, wincestiel, wings, grace, kinky uses of grace, sexual healing, jealous dean, caretaking, hurt/comfort, a bit of crack taken seriously, voyeurism, oral sex, anal sex, come eating, rimming, threesome, canon divergence, episode 9x10: Road Trip, episode 9x11: First Born, season/series 9, no MOC, post-gadreel sam, porn with plot, Dean POV, spn secret santa exchange 2024
By ladygizarme (@fandom-hoarder)
Written as part of the @spnfanficpond SPN Secret Santa Exchange 2024
For @ladylilithprime 🎁
If you have an AO3 account, please let me know and I will gift this to you there, also. I usually archive-lock my fics lately, but I’ve left this one open since I didn’t know if you have an AO3.
So sorry for the lateness of this! I got very ill and ended up in the hospital for a week, just before Christmas. And, as they say, when it rains it pours, and bad things kept happening so that I needed to ask for an extra extension, because I really wanted to finish it for you. I really hope this gift finds you well, that your holidays were excellent, and that my interpretation of your prompts serve. <3
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Sam can cook, but only the barest of dorm cooking he learned in Stanford. He's always had to live on take-out unless someone else cooked for him. The one time he tried to cook something since leaving Stanford was when Castiel's grace was all but gone and he couldn't bring himself to sleep, still too unsettled by the prospect of it after eons of not needing sleep. He nearly set off the smoke alarm and woke everyone, so instead he made Castiel a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Years later, Cas remembered that sandwich and offered one to Sam as a sign of solidarity. Living in the bunker, Sam doesn't remember where the fondness for PB&J came from, only that it was something Cas enjoyed while human and can no longer stomach when he can taste the molecules.
STOPPP I LOVE THIS
Just... Sam trying to extend a hand to connect with Cas on a new and human level, even if it’s a seemingly small and inconsequential gesture, and over time because of how consistently hectic and dangerous the events in their lives are those small moments slip from Sam’s mind until Cas makes that PB&J for him years later, and suddenly it all comes rushing back, that it meant something to Cas and that he values their bond and those intimate interactions stolen in those rare periods of rest. Or maybe he really doesn’t remember, but the moment feels faintly familiar, from a time long forgotten and now only a faint fog in the back of his mind, and the slow spread of warmth and affection that lights up his chest feels familiar, and Sam aches when he sees the almost bashful smile that Cas offers him when he holds out the sandwich, a silent question. And maybe they can’t be human together in the literal sense anymore, but they can always have this. They can have something small and quiet saved only for each other- something like peace.
ladylilithprime said: This is both glorious and terrifying and I need more of it. Hey, if Tony’s arc reactor is now powered by Lantern power, can he use it like a Lantern ring? Because he’s a really imaginative guy…..
Thank you! But I was thinking not, actually. The Lantern power is just keeping Tony’s electromagnet charged until he can fix whatever plot-related problem the arc reactor is having. I just thought it would be neat if he glowed a different color than usual as a side-effect. :’)
The GL rings are powered by willpower and while Tony is certainly a determined man, but I wouldn’t say willpower is a defining characteristic. Dude’s got vices. There was actually an AA episode about the Infinity Stones that showed that Black Widow had the strongest willpower on the team. So I think that if anyone from the AA team could possibly use a Green Lantern ring, it would be her.
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How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
Um, a lot. I kinda always have a lot of fic ideas in the back of my head but right now I'm focusing on my disordered series, the girl Sam au, hbo spn ficlets, the JoJess fire au, and an alt s4 with some sastiel in it. (happy to go into more detail about these if anyone is interested)
Which fic has been the hardest to write?
Probably Life on Mars, it was my biggest fic project, I started uploading it and I have more chapters already written, but I haven't updated it since last year. It's just so hard writint like a big project
Which fic has been the easiest to write?
All of my hurt Sam fics, I guess. Anything I can project myself onto Sam. Also the girl Sam fics I have been writing recently, I can really get into Sam's mindset and easily write 1000 words in like, an hour
Do you accept prompts?
I am always accepting prompts! I have 2 sat in my inbox rn but I always get round to writing them so absolutely drop me a prompt at any point :)
Sam's not as excited about Cas's octopus curse as Dean, but they're hard at work researching how to fix it! (Thanks for the ask with this cute idea, @ladylilithprime ♥)
Summary: After Rowena's magic brought her back from the dead, Charlie still can't find any peace. On the open road, with the witch as her reluctant companion, there's no telling where she'll find it.
Pairing: Rowena x Charlie
Word count: 2,337
Rating: teen
Warnings: language, angst, discussion of death
A/N: I'm a little late for this, but here's my @rareshipcreationschallenge's Route 66 piece (driving songs vs. @ladylilithprime) Also knocking out my Charlie square (@spnrareshipbingo) and "Here I Go Again" (@spnsongchallengebingo). There's angst. There's tunes. There's two of my favorite redheads. They did NOT make this easy on me. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go recuperate.
###
Maybe this whole trip was a bad idea.
Charlie heaved a sigh and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, eyes on the road ahead and sneaking occasional glances at her passenger. Rowena sat in perfect silence, leaning her forehead against her hand with her elbow propped on the door. She could have been asleep, but her expression was far too exasperated for that to be the case.
"You know," Charlie ventured timidly, "you don't have to come with me… We're not too far from Lebanon, I could turn around and take you back--"
Rowena tutted in annoyance. "Ye'll do no such thing, unless ye stay behind," she replied. "I'll no' have the bloody Winchesters blame me if that spell goes wrong and ye drop dead again."
"Can the spell go wrong?"
"Of course it can, ye wee fool, but it's unlikely. I should think I know how to work a resurrection spell after all this time."
"Then why--"
"Do ye have no idea what I endured as their captive, child?" Rowena lowered her arm and Charlie turned her head to see her glaring at her, eyes flashing with outrage. "Chained, threatened, coerced, manhandled...ye were there to see it yerself! Are ye blind to the suffering of yer fellow woman?"
"Of course not!"
"And ye still think I should return myself to their loving care, do ye?"
Charlie sighed again. This was a bad idea, all right.
She didn't know what kind of coercing Sam and Dean had to do to get Rowena to revive her after the Stines--well, after it was necessary to revive her. As much as the witch seemed to dislike her, it probably took a lot for her to agree to it, and it was Rowena's look of grudging satisfaction she saw first when she opened her eyes in the bunker.
If only she could remember what happened, between hiding in that bathroom and waking up in the bunker… There were gaps in her memory--understandably so--and trying to fill them was like trying to pin waves to the beach. They receded from her no matter how she chased after them, only to creep back in again to taunt her later. Perhaps it was for the best, her not remembering, though something still felt off to her, and there was nothing she could do to shake the feeling.
The idea of a road trip seemed like a good one, to get out on the open highway with no destination in mind and go wherever the wind took her. Most of her time in Oz had been spent journeying, and she missed the adventure of it, and while America was a wildly different landscape, to say the least, the spirit of it would be the same.
At least, she hoped so. Right now, it seemed more likely than Rowena lightening up and letting her enjoy the trip.
"Tell me what exactly could go wrong with that spell," she said, more for the sake of keeping the awkward silence at bay than out of interest.
Rowena sighed as if answering caused her pain and personal inconvenience. "Well, for starters, necromancy is advanced and unpredictable, no matter how long ye've practiced the craft," she replied. "There's no telling what damage ye can do, even if ye know what ye're doing, mind. The best ye can hope for is to minimize it as best ye can."
"So, something did go wrong," Charlie inferred.
"Did I say that?"
"You just said you know--"
"It's unlikely something went wrong," Rowena insisted haughtily. "There's no way to know for certain."
"Until it actually goes wrong?"
Rowena sighed, and Charlie was willing to bet she rolled her eyes as well. "Aye. That's the gist."
Sheesh. Charlie gave up on conversation and drove on.
"Did ye have a destination in mind?" Rowena asked about ten minutes later, startling her.
"Yeah," she replied. "Yeah, I thought I'd go to Arizona, for one thing."
"The Grand Canyon? Ye just came back from the dead, darlin', I'd think ye'd go for something a wee bit more original."
"Actually, we're going to Winslow." At the confused silence, she added, "Like the song." Another beat of silence, and she sang, "Well, I'm standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, such a fine sight to see--"
"Darlin', I have no idea what the bloody hell ye're on about," Rowena informed her.
"You've never heard of the Eagles? Hang on, Dean gave me a mixtape for the road…" Reaching across the car, she opened the glove box and unearthed a cassette, popping it into the player and turning up the volume. "I bet it's on here somewhere, if it's not all Zeppelin."
A synthesized keyboard sounded out of the speakers, sounding so eighties Charlie couldn't believe Dean put it on the tape. She shrugged. This wasn't a bad song, either.
"Is this it?" Rowena asked, sounding unimpressed.
"No," she answered. "This is Whitesnake."
No, I don't know where I'm goin'
But I sure know where I've been…
"Hanging on the promises in songs of yesterday," she sang along softly. "And I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time…"
Rowena propped her arm on the door again and stared straight ahead.
Though I keep searchin' for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm lookin' for…
Charlie moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, unsure of herself, then said, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Aye," Rowena answered in a voice of long-suffering. "If ye must."
"How old are you?"
"Older than ye'll ever be, I wager."
"No, for real."
"A little more than three hundred."
Charlie's eyes widened and she glanced over at her companion in amazement. "Seriously?"
"Aye."
"You look gorgeous for your age! I mean, you've always been gorgeous, let's be honest, but to be that old on top of it is just--" Charlie paused, catching the surprised and slightly flattered look on Rowena's face. "Sorry. I'm just...a little impressed."
The witch raised one saucy eyebrow. "Are ye, now?"
Charlie compressed her lips and turned back to the road. Dear God, she hoped she wasn't blushing.
And here I go again on my own
Goin' down the only road I've ever known...
"Have you...have you ever died before?" she asked.
Rowena didn't answer at first, and Charlie feared she wouldn't. When she spoke, it was in a measured tone, every word carefully weighed and considered. "I have. Several times, really. The first was pneumonia. I had prepared the spell a little over a year before, not knowing if it would work, and spent the week leading up getting weaker by the day. I'd never bothered to learn healing magic, and the medicine of the day was as likely to kill ye as disease. At the end, I could hardly draw a breath without choking on it, and finally, I didn't breathe at all."
Charlie shivered with the memory of gasping for air through the agony of her injuries but coughing up the blood rising in her throat instead. "And then what happened?"
Just another heart in need of rescue
Waiting on love's sweet charity…
"I breathed again, as if I hadna been ill to start with. The sickness was gone, and I was on my feet within the day like it never happened."
"But...something did happen," Charlie pressed. "You were dead."
"Aye. And then I wasn't."
'Cause I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams
"But what was it like?"
She supposed that's what she really wanted to know. Was it the same for you as it was for me?
"It was dark and quiet…"
Charlie nodded along.
"It was…" Rowena heaved a sigh. "It was bloody boring. There was nothing exciting, nothing to pass the time, nothing to do. Everything I left behind was meaningless in that...wherever I was. All I held dear didn't matter, my strength was gone, and I was just a tanner's daughter again. I didn't care to go back there again, so as soon as I was able, I readied another resurrection spell. As I have every time I've passed on since."
Charlie gripped the wheel even tighter, her heart racing with a growing sense of desperation. "But it wasn't--it can't--maybe it's not the same for everyone," she insisted. "Maybe what you saw isn't what everyone sees, maybe it's different, maybe--"
"Charlie!"
Rowena's sharp tone sliced through her panic and she focused on the road; in her distraction, she had drifted out of her lane and into the path of oncoming traffic.
She swerved back as the other driver blasted the horn at her, and her body tensed with shock, her breath coming in short bursts.
"Pull over," Rowena suggested, and she obeyed, turning on the flashers before putting the car in park. Rowena turned off the radio and turned to her, looking serious. "Out with it, darlin'. What's this about, then?"
How could she say it? She swallowed hard and began shakily, "It...wasn't like that for me. It was dark and quiet, but it was...calm. Peaceful. There weren't any monsters, or demons, or magic. It was just me, and I wasn't afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of."
Her eyes felt hot and prickly, but she didn't want Rowena to see her cry. She blinked hard, trying to keep the tears in, and added, "Then you brought me back."
Rowena's expression hardened, and Charlie pushed on, "Maybe I didn't want to come back! Maybe I didn't mind where I was, maybe I liked it! My life had been chaos since I met Sam and Dean, but it was over! No more hunting! No more pain or danger! You had no right to bring me back to that!"
"Ye think I had any say in the matter?" Rowena demanded. "Yer friends are stubborn in their right minds, but after you died? The little sister they never had? And the Mark, child...the Mark wanted blood. Forgive me if I'd rather it not be mine."
Charlie balled her hands into fists, then pounded them against the wheel, striking the horn over and over. It wasn't fair! She should be grateful to be alive! She shouldn't feel cheated, she shouldn't be angry…
She shouldn't be angry with Sam and Dean.
They'd been so relieved to have her back, so glad, and she tried to keep up appearances for their sake, but the weight of what she left behind and the burden placed on her shoulders again dragged her down a little more every day until she couldn't stand it anymore. Guilt and resentment threatened to tear her apart, and instead of being happy they gave her another chance to live, she hated what they did. What they took from her. Sometimes, she was afraid she even hated them.
Her head ached with the effort of holding in her tears, and in the end they fell anyway. "They didn't have any right," she said, keeping her voice low so it didn't shake.
"Aye, well, there's men for ye," Rowena replied. "They'll do as they please, consequences be damned." There was silence as she mulled over her thoughts and Charlie left her to them, then she asked, "Is that what this silly trip is about? Ye can't face the friends that brought ye back to life?"
Charlie shrugged, then shook her head. "I don't...I don't know. Maybe. I was so mad at them and couldn't tell them why, and I hated it."
"Why not tell them? They've done their share of dying, ye know."
"I know. And they've always come back. They've never gotten to stay there, and if anyone deserves that kind of peace, it's them. I couldn't hate them for what they did, and I couldn't help but hate them."
Rowena sat watching her for several minutes until her tears ran dry, then she said slowly, "I don't know if what they did was right, or if it was fair, but it's done, darlin'. Ye're alive, like it or not. It's hard, it's ugly, and gods know there's times ye might be better off dead. But I've had centuries to learn it's what's between those times ye have to concern yerself with. Ye can cry and curse the injustice of it, or ye can grab it by the bollocks and make it yer bitch. Demand yer due for the shite ye're handed, or turn it to diamonds. Either way, ye prove to the world, and to yerself, that ye deserve something worthwhile, and ye'll not settle for less."
Charlie sniffled, wiping at her eyes and coughing softly to clear her throat. "So, what do you think I should do now?" she asked.
"Bloody hell, sweetheart, weren't ye listening? Ye're alive, now go out and find something worth the pain in the arse of being alive. Ye ken?"
The sound she made was more hiccup than chuckle, but Charlie nodded. "Yeah. I get it."
"At the verra least, ye can drive until we're more tired of each other than the bloody Winchesters."
"You're still coming with me?"
"Aye, I'm still coming with ye. There's still that spell to think of, isn't there? Now, let's go see this Winslow of yers."
Charlie nodded and got back on the road, and after some consideration, Rowena turned the radio on again. Whitesnake faded out, replaced by a brief riff and Rowena brightened. "Ah, now that's more like it!"
Mustang Sally
Guess you better slow your Mustang down…
Charlie gave her a brief look of surprise. "You know this one?"
The witch flashed a foxy smile. "Just drive, darlin'."
Charlie shook her head and adjusted her grip on the wheel. Something still didn't feel quite right and one conversation wouldn't change that, but she felt a little better. And if she couldn't get back to that quiet, peaceful darkness, she could find something just as good somewhere else. The open road was as good a place to find it as any.
