Every Step I Took In Faith, Chapter Two

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The next day, he had to tell Dean he’d fallen and scraped up his hand in the parking lot as an explanation of the bandage he was wearing. He didn’t especially like lying to Dean, but it seemed all they did was keep secrets from each other these days. To anyone looking in from the outside, it would appear that Castiel’s relationship with Dean was much closer than his relationship with Sam. Castiel barely acknowledged Sam unless they were alone. That was fine with him, though. It was much easier to be ignored than to wonder if anything he said or did would result in some terrible consequence at a later time. Sam worked hard to make himself small and quiet anytime he was with Castiel in the presence of anyone else.

After that first night with the demons, Castiel graciously gave Sam a few days off. Not that they were really days off, since the three of them, along with Bobby, were still hunting, trying to save seals from being broken and researching ways to head off Lucifer’s escape from the Cage. But Sam got several nights of uninterrupted sleep, so he counted that as a vacation.

He used those couple of days to think about what he’d gotten himself into with Castiel. Not the blood and the training and using his powers, but the submission. He’d honestly believed it would be a long, hard road; learning to let go and accept that he would follow any instruction, take any punishment, tell any lie, just because it was what Castiel wanted. A part of him still held on to the reality that what he was doing was a means to an end. If he was being truthful with himself, though, he knew that at least some of this was what he wanted. Somewhere in there, underneath the badass hunter bravado, there was a wish to be dominated, sexually (though it hadn’t happened yet) and otherwise. It created an illusion, however temporary, that there wasn’t so much responsibility resting on him. Small little pockets of time where all he had to do was listen to the angel. Just tiny little breaks during which he never had to make a single decision, let alone decisions that might save or end the world. The pressure of working to please Castiel was nothing compared to the pressure of being counted on to avoid the rise of the devil. So he’d given himself over, just as Castiel had asked that first time they talked about it, and damn if it hadn’t turned out to be almost easy. At this point, it felt pretty fucking close to natural. He almost never even considered disobeying Castiel, any thought of it was fleeting at best. No, Sam liked it this way.

It wasn’t until the last day that he realized he really really wanted more of Castiel’s blood. He’d become accustomed to the feeling it gave him, that sharp high and the power and the focus and the buzz of it. Another college flashback, licking the edges of his library card, turning a tiny baggie inside out and scraping off anything he could…no, this wasn’t like that, not really, but fuck it, yeah, he guessed, it kind of was.

When Castiel returned for him, though, this time knowing Dean would be gone at least two days, it was clear that things were starting to move in a different direction. While Sam took his usual naked and submissive position on his knees in front of the angel, he was shocked to realize that Castiel had removed his own clothing as well.

For a few minutes, Castiel seemed to just be pondering what to do next, or maybe he was just trying to make Sam nervous by standing there above him in silence. It gave Sam a chance to get a good look at him, though. That suit and coat hid an almost lithe body, certainly small in comparison to Sam’s, but in excellent shape. Castiel had a flat stomach, the muscles under his skin were defined but not obvious. And his cock…Sam had no idea what made it happen, the nature of what they had between them, the discovery of his comfort with being submissive to him, or just something physical, but Sam’s mouth was practically watering at the sight. All this time, he’d been afraid of what would happen when their relationship moved into sexual territory, but now, all he could think of was that Castiel’s dick was fucking gorgeous, erect and shining with the slightest bit of pre-come at the tip. A stray thought filtered through about Jimmy having been circumcised, which Sam hadn’t considered one way or the other before now. Sam barely even registered the fact that his own dick was standing at attention just from the sight of Castiel nude and aroused and above him.

Remaining as still as possible, Sam swallowed hard when Castiel produced a thick black leather collar from a bag on the bedside table. As it was fastened around his throat, his breathing started to speed up a bit. He didn’t dare to look down at it, but he could feel a heavy metal ring hanging from the base of it. Sam had seen people wear collars like this, when he was younger, in clubs and on pornos. Truthfully, he was a bit surprised Castiel would bother with it. An outside symbol of his submission was unnecessary and they couldn’t risk anyone finding out about this.

But Castiel wasn’t finished, and it was almost immediately obvious that the collar had a purpose. The next item to come out of the little bag was a leash. Sam fought hard to keep his emotions off his face and his body in the proper position as Castiel attached the metal clasp of the leash onto the ring of the collar. The rest of the leash was hard leather, black and almost shiny. It didn’t look very flexible at all.

“Sam, I’m going to ask you some questions, and you will answer with words, even if the response is just a yes or no. Do you understand?”

Because he was stupid, Sam did as he was used to doing and nodded once without opening his mouth. As soon as he did it, he realized his mistake but it was too late. Castiel brought the leather end of the leash down across the middle of Sam’s chest in a flash. Sam hissed from the pain but somehow managed not to move.

“I ask you if you understand, and you respond that you do, but in a way that clearly demonstrates that you do not. Now, would you categorize that as a truthful response to my question?”

Oh, shit. Not always being able to meet Castiel’s standards was one thing, but if the angel thought Sam was outright lying to him…he didn’t even want to think about what kind of punishment would result from that.

“No.” Sam wanted to explain, but he figured keeping his answers short would be safer. Castiel had never demanded that Sam address him in any certain way, he seemed to have no desire for contrived titles like Master or Sir (which was great, really, after 18 years of saying “yes sir” and “no sir” to his father, Sam didn’t think he’d be able to use that term without being way more freaked out than he already was). He only required that Sam look at him when he spoke, which was not always easy, but certainly bearable.

“If you have anything to add, please do so.”

“I did understand, but I’m just so used to not speaking…I was confused for a second, it won’t happen again. I apologize.”

“I accept your apology. Be still while you accept your punishment.” Lightning-fast, Castiel struck his chest four, five, six more times as Sam struggled to be quiet and not move away.

“You are not required to remain silent when you are punished, Sam. Tonight will not be easy for you. Feel free to cry out as much as you need to.”

There were already tears in his eyes and he almost nodded again in response, but caught himself and instead simply said, “Thank you.”

“Are you in a great deal of pain?”

“Yes.”

“Yet you maintain your erection. Do you enjoy the pain?”

Sam had to put a little thought into that one, because it wasn’t easy to answer. “No, I don’t. I mean, it hurts, it doesn’t feel good, I don’t like the pain. But I enjoy…um, being down here while you’re up there, I guess. And you, uh…you’re naked.”

“So you enjoy the sight of me without clothes?”

No hesitation this time. “Yes.”

“You’re no longer nervous about engaging in sexual relations with me?”

“Oh, I’m still nervous. But I want to. I want to…do what you say. Live up to your expectations.”

“You think you’ll be rewarded with a taste of my blood if you do well. I can tell you want it. It’s all right to admit that.”

“Yes, you’re right. I do want it and I do think maybe you’ll let me have some if I’m good. But that’s not the only reason. I meant it about living up to your expectations, in this way just as much as in our other training.”

Castiel seemed pleased with that response. Sam was surprised by his answer, though. “I will give you the blood either way, Sam. You need it. Your own actions will dictate whether you get more or less and how long I decide to make you wait. The blood, though, is a necessity. We can’t risk that your powers will be weak when they’re needed.” Abruptly changing the subject, he continued, “Have you engaged in fellatio before?”

Sam took a deep breath, felt the collar around his neck, not tight enough to dig into the skin but close and heavy enough to know it was there. “No! I mean…no, I’ve never…I told you before, when you asked, I said I fooled around a little but - no, I haven’t-”

Castiel cocked his head to one side like he did when he was curious and replied, “My understanding is that this is a fairly common act when someone is engaged in a sexual relationship. I find it unusual that this never occurred in your previous relationships.”

And then Sam got it, he understood that Castiel wasn’t asking what he first assumed. Shit, shit, shit, he couldn’t have Castiel think he was being dishonest, there had to be a way to explain this. “Okay, I’m sorry, I misunderstood your question. I have, yes, but, you know, to me, I mean, women have done that to me but I never did it, I haven’t…um, I’ve only been on the receiving end, I haven’t done it to someone, to anyone. I wasn’t lying, I just thought you meant something different.” He was babbling desperately at that point and he knew it, but didn’t care. Sam would do whatever it took to convince Castiel that he hadn’t been deliberately untruthful.

“You can stop, I understand. Tonight you will. I have every confidence in you, Sam, you’re a fast learner.” There was that chilling smile again.

And Jesus fuck, Sam didn’t even get to process the idea of having a dick in his mouth until all of a sudden there was a dick in his mouth. He snapped to attention, though, trying to remember the things that were important when a girl was doing this to him. First things first, he wrapped his lips around his teeth. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the wrath he would face if he scraped Castiel’s cock with an incisor. Breathing through his nose, he started slowly, moving his head up and down just slightly as he experimentally ran his tongue around the bottom of Castiel’s head, licking him there for a moment before moving to try to take him in farther.

After only a few minutes of attending to his duties, though, he felt Castiel grab onto the leash, tightly, holding Sam still. “Thank you, Sam. That felt very good, and I hope we can do it again sometime. It’s not what I had in mind for tonight’s lesson, though.”

Suddenly understanding what was about to happen, Sam fought the urge to move, object, do something. Anything.

“I can sense your fear, Sam. It will likely be unpleasant for you, but it will be exactly what I want, and that should be your only concern right now. You must learn to please me in a sexual way without regard for your own pleasure. This is just another lesson.” Sam figured it must have been pity that kept Castiel from chastising him for shaking. He hadn’t gotten out of position, though, so that probably counted in his favor.

Castiel’s grip on the leash, so close to the ring on Sam’s collar, tightened as he started thrusting into Sam’s mouth. More than a couple of times he choked and gagged, tears falling from his eyes from his air being cut off, and each time, Cas brought the leather end of the leash down hard against the back of his shoulders. He could feel and taste his own blood, he knew his lips were cut and swollen. He couldn’t very well cry out from the pain while he was barely able to get any oxygen into his lungs, though. There was blood dripping down his back as well, not a lot, but it was there. Fighting for air, he remembered to keep breathing through his nose as he tried very hard to listen to the few words spoken by Castiel, mostly instructions. But he almost forgot the pain and the blood and the bruising when he heard the angel groan in pleasure. He was doing that, Sam thought, his mouth was actually coaxing sex noises out of a stoic angel. He was determined to take it, all of it, let Castiel fuck his mouth for as long as he wanted, whip his back and shoulders raw, anything, just to hear more of that.

Finally, Castiel’s rhythm started to falter a bit, and he let go of the leash a little, stepping back and pulling his cock out of Sam’s mouth just in time to shoot his load all over Sam’s face. Hot spurts of the angel’s release coated his eyelashes, his cheek, his lips. He fought the almost uncontrollable urge to lick it way, but since he hadn’t been given permission to do so, decided against it.

By this time, if it weren’t for the leash and collar, Sam was convinced he would have just fallen over from exertion. When Castiel took another step back, Sam was even more shocked. The look on his face - hair even more out of place than usual, cheeks flushed, pupils blown almost black with lust. If Sam could remember the way Castiel looked right at that moment, he was pretty sure he could do just about anything, withstand any amount of pain or humiliation for a chance to see it again.

That voice, just the slightest bit shaky, took him out of his brief reverie. “Stand up, Sam.”

Sam had no idea how he did it, but he did, immediately. “Go into the bathroom and wash your face. Then return here and sit on the bed.” He wanted so badly to stare at the way he looked covered in the angel’s cum, but he didn’t want to take too long and get into trouble. He did all he could to commit the sight of his spunk-covered face to memory as quickly as possible.

By the time he was cleaned up and headed back to the bed, Castiel had already put his pants back on, but he was still nude from the waist up.

Again producing the knife he’d used every time they’d done this, Castiel sliced open his arm and held it up for Sam to drink. He’d gotten used to the feeling now; the texture of the blood in his mouth, the dark slide of it down his throat, the thrumming of power all over his body after only seconds. Not that he was going to use it for anything tonight, that much was clear. But Castiel was right, he needed it, needed to keep up his strength, needed to make sure his powers were ready to go at a moment’s notice.




Needed to know he depended on this.

Sam’s own erection was still painfully hard, and completely neglected. Without thinking, overwhelmed by the sensations that accompanied drinking Castiel’s blood, he instinctively reached for his dick, not even getting his hand around it before Castiel pulled away.

Pleading eyes were all he could offer, now that he no longer had explicit permission to speak. Castiel didn’t punish him, though, shockingly. He just looked down at Sam and said, “You’ve had enough for now. I understand that you desire release through orgasm, as I have had, but you won’t have it tonight. You need to concentrate more on controlling your impulses. Whether they’re rooted in sexual desire or the urge you feel to kill Lilith and stop Lucifer’s rise from the Cage, they’re still a weakness. When it is time for you to let go of your emotions and act upon them, I will tell you. There will be a time when that occurs, but as I said, that time is not now.”

Looking on helplessly, Sam watched Castiel get re-dressed. “There are matters to which I need to attend. I trust I don’t need to tell you that if you attempt to touch yourself again, I will know, and any satisfaction you gain will not be worth the punishment that will follow.”

Sam just nodded again, still shaking, as the angel disappeared.

He got up to brush his teeth, then decided he’d rather fall asleep with the taste of Castiel’s blood in his mouth than the taste of mint toothpaste.

It took him a long, long time to get back in bed, though. Sam stared at his cut and swollen mouth, savoring the memory of how he’d gotten Castiel off just a few minutes earlier. He knew that he’d wake up without any marks on him, there had only been that one time that Castiel had let him keep the visual result of a punishment for more than a couple of hours. The pain stayed, though, always, for as long as it would take if the cuts and bruises had to heal on their own. So he turned as much as he could in front of the mirror, drinking in the sight of the criss-crossed welts along his shoulders and upper back, the slight amount of blood that was still visible at the edges of a few of them. He wanted so badly to touch them, but he wasn’t sure enough that Castiel’s instruction not to touch himself extended farther than just masturbation. He knew how much pleasure it would bring him to feel his broken skin and figured that it probably would count as far as Castiel was concerned. And yeah, he liked the way it looked, the bruised and broken skin on his chest and his back, but he didn’t want more.

Right? He couldn’t possibly want more.

Or maybe he just didn’t want to risk disappointing Castiel, showing he wasn’t capable of following orders.

So it had only been a couple of months, but already, Sam’s submission was taking hold. Castiel had done everything he’d promised. Given him blood to boost his powers, shown him how to use them in a controlled way that would be productive, even started working on teaching him how to actually kill demons after he’d learned to exorcise them with only his mind as a weapon. He was almost ashamed at his arrogance when all this started, thinking he could, with long and complicated Latin incantations, do what he was able to do now. He’d deserved a much worse punishment than having been made to sleep on the floor that night. Castiel had been hard on him, sure, but what he’d gained far surpassed any shame he felt from his submissiveness.

Dean hadn’t found out, and neither had Bobby. Sam was fairly certain neither of them would, if they hadn’t already. It was strange, really, how they were all working toward the same goal but seemed to be moving as separate pieces, each with their own (known or unknown) motivations. There was no question that Dean was suspicious these days, wary glances and sometimes even hard stares thrown at Sam, as if he had a feeling Sam was keeping something from him.

That may have been the reason for Dean making his grand confession about what he’d done in Hell, breaking after decades of torture and accepting the offer of release from the rack in exchange for becoming Alistair’s star pupil. Hearing it broke Sam’s heart, knowing the pain and guilt Dean must be carrying around. But he also thought it was a tactic for getting him to spill whatever he’d been hiding in return.

No way that was going to happen. If anything, it only strengthened his resolve to keep his plan and his relationship with Castiel under wraps. Knowing now that Hell had caused his brother even more damage than he’d originally thought, Sam only grew angrier and more determined to carry on with his education. He was going to rip Lilith to shreds, destroy every demon he came across, obliterate the machination of the breaking of seals.

His rage was evident the next time Castiel arranged another training session with demons. Sam took out every last one of them, and in record time. But unlike previous attempts, not a single one of the possessed humans had survived the process. He was too worked up to even care when the first one died, but Castiel took care of that by throwing him to the floor and using his own powers to cut off Sam’s oxygen. Just as his vision started going fuzzy and black around the edges, Castiel let go. Sam gasped for breath and stared up at the angel, terrified.

“This is unacceptable, Sam! How could you possibly have let that happen? All of the effort I have put in to teaching you to control yourself, and this is the result?” He was so angry that some of his true voice bled into his words, causing Sam to curl up into a ball from the pain, blood running from his ears.

Weeping, Sam pled with him for another chance. “I’ll try harder, I promise, I’m so sorry, so sorry, please…”

Castiel pulled him up from the floor by his throat and warned, “Do not let that happen again. I can feel how angry you are, and I can’t say I don’t understand why you feel that way, but I will not tolerate this carelessness. Focus on the task this time, not on your own emotions.”

And Sam tried, he did, partly from determination to get back his mental control and partly from his fear of Castiel’s reaction if he couldn’t.

But the second one ended up just as dead as the first, despite Sam’s efforts, and Castiel decided it was time for a different kind of lesson. Transporting them into an empty, abandoned house, Sam was immediately stripped and held motionless facing a wall.

“As much as I’d like to give you time to deal with your brother’s recent revelations and how they’re affecting you, we can’t afford this kind of backsliding. I’m disappointed in your lack of focus.”

Then it hit Sam like a fucking tornado, would have knocked him off his feet if he hadn’t been pinned to the wall.

“You knew. You knew what he did, you knew what they made him do.”

“Yes, of course I knew. Your brother was actively engaged in torturing a soul on the rack when I pulled him out of Hell. The whole reason we were sent for him was to keep him from doing it, but we were too late.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“You didn’t need to know”, was Castiel’s typical, stone-voiced response. “I suspected that it would only have distracted you from what I am trying to teach you. Obviously, I was correct in my assumption, because now that you do know, you are clearly distracted. If we had the luxury of taking time to grieve for all this, I would give it to you. And I already know you think I’m lying but that is of no consequence. It’s true whether you believe it or not. Regardless, you agreed to our arrangement long ago and tonight you have displeased me greatly.”

Sam was spared no more explanation. He heard the crack of the whip before he felt the searing pain across his back. He tried to contemplate the reason for his punishment, to concentrate on putting more effort into his lessons, but his brain shut down under the onslaught of Castiel’s strikes. One after another, they stung and then exploded into agony that he could feel radiating out from each lash. He hadn’t been able to keep himself from crying out from the very first contact of the whip against his skin, and he only grew more vocal and hysterical as it moved down his back, across his ass, even landing on the backs of his thighs a few times, which resulted in all-out screams. Finally, once he was an incoherent mess of tears and snot and begging, it stopped. The force holding him still disappeared and Sam fell onto the floor sobbing.

Castiel gave him just a minute to try to compose himself, but no more than that. He was hauled up unceremoniously by his hair and thrown across the room, landing on his front, without the strength to move.

“I think this is the perfect time for you to show me that you’re ready to submit completely.”

Sam could tell immediately that the lash marks and the blood were gone, but as always, the pain lingered, and probably would for quite some time. Somehow, he knew exactly what Castiel was referring to and he steeled himself the best he could under the circumstances. There was no way he was going to fight anything Castiel did to him now, he knew that for sure. He stayed where he’d been deposited, not moving a single muscle, trying to get his breathing under control.

Behind him, he could feel Castiel moving his body, propping his hips up and spreading his legs. So this was it. Sam had no way to separate how afraid he was from how eager he was, and how the fuck was that even possible? Desperately wanting something he was terrified of? He had no frame of reference for this feeling, nothing in his life had prepared him for this.

A line had been crossed, clearly. No matter the comfort he’d taken in his submission to Castiel over the past few months, now it was crystal clear. His fear meant nothing, his desires meant nothing, the only thing that was important was pleasing the angel. It was as if he had created a place in his mind where he could go during times like these and in that place, everything was all right, as long as he was making Castiel happy, or at least giving him what he wanted.

Expecting nothing but complete brutality, he was shocked when Castiel first breached him with two lube-slick fingers. He wasn’t gentle or slow about it, and it hurt, goddamnmotherfuckingshit it hurt, but not like he figured it would have if Castiel had decided to just fuck him dry without any kind of preparation at all.

Not that it lasted long. Only a minute or two, but Sam was grateful for it nonetheless. When he felt Castiel’s cock lined up against his hole, he tensed, but then relaxed almost immediately as Castiel’s hand reached for his shoulder. “Be still, Sam, but the same rule applies, you are not required to remain silent.”

Without any more warning, Castiel’s dick breached the tight muscle of Sam’s ass and Sam heard himself cry out. Not that his pain was going to change anything. Castiel continued his calculated slide all the way into Sam until he could go no farther. Sam was panting, sweating, shaking, but not trying to move away. He figured it had to hurt Castiel, too, as much as he was capable of feeling pain, to have his cock shoved into such a tight space.

Sam was given approximately fifteen seconds to adjust to the intrusion before Castiel pulled back out, damn close to all the way, and slammed his dick back into Sam’s ass hard enough to wrench another scream from his throat. Castiel’s hand remained on his shoulder, though, giving Sam a sense of being controlled and being comforted at the same time.

And all right, he’d come to terms with his sexual attraction to Castiel long before, and accepted that this would happen eventually. Attraction or no, though, this did not feel good. Sam was fairly certain he felt blood and tearing as Castiel fucked into him hard enough that he thought he might pass out from the pain.

Not that Castiel would allow that.

But just like that first night they’d engaged in something sexual, Sam was snapped out of his misery when he heard Castiel grunting, not from exertion but from pleasure. The occasional moan or gasp escaped the angel’s lips and Sam concentrated on that sound to keep himself grounded, keep himself inside that safe and kind of not here place his mind had created.

The sex never got to the point where it felt good for Sam, but he didn’t really expect that it would. Eventually, he could feel Castiel’s grip on his shoulder getting tighter, the movements behind him faltering just the slightest bit, before Castiel dug into his skin and went completely still as he filled Sam’s ass with his cum.

Sam stayed right where he was, not daring to move until he was instructed. “Go clean yourself up, Sam”, Castiel ordered, as he pulled out of the mess of blood and jizz leaking from Sam’s abused hole. “Take your time. I’ll be right here when you come back out.”

On wobbly legs, Sam made his way to the bathroom and thankfully found one cloth towel that had been left behind (or placed there by Castiel). Running the tap water until it turned warm, he tried to catch his breath and wipe away his tears. At least this time he didn’t have to worry about a neglected hard-on.

This was it, really, all of it. He’d given everything he had to Castiel. Let him take every single fucking thing he wanted. Seeing the red streaks of blood on the washcloth didn’t change his mind. It was worth it. He didn’t need anything else if he was going to be able to accomplish his goals - using his powers to rid the world of demons, killing Lilith, stopping the rise of Lucifer - all of it because he needed revenge for what had happened to Dean. Yeah, he’d shut Dean out, lied to him, whatever. But those things were necessary, and contrary to outside appearances, they were done because of the deep and abiding love he felt for his brother. The boy who’d raised him when their father had been incapable of even the basics of care, the teenager who’d given up everything he could have had so that he could protect his younger brother, the man who’d sold his soul and suffered the tortures of Hell in exchange for Sam’s life.

The comfort he’d found in being under Castiel’s control…well, that was just a side-effect. A power exchange. Sam could live with that.

Especially when he came back out to the main room and found the angel ready to feed him again.

“You’re weak, Sam. I’ve injured you. It was necessary, but now I’ve got to make sure you have the strength to fight again. There is something coming, and your powers will be needed.”

Castiel let Sam have more of his blood that night than he ever had before. Despite the high, Sam felt himself succumbing to sleep faster than he would have anticipated. He didn’t even have the strength to ask what Castiel was talking about.

Action progressed at a fast pace over the next few weeks. Uriel was in and out of their lives, Anna showed up to throw them all completely off-balance. Everyone was buzzing over the murders of angels, how it could be possible, which demon was responsible for the attacks. Sam’s instinct kept him from voicing his own concerns to Dean or to Castiel. Demons couldn’t kill angels. He’d learned that in this training. He knew it for sure. But everyone seemed convinced this was the case. Castiel was probably faking it, though. If Sam knew it was impossible, then surely Castiel knew it as well. But his faith in God was still hanging on, Sam could tell, and if Castiel wasn’t faking, he was just desperately grasping at the familiar instinct to follow the will of his Father.

Finally, Castiel appeared before him after Dean had disappeared with him and Uriel hours before.

“Sit down, Sam. It’s time.”

Before Sam could even ask what it was time for, Castiel was feeding him a greater amount of blood than he’d ever given him before. He kept expecting the angel to pull away, but he didn’t, not for long after Sam started feeling that confident rush of power the blood gave him. He was almost overwhelmed; as much as he craved the blood, it came very close to feeling like too much before Castiel finally pulled away.

“This isn’t the final objective, I know, but it’s a very important step on the way to solving our current issues; not just the breaking of the seals, but the murders of the angels in my garrison.”

“Tell me what I need to do. I’m ready.” And he was, Sam was as ready as he’d ever be right that minute, strong and filled with power from Castiel’s blood.

“We’ve got him, Sam. Alastair. He’s contained in a devil’s trap that I constructed myself, unable to break free. We thought your brother might be able to interrogate him into giving us some information, but he’s been unsuccessful so far.”

Sam trembled with simultaneous anticipation and anger at this news.

“You’d send Dean to torture Alastair? Do you have any idea what that will do to him?” It was still difficult sometimes for Sam to mask his emotions when it came to the welfare of his brother, even though he knew he shouldn’t question or challenge Castiel.

His words were met with a sharp backhand to the side of his face, almost knocking him down. “We will have time to discuss this later. Right now, you are needed. Dean is not strong enough to accomplish the task he was given. You are.”

A second of Angel-Air transport later, Sam was inside the room where Alastair had broken free of his trap and was damn close to killing his brother. Dean was already unconscious, and Castiel disappeared as soon as he’d deposited Sam there. No point in risking exposure. Or maybe he had something else to do.

But it was all fine, all just fucking fine. It wasn’t Lilith, his final objective. It wasn’t something he could do to stop Lucifer’s rise, but this…oh, Sam couldn’t imagine anything other than those things that would be better than this.

Silently, he thanked himself for the decisions and sacrifices he’d made, thanked Castiel for the strength and training he’d given him.

Before him, helpless and pinned to the wall, was the demon who’d tortured his brother in Hell, who’d forced him to accept the offer of trading places that had ended up in Dean being broken almost beyond repair.

And Sam wasn’t going to send him back to hell.

Sam was going to light him right the fuck up, he was going to kill him, dead, gone, forever.

After he was done getting the truth out of him.

Whatever this Alastair had taught Dean about inflicting torture and pain in Hell, Castiel had taught Sam right here on earth.

The sight of that lifeless body on the floor, the information he’d received, the gratification he felt when he knew Alastair realized his fate…it was worth every moment of pain and humiliation Sam had endured.

When Castiel reappeared, he was bloody and clearly injured. A fierce instinct rose up in Sam, an urge to find out who’d done this to Castiel and tear them to pieces.

Immediately, Sam crossed the room. Checking for a pulse and thankfully finding that Dean was, in fact, still alive, he kept moving until he was just inches from where Castiel was leaning against the wall. They’d have to call for help, Castiel was in no position to heal Dean right away, but they had just a minute for Sam to do what he felt was right.

Sinking to his knees, he whispered his gratitude the best he could.