Poureth Some Sugar on Me (In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit)

Author's Note: Special thanks to my beta Arial for her help! Be warned that I am a huge procrastinator and cannot guarantee any time scale.

The delicate leaves of each tree fluttered in the breeze, filling the air with a symphony of rustling. The breeze was a matter of perception of course; there was no wind in heaven unless the perceiver willed it into existence, but Castiel preferred a hint of movement. This way it seemed as if he were back on Earth, rather than in the stoic, rigid uniformity of heaven. He'd only ever visited the sacred orchard at the centre of Heaven once before, and the first time there had been neither breeze nor movement. The orchard had appeared beautiful then, but now it seemed magnificent, filled with emotion and feeling beyond anything he had previously been able to comprehend, consigned to a weapon's form, unable to think or feel. Castiel stood in front of a cherry blossom, its pink flowers perpetually in bloom no matter the season, and reached out to the bark.

"I'm sorry Anna", Castiel murmured, before letting his hand drop without touching the tree, leaving it unspoiled by his poisonous contact. The orchard had always been there. Before, it couldn't even be called an orchard, just an empty expanse of heaven that made even the highest of the heavenly host feel uneasy. Uncomfortable, simply because it hadn't been explained; it was only after the first angel died they began to realise. The orchard was the resting place of angels. Their grace remained on this hallowed ground, preserved eternally in the most sacred form of all: giving life. The first time Castiel had come here had been purely out of duty to an angel that had fallen in the assault on hell. The trees had been fewer and far between, looking more like a garden than an orchard. With the recent increase of angelic deaths, however, it seemed that the orchard would soon become a forest. Suddenly, the muffled displacement of grass alerted him to a second presence.

"You summoned me then, brother?" Balthazar's smooth drawl broke the silence, drawing Castiel out of his thoughts.

"I thought you weren't going to come". Balthazar chuckled, clearly taking Castiel's comment as an invitation to approach.

"I have to say, I wasn't going to. I haven't been to Heaven since the apocalypse and I find myself quite thoroughly…occupied on Earth. Couldn't you have picked a more cheerful spot to meet? This place has its merits I grant you, but it's not the most uplifting place for chit chat. I'll say this now, dear brother: I'm not getting involved in your bloody war. I quite like my grace where it is, and I don't want it lingering here before it's time." His tone was light, but Castiel could see a faint wariness in Balthazar's eyes. Castiel was not sure whether his misgivings stemmed from their surroundings or from Castiel's summons, but that remained to be seen.

"I...apologise for summoning you so unceremoniously, brother. I'm no leader, but honestly, I don't know who else I can tell." Balthazar did absolutely nothing to hide his curiosity, eyes lighting up with sly mischief. Castiel hesitated slightly, but needed an angel he could be sure wouldn't report everything he said to Raphael.

"Look around; there is a notable absence of a particular manifestation of grace." Balthazar's eyes trailed around the orchard, slightly narrowed in confusion. Castiel sighed and explained.

"There should be one tree that dwarfs the others. An archangel's grace should create a wondrous sight and yet I don't see an archangel's grace here." He watched his brother's eyes widen in sudden realisation.

"Gabriel's grace…it's not here?"

"Dean!" He groaned , morning filtering through his barely opening eyelids and punching him in the brain like the little bitch it was. Dean opened his eyes fully; the hazy mug of his little brother swam into view. "Good morning sunshine!" The little jerk practically yelled.

"Whatimesit?"

Sam threw some clothes at Dean and huffed, already fully dressed in his favourite shade of plaid.

"An hour past when you should have been up and questioning the widow of our decapitated guy."

God dammit! Dean shot out of bed with surprising speed, making his heavy head spin. The 'decapitated guy' in question was one Harvey Longford who had, according to the newspapers, hacked his own head of while shaving. Sam had been throwing himself from case after case lately, ever since Crowley and Cas had rather helpfully told him that his soul had been reaching for the soap in the Cage all this time. Not that Dean objected to saving lives, but now they never had the time to look for solutions for Sam's little 'problem', well big ass problem, and it was blindingly obvious that Sam did this intentionally.

The widow, Mrs 'Call me Victoria' Longford, dabbed delicately at her eyes with a napkin, sniffing almost sequentially. She had very clearly dyed blonde hair and the slight creases of budding wrinkles on her otherwise polished face, exhibiting no real sadness other than the tears welling in her eyes. Dean glanced around her house, unnerved by the pristine middle class perfection he saw. The house was straight from a freaking sitcom about the difficulties of being a rich person surrounded by the peasantry, from the elegantly framed family portraits to the glistening kitchen surfaces. It was all nauseating and worked perfectly with the raging hangover he was nursing to make him really fucking uncomfortable. The widow looked pretty uncomfortable too, her poise stiff and rigid as she sat cross-legged on the undoubtedly uncomfortable metal arm of a white armchair.

"Mrs Longford, erm Victoria, we're really sorry to have to ask this but… did your husband have any enemies who would want to…"

"Hack your husband's head off with a razor blade?" Sam interjected helpfully. Dean shot him a glare before finishing.

"…Harm him?" 'Call me Victoria' looked at him, paling.

"No…of course not! He was…well loved by everyone!" She hiccoughed, glancing frantically between the two of them, because that wasn't suspicious at all. He placed a reassuring hand on her knee.

"I'm sure he was Victoria."

"How much are you betting that guy was a dick?" Dean grumbled, swallowing his aspirin inconspicuously with the water the waitress brought. Sam sighed as his search of the police database brought up yet more piles of nothing.

"That's what I thought but there's no trace of any proof; no prison sentence, no GBH, no spousal battery, not even a frigging parking ticket. Nothing that could earn him a vengeful spirit or pissed off witch." They'd checked the house thoroughly for the standard indicators of supernatural activity, hex bags, sulphur, EMF, but all had turned up no results. Their harassed looking waitress set Dean's grease filled burger on the table unceremoniously, flicking him a disgusted look as Dean immediately attempted to force the entire thing down his throat. Sam simply sighed and allowed Dean his moment.

"Whaddifs'notsupnatural?" Dean swallowed with great difficulty and tried again. "What if it's not something supernatural?" Sam cast his mind back to the body they'd examined the day before, whose neck had been severed cleanly with the single razor blade found to be the murder weapon.

"I'm pretty sure we can rule his death as unnatural, Dean. The widow definitely knows something; I think we should question her again."

"You think she's just gonna spill all the gory details to the feds?" No, of course she wasn't. She was too good of an actor to do that.

"We'll be…persuasive."

"We're not scaring a confession out of a grieving widow!" Dean's voice was both exasperated and strained, clearly tired of Sam's logical solutions.

"Why not?! It would be a lot faster".

"Because….we're just not! Sam wouldn't!" Ah yes, of course he wouldn't. He would sacrifice efficiency and saving lives for the sake of preserving the privacy of one suspicious widow, Sam ought to have remembered that. But Dean's brother wasn't here right now; he was being tortured in hell.

"As you're so fond of reminding me, Dean, I'm not Sam!" He glared at Dean across the table, half tempted to storm out dramatically, but then again, what would that achieve? He simply went back to his laptop, scanning Harvey's company website.

"Alright, so Harvey was a quality control manager at this electrical firm. We could speak to his co-workers?" Sam suggested, attempting to convey empathy in his expression. Dean merely shrugged and continued to munch his burger, conveying no cooperation in return. Sighing deeply, Sam shut his laptop and swept away from the table.

"Like hell you are questioning anyone alone, Spock." Dean mumbled indignantly, briskly overtaking Sam and exiting the cafe. That's what I thought; Sam smirked to himself slightly before following.

It turned out that Dean was right more often than Sam gave him credit for; the moment they mentioned Harvey Longford, eyes were immediately downturned and speech became more careful.

"Well…you don't want to speak ill of the dead." One of Harvey's subordinates had told them. "I mean, it was a horrible way to go and I feel for his wife but…he wasn't a nice guy."

"Care to elaborate on that?" Sam had asked, a touch of contempt edging into his voice, which earned him a harsh poke from Dean. The man had grown even more cautious at the prompt, noticeable fidgeting.

"He…he beat his wife. I mean, everyone knew it happened but nobody ever said anything. He was high up in the company, and one time Mike called the police but nothing ever happened. Like I only ever met her once when we went to a function, but she had these bruises…I never could bring myself to say anything. I know I'm a coward, but I hope she's found some small reprieve from this." After exchanging meaningful glances, they thanked the man for his time and left him, the man still considerably flustered.

Back in the musty motel room, Dean contemplated what appeared to be the elegant spot of mould festering in the upper left hand corner of the room while Sam paced, summarising their case.

"So, the guy is an abusive dick. That's gotta have something to do with it. The only question that remains is…what offed him? We can rule out a vengeful spirit, witches and demons, at least under normal circumstances, actually we can rule out the majority of monsters, the organs were left intact." Dean remained silent throughout Sam's analysis, lounging on a flimsy wooden chair. "Dean!?" Sam barked at him, marvelling slightly at his brother's sudden flailing and narrow escape from falling backwards off the chair. Dean regained his poise ungracefully and turned to regard Sam with apathetic eyes.

"Hmph?" Sam breathed deeply and counted to three, avoiding the creeping desire to punch Dean in the nose rather hard. Dean rubbed his face and sighed, climbing out of the chair, which protested with a cacophony of squeaks and creaks, and began assessing the situation.

"So we figure the wife had something to do with his death, but her alibi was air-tight, her four coffee buddies backing it up. Obviously, something supernatural did her dirty work for her, but why? Out of the kindness of its heart? Things like this don't work that way, they've got to get something in retur- son of a bitch!" His eyes grew wide as realisation dawned on the both of them. Sam shook his head in disbelief.

"She sold her soul."

This was one hell of a dilemma in Dean's eyes. On the one hand, they had a desperate woman who resorted to desperate measures when all else failed, had killed a guy who clearly had it coming, and needed to be let out of a demon deal. On the other hand (as the giant dick wearing his brother's face kept reminding him), Victoria knew exactly what she was signing up for and it wasn't their responsibility to stop it. Still….the nagging sense of guilt at the back of his head drummed a repetitive 'stop this' into his skull. Surely, it couldn't hurt to make sure a demon deal was the real problem here before leaving. They didn't want some Godzilla-style shit going off after they left. Because, really, that was just their luck.

Baby glided smoothly to rest outside of the disgustingly suburban home and Dean climbed out alone, as the "tin man" was currently sulking in the motel room at Dean's "gentle" persuasion. He prepared himself to scare some poor shaken up woman into oblivion. The doorbell screeched obnoxiously, but it took around five minutes for Victoria to actually come to the door, evidently she had been wishing him away. Because that totally screams complete innocence.

"Yes?" She asked as she opened the door, eyeing Dean suspiciously.

"Hi, Agent Elliot, we spoke earlier and I just have a few follow up questions, can I come in?" She waved him in silently, never taking her wary eyes off his face. After he was seated on her eerily white sofa, seriously how does she keep that so clean, Victoria offered him a drink whilst her eyes warned him that he had better not accept it.

"No, thank you, I'd rather just get down to business." She nodded briskly and perched on the arm of the armchair.

"Yes of course, a-anything." She stammered, eyes now darting to anything except Dean's face.

"I know about your demon deal." Whatever reaction Dean had been expecting, it certainly wasn't the one he got. He could have dealt with false confusion, overacting her denial or any other form of concealment. What he couldn't understand was genuine confusion colouring Victoria's face, frowning as she assumed that she misheard him.

"I'm sorry…what did you say?" Well, she already assumes I'm crazy, so what the hell?

"Your demon deal? You know? Selling your soul to take your husband's head off. I get it, he was a dick, but was it really worth an eternity in hell?" He knew he was screwed before the words even left his mouth.

"I don't know who you are or why you are here but you need to leave. First, you imply that I had something to do with my husband's death and second…you rave about demons?! They're not real, you need to get help! Now leave, or I'll call the police." That could have gone a lot better, Dean thought to himself as he high-tailed it the fuck outta there, but overall, he was glad of the disastrous conversation. On the bright side, they knew demons weren't involved, however, on the more worrying side, what the hell killed Harvey Longford? Dean slide into his car quickly and sped away as fast as Baby could take him, apologising as her engine protested. He did not stop until he found a large supermarket that could give him the god damn pie he deserved after his stressful, hangover laden day. The neon sign was blindingly bright, reminiscent of the gates of heaven promising him a bountiful pie buffet within, and Dean let his posture relax. Just then, the heavy guitar riff of his cell phone interrupted his bliss.

"Someone had better be having their god damn face ripped off, Sam."

"Well… not quite. But I think I know what we're dealing with.

"I'm listening."

"I figured that if she was summoning a demon, she needed some kind of reference book or the internet because demon summoning ain't exactly your standard knowledge, so I hacked into the server of this occult, new agey-style bookstore that doesn't get a lot of business and guess what? Someone bought a book on Hinduism a day before Mr. Longford had a close shave. Pretty sketchy stuff in this book too, specifically summoning rituals. I asked in store and they reported a woman matching Mrs. Longford's description in there asking about death in religion. We need to confront her, Dean, this is dangerous stuff and we have to stop it." Dean heavily disliked Sam's emphasis on the 'stopping' part but even he had to admit that pagan gods were a lot more clean-cut than a demon deal. He looked longingly at the supermarket before bringing the cold receiver back to his face.

"Alright, meet me at her house."

Sam flipped the phone shut in frustration. He knew that Dean wouldn't let him deal with the widow as they should, everything in his tone almost yelled 'no' even as his words agreed. Pagan gods were a whole other league to a simple demon deal, who knows what kind of favours Victoria promised the god in return for a murder. It was highly unlikely that whoever she summoned wanted to kill Harvey, leaving his corpse uneaten, without asking for anything in return. Without even considering his options, Sam hotwired the first car he saw in the motel parking lot, a shabby run-down thing with a suspicious damp smell, and drove in silence to Victoria's house. He found Dean parked inconspicuously at the top of the street, sitting in the impala and gesturing for Sam to get in.

"Took you long enough to get here." Sam stared at Dean in exasperation.

"I didn't have a car and that one smells of piss. Anyway, why are you all the way out here?" Dean looked down guiltily.

"Victoria threw me out of the house when I asked about demons." He mumbled, pouting as he frowned.

"Fantastic, so shall I talk to her alo-"The impala door slammed shut before Sam could even finish his sentence.

"I guess not." Sam murmured to himself before following.

Victoria started in shock as she saw Dean, instantly moving to slam the door before Sam wedged his foot in the doorway.

"I'm sorry, but it is vital that we talk to you!" She made desperate efforts to break Sam's foot, causing him to wince slightly upon each slam as the jolt echoed up his tendons.

"Leave me alone! You're here to talk about more demons or whatever it is you mad people believe in!" Her shrieking was soon to alert the neighbourhood to their efforts to break into an unarmed widow's home so Sam quickly muttered back.

"That was a mistake. We know the truth now; you've been summoning a Hindu god." The pain abated as she opened the door slightly.

"I beg your pardon?" She spoke softly, her voice barely a whisper

"Please let use in, we can talk about this." Dean said gently. The door opened smoothly, revealing Victoria's terrified face, her eyes fearful as she regarded the two of them.

"Co-come in, quickly." She stammered, casting a cautious glance around the rest of the street before standing back to let them in. Her familiar house was pristine as ever, the smell of chemical bleach slightly fading in the air and making Sam wondered who had dared get a slight speck of dirt in this pristine palace. Victoria waved a trembling hand at the sofa at took the sleek metal framed armchair herself, smoothing down the pleats in her skirt with a nervous tremor to her every movement. Once they all took their seats, she stared at them both desperately.

"How did you know?" Sam leaned forward; from the corner of his eye he could see Dean's terrified eyes, still distrustful of his every action. He wasn't a monster; he knew what he was doing.

"That doesn't matter, it happened and that's that. What we need to do is stop the consequences." Her face grew even paler. "What consequences? This woman seriously had no idea what she was doing. The stupidity of most people who dabbled in this stuff astounded him, hard to believe that this sobbing mess had killed her husband.

"Well that depends really." He could feel his tone getting colder but he made no effort to make it warmer for her comfort, she was no innocent woman.

"On-on what?" She hiccoughed.

"Which god you summoned. So who was it then? Which almighty god decided to lend a hand to a Christian woman?" Victoria blushed deeply and glanced at the crucifix on the wall with sad eyes before speaking.

"I had no choice, God wasn't listening. So I turned to another." Dean leaned forward then, prompting Victoria to continue. "I summoned the destroyer, Kali."