Yes I know. Another story. But I just had to write this ok? I apologize to any readers reading my Avengers fic. (this is also published on AO3) Hope you enjoy!
Of Boxes and Angels
Chapter One: In Which Sammy Dreams of the Blue Box
For as long as he could remember, Sam had always been involved in the supernatural. Had he not grown up surrounded by hunters he wouldn't have believed that monsters and ghosts exist. But there was one thing that he knew for certain. There was definitely no such thing as aliens. Sure, that run in they had with Gabriel pranking them and everyone else involved aliens but Sam knew that it wasn't real. Angels, demons, hell even vampires he's seen but aliens? Nah, it couldn't possibly be real.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.
See, there was this vague memory in the back of his mind that occurred sometime when he was around 6 or 7 years old when Dean and their father had left leaving Sam alone for a few hours. He could never really remember the details properly but one thing had always stood out to him in this memory: a blue box.
No matter how hard he tried to remember this moment everything still ended up fuzzy. To make things worse, he had been dreaming of this mysterious blue box repeatedly over the last few days. In these dreams he was always running towards it but it never came any closer despite how hard he was running. But all these dreams with the blue box ended the same way. The box would open and a silhouette of a man would appear in the opening of the box but as soon as Sam opened his mouth to say something the box would fade away into nothing.
Dean, of course, made fun of Sam's dream and brushed it off as something out of Sam's subconscious mind. "You never know Sammy. That man in the box could just be a clown. Like a jack-in-the-box, y'know?" He would always tell the younger Winchester.
So it was that Sam ignored these dreams. He had almost forgotten about them until something changed one night. Dean had fallen asleep and his snores filled the cramped motel room but Sam lay awake tossing and turning. He felt on edge, alert as if waiting for something to happen.
Then, he heard it. It was a strange sound, something he didn't think he could describe. But it was a there, a faint vworp vworp vworp. He froze, his hand reaching for the gun on the table next to him. He rolled out of bed silently and ducked near the window.
"Oh, what's wrong now?" A Scottish voice demanded. Sam frowned. Well this seemed new. He peeked out over the top of the windowsill and saw two people standing near a tall rectangular object with smoke pouring out of it. The woman who spoke was waving her arms around as if to send the smoke away from her. The man next to her coughed before speaking.
"The Doctor must have hit the wrong button or something." He said, burrowing his face against his sleeve. That name stirred something inside Sam but he ignored and watched in fascination as another figure stumbled out of the rectangular object.
"Rory why do you always sound like you doubt me?" The man said. Rory, who Sam figured was the tall lanky man next to the redheaded woman, sighed.
"You've done this before, remember?" Rory said tiredly. The other man crossed his arms. He looked as though he wanted to say something but shut his mouth before he could. The woman laughed.
"You were going to say 'I'm only human!' weren't you? But you aren't so you can't say that." She said in a singsong voice. Sam froze. Not human? He gripped the gun tighter and looked back over the window.
The three of them were now piling back into the box so Sam had to move quickly. He opened the door of the motel room and ran towards them but as soon as he got closer, they shut the door of the box. As he approached it cautiously he realized something. It was the same blue box that he had seen in his dreams. He stood dumbfounded in front of the box as he watched it fade away with the same vworp vworp vworp sound until it had disappeared completely. Dazed, he waved his arm around in the space where the box had been. What the hell? He thought. His mind was swirling and he felt dizzy.
"Sam?" He heard Dean's voice ask sleepily from the motel room. He turned around and saw Dean watching him with bleary eyes. "What are you doing?" Dean demanded. Sam looked back to the spot where the box had disappeared and looked back to Dean.
"I just saw… I just… The box…" He said, still not believing what he had seen. Dean rolled his eyes and stomped over to his brother.
"Dammit Sammy. Get your head together and go back to sleep." He said gruffly. Sam kept looking back at that spot until Dean whacked him across the shoulder.
"Ok! I'm going." Sam said grumpily. He followed Dean back into motel room and, before drawing the curtains shut, looked back at that spot.
A single statue of an angel with its face hidden behind its hands was standing in the place where the box had been. Sam felt goose bumps rising on his skin and drew the curtains shut before lying back in bed.
Outside, the angel statue remained, watching the door of the Winchester's room with its eyes now exposed over the tops of its hands. It stood there for the rest of the night, silent and still.
When Sam woke up the next morning, the first thing he did was to check outside the window. To his astonishment, the angel statue was nowhere to be seen. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It was probably just his imagination from last night. The whole box incident must have screwed his mind up more than he thought.
"Looking for your clown box again?" Dean asked, smirking as he entered the room with a bag of food. Sam scowled at him.
"Shut up." He grumbled. Dean shook his head before handing Sam some cold pancakes in a paper box.
"Were you smoking pot or something? I've never seen you look like that before." Dean said through a mouthful of food. Sam sighed and poked at his own breakfast.
"Dean," Sam said after a while. "Have you ever heard of something called the Doctor?" Dean snorted and shoveled more food into his mouth.
"Well, there's Doctor Sexy MD but I have a feeling that's not what you want to hear." He said noticing Sam's signature bitch face. He sighed. "Alright, alright. What's gotten your panties in a twist?"
Sam shifted uneasily. "Last night, I saw something outside." He started.
"You mean you were hallucinating about your clown box." Dean said. Sam glared at him before continuing.
"Anyways, I heard this noise so I got up to look and there was a man and a woman standing outside. They said something about pressing the wrong button and they were talking about this Doctor who wasn't human." Sam recounted. "They were all going back inside that box thing and I saw it disappear before my eyes. It just vanished into nothing. And when I went back into the motel room I looked back outside and there was this angel statue just standing where the box was and this morning the statue was gone. Can you explain that?" He demanded. Dean looked troubled.
"Look, Sam maybe this is just a side effect of having your soul put back in you. It's making you see all this weird crap." He reasoned.
"Yeah, maybe." Sam said, still unsure.
The rest of the day flew by normally. They ganked a couple of demons while trying to figure out what Crowley wanted with Purgatory and even managed to solve a little ghost issue in some small town. But Sam was still on edge. Sometimes he would see an angel statue but when he looked back it was gone.
I'm losing it. He thought to himself. He put on a brave face for Dean though. He didn't want to worry him anymore. His brother had too much too worry about already.
That night, the brothers stayed in the motel watching reruns of old sitcoms. Dean was watching with glazed eyes, drinking from a bottle happily. Sam on the other hand was on his laptop trying to search up as much as he could about the mysterious Doctor.
"Hello Dean. Sam." Dean jerked up from where he was sitting and saw Castiel standing in the middle of the room.
"Hey Cas. Any news?" He asked, hoisting himself off the sofa and onto his feet. Cas shifted uneasily.
"There is a new problem. One that I have not been prepared to face." He said gravely. Sam closed his laptop and stared at the angel.
"What kind of problem?" He asked. Cas faced him with a frown on his face.
"There are new angels." He informed them. "But these are not angels my Father created."
"Angels that aren't angels. This is new." Dean said. Sam felt a chill up his spine.
"Cas, what do these angels look like?" He asked. Cas' frown deepened.
"They are very hard to spot. They have the greatest form of defence in the world. They take the form of statues when they are seen." He said solemnly. Sam could feel Dean's gaze burning into him.
"Sam said he saw an angel statue last night. He said that this morning when he checked it was gone. Could that have been one of them?" Dean demanded. Cas turned his gaze on Sam.
"You saw one of these angels? Did you see anything else?" He pressed. Sam glanced at Dean and then Cas.
"Nothing else." He said, reluctant to tell Cas about the blue box. Dean would just dismiss it as usual anyways. Cas frowned as if sensing Sam was telling a lie but let it go.
"Be careful. I do not know what their motives are yet but I will do all I can to figure this out. I will return soon."
The sound of wings flapping came and Cas disappeared. Dean sighed.
"This is freaking brilliant!" He said with false enthusiasm. "Not only do we have to worry about Crowley finding purgatory but now we have to worry about statues that might kill us." Sam wasn't paying attention to what Dean was saying. He stared at the table blankly, his mind spinning.
Evil angel statues of death and strange blue boxes. What a week this was going to be.