(6/17/2020) I know, I suck. It's been forever.
I discovered I'd written myself into a writer's block by adhering to the dates and to canon, so I finally got myself to say "fuck it" and chucked everything out the window. In other words, I've decided to kill all the dates. The only exception is the first chapter. I was just pounding my head against the wall trying to make it all logically fit. In the end, I'm going to live in that vague time-flow of TV land.
Thank you all those people who have decided to follow, and I will thank all of you who will leave a bit of a review!
Dean and Buffy decided to keep watch on Jimmy in shifts. Joyce even helped by preparing a pitcher of sweetened iced coffee for both her daughter and pseudo-stepson. They let Jimmy use the spare bedroom and loaned him some of Dean's clothing after he requested a shower. Buffy jokingly offered to get some of Angel's instead, but was denied. She grumbled about the lost opportunity; seeing Castiel's vessel in her boyfriend's usual black on black outfit would have been a sight to treasure.
The night passed without incident, though the sight of Jimmy in a t-shirt and regular jeans made both Buffy and her brother uncomfortable. To their relief Sam returned unscathed in the small hours of the morning, though rather than volunteer for watch duty he immediately sprawled onto the couch and fell asleep.
During breakfast the next morning the doorbell rang. Dean opened it to find a petite blonde woman and her preteen daughter. "Can I help you?"
The stranger looked at a slip of paper. "I was told to come here to find Jimmy Novak," she said quietly.
"Amelia!" Jimmy cried. He rushed to the doorway and shoved Dean aside. "Claire, oh my God. How did you…?"
Tears stood out in the woman's eyes. "I… I had that phone of yours traced. We took the first flight we could to Los Angeles."
Joyce cautiously approached the door, followed closely by both Buffy and Sam, and was immediately treated to a suspicious look from Jimmy's wife. Amelia glanced from Buffy's mother to her husband and asked, "Who is this? What's going on?"
"No, no!" Jimmy said with a nervous laugh. "It's not what you think."
Comprehension dawned on Joyce at the same time. "Oh, dear Lord, no. I'm Joyce Summers," she greeted pleasantly. "My daughter and her brothers have been, um… helping your husband. Come in, please."
Jimmy's family stepped inside. Amelia looked up at her husband then to Joyce. "Is there somewhere we can talk? Privately?"
Buffy's mother nodded sympathetically. "Go ahead into the kitchen. We'll stay out here."
"Thank you."
"I need to go to work," Joyce told her daughter. She gave her a kiss on the head. "Call me if you need me."
"Okay, mom," Buffy replied. Her mother said her goodbyes to Sam and Dean, told the Novak family that it had been nice to meet them, and left.
As Jimmy apprehensively followed his estranged wife into the other room, Buffy took it upon herself to make Claire comfortable. "Sooooo… wanna watch TV?"
"I suppose," the girl replied in a small voice. Her eyes darted nervously between the strangers in front of her and where her parents had disappeared.
"Don't you have school?" Sam wondered. Buffy elbowed him in the side. Hard. "Ow!"
Dean flipped the flatscreen on and gently tossed the remote into Claire's lap. "Have at it. Can I talk to you two?" Without waiting for an answer, the hunter grabbed their arms and pulled them outside.
"You know," Buffy said irritably, "if you want me to be good and go be bored in class all you need to do is say so."
"It ain't that," Dean grumbled. "Screw school."
"Yay!" his sister cheered as Sam choked on an objection.
Dean made certain that the Novaks were still occupied before quietly saying, "Yesterday I let Cass— Jimmyuse one of our phones. I turned it off and ditched the card soon as he was done. He wasn't talkin' to his family for more than five, maybe ten minutes."
"So tracing it would have been hard," Sam surmised, "but not impossible."
"You really think the Sunday school teacher in there's got hackers on speed dial?"
"What're we supposed to do?" Buffy asked, exasperated. "Go Guantanamo on a little kid and her mom?"
"No, but I think we need to keep an eye on them."
"Well, I'm late for class. Can you drive me?"
"Lazy-ass."
"Me in a nutshell."
"Yeah, you're a nut all—"
The pithy remark Dean prepared to make went unfinished. From inside the house came the shrill scream of Jimmy Novak's daughter. All three siblings rushed back through the open door to see Mrs. Novak holding a knife to her daughter's throat. Jimmy was sprawled face-first on the carpet, out cold. "Hey, kids," Amelia said amiably. She blinked and her eyes filled with ink. "Mommy needs to take her little baby out for a bit, okay?"
"Let her go now," Buffy growled.
The demon grinned. "I'll tell you what. We know there's another powered down angel in town. You bring her and Jimmy to us tonight for a little talk. Then Claire here keeps all her inside where they're supposed to be." The girl in question whimpered.
"Why?" Dean demanded. "Where?"
"I don't need to explain anything to you, meatsack. You'll get the info soon as we're ready for you." A moment later she and her hostage were gone.
Sam rushed over to Jimmy's prone form. "He's alive. I don't get it. Why didn't they just take him?"
"Really not high on the priorities right now," Buffy said. "What do we do?"
"Go get Anya," Dean growled.
"What? We're not serving her up like… like a pie!"
Irked by the negative connotations being thrown around his favorite dessert, Dean folded his arms and glowered down at his sister. "Now."
"Ugh, fine!"
As Buffy flounced out of the door, her brothers carefully picked up Jimmy and carried him to the couch. The back of his head was bleeding, a consequence of the blow that must have taken him by surprise. It wasn't a major wound; bandages and antiseptics would do to treat it. Dean muttered apologies to Joyce for staining her upholstery while they ministered to the wound.
They were patting down the last of the adhesives when Jimmy let out a groan. He abruptly scrambled upright and cried, "Claire!"
"Easy buddy," Sam said soothingly, his hand on the man's shoulder to prevent him from bolting. "You took a bad hit."
Jimmy's face wrenched in despair, an expression neither brother would have thought possible when Castiel had inhabited his vessel. He grabbed two fistfuls of canvas jacket. "My daughter, they took my daughter! Please, you've got to get her back."
"We'll figure it out," Dean said over his brother's shoulder. "In the meantime, let's make sure you don't have a concussion."
Tearfully, Jimmy slumped back into the Summers' couch. "I should never have said yes. How stupid could I be?"
Dean ran his fingers through his own hair. "It ain't like you knew."
"What do I do after this? What can I do?"
"Run," Sam said harshly. He folded his arms and loomed over Jimmy. "Hide. But stay away from your wife and daughter."
"For how long?"
"Don't you get it? Forever. The demons will never stop. You can never be with your family." Made furious by the want driving his every thought, Sam easily ignored how Dean was gaping. "So you either get as far away from them as possible or you put a bullet in your head. And that's how you keep your family safe. But there's no getting out and there's no going home.
"Well," Dean uttered, bemused over his brother's sudden vitriol, "don't sugarcoat it, Sam."
Sam whirled around. "I'm just telling him the truth, Dean. Someone has to."
As Jimmy bent over with his head in his hands, Dean stared at his brother. It was time to address the issue headfirst. "You know, you've been bitchier than usual lately. What, you gettin' sympathy PMS from Buffy?"
"What? No! It's just…" Sam swallowed. "I'm just tired, that's all. And worried about Cass."
That hesitation was all Dean needed to hear. There was something happening to Sam, something bad. Maybe, Dean thought, it was time to get Bobby in on the situation, but before he could make up a lie to excuse himself out of the room his phone rang. "Yeah?"
"Mr. Winchester," came Wesley's pompous accent, "we have an issue."
"Yeah? So? Deal with it."
"It has to do with the task you lay upon your sister."
It took Dean a moment to remember Buffy had been asked to retrieve Anya, their other powerless angelic vessel. "And?"
"Miss Jenkins will not be joining us. She has absconded from her education."
"Huh? 'Absconded'?"
Unlike his brother, Sam understood the uncommon word and stiffened in alarm. Through the speaker they could hear Wesley give an exasperated sigh. "Miss Jenkins did not show up for class this morning. The young woman is missing."
Daylight meant Angel was unable to aid in their search. He promised to start as soon as the sun had set. Dean drove about hoping against everything that maybe she'd just gone down the road for a bout of truancy like every other normal teenager did once in a while, and Sam called Faith. The dark-haired Slayer didn't respond to multiple attempts, as well as a slew of text messages, which couldn't have boded anything good. Nevertheless, Anya was the priority, and once Buffy and her friends were done with school they joined in the pursuit.
It ended up being a moot endeavor; Anya showed up at Giles' door at sundown. Without preamble, the former angel plowed her way inside and demanded, "Hide me."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Are you deaf or something? Hide me!"
"Young lady—"
"Don't you understand? I'm powerless, and unlike Castiel's meatsuit I still remember everything. So unless you want me spilling state secrets then hide me." Belatedly, the woman added, "Please."
A few short phone calls later and Giles' vehicle was puttering its way up the hill to Angel's home with both Anya and Buffy as passengers. Jimmy Novak was already there putting the final touches on the task he'd been assigned; helping the vampire secure the home against demonic intrusion. Finally done with the last squiggly mark, he dropped the empty canister of spray paint onto the floor and sank into the vampire's couch. Seeing that he was alone gave Jimmy the opportunity to let his misery take hold. "You didn't tell me it would be like this," he whispered, his head bowed, hoping against everything the angel could still hear him. "I had a family. A life, damn you, and now it's all gone to ashes."
Something shifted in the corner of his eye. When he swiveled towards it he beheld the vampire. Jimmy was fairly certain he wouldn't have seen the creature if it hadn't wanted him to. He was still apprehensive over the existence of monsters despite the fact one had been using his body as transport for the past year or so. It was just so difficult to swallow the idea that the things in the dark were real.
Seeing as how they were using Angel's home, Jimmy thought it would be impolite to tell the vampire to leave him be. "Do you want to sit?"
"Thanks," Angel said as he sat on the opposite side of the couch. "Was it really so bad?"
Jimmy shrugged and repeated what he'd told the Summers women. "Like being chained to a comet."
"At least you were able to do some good."
"Did I?" Jimmy asked despondently. "I don't remember all of it, but what I do remember?" He stared down at the back of his palms. "Castiel said it himself: he's a warrior of God. Violence is as easy to him as breathing. My own hands were being used to… to…"
"'And war broke out in heaven'," Angel recited. "'Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.'"
"Revelations 12:7 through 9. You know the Bible?" Jimmy asked, astonished.
Angel smiled sadly. "My father pounded the good book into my head when I was a youth. He thought it might help to make me something of myself."
"Oh? What happened to him?"
"Died by my hands."
Jimmy blanched. "Dear God."
The vampire sighed. "It's been over three hundred years and the memory of it still haunts me. So you see, it could have been worse. Much, much worse."
The front door banged open, forestalling Jimmy's opportunity to comment on the vampire's revelation. "Hey!" Sam said. "All the sigils done?"
"Yes," Jimmy replied.
"You know, this is my house," Angel groused. "Maybe cut back on the demon-proofing a bit so I can actually get around."
"What else are we supposed to do?" Sam answered belligerently, his mood instantaneously far less pleasant than it had been a moment earlier. "Drive out to Sioux Falls to Bobby's?"
Sam squirmed under Angel's narrowed gaze. "Something the matter?" the vampire wondered blithely.
"No. Nothing. Sorry, it's just… um…"
The young man's hesitation fed more into Angel's suspicions that Sam was consuming demon blood. Whatever had motivated him to begin drinking it in the first place couldn't possibly weigh against the risks, particularly if his supply was running low. A hungry vampire made for a particularly vicious hunter, but when adding in the want of addiction…?
Drugs were nothing new. Humans had tainted their blood with chemicals and additives ever since the first man ate his first hallucinogenic mushroom. By the time Angel had been turned, opium was widespread. The one time he'd made the mistake of feeding off of someone who'd chased the dragon he'd been left in a happy stupor. Once the high had come down, Darla had left him to Drusilla's version of "care" (which involved leeches in intimate places and dead flowers shoved up his nose).
The demon hadn't come along until after William had joined their little trio. A year before the curse had cleansed Angel's soul, wild William had heard rumor of a back alley den in Berlin that catered to unearthly delights. Though they were a country away, feasting on Slavic nobility in Portugal, they were intrigued by the prospect. With the railways now made efficient, travel would be far easier, and the quartet of monsters had sought it out.
It was a wondrously titillating place, with debauchery of all sorts on display. Sex in every imaginable form, opium and morphine on the tables, sumptuous meals in the corners with questionable ingredients (the most common being an array of human fingers). Drusilla and William had been enthralled, though Darla called the offerings "quaint". Angelus merely found the whole thing crass.
Until he spotted the woman.
She'd been gloriously half-naked, her robe falling gently from pale shoulders, with hair balled up on either side of her head in a fantastic flowery arrangement that Angel had later learned was Chinese. Exotic, beautiful, and, judging by how she was rejecting a patron, new.
Angelus had "rescued" her by playing the gentleman. Grateful, the woman had clung to his arm and steered him to a quiet back room. She settled him on the bed and turned, dropping her silks slowly and shyly. When she came back around, Angelus was standing bare inches away, his face a horror.
Only… she didn't scream. She didn't say anything. She did, however, shove the vampire across the room with a strength belied by her size. He'd crashed into the armoire and lay there, stunned, as the woman blinked and revealed black eyes.
They fought, laying blows on one another that would have shattered the bones of a normal human. In the end, it was the demon's choice of a diminutive meatsuit that gave Angelus the advantage. It was perfect for luring men into ten-year deals, and detrimental to a physical confrontation. Angelus managed to use his greater size to flatten the thing to the ground. He practically sat on her before leaning over and latching onto her neck.
She tasted horrible. But he kept drinking. There was something… more to her blood that he had to have. When he'd finally had his fill, the demon immediately abandoned the drained body, fleeing from the desiccated mouth through the cracks in a window.
Angel remembered the feel of power through his veins. He'd walked out of the lady's boudoir and bumped into the proprietor. The man's complaints irritated the vampire. With a wave of his hand, the proprietor flew backwards into the main hall. Angelus had chased after, laughing, and spotted and entire room of irritants that needed to be squashed.
It took Drusilla's hypnosis to make the slaughter stop. Daybreak was far too near, and the vampires needed to be away from the sun, and away from the crime scene, as soon as possible. They dragged Angelus out and several blocks away into a hovel whose inhabitants wouldn't be missed.
He had to have more. The desire was unbearable, and Angel was impressed despite himself over how well Sam was masking it. Once he'd been able, the vampire had walked the streets sniffing for another demon. His anger upon failing day after day began verging on insane, much to the disturbance of Berlin's lower class. The mutilated bodies Angelus began to drop were beginning to attract notice, and Darla had no intention of being driven out of another city by a torch-wielding mob. Three days after Angelus had fed on the hellspawn, he entered the dilapidated home and found a bag over his head and a knife at his throat
They had to restrain him. Ropes and cuffs were too easily broken, so William foreshadowed his current moniker by using railroad spikes to affix Angelus to the floor. He'd ridden out the withdrawals, hallucinations and all, with metal piercing his palms and his ankles. When it was finally over, Darla swore she would leave him in a church, head and heart intact and entrails draping over the pews, if he ever made such a stupid mistake again. Combined with the horrors spawned by his own subconscious, Angelus had no problems conceding.
Thinking of Buffy even near her younger brother made the vampire uneasy. Unconsciously, he let out a soft growl, one that had Sam stepping away and reaching into his jacket for the holy water he kept stored there.
Fortunately, Dean (who'd been standing outside waiting for Giles) chose that moment to enter. He was followed by Anya and their loud argument stifled Angel's opportunity to confront Sam. "I don't give a fuck if he tore it out through your ass," Dean said angrily. "If you did what he said then you deserved it."
"It was my Grace!" Anya snarled. "He took away what made me me."
Grateful for the distraction, Sam inserted, "If your Grace was all you were then you're a poor excuse for an Angel."
"How dare you." Anya walked up to the significantly taller human and poked him in the chest. "If I had my powers I would smite you right now."
"Yeah? You don't. So lay off the bitch act and sit down."
As the pair continued to bicker, Angel drew Dean aside. "Where's Buffy?"
"Out helping Jeeves make sure that gray heap of his doesn't roll down your driveway." Dean's brow furrowed. "What's up?"
"There's something wrong with your brother," the vampire said quietly.
"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock."
"I think he might be doing something behind your back."
"That ain't new."
The caustic response wasn't surprising; Angel had been there when Sam's new powers and the demon who had been helping him was unearthed. "I know, but—"
"Dean!" Sam exclaimed. He held up his ringing phone to display the caller ID. Both the vampire and the hunter approached as the younger of Buffy's brothers hit the speaker button. "Faith?"
From the phone came the Slayer's breathless voice. "Hey, Sammy! I don't suppose you and yours are anywhere near Kingsman's Bluff Cemetery?"
"Other side of town. Why? What's going on?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just got demons on my ass. You know they get wicked pissed if you stake 'em?"
"Demons?" Dean interjected. "Why are demons going after you?"
"Other than me putting a hole in one of their chests? Something about a seal, and—shit!"
"Faith?" Sam called desperately as the other side of the line thumped into the dirt. The sound of flesh smacking flesh followed. "Faith? We're coming now, Faith!"
The brothers began hurrying to their car, but were arrested by a new voice coming from Sam's phone. "Winchesters."
"Let her go, you son of a bitch!" Dean growled.
"Aw, but the little slut's so sweet looking when she's sleeping. But I'm not into Sam's sloppy seconds."
Outraged, Sam said, "I never —"
"Yeah, yeah, deny all you want. Want the bitch? Warehouse on Brobash and Third. Come alone, Jimbo, you and the other feathered whore. You have one hour before we start entertaining ourselves, starting with the kid."
The call ended. Sam grabbed Jimmy's sleeve before he could bolt. "We can't just go running over there."
"No, screw you! This is my family, my wife and daughter. Claire is only 10 years old!"
"Yeah? How do you even know they're both alive? We're walking into a trap!"
Jimmy slid out of his borrowed flannel and rushed to the exit. He swung open the door only to stop himself short of plowing into Giles. "Mr. Novak, where are you going?"
"To save my family! Get out of my way!"
"What's going on?" Buffy asked from behind her Watcher.
Giles' attention only wavered for a moment, but it was enough. A twist of his body and a great heave cleared Jimmy's way through the Watcher and his charge. Stunned, the pair watched the man take off at a dead sprint down the road.
Lifted eyebrows conveyed Buffy's query to her brothers. "Demons," Dean answered. "Got Faith now, too."
"I'll go get him."
As the others separated into the two cars (with Dean practically heaving Anya into the Impala's back seat), Buffy chased the errant Mr. Novak. Repeatedly calling his name and warning him of the consequences did nothing to slow Jimmy down. Lips set in a thin line, Buffy had no choice but to follow through with her threat.
A few minutes later, Dean rolled his car to a gentle stop at the curb nearest his sister. "The hell happened?"
From her perch on the back of Jimmy Novak's prone body, Buffy explained, "I told him if he didn't stop I was going to do a football thingy and take him down. He didn't stop."
"Please," groaned the man currently pinned to the grass, "get this crazy girl off of me."
"Only if you're going to be cooperative instead of cooperative-less."
"That's not a word," Anya chastised from the back seat.
"You're not a word."
"That doesn't even make sense—"
"Enough!" Dean barked. "Get Cass— Jimmy in. Sam, Jeeves, and Angel are already heading to the address to do some recon. Let's go."
Fifteen minutes later, the Impala came to a rumbling halt next to a lit corner in Sunnydale's warehouse district. Sam and Giles moved forward out of the darkness. "They're nearby," the Watcher said quietly as the quarter exited the vehicle. "We've seen inside and Angel is still keeping watch. Faith is tied up against a pillar with at least two demons on guard." Giles turned towards Jimmy. "Your daughter is alive."
"Oh, thank God."
"Her mother is blonde?" Novak nodded. "Then she's the one standing over the girl."
"So, what now?" Buffy asked.
"They want us to come alone, and that's what we're going to do."
"No, we are not!" Anya snapped.
"Yes, we are!"
"And get both of you eviscerated!" Sam hissed. "Not an option."
"You have a better one?"
"I do," Dean interjected. "You let me know when you're ready and we're good to go."
"I need a minute," Jimmy said quickly.
Outraged, Sam threw his hands up. "Are you kidding me?"
"A minute. Please."
"Dude," Dean snapped at his brother, "chill." To Jimmy he said, "Not a second more."
"You have a plan?" Buffy asked her eldest brother incredulously as Jimmy walked away. "That's new."
"Trust me. It's a good one." Dean turned to Giles. "You stay on the outside, make sure there's no surprises."
"Are you certain you won't need my help?" the Watcher asked worriedly.
"Two hunters and the Slayer. We're good, Jeeves. Just make sure they ain't goin' behind our back."
"Very well."
Jimmy returned a few moments later. "I'm ready."
"Good," said Dean. "You go on ahead, let them think we're doing what they want. We'll be right behind."
Castiel had listened, helpless, as Jimmy Novak screamed and railed against him on Earth. "I promised," he whispered. "I promised."
"Yes, you did," crooned his tormentor, his captor, his corrector. Her drill whined to life. "And because you disobeyed, you have broken it and are now under my hands."
"No. No! I was doing what is right. I was keeping our Father's covenant!"
"Your covenant is to obey."
The point bit into Castiel's eye. It rooted about in his head, destroying the tendency to do other than what he was told, rearranging his desires to align with what his superiors demanded. This, here, the burgeoning friendship with the Winchesters and their abomination of a sister, scratched off. Over here, the unhealthy attachment to humanity, minimized. That, his strange inclination towards independent thought, eliminated as much as possible. They obviously couldn't destroy everything; that would leave only a useless husk of an angel and Castiel was too good of a soldier to be left on the garbage heap. He could keep the minimum and still be useful.
After several minutes, he slackened in his restraints. His corrector could now do her work unhindered, for Castiel now realized what was happening to him was well deserved.
What would befall Jimmy Novak and his family was no one's fault but his.
Acknowledgement : Some lines of dialogue are taken directly from the episode, "The Rapture" (SPN 4.20).
Author's Note : So I'm running with the theory that any creature with demon blood gets a high from drinking it. I mean, supposedly the other Special Children would have been able to do the same thing as Sam, right? Therefore, demon blood = crack for vampires.
