longestnight_old | (no subject)

Bunny caught that, just as Sam had caught his tension at the mention of what he was.

They were near strangers. There were things you didn't push with near strangers.

And they had plenty else to work on anyway.

"Yeah? We'll work on that. Looked like telekinesis from the outside. Is there anything else you're expecting?"

Sam grimaced. "There are some other possibilities, yeah. I'm kind of hoping the visions don't come up again because those really sucked a lot." He really didn't want to have to deal with the headaches and bloody noses again.

"Visions?" Bunny repeated. "So if they weren't always connected to adrenaline, what triggered them back in your world?"

Privately he was wondering exactly how he and Jack were going to help Sam get a handle on his new abilities, short of throwing things at him to induce adrenaline. His abilities had nothing to do with telekinesis, and everything to do with a lot of rituals and rhythms he'd been born into naturally. But humans generally didn't have visions.

Sam went quiet for a few moments before shaking his head. "I haven't had those for years," he said finally. "There's...there's a lot of stuff caught up in the powers, the visions that...hard to explain." He mostly didn't want Bunny and Jack thinking worse of him because of the demon influence in his life. The darkness that probably still lingered on him. But he also knew that he needed to explain something. "The whole angels and demons thing? Well, it's true in my world. Religion gets a lot of it wrong, but enough. Including the whole Armageddon thing, the final battle between Heaven and Hell. One demon, while prepping for it, went around and...basically induced powers in kids by priming them with a few drops of demon blood. Not a lot, but enough to bring on the powers in their early twenties. Which is about when I got the visions."

Sam probably expected a negative reaction, and Bunny did not disappoint.

"Wait a minute, that's why you're so competent?" His jaw had dropped open in disgust. "That's why you're prepared to go up against parasites that eat belief - why you go around fighting monsters - because when you were a kid, some actual demon fed you its blood? To make you a soldier?"

He paused briefly to process that, his tension and anger building in the moment of silence.

"That scum-sucking ratbag better be dead already. Winchester, when this business with Kuk is done, you have our support. Me, Jack, the rest of the Guardians - nobody goes around poisoning kids while we know about it, other world or not."

It wasn't QUITE the negative reaction that Sam thought he might get. He couldn't help but stare a moment, then shook his head. "He's dead. Though that wasn't where the competence came from. Believe me, we ran into a lot of the other kids who were the same way and only one of them became a soldier. Literal soldier in Jake's case, he was with the Army."

He'd killed Sam. He did his best not to hold a grudge there.

"What Azazel did do is kill our mom. Which Dad didn't handle very well at all. He got focused on revenge and took me and Dean along for the ride. That's how I ended up this competent."

He still hadn't named ages yet. It was...probably better for Bunny not to know that the poisoning had happened at six months of age. That he and Dean had never really had the luxury of believing in Santa or the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny because their lives hadn't been normal, moving from one hotel to another. "Dad's gone, too. A few years back, saving Dean's life. But support...that would be nice, but you have your own problems here, even after this is all mopped up."

Bunny couldn't decide if that was worse, marking these kids out for soldiers then giving them no guidance. If you're going to exploit children - oh who was he kidding. Nobody exploited children within his earshot.

Six months or six years, it was clear that Sam had been very solidly denied a formal childhood. How he and the other Guardians had factored into a world where demons were able to slip into kids' houses, bleed in their mouths, and kill their mothers gave him leave to believe that Sam had had less reason than most as a child to believe in them, but worse than that, less reason to believe in what they represented.

And yet Sam had turned out so quick to help. Guarded, yes, but competent and protective, and ready to pick up another world's problems alongside his own.

He'd grown into what appeared to be a very good adult, with so little help in his childhood to do so.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said, quietly. Whether he meant the loss of Sam's parents, or the loss of his childhood, or both, his tone was sincere. The look on his face wasn't pitying. It was respectful. And maybe a little proud - strange, on a near-stranger's face. A relative who hadn't had a chance to watch Sam grow, but been impressed by what he grew into, might have looked at him that way.

Bunny leaned back with a sudden smirk. "But you don't get to pick up our war and not get our help in return. You said armageddon's on your table? What do you call this? One good turn deserves another. But if the Judeo-Christian myths are the heavy hitters in your world, you might have to bring the rest of us up to speed on who's who and why."

Boy the Easter Bunny sure did just call the Biblical canon mythic.

"And I'd better do the same for you. Things around here are a little more -" he shrugged. "You could say 'Pagan.'"

Sam really wasn't too certain how to handle that. Dean and Bobby, yeah, he could handle them being proud of him. Dad hadn't been proud of him most of the time, but he'd tried. Sometimes.

Bunny was almost a stranger and that look made Sam duck his head, rubbing the back of his neck. Really, really not certain how to handle it.

"Ah...well, it was," he said after a few moments. "It's pretty much been averted now. Possibly forever. I don't know if they could open up Lucifer's cage again, but I doubt it would be in my lifetime and..." Sam closed his mouth, trying to close down the babbling. "Ah. There are other factors. Like the fact that, in order to function on Earth, angels and demons all need vessels. Ones that are from the proper bloodlines. My brother and I are the last living members of two bloodlines of vessels. The ones that would be needed to get things restarted. So, you know. We die and it all goes out the windows for them anyway."

The word 'Pagan' brought a small, small smile to his face. "They aren't always exclusive. Or weren't in my world." The word would always make him think of Gabriel, he thought. No matter how many other Pagans they ran into.

The pride was genuine, but it was a novel thing for Bunny to be able too express it, even indirectly, to anyone - much less an adult. And one who hadn't even grown up under his protection.

But he'd always admired mortals. They did so much with so little time.

He moved on with a chuckle. "Far as being exclusive goes, I could tell you a thing or two about appropriation. There are beings you could call gods in this world, but anything that gets called an angel or a demon has an older name to go by."

The discussion about offering their help in Sam's world wasn't over, but it could be finished after they'd handled the matter of this one.

Sam hummed at that, considering. "You know, that's a good point. The gods in our world are more powerful because of belief. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the Judeo-Christian God actually grew in power because of belief as well. Though, of course, the angels we've talked to all say they've been around since the beginning of time. Never easy to tell what the truth there is."

Though, really, Sam trusted Castiel further than he trusted most people outside of Dean.

He nodded again, though. "I'm not actually terribly religious, myself, though it's impossible not to believe in something with everything we've seen. But it's different between our worlds, so the more I know about how things work here, the better."

"Hah." Bunny leaned against the table, with a thoughtful chuckle. "Is it being religious if you've met the gods in question?" He shrugged. "Ah, 'course most of 'em had their own stories they told their believers, but past the mortal circle, stories from gods are less gospel and more a constant competition to one-up each other. But I believe Anansi -" he paused. "Most of the time. Enough of the time."

Probably about as much as Anansi wanted him to. He was enough of a Trickster himself to recognize that.

"And I believe Gaia and Terra, but I've got insight with them."

"I knew an angel who went undercover as Loki. Got himself in with the 'gods' back home. Did a fairly good job of it. Though he tended toward eating candy rather than human flesh." Sam raised an eyebrow. "My world? Is kind of fucked up that way."

It seriously, seriously was. And Sam had thought that even before he had seen this one. "But I wouldn't have trusted most anything he said. But...there's only about one angel I actually do believe, so there's that."

Bunny raised his eyebrows back. "Don't let your guard down yet. We've got things that eat both of those here, too."

Maybe in a lower volume than in Sam's world, but they existed.

"Who's this angel?" Best to see now if he had an equivalent in this world - or just to recognize him if he showed up.

"Oh, hey, I wasn't going to. Just mentioning." Since Sam didn't exactly want to be eaten.

And he might be a mythological spirit now, but he had a feeling that wasn't going to stop some of them.

Sam hummed softly. "Castiel. He's pulled me and Dean out of a lot of tight spots. Unless you meant the one that went undercover as Loki. That one's Gabriel."

"Never heard of him. Castiel, not Loki."

He rolled his eyes.

"Our Loki's no angel, though, and that's deadset."

"If you met Gabriel, I'm not certain you'd call him an angel, either." Sam had had a few other words for him. "In the end, though, he sacrificed himself to keep Dean and I alive and gave us information on how to put the breaks on the Apocalypse, so I'm more inclined to not speak too badly of him these days."

It had been years, though.

Sam snorted softly. "I'm not surprised. Not that I wouldn't love to have Cas here. But I'm not at all certain how he'd handle all of this." He paused, then, "Actually, I take that back. He's a lot more used to not being seen or understood by humans. It probably wouldn't faze him much."