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I am not I / I am barely my own shadow
— Dulce María Loynaz , from “CXXXVI ,” Absolute Solitude: Selected Poems (Archipelago, 2016)
The exorcism falls easily from his mouth; he doesn’t trip over the long since memorized syllables as he watches the man convulse, coughing and choking as Dean watches wearily, demon-killing knife in hand, paranoid.
The abandoned barn is wide and vast, roof high enough that Sam’s voice echos from the very crevices, the way the moonlight falls between the slats and illuminates areas of grass. As they watch how the man splutters, coughs up black smoke for one last time and collapses onto the dirt strewn floor.
Sam steps away from Dean, placing a hand on the man’s neck, paying attention to the thankfully strong heartbeat he can feel beneath his fingers. He doesn’t look hurt in any other way and Sam’s thankful for it.
“Still say you shoulda let me stab the guy,” Dean grumbles in protest as he watches Sam lodge a 911 call about a collapsed man. Sam shoots him a glare, moonlight illuminating them as they stepped through the arches of light.
“Somewhat counterproductive considering we’re trying to save people, Dean, not become actual serial killers despite what the media think,”
Dean shrugs, waving the demon-killing knife in that irreverent way of his that makes Sam twitch slightly.
“Go big or go home, right, Sammy?” Dean says cheerfully, even as he shoves the blade into his belt, the Impala door creaking loudly in the midnight air as Dean settles himself in the driver’s seat. “Just like that pie I’m gonna have when I get in,”
“You’re an absolute psychopath,” Sam tells Dean as he collapses into the passenger seat himself, seeing Dean’s grin from the corner of his vision as the moonlight shifts further from behind a heavy cloud and into open skies, illuminating the arcs of the barnes, the dilapidated and caved in front doors, the dew wet grass and the spit shined expanse of the Impala. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
As Dean throws the Impala into gear, the smooth growl of her purring through the night, Dean turns towards him and gives a grin with too many teeth to be entirely sincere.
“Why I got you, ain’t it, bitch?”
Sam rolls his eyes, feeling familiar exasperation and fondness climbing up his spine and settling into the back of his throat. He doesn’t say anything for several minutes, just gazes out of the window as Dean manages to get them back onto a highway road, twenty five miles from Beaumont, Texas, dirt roads already ate up by the Impala.
“Jerk,” He says at last, watches in the dark of the window reflection how Dean grins, bright and youthful, tipping his head back as he laughs, even as his eyes stay firmly on the road, watching how the Impala eats up the blacktop.
Holly Golightly and the Brokeoff’s Devil Do seems a somewhat morbid choice considering the situation they had just been in and the situation they had never currently left. However, Sam can’t help but admit to an almost perverse kind of amusement and baffled hilarity in softly belting it out with Dean besides him as both Angels and Demons both try to get him and Dean to say yes .
The strains of the second chorus are almost drowned out by the thump thud of wheels on wet tarmac and the barely audible sounds of rain pattering against said tarmac, but Sam manages to catch the soft lyrics of it as Dean sings alongside it, fingers tapping on the well worn leather of the steering wheel;
“-Got me drunk on whiskey, drunk on wine; the Lord don’t like it but the devil don’t mind-”
Sam laughs, can’t help it, and Dean obviously hears it as he tilts his head, grins at Sam as he keeps singing, vaguely off key even as the rain continues thundering on.
They eventually manage to pull into a Red River Run motel just off of McLean Street, a little run down shack of a thing that had obviously seen better days but was almost paradise for Sam and Dean as the rain continued to thunder overhead.
Sam grabs the duffle bags as Dean grabs the salt and weapons bag, locking up the car as they hurry to room 38, the bronze numbers illuminated in the neon orange glow of the lamp above the door and the way the street lights are oddly angled.
“Freezin’ my balls off outta here,” Dean grumbles beneath his breath, pressed close to Sam’s back, as if Sam could shield him from the rain when he was already soaking wet. They end up piling into the room, with Dean trying his best to shove Sam out of the way so Dean could get in first. Sam, by sheer size and by sheer will, manages to win, gabbing Dean in a head lock and scruffing his hair as Dean protests vehemently.
“Friggin’ sasquatch,” Dean grumbles petulantly as Sam watches him lay a salt barrier, Sam concentrating on sorting out the weapons bag as he listens to Dean with half an ear. “Still remember the time where I could basically hogtie you in a second -,”
“And then I managed to hang you from your ankles and demanded all your pie money,” Sam tells Dean drily, slanting a sideways look at his pouting elder brother. Dean glowers at him, waving the pot of salt threateningly.
“You pickpocketed me, you little shit,” Dean says, still sour to this very day. Sam doesn't bother to hide his laughter. “That was my pie money,”
“Snooze you lose, dude,” Sam says unapologetic, shrugging. He ducks with a grin as Dean hurls the empty pot of salt at his head, hearing it bang against the wall and land with a dull thud on the carpeted floor.
“Sam,” Dean says, and it’s almost nervous . Sam turns to him, sees the awkward and hesitant look on his face. “You did-you did good out there, little brother y’hear me?”
It’s clumsy, but something about how Dean stands there in the middle of the motel room and says you did good, little brother makes something bloom between Sam’s shoulder blades, sweet and warm.
“Thanks, Dean,” Sam tells him, watches how something seems to loosen in Dean’s shoulders. “So did you,”
Dean doesn’t say anything, apparently past his quota for verbally dealing with emotions. Instead, he turns the Impala’s keys in his hand, looking down at them and fiddling with them.
“Anyway,” Dean says loudly, as if to dispel the suddenly awkward air between them. “I’m gonna go out, catch a few beers, see if I can hustle up some money, we’re runnin’ low on funds,”
Sam closes his eyes, can’t bare to watch him leave, flinches slightly when the door shuts.
Of course, even with the levity and the somewhat smoothed over relationship that Dean and Sam have managed to salvage ever since the discovery of Lucifer stepping into Sam’s dreams every night and Dean’s consequent apology and bid to do better, Dean would still be out of that door at first chance, chasing down his guilt with sex and booze, a hazy combination that left him guilt free and pyrite in his humanity, free of problems and burdens; whether they be Sam or the oncoming Apocalypse.
Sam sighs, lets himself sink onto the bedspread as he watches the far positioned flickering of a neon NO VACANCIES sign just beyond the treeline, hears the growl of the Impala, the smatter of rain against tarmac and glass. He’d hoped for more. He should have known better.
The rain still hasn’t let up.
Sam can hear it clearly from where he’s sitting at the motel table, three hours since Dean left with nary a look back. He’s been browsing the laptop, looking for a hunt that could hopefully put a few more helpful patches on their still strained relationship. Sam knows it’s not a permanent solution; it’s not even a very good temporary situation as it is. Regardless, Sam knows this is the best he’s got, until Michael and Lucifer are either dead or locked up.
So he reads endlessly. Scrolling through weird and strange articles, keeping an eye on the clock, the tick-tick-tick of it almost gratingly loud in the silence left in the wake of the slowly lessening rain that, nonetheless, Sam can hear slowly pittering on the already soaked tarmac outside.
He sighs, barely audible over the slow tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall, and snaps the laptop shut. He’s getting nowhere, simply going in circle as he tries to find something to hunt yet keeps coming back onto what is apparently the rest of their lives; a grudge match between a big brother and an younger brother. Sam’s compassion and patience for either one of them had long since been burnt out, gouged out by a 45. swallowed down and coughed back up in that motel room in Oklahoma, where the devil first laid hands on him.
He’s thankful that Lucifer seems to have taken a break from tormenting him, the past two nights he hasn’t really had to deal with him, only had to deal with the vaguest of shadows, a hint of malevolence just on the cusp of his brain that he can play it off as his imagination.
Still. something about how quiet and insidious the voice seems makes it almost harder for Sam to disprove what it whispers, how it slowly seems to creep into his veins. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s constant and only quietly malicious, repeating words he’s said to himself time and time again until he can’t separate his own voice from that voice.
He shivers, hears how the rain thunders against the tarmac, and the crash of water beneath tire wheels and can’t help the prayer he sends up, soft and apologetic.
“You needn’t apologize for praying to me, Sam,” Castiel says, and his hand is warm and welcome on the nape of Sam’s neck, twists around the curling ends there. “In fact, your politeness is a welcome reprieve from your brothers usual irreverence,”
“You know he doesn’t mean it like that,” Sam assures Castiel, leans into the hand and sighs blissfully at the warmth he can feel from it.
“I know,” Castiel says, and there’s an almost guilty smile curling at the very edge of his mouth. “But often times I quite feel like making Dean realise that I am a Warrior of the Lord and can so Smite him if I chose too,”
Sam laughs, can’t help himself. He can just imagine the look on Dean’s face, imagine the very put out expression it would probably put on his big brother.
“Please don’t,” Sam advises quietly, turning and standing, watching how the dim lights of the main light cast deep shadows across the arches of Castiel’s face. “He is my brother,”
Castiel makes a sound that, if Sam didn’t know better, was somewhat sceptical, but let the matter lie in favour of asking after another matter.
“Still, you managed to efficiently distract me from the matter of you praying to me,”
“I’d say sorry,” Sam says frankly, looking at Castiel, who simply stares, waiting, back at him. “But that was exactly my intention,”
“Even though you were the one to pray to me,” Castiel tells him, steps infinitely closer, until Sam can see the way his eyes rove across Sam’s face, until Sam can see the crease of that trenchcoat, bleached almost yellow in the unflattering motel room light.
Sam doesn’t say anything; can’t find anything to say that wouldn’t have him clutching Castiel’s shoulders, would have him begging for a palm to the forehead, the bliss of white blue grace and the thought of Smiting; not for death but for non existence.
He doesn’t wish to die, no, simply wishes to not deal with the pain, to not deal with not being worthy, of being unsaveable, of not being worth the effort.
Castiel goes very stiff and still, and between one moment and the next, it’s as if electric is thrumming through Sam’s very bones, a livewire ozone pressing down against his organs; his lungs, his heart, wrapping softly around his throat cupping his jaw.
“You think,” Castiel tells him; soft, tender. “That you do not deserve to be saved,”
Sam knows it isn’t a question. There is no questioning uplift to the end of Castiel’s words, no hesitation as Castiel carefully navigates his way around words. Castiel already knows the answer. Castiel looks at him, those undying eyes gracelit and confident in a way Sam has never really seen him.
“I don’t,” Sam says quietly, curls in on himself, feels the rough of wall beneath his back, fidgets with the tingling skin of his left wrist. He doesn’t know why Castiel is so adamant he can be saved, as if Sam isn’t the least of any of them, as if he doesn’t deserve this.
Between one moment and the next, Castiel surges forward, as close as close can be. As if he wants to fuse the very molecules of himself to Sam, peppermint and ozone, wingshadows curved behind Castiel and arching over forward.
Castiel’s hands land, gentle, on Sam’s waist, and Sam can feel the warmth of them through the plaid shirt and undervest, how Castiel is gripping tightly, fisting the loose fabric. He seems to loom over Sam, as if he’s grown six sizes too big, skin ill fitting and seeming to slide off of him.
“You deserve the world, Samuel Winchester,” Castiel says, very softly, very dangerously. His eyes are wide and electric gracelight bright, flickering in the street lights pooling in from the open curtains.
A lump has lodged itself in the very back of his throat, a small and fearful thing that leaves his fingers trembling. He’s clutching Castiel’s biceps, fingers tangling in the warm fabric he finds there, taking comfort in the bunched muscles he finds there.
Castiel watches him intently, face barely illuminated, as Castiel slides a heavy warm hand over his rib, a soft press against his side that he feels like a ten point burning pressure, deep in his spine. The fingers curl slightly, just that tiniest bit, soul deep ache, and Sam floats , mouth parting softly as Castiel electrifies him, oceanic livewire, grace hum humming like a small bird at the back of his throat.
“You deserve to be saved, Samuel Winchester,” Castiel tells him softly, a gentle tenderness he affords Sam that Sam could never begin to take for granted. “Surely, you must know that,”
Castiel doesn’t say anything, just watches as Sam watches him. He’s a steady, reassuring weight pressing Sam against the room’s wall, so eternally aware of Sam’s fragility as a human compared to a celestial behemoth. Castiel’s staring at him, reverent, adoring, in a way Sam never really knew Castiel could be, and it sends a fission of inexplicable terror down his spine and his fingers spasm against Castiel’s chest. He closes his eyes, leans his head back against the wall.
“Don’t hide from me, Samuel, please ,” Castiel asks, and it sounds like a plea. Sam clenches his eyes shut until stars spark.
He doesn’t quite know how to tell Castiel that he isn’t hiding from him, but from himself, because Sam is a weak thing that loves the words Castiel is saying to him, and it burns at something inside of him that he’s never dared to put a name to before, even all those months ago, when Castiel first appeared in the night and never quite left. He wants so badly to believe , to hold on, to hope ; wants so much to believe the words Castiel is telling him, but how can he, when everyone else around him is telling him the opposite?
Sam swallows down the words he wants to ask, clenches his fists tighter in the fabric on Castiel’s chest. Castiel watches him intently, cradles him close; this indomitable celestial giant encompassing Sam until he feels safety and tenderness slip down his spine in ways he’s never felt before. Castiel leans closer, presses a chaste kiss to Sam’s temple, links their hands together.
“Sit with me,” Castiel says, and he leads Sam to sit at the chairs Sam had previously vacated. They’re pressed as close as close can be, ankles to knees to hips, and there is something pleasantly overwhelming about it that it makes Sam let out a long so breath.
“For someone so smart,” Castiel tells him, curling his fingers against Sam’s. “You are remarkably short sighted when it comes to yourself,”
Sam can’t help the laugh he lets out, and Castiel laughs with him, deep and gravelly, and Sam watches him in awe. Castiel must catch him watching from the corner of his eyes, because he turns towards Sam, and Sam gives a small smile, lean into Castiel’s shoulder and feels Castiel lean back, the weight of him keeping Sam safe and comforted, grounded.
“I will always save you,” Castiel murmurs quietly, and there is something in his voice that echoes in the morning air, electric gracelight, the deadair of a hurricane. “Even if that is from yourself,”
Sam doesn’t say anything for the longest time, drags the words over and over again in his mind. Curls his fingers tighter around Castiel’s and turns to him, captures his eyes with his and says, with as much sincerity as Sam can muster, dug up from deep inside of him, magma hot and faith deep, truthteller.
“I know you will, Castiel,” Sam says. “Because I’ll always save you, too,”
Castiel’s face breaks wide open, vulnerable and hoping; and there is something so humbling about seeing someone so holy like this, looking up at him like he's the only person they see, no ulterior motives, no behind the curtain scheming.
Just he and Castiel and the way they feel about one another, captured in snapshots around the world and rundown motel rooms, lucky enough to catch glimpses of both soul and grace.
Just them.
It's sunlight filtering through the cracked open curtains that wake Sam up. He can hear Deans faint snoring, soft in the morning air, hear the way he moves around in bed.
He opens his eyes, something magnificently warmth stretched out against his back, just barely touching him, and he squints against the sunlight to peer at the alarm clock on the bedside next to him. 0845 it loudly proclaims in bright flashing numbers. Sam stares.
He and Castiel had spent hours just talking last night, well into the early hours of the morning and had eventually retreated to bed at two in the morning, only an hour before the Impala had come purring up the driveway, illuminating the room in stark white headlights and Dean had staggered into the room and flopped down onto the bed.
He hasn’t been able to sleep that long in weeks, kept awake by shadows in his dreams, Lucifer reaching down his throat and suffocating him, pressing his soul down, words haunting him that he still isn’t sure were really said or not, voicemail playing over and over in his head.
He shoulders himself onto his elbows, brushes his hair from his eyes. It’s a shock; for once he actually feels well rested, the haze that’s been slowly taking over his brain retreating briefly, it’s like slowly coming alive for the first time.
“Samuel?” A soft voice says behind him, and Sam flinches, ducks his head.
He turns, and he can’t help the way he inhales sharply, feels the sharp flush of pink crawling up his checks and into his ears. Castiel is staring down at him, propped up on one hand, towering over Sam.
Sam has seen Castiel in daylight before, of course he has. Has seen Castiel stood beneath the midday sun, has tried not to notice how his hair shines silky in the sun, how his eyes brighten with something other than gracelight, how Castiel just stands and it’s like he has a halo of sunlight wrapped around him.
But, there’s something different in how he looks right now. He’s just lying there, stretched out on the bed, trench coat carefully folded over the back of the chair some feet away, left almost bare in just his white button up and slacks, shoes carefully toed off. He’s overwhelmingly casual, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tie and the first two buttons undone. He’s beautiful .
“Castiel,” Sam says, and Castiel’s face softens, turns fond.
A vehicle goes roaring past outside, briefly overshadowing the sunlight; it casts strange shadows across the room, and one of them falls over Castiel’s face until just his brows and eyes are illuminated, undying blue and staring at Sam so intensely it makes Sam’s heart pound.
Castiel doesn’t say anything, only stares at Sam even as the shadows dissipate, Castiel slowly being haloed in gold once more. He still hasn’t said anything, and something clenches low in Sam’s gut, something writhing and worrying.
Then, slowly, Castiel moves slowly, leans forward and slips a hand to just touch at Sam’s jaw, fingers calloused and gentle. He moves his fingers up to run the tips of them over Sam’s heated cheekbone, sweeps them down to just against Sam’s temple, cradling Sam’s face
“I did not believe you could be more beautiful,” Castiel says quietly. “But then I saw you in the dawn’s light,”
His fingers are infinitely gentle, as if touching something precious, as they sprawl over Sam’s jaw, warm and calloused. Sam can’t help the way he leans into the touch, keeps his gaze onto Castiel; see’s the way the sunlight falls across his brow, shadows the slant of his jaw and nose, spills down his throat and across his shoulders and chest.
“Perhaps you should see yourself,” Sam murmurs, almost afraid to interrupt the peaceful moment cast upon them.
He touches fingers to Castiel’s inner wrist, see’s the way the angel reacts, eyelashes fluttering and his skin shuddering. He wraps his fingers around Castiel’s wrist, strokes slowly against the protuberance of bone, see’s how Castiel’s mouth falls open, just a little, the way his eyes darken, from skies to oceanic.
He slowly skates his fingers up Castiel’s forearm, catches the way bare skin gives way to fabric, to his bicep; feels the loose bunch of muscles. Inches himself closer on the bed, until Castiel is only millimeters away.
“What are you doing, beloved?” Castiel says softly, barely an exhalation of air. Sam doesn’t answer. He simply smiles, presses his palm over Castiel’s heart, fingers spidering over his shoulder.
Another vehicle goes roaring past, and the shadows flicker once more, plunging Castiel’s face into shadow, on the very top of his head illuminated in sunlit golden, so different to the stark blue white of his angelic grace that it takes Sam’s breath away.
Castiel watches him closely, and Sam swallows; watches how Castiel’s eyes drop to his throat before slowly skating up his jaw to touch upon his mouth. Deliberately licks his bottom lip and feels the way Castiel’s arm goes rigid beneath his touch.
“Kiss me,” He whispers. "Please,"
He doesn’t know where he gets the bravery from. Perhaps it’s from seeing Castiel illuminated, not just in moonlight, but in the dawn’s early light. With his eyes bright and bold and undying; electric livewire, ocean deep and flooded with gold. But ask it of Castiel he does, and he can already feel the flush creeping up his neck, flooding beneath Castiel’s suddenly still fingers.
“May I?” Castiel says. Between one moment and the next, it’s as if Castiel has received this great gift, as if Sam has handed him the key to find his Father, has given him a way to end this grudging match between brothers.
“Please,” Sam tells him, and something shivers up and down his spine as Castiel slips his hand to cradle the back of Sam’s head, twisting in the strands there. Sam can feel how the angels fingers press against the divot at the base of his skull. Sam can count the others individual eyelashes, the shadows the cast in the golden dawn.
“I can smell your purity,” Castiel murmurs, only inches away from Sam’s mouth, and Sam can’t help the way his eyelashes flutter, feeling the warm breath skitter across his mouth. “It’s distracting,”
Sam has never once been pure, he knows that, knows it like he knows exorcisms, how he knows mythology and lore, like written scripture. But like this, Castiel’s mouth upon his and angelic electric gracelight curling around his lungs and illuminating him, he thinks, perhaps this is the closest to Heaven I will get.
“No,” Castiel breathes against his mouth, peppermint, ozone. “You are already Heavenly,”
Sam aches, sweetly, in the best possible way.
you pierce my soul / i am half agony, half hope.
— Jane Austen , from “ Persuasion ”, her last written novel, c. 1818