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It wasn't that Castiel couldn't eat, or didn't enjoy it, if the meal was good. It wasn't that Mrs. Dowling’s pot roast wasn't good - quite the opposite in fact. By the smell alone, he guessed it was well cooked, and well seasoned. It must have been delicious.
It was that, for all indigestion wasn't something he’d ever have to deal with, something inside Castiel felt deeply, deeply wrong. Like his stomach had shifted an inch and a half to the left of where it ought to have been. Like even the finest chefs on Earth couldn't have cooked him anything that wouldn't make him vaguely queasy, and taste like ashes in his mouth.
Something about the town. Charming Acres.
He wasn't sure when he'd last seen Sam excited about food, but if this pot roast was enough to make him settle down and rest, eat, take care of his body for once, Cas wouldn't complain. He looked at it like a gift from heaven when Mrs. Dowling set it down in front of him, and when she was out of the room, Castiel gave Sam his own portion as well.
At least he wouldn't have to suffer Mrs. Dowling's offended looks over the slight of not eating what she’d graciously cooked. Like the looks she'd given him for the apparent indiscretion of simply existing here, in this town where he didn’t belong.
Cas watched Sam eat, and reminded himself: something wasn’t right. These people were not themselves. And Sam was not immune.
Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
Sam tucked into the second portion of pot roast with as much gusto as he did the first. In spite of himself, Cas smiled just to see him enjoy it.
Cas followed Sam to his room - Sam’s, not theirs. Because even in 2019, travelling rural America as a same sex couple was a constant series of battles to pick and choose from, and Charming Acres didn’t seem like the place, or possibly even the time, to try and justify “FBI agents but also gay lovers” to any of the locals. Castiel’s room was located one floor above Sam’s. The beds, however, being just wide enough, maybe, to fit two grown men (even when one was of Sam’s size), Cas figured the third floor room would go absolutely untouched.
Sometimes modern America just irked Castiel. He hated that one had to jump through so many hoops and write epics of justification for the simple platonic comfort of sleeping next to a family member, never mind that Sam was his partner, too.
Sam made a beeline for the dresser, where he’d already unpacked. Cas sat on Sam’s bed, half-lounging against the headboard with his feet, still in their shoes, hanging awkwardly off the side. He flicked through the letters he’d found in Conrad’s room, pouring over them a second time in search of some smoking gun, as Sam moved around the small space, in ritualistic preparation for sleep.
“Of course, our first order of business in the morning should be returning to the ice cream shop,” Cas said, almost absently.
“Hm?” Sam hummed, stepping back out of the ensuite bathroom with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.
Cute , Cas couldn't help but think.
“To speak to Sunny,” he clarified.
“Oh,” Sam said, distorted by his mouth full of toothpaste. He stepped back into the bathroom to spit, and Cas heard the faucet running. “Right.”
“I have to admit, I’m glad you’ve let go of some of this urgency,” Castiel said. “I know you don’t need me to tell you it doesn’t serve you to push yourself to exhaustion, but--”
“No, you’re right,” Sam said. He came back into the bedroom, flicking out the bathroom light. Cas sat up to greet him.
“I am?” Castiel asked. He still couldn’t quite internalize how quickly Sam had gone from his trauma-hardened, nose-to-the-grindstone philosophy to this new, albeit affected, laissez-faire version of himself.
Sam sat down next to him. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Monster’ll still be here in the morning. Why rush? Why can’t we enjoy a good night’s sleep? A beautiful day? A home cooked meal?”
Cas found himself smiling. “I’m glad you feel that way,” he said. “I… I want that for you.”
Sam beamed. “And I,” he said, planting his hand on Cas’ knee like he was giving a pep talk. “Want that for you.”
Castiel’s hand found Sam’s on his knee, brushed over the ridges of his knuckles, and he leaned in to claim a kiss. It had barely begun, however, before Sam let out a surprised grunt, a small sound of protest, and Cas pulled back instantly.
“Is something wrong?” He asked.
“Ah, I, um…” Sam sputtered.
Strange, Cas thought.
“You just, uh, took me off guard, there, Cas,” Sam said, pulling back his hand. Castiel’s heart broke. Just a fraction.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I… would you like to…?”
“Um…” Sam mumbled, but without a word spoken, he cupped Cas’ jaw and went back in, trying valiantly to close the distance he’d placed between them. But something wasn’t quite there, anymore. Wasn’t quite right.
Sam’s eyes closed, his mouth pressed against Cas’, but something about him was stiff. His touch was too light, his lips unyielding and awkward, and it was like kissing an entirely different person. An energy of discomfort rolled off of Sam, so thick and putrid that Cas couldn’t have continued if he’d wanted to, and so Cas pulled back.
“It’s okay,” Cas rushed to say, before Sam could try and explain.
“I’m sorry,” Sam blurted out.
“It’s okay,” Cas repeated, quieter.
Sam shook his hands out in front of him. “I don’t know what’s wrong I just feel… I just feel weird, you know? Maybe I’m sick.”
“Maybe you are,” Cas said. He weighed the pros and cons of presenting his little theory on the town’s influence, but decided Sam wouldn’t be able to accept it, anyway. He sighed. “We can just go to bed, Sam.”
Still lost in his own thoughts, Sam nodded.
“I assume it’s still alright if I sleep here?” Cas asked. Or, rather, lay beside him with his eyes shut, but Sam knew what he meant.
“Uh, sure,” Sam replied, shaking himself. “I mean, if you want to. If you’re sure.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, if I’m sick…” Sam said, in a thin, wavering voice. “I wouldn’t want you to… you know. Catch anything.”
Ah.
Cas understood. Like a creeping cold eating into his form, from the paper thin lie, he understood.
Castiel stood from the bed. He tried to remind himself that Sam was not fully in control of his own emotions. He tried not to feel foolish for having thought a calming little dose of mind control would come without side effects and ulterior motives. For thinking that a town straight from the pages of the Saturday Evening Post would allow those under it’s quell to even think about so-called deviance of their kind. Some things, perhaps, just couldn’t quite survive assimilation.
Castiel didn’t always enjoy humanity.
“I understand completely, Sam,” Castiel said. “Goodnight.”
Castiel didn’t turn on the light, when he returned to his own room. He shut the door. He sat on the bed.
He thought about finding a book, sitting in the common area of the boarding house and reading all night. But something in him felt tender. For all the privacy of his room was conditional, owned by someone else, it was still a place to be alone. And if he couldn’t be alone with Sam, well, he’d be alone by himself.
Forgive him, he knows not what he does.
Cas’ body felt unbearably heavy. He lay down on top of the bed covers, still dressed, still in his coat and shoes. He laced his fingers together over his stomach, body rigid. Closed his eyes. Like a corpse, all dressed and ready for burial.
He was being horribly melodramatic. How sad, moping over his lover’s rejection when Sam wasn’t himself, anyway. Lying in the dark, feeling sorry for himself.
Castiel approximated sleep, stillness and quiet, and did his best to clear his mind and not let his emotions get the best of him. He counted the seconds, minutes, until he faded out into the haze of the closest thing he could get to rest, and he waited for dawn. It would feel better in the morning. It always did.
In the morning, Sam was gone.
If the atmosphere in town was enough to set Castiel on edge, Cindy Smith sparked a gut, primal fear in his stomach. The painted face and flawlessly sculpted, unmoving smile, would have looked forced enough in a vintage Jell-O advertisement, and there was something uncanny about the way it twisted the face of the living, breathing woman in front of him. He wondered if the townspeople were universally dominated, body and mind, or if any of themselves were left. If Cindy had ever had a choice. If she was awake, in there, under the updo and pearls.
He tried to sit. She screamed at him. A raging roar erupted from her, from such a slight woman, and yet it was all of it wiped away in an instant. Vanished to be replaced with that tidy little smile.
And yet, somehow, the giggle she let out a minute later, when Castiel told her her husband had died, was almost worse.
“No, my husband, he’s good,” Cindy sang, with her voice like an old radio.
“No, he’s not,” Cas replied.
And then he found Sam.
“Oh, hi, there,” Sam said, walking into the living room like he owned the place, in clothing Castiel had never seen before. Cas schooled his expression as best he could, took his shock and worry and stuffed it deep, deep down inside of himself. He took Sam’s offered hand, shook hands with him like they were total strangers. His stomach shifted another few inches to the left.
“Agent,” Cas choked out, at a loss for words.
“Justin,” Sam corrected. “Justin Smith. And you are?”
Castiel’s mouth went dry. He was… how did he even begin to answer that question to the man he’d pulled from hell, saved and injured, loved and hurt and lived with and slept with for years, now? Who was he? Who was Castiel?
Who was Castiel when he was a stranger to Sam? He didn’t know that person, anymore.
“Your partner,” Cas said, gently, but firmly, and meaning it in both senses of the word. As if Sam would slap his own forehead and exclaim ‘ah! Of course! How could I have forgotten?’
But he didn’t. Sam looked lost for a moment, like he was trying to remember, but seemed to just give up without much effort. Like he’d just decided to shrug it off, or like some comforting alternative explanation sprung to mind, something that didn’t challenge his unwanted new worldview.
“Partner!” Sam - Justin - Sam repeated back. “Super! That’s swell! Great!”
Castiel wondered if Sam had successfully convinced even himself, but Cindy didn’t seem to have any curiosity of her own and Sam didn’t ask any further questions. It was like Castiel’s words just rolled off of their minds like water on a window, unable to truly get inside.
“Tell you what,” Sam continued. “Why don’t you stick around? We’re having pot roast.”
He kissed Cindy on the cheek. Dispassionate. A pantomime of romance.
Fucking pot roast.
Castiel shut down, trying to process it all. Sam and Cindy exchanged words he didn’t care to listen to, just the looks between them making him feel unwell. He watched after Cindy as she left the room, not really seeing her, just looking as, in his mind, he was spiralling down, down.
Sam… Sam wasn’t her husband. Sam wasn’t hers. Sam didn’t belong to this town, didn’t belong in this house, didn’t… didn’t…
Sam didn't belong to anyone but Sam, but Sam belonged to Castiel. With Castiel. Him, and Dean, and Jack, and Mary. With their family.
His grip on his surroundings, his vessel, had gone fuzzy, and he jumped when Sam touched his shoulder, just a shade too light to be familiar.
“Would you like one?” Sam asked. Cas had already lost track of what was being offered. It didn’t matter.
“Your name is Sam Winchester,” Castiel insisted, in his most forceful tone of voice.
“So, that’s a no-no on the hooch?” Sam asked with a nervous laugh.
“Sam, I don’t know what’s happened. I don’t know if this is a spell, or a curse,” Cas said, and Sam began looking around, back towards the hall down which Cindy had disappeared. Nervous. Confused, and unwilling to be enlightened. “But you will snap the hell out of it!”
Sam - Justin - jumped when Castiel raised his voice, startled out of complacency but not out of whatever delusion was holding him. He waggled a finger in Cas’ general direction, like the world’s least aggressive threat. “Sir!” he exclaimed, moved to anger. “You watch your mouth! If we cannot remain civil, then you can skedaddle.”
“Sam--” Cas began, but it was apparently the last straw for Justin .
“That’s not my name!” He said, and immediately called for his wife.
Sam wrapped an arm around Castiel’s shoulder, turning him towards the door, and grabbed him by the back of his coat’s collar. He steered Cas forward with that pressure, angry and forceful, and Cas almost thought he could feel the heat of Sam’s hand through his coat, his suit jacket, his shirt, burning against the back of his neck and radiating through him. A touch in anger, in almost-violence, the only impotent intimacy he was allowed.
Sam threw Cas out of Justin’s house. As he slammed the door, insisting again that there was no longer any Sam Winchester, his picture perfect, Jell-O advertisement wife was posed like a porcelain figurine in the hallway behind him.
Cas was only parked a few blocks away, as far as he could safely trust himself to drive with the noise buzzing in his head and the horrible tension in his body, when Dean’s name lit up his phone screen.
Hands trembling, Cas fumbled the phone and considered just letting it ring out, and getting the voicemail later. He didn’t know what he was supposed to tell Dean, just then. “Hey, I lost your brother’s brain, and I’m too busy having feelings about it to tell you it’s gonna be ok.” That wouldn’t do.
Though, really, neither would anything else. And he wasn’t handling it like such a champ on his own, was he?
He accepted the call.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas said, tapping it over to speaker phone and putting it on the dashboard in front of him.
“Hey, Cas,” Dean answered, tinny but clear. “Just trying to check in with you two. Sam’s not picking up.”
“I know,” Castiel said.
There was a long pause. “Details, Cas,” Dean said, frustration creeping into his tone.
“He’s fine,” Cas said. “Physically, anyway. He’s just fallen under this sort of wide cast, but powerful mind control. He doesn’t remember himself, right now, but he’s not in danger. I’ll get him back.”
He heard Dean breathe out a sigh on the other end of the line. “Like, honestly casual ‘we’ll get him back,’ or ‘I’ll move heaven and Earth to save him’ ‘we’ll get him back’?” He asked, doing his best impression of Cas’ lower tone.
“There are maybe a hundred and fifty, two hundred people here under this spell, and they have been for years, maybe decades,” Cas said. “So far only two have died. Whatever’s doing this, it’s not out to hurt the people it’s controlling. It just… it just makes them… happy.”
“Happy?” Dean asked.
Cas closed his eyes and leaned back in the driver’s seat.
“It’s using him to replace the last victim,” Cas explained. “Slotted him into this prefabricated life Justin Smith left behind. He’s got a house, a wife, his voice is different, his clothes… He’s wearing a cardigan...”
“A wife?” Dean scoffed. “Wow. I’m surprised you didn’t swoop in there and start smiting just to get her off your man. He’s gonna owe you some hardcore apology sex for that, huh?”
Cas didn’t answer. After a minute Dean spoke again.
“Cas, I didn’t mean anything by that,” Dean said. “He wouldn’t. If he was himself, he wouldn’t.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t let it eat you, alright?” Dean asked.
Cas stayed quiet another long, long minute before speaking again.
“He’s happy, Dean,” Cas said softly.
“It’s not real,” Dean replied.
“But if it were,” Cas interrupted. “If he could… you know as well as I do that your life isn’t the one he wanted for himself, not really--”
“So what, Cas, he’d wanna be stuck in some blissed out mind fuck fantasy world?” Dean asked, cutting him off. “I’ve been down this road, okay? I know it’s not ideal. Sam knows it’s not ideal. I’m out here throwing shit at the wall with Jack trying to figure out if anything sticks, we’re not good right now, and I know that. But Sam chooses us. Again and again. He chooses you.
“Of course he’s happier without all that weight on his shoulders. We’d all be happier if we could forget the last… the last thirty five fuckin’ years. But it’s not real. And it’s not what he wants. And the only reason he thinks otherwise is because something got into his brain and made him think that. It’s not because some hot chick came along and offered something better.”
“I--” Castiel opened his mouth to protest, to throw some gas of the pity party bonfire, but he fell short. What could he say? He knew Dean was right - even if he couldn’t make it feel true.
“Cas, if you need Jack and I to come down there--” Dean began.
“No,” Castiel said. “No, Dean, I-- I’m going to get him back. Don’t worry about us.”
Dean half-laughed. “I always worry about him,” he said. “But if there’s anyone I can trust with Sammy, it’s you. I know you’ll jog his memory - even if it takes true love’s kiss, or some shit like that.”
Dean hung up not long after that.
Castiel stayed there, sitting in the driver’s seat of his parked car, for a while longer.
When he was ready, at last, Cas shook himself, and turned the ignition. He’d wasted enough time lamenting the loss of Sam already - it was time to get Sam back. And Cas might not know where this force of influence was coming from - not exactly - but he knew who to ask.
For once, the monster came to him.
It came with a human face, flanked by men who were no longer themselves, and with Sam. Broad and strong as he was, of course, when bodies were needed, the monster came with Sam.
“I won’t hurt you, Sam,” Castiel said, preparing himself to fight as the three men advanced upon him.
“Golly, I told you, my name is Justin!” Sam yelled back.
Castiel kept his promise. The other two men, he could hurt. Wouldn’t kill them, not for the sins of their slavemaster, but he wouldn’t let them hurt him, either. But Sam, he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Cas deflected blows, threw Sam to the ground before turning to deal with his equally unwilling compatriots.
He, of all people, shouldn’t have underestimated Sam’s ability to fall hard and get back up again.
Sam tackled Castiel to the ground before Cas even saw him coming, already at a hell of a speed when he slammed, full bodied, into him. The fall was enough to distract Castiel, disorient him for just a minute. It was long enough that Sam managed to pin him to the ground, seat his weight across Cas’ hips, and thoroughly trap him. Worse - it was enough for Sam to disarm him.
Sam hovered over Castiel, wielding Cas’ own blade, and he had no hesitation. The only thing stopping Sam from staking Cas to the floor of the ice cream shop then and there was Cas finally coming back to his senses, throwing an arm out and using every ounce of strength in his body to hold onto Sam’s wrist, locking out his elbow and refusing to go down without a fight.
“Fight this!” Castiel screamed.
“Why?” Sam asked, and more than any other time that day Cas had seen ‘Justin,’ he was not Sam. “I’m happy in Charming Acres. We’re all happy!”
All except Castiel.
Because this was it. Because if he couldn’t get Sam back, Sam might as well kill Castiel, but so long as there was a spark of free will in him, Cas wasn’t going to stop. And he wasn’t going to let that spark go out in Sam, either. Not when they’d carried one another through darkness so many times before. Not when they had people back home relying on them to pick up the torch.
“Sam, I know you want to be happy,” Cas said, forcing the words through clenched teeth as he struggled to keep the blade away. “And I know what it’s like to lose your army. I know what it’s like to fail as a leader, Sam. But you have to keep fighting. You can’t lose yourself, because if you do, you fail us.”
Sam was unmoved. He still struggled to overpower Cas, to land the killing blow.
“You fail us,” Castiel continued, desperate and reaching a breaking point. It was this or nothing. This or it was over. “You fail all of those that we’ve lost. You fail Jack. Sam, you fail Dean.”
Cas had hardly finished speaking when Justin made a last show of force, and he felt his elbow give out. And for a moment, it was over.
Then there was the high pitched crunch of a ceramic tile shattering mere inches from his head.
It worked. Sam was… was...
Justin - Sam - ripped the glasses from his face, still panting like he’d run a marathon. “Cas?”
“Sam,” Cas breathed.
Shaken, Sam looked at the spot where he’d buried Castiel’s blade in the floor, then back to Cas. He put one trembling hand on Cas’ cheek.
“I--” Sam began.
“It’s okay,” Cas interrupted.
Sam half lay down over Cas, half lifted Cas to him, gathering him into a tight, desperate embrace, face buried in Cas’ neck. Cas, in turn, wrapped his arms around Sam’s middle. And the touch … like nothing else. So close, after their ordeal. So fucking close.
“I’m sorry,” Sam whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Castiel shushed him.
Sunny , Cas thought. The case. The monster. There wasn’t time.
“Harrington,” he said to Sam, and without another word, Sam understood. He released Cas, got to his feet before helping his partner up.
“Let’s get the son of a bitch,” he said.
It never felt quite right, walking away when the hunt was over. Some part of Castiel always longed to wait, to help, to do anything except leave the survivors with broken lives and questions they couldn’t answer. But Sunny was strong - if anybody could handle it, she could.
He hoped she’d be alright.
As Sam and Cas walked back to the car, Cas gazed, a little sadly, up and down the quiet main street. Right now, there were a hundred some odd people waking up with homes and families they didn’t know. In clothes they didn’t like. In bed with people they hadn’t chosen.
And Harrington got away with it. Stopped, but not punished.
But such was the way, in this place and time. In most places, at most times. Someone chose what a normal life looked like and everyone else could either join, make themselves inoffensive and consumable, or they could suffer on the outskirts. The only difference here was what skin that oppression came wearing.
Castiel didn’t always enjoy humanity. Not all of it.
Sam stripped off Justin Smith’s cardigan and threw it on the ground, having abandoned the overcoat already somewhere along the way. As they reached the car, he started working on the tie, too, but he was clearly flustered and struggled to get his fingers in the knot.
“Here,” Cas said, gently pushing Sam’s hands away from his throat. “Let me.”
Sam stood quietly on the sidewalk while Cas carefully, methodically untied and removed the thin strip of tartan fabric. Sam kept his eyes down.
“I know you didn’t mean it,” Cas said softly, when he was done, wrapping the tie into a little ball.
Sam nodded. “I didn’t,” he said. “I’m sorry, I was… I was weak.”
“Not weak,” Cas corrected. “Human.”
Sam sighed, shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks, and leaned back against the car. He turned his face up to the sky, staring at nothing.
Cas, however more stiffly, joined him. “It’s human to want happiness,” he said. “Peace.”
Sam shook his head. “That wasn’t happiness,” he said. “They’re not… we weren’t exactly awake, under it all, but we weren’t unconscious. And even if you smile, and go through the motions… I don’t know Cindy - if that’s even her name. She doesn’t know me. Maybe not knowing about all the shit we’ve been through, maybe that would make me happier, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever want to be sitting in the suburbs drinking martinis all day.”
“Hm,” Castiel hummed in thought. “You’d rather be in the middle of nowhere drinking whiskey all day.”
Sam looked down at him. He must have found that funny, because he smirked, a half smile like he couldn’t quite hold it back, wasn’t quite distraught enough not to laugh. He took Cas’ hand.
“With you,” he said. “And Dean, and Jack, and Mom, but… for the record? If this was some other world, if there were no monsters, no hell, if I just met you at a coffee shop one day? I’d still rather be with you.”
“You don’t know that,” Castiel mumbled, self consciously.
“I do, Cas,” Sam said. “Because even under all of that… that shit, part of me still knew. Part of me still would have run off with you, and damn the consequences.”
Castiel didn’t know how to respond to that, knew it made him happy, but not how to answer for it. For the idea that… that even at their most distant, the gravitational pull was still mutual.
Cas looked at Sam, who was looking at him, and an urge struck him. He reached for the nape of Sam’s neck, and when Sam allowed the touch, his fingers wormed into Sam’s hair and he felt the elastic hair band holding Sam’s tiny approximation of a ponytail. Cas pulled it out and Sam’s hair fell like a light, soft curtain around his face.
Cas smiled. Sam smiled back.
“There you are,” Castiel said. He used both his hands to finger comb through the mess the fight had made of Sam’s hair, and Sam shut his eyes momentarily, feeling the soothing motion on his scalp.
“Are you ready to go home?” Cas asked.
Sam sighed, leaning back to look at the stars once more. Some of his old mood took him back again, and Castiel wished he know how to cleanse it.
“Back to Lebanon? Honestly? No,” Sam said with a shrug. He stepped forward off the car, crowded in around Cas and bent to give him a short, soft kiss. “But back to our family? Absolutely.”