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Sam woke up screaming.
It was hardly first time he’d had a nightmare, but the only times he’d ever woken screaming were the times he’d had Dean taken from him by death. Dean wasn’t dead now, but he was possessed by an archangel, a horror Sam was all too familiar with.
Charlie was the first person to come into his room, followed quickly by his mom and Bobby.
“Sam, are you okay?” Mary asked.
“I’m fine, it was just a nightmare.”
“Do you need some company?” Charlie asked.
“No, no, I’m fine.” Please go, he thought desperately. He couldn’t stand the thought of having them with him while he felt this raw and vulnerable.
They all protested for a bit, but eventually departed, much to his relief. Sam fell back on his bed, covering his face. He knew he needed more sleep, but the last thing he wanted was to wake up screaming again and have to face more unwanted concern.
There was a gentle knock at the door.
“I’m fine, guys,” he said, perhaps a little more aggressively than he intended.
“Sam?”
Castiel’s voice came through the door, and Sam’s heart leapt.
“You can come in, Cas.”
Castiel opened the door and slipped inside. He studied Sam with an expression most people would have thought of as neutral, but Sam knew Castiel well enough to see the concern there.
“I can help,” Castiel said, without preamble.
“How?” Sam frowned.
“My grace. If I stay with you and let a small stream of grace into your mind as you sleep, it’ll stave off the nightmares.”
“You can do that?” Sam said in disbelief.
Castiel shrugged. “Grace heals pain. Nightmares are just a form of that.”
Sam stared at him. It was an extremely tempting idea, but Sam kept his unrequited love for Castiel barely at bay most of the time. Sharing a bed with him, even platonically, would make that far more difficult.
“I’ll be fine,” Sam said, voice breaking as he struggled to keep the reluctance from it.
Castiel walked over to him and gently pushed Sam’s sweaty hair off his forehead, using his grace to clean and dry it.
“Let me do this for you,” he said softly.
Both the touch and words, which had the tiniest trace of an order in them, broke Sam’s resolve.
“Yeah, okay,” Sam croaked.
Castiel took his trench coat, jacket, and shoes off before sitting next to Sam, who moved from his usual position on the middle of the bed to the right side of it.
“Put your head on my lap,” Castiel said, his tone still laced with a small bit of command, and Sam melted at it, curling up as best as his large frame would allow. He was intensely aware of his close proximity to Castiel’s crotch, but then Castiel’s right hand was running through his hair, a small amount of grace emanating from it, and every thought vanished from Sam’s mind.
“Do you want to watch something while you fall asleep? When I was human I noticed that my dreams were often influenced by things I experienced shortly before falling asleep. You’ll likely still have dreams, and I want them to be happy.”
Sam looked up at Castiel, eyes half lidded.
“Have you ever seen The Great British Baking show?” Sam asked, his words slurring slightly, as if he were drunk.
“Yes. I enjoyed it a great deal. Shall we?”
Sam nodded, and cast his eyes to the TV while Castiel turned it on and pulled up the show on Netflix.
Sam couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face as Noel Fielding’s face came on screen, his smile widening when he saw Paul Hollywood. Sam knew Paul could be a bit of a dick, but his steely, blue eyed gaze and wry smile just did something for him. But Sam’s eyes slid shut after about ten minutes of the show. All he was aware of then was Castiel’s warm body against his, Castiel’s fingers that hadn’t stopped stroking his hair or streaming a tiny bit of grace into his scalp, calming Sam’s mind.
“You’ll be okay, Sam,” Castiel murmured, and somehow, Sam believed him.