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Sam loses his battle with sleep for the third night in a row and takes to the library just after dusk, digging out the same book he has read all week whenever he had the chance. Needs to ease his nerves, because their plan to take God is near enough in full swing. Tomorrow, they embark on the final part of their mission: getting Billie’s book. They’re so close that Sam can taste freedom on his tongue, something he has never dared to even dream of having for well over a decade, now.
He sits on his chair tucked away in the far corner of the library, the little candle holder on the table that Jack bought him last month filtering a soothing cinnamon aura around the room as he reads. Around chapter seventeen, he loses track of the context and ends up staring blankly at the page, reading the words but not fully retaining them. He’s not too sure what he is thinking about. He just sits, content in his own company as he curls up in the chair, knees against his chest and his breaths calculated and slow.
Hours pass like minutes. Time has never really been on his side.
Something shifts in front of him just as he starts to doze off, the shadow noticeable in the dim candlelight. He flinches and glances up, his heart racing.
Castiel sits in the chair across from him, equally as settled into his spot at the table, and Sam relaxes instantly at the sight of him. He had no idea Cas was coming back to the bunker after his latest argument with Dean, so his presence is a welcome surprise.
After watching the angel cautiously for a moment, Sam pushes his book further onto the desk and leans forward.
“Hey, Cas,” he says, voice a little husky from lack of use.
“Hello, Sam.” A curt nod from Cas before the angel shifts from across the table over to the chair next to Sam, as if he was waiting to be acknowledged before moving closer. Sam chooses not to comment on it, just lets Cas peer at the book cover and the empty mug next to it, the remnants of Sam’s coffee lingering at the bottom.
“A spellbook?” Castiel asks. Not judgemental — just curious.
Sam picks at the corner of the book and says nothing. Sometimes they don’t talk at all when Cas joins him here. Sam brought it up to Dean, once; how Cas appears at random hours some nights, watching Sam read in the library corner like he’s studying him, until he eventually closes his eyes and relaxes as though he is human, too. How all of this is often done without a single word spoken between them, as though Cas just gets him.
Dean had laughed, said something about hanging out and a lack of social cues. That was it and Sam had left it at that, never bothering to question their little ritual any further.
Tonight, though, Cas is next to him and he pries Sam’s wrist from the book cover before he can peel the loose fabric clean off. Sam let’s him, cannot resist it if he tries. Cas is an angel. Sam is human, most of the time. The angel’s strength advantage is clear.
Cas watches him again, then stares at the bookshelf ahead like he’s biting back words.
“You alright, Cas?” Sam asks, a small frown on his face as he turns to face the angel.
“Yes,” Cas answers slowly, like he has to think about it. “Yes, I am. Are you?”
Sam nods without hesitating. Instinct, reflex. An automatic response. He twirls the hem of his shirt under the table where Cas can’t see his hands, just so he has something to cling onto.
“I’ve missed hanging out with you,” Cas says, and those are definitely Dean’s words. Seems like Sam is not the only one who went to Dean with queries about these night-time meetings. “I am glad we can do this again.”
Sam wonders when he supposedly told Cas to stop. They did this a lot while Dean was absent from the bunker years ago. A little less once he returned, and hardly ever since Sam got back from his second round in the Devil’s cage. It’s been a while and Sam never expected that to change, especially since Cas vowed he was leaving the bunker a few weeks ago. But he cannot remember ever telling Cas to stop.
“We can?” Sam tests the waters after a small pause.
Cas tenses. Human-like. “Can we?”
Sam gnaws his lip, rips at a loose thread he finds on his shirt. “Um. Yeah, Cas. We can, yeah.”
Cas nods, hesitant, like he did not expect this outcome. Sam tries to think about what that could mean, but draws a blank around the same time Castiel lays back in his chair.
“How are you doing, Sam?” He asks, the question notably different from his earlier one, like Cas is trying to gauge a specific response.
Sam shrugs. “I said I’m fine, Cas.” Not really thinking about the truth. Instinct. Reflex. Automatic.
Sam brushes a hand through his hair, eyes up the flickering candle in the middle of the table. Its flame dances in the stagnant air, tall and bright and glaring.
Castiel follows Sam’s gaze, rapping his fingers off the desk a few times in a tune. It’s decidedly similar to Dean thumping his own hands off Baby’s steering wheel whenever a good song comes on.
Cas and his human habits. It’s like he takes notes on the brothers and picks and chooses which traits to replicate.
Maybe Cas comes here at night because he knows Sam often does, and thus deems it as something expected of himself, too.
But Sam prefers to think about it as hanging out.
The clock on the wall ahead approaches midnight when Castiel switches the beat he taps to something slower, and then it trails off altogether like he is also lost in his own mind. Sam would let his own thoughts wander, but he has never got a straight answer on if Castiel can read his mind or not, so he settles for scanning the pages of his book, tattered and wordy and ample distraction from the world. The pages turn softly, a gentle ripple in the night silence as Cas watches, eyes half-lidded, content in his solitude so long as it is with Sam.
Their knees bump against each other when Cas edges closer, like doing so is a risk. As if he is so unsure of his own welcome in the place he calls home. Though, after the argument he and Dean had, Sam thinks maybe Cas has reason to feel that way. He overheard the brunt of it, and it’s a wonder Cas bothered to come back at all.
Sam pretends to not notice the movement, just reads another couple of strung-out sentences about a spell meant for hexing.
And then Castiel hits out with it, all precaution and etiquette be damned.
“You miss Rowena,” he says. Like it’s nothing, like there is no reason for Sam’s entire body to chill to the bone at the reminder of the carnage his hands caused inside that crypt.
He blinks, letting go of the book in front of him, trying not to think about the events of that day. He’s spent the better part of this month in a blind daze, torn apart from the inside out at losing yet another person he loved. At hurting another person he loved.
Cas starts to rise without being told, looking regretful at having brought it up. But he barely gets his legs under him and pushes himself up when Sam talks, hurriedly, in an unspoken plea for Cas to stay.
“I do,” he confesses, but instead of the guilt lifting, the weight of it only gets heavier on his shoulders. He tucks his knees further up against his chest, his shins digging into the table edge as Cas sits back down. The burgundy spellbook rests on the table, its presence looming, an endless reminder of the death that constantly hangs over him. Sam half wants to burn the damned thing. He would, if it weren’t the only thing of Rowena’s he has left.
Her apartment, he reminds himself. But he hasn’t had the courage to go there yet. Can’t bear to endure the extent of his grief, the empty spaces where she should fit. So, for now, this book is all he has.
Cas leans forward. His hand hovers above Sam’s own, hesitant for a brief moment before clasping down and holding on. A small wave of grace weaves through Sam’s veins, warming him just a little so long as Cas keeps contact.
It’s a comfort thing and it works. It always works. Sam breathes out a tense sigh, his festering anxiety lifted for the first time in days with one simple touch. His smile is enough for Cas to know the attempt at comfort succeeded, and Sam swears Cas visibly relaxes at that realisation, too.
“I know that—” Cas cuts himself off, his hand retreating back into his lap. “I know it can be of great help, talking about these things…” he risks suggesting, knowing well that Winchesters and talking do not often go hand-in-hand.
But the sun set hours ago and Sam looks honest to God tired, so he barely reacts to the suggestion. Cas starts to wonder if Sam even heard him. The pause stretches out, so silent they can both hear the candle flicker from its spot on the table, and Cas willingly readies himself for a night of quiet company as Sam reads and drifts.
Turns out, Cas realises when Sam nods and draws himself up, that Sam did hear. Just needed a second to think. The angel considers working on his own patience while he watches the younger Winchester process the words, how his colourful eyes scan the room thrice as though anticipating something jumping out even in the safety of his home.
After some hesitation, Cas closes his eyes and weaves grace around the library first, and then the bunker at large, searching for any unknown presence that may pose a threat.
All he finds is Dean somewhere on the far end, likely asleep in his bedroom, and Sam sitting here, watching Cas with a perplexed frown.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for any danger,” Cas answers simply, his eyes fading to their normal azure instead of their graceful glow. “You have nothing to be afraid of.”
Sam gets it, after a second of confusion. “I’m not scared,” he says, almost offended at the idea. “I’m just— thinking.”
Normally, if Sam were that vague with anyone else, he would be bombarded with questions and demands to elaborate on whatever the hell he’s talking about. But this is Cas, and Cas is not entirely understanding of social cues. Inconvenient at the worst of times, but right now it’s a blessing. It means he sees zero issues with Sam’s uncharacteristic pause. He just sits back in his chair like he has all night to spend here.
Sam’s erratic heartbeat starts to wane, knowing there is no pressure here. No need to conjure up some half-assed explanation when the truth is much simpler, much darker.
Around five minutes pass, and he finally finds the guts to say it out loud.
“I can’t stop— seeing it. How it felt… how she— I killed her, Cas.”
The entire time he speaks, Cas notices Sam picking at the skin on his fingers, the wood on the table-edge, the loose thread of his shirt he thinks Cas can’t see. Like he needs something else to do with his hands, something that isn’t harming another person he loves.
Cas reaches over, gently pulling Sam’s hand away from his tattered shirt and holding it gently in his own clasped hands. “In doing so,” he says, “you both saved the world. I think that is very admirable.”
“I don’t care about admirable.” Sam shakes his head, and he intends for the words to be angry but they just come out defeated. He is well and truly sick of hurting people. His eyes wander to an empty corner again, and he scratches at his forearm with the hand Cas isn’t gripping. “I care about… I killed Rowena, Cas. Rowena.”
Cas pries his other hand away and holds them both in a vice grip, his blue eyes full of sorrow as he looks up. Sam avoids his gaze, looks anywhere else until he catches the broken spine of a navy-blue hardback book tucked between the shelves behind Cas. It’s one of the rare fictional novels Sam has in the bunker, as most of their shelves are reserved for lore books and research. Fiction is easier when the world is falling apart, though, so he makes sure to have some on standby just in case. Maybe he should have read that one instead.
Except, for once, the world isn’t falling apart. The world is safe because of her sacrifice. Her life in exchange for a world that was never worth losing her for. He never even got to tell her that.
And yet Sam is here, has been here for weeks, shattered to the core as if the fucking universe died alongside Rowena, and he’s been downplaying and downplaying and— and…
Cas purses his lips and ponders deep in thought, his hand never leaving Sam’s. Sam ducks his head and neglects to blink back the few tears that fall, because it’s late and it’s Cas and maybe he deserves to feel something after all that he has done.
Like he has a sixth sense (like he can read Sam’s mind) Cas reaches to wipe Sam’s flushed cheeks. Sam goes to resist but leans into the contact almost instantly, exhaustion taking rein and deciding tenderness trumps keeping his distance. He likes touch when it’s Cas.
Castiel’s voice comes out as a muted whisper when he finds the nerves to speak. “You can’t control your fate, but you can control how you respond. And Sam, what you and Rowena had—”
Sam grits his teeth. Sets his jaw like he’s pissed off to hell. “We didn’t have anything.” Says it bitter, says it like it’s a regret.
Cas draws his arms away, never quite knowing how to say the right things.
Should have listened to Dean. Should have stayed gone.
Always you.
Sam falters after noticing the angel’s gloomy demeanour, whispers an apology as he brushes the rest of his tears off his own face. Castiel’s gaze remains fixated on the table.
“You owe me no apology,” Cas starts slow. “What I meant to say… well— destiny pitted you both against each other. You should have been sworn enemies, but instead” —Cas cuts himself off again, like he still can’t find the words, but Sam gets it.
“I know,” he bites out in a meek whisper. “We made something good of it.”
Cas nods. “You did,” he fills the silence, tentatively glancing at Sam when he thinks the hunter is not looking. “And that in itself— you have nothing to feel guilty for, Sam. What you did was not out of malicious intent.”
“Then why does—” he pauses, the words stinging his throat. Can’t quite conjure up his voice when he next opens his mouth. He just sits there, lips slightly parted and breaths coming out in hitched gasps, like the mere thought of speaking sickens him to his core.
And then Cas does it again, that thing where he sits back and lets quiet settle across the bunker while Sam figures out his next move, figures out if he would like to say anything at all. Peaceful, tranquil. It’s not exactly something Sam is used to, but he will seize it while he can. The silence helps him figure out how to connect his thoughts to verbal sentences, and the second he feels he can stand another attempt at speaking out loud, Castiel straightens up to listen before Sam has even opened his mouth.
(Like he can read his mind).
“Sam,” Cas says, cautious when he nudges the hunter’s arm. The hands on watch around his wrist has shifted slightly, signalling a passage of several minutes. Sam closes his eyes, turns his wrist away so the watch face is no longer visible.
He’s losing time. Again.
“ Sam,” Cas is louder this time. Like he knows Sam’s spacing out, like he can—
“Can you read my thoughts?” Sam blurts out, voice quavering as he draws in on himself, impossibly small for a man at his height.
Cas tilts his head, brows knitted firmly together like it is the strangest question in the world. “No. Your thoughts are your own,” he says, each word careful as if he is half expecting this to become a thing. An issue.
“It’s just…” Sam pauses again, but keeps his eyes focused on his watch. Won’t lose another second to this. “Sometimes, you seem like you’re… answering to things I haven’t said.”
Cas nods once, curt and proper. “I cannot read your mind, Sam,” he says with conviction, so matter-of-fact Sam regrets doubting him in the first place. “However, I can read your mood. I can tell when you are acting strange. Sometimes I can tell when you need something from me — like there, bringing you back to the present.”
Sam needs that a lot nowadays. He can't blame Cas for trying. “But you can’t read my mind?”
“No, Sam. Your thoughts are your own.” Cas repeats that, like it is something he wants to drill into Sam’s mind. There’s an irony in that somewhere.
“Okay,” Sam whispers. “I trust you.”
Cas’ head tilt only goes more sideways, like he had not realised their trust was up in the air in the first place. And it wasn’t — not really. It’s just. It’s just —
“What were you saying?” Cas cuts through Sam’s thoughts, dismantling any fear that was beginning to form. “When you were beginning to ask a question.”
“Oh.” Sam’s spacing again, eyes glazed as he focuses ahead. Not for the first time, Castiel entertains the possibility of the conversation ending suddenly, and the rest of the night being a quiet one. But Sam draws himself back out on his own, shoulders tense and rigid as he bites the question out. “I was thinking… why does everything that I-I do always end up… hurting people?"
It’s not something that haunts him, exactly, but it is a repeated pattern in his life that he would desperately like to put a stop to, some way or another. He hasn’t spoken about this in years, if ever, even though it eats him up inside every time it manifests. He thinks about his hands killing Rowena; how his existence cursed his mother and first love; of all those people he failed to save during hunts even though it’s the one thing he is meant to be good at. He thinks about all this death on his hands and wonders how much holy water it will take to scrub that blood clean; if the Cage could have ever cleansed him of those sins had he stayed down there like he was meant to.
Cas eyes the flickering candle, the orange flame dancing in the reflection of his soft eyes. He blinks slowly, as though he is somehow sleepy despite his powers, and says nothing.
Figures. Sam slumps back in his chair, focusing on his watch and tries to mask his panic when he sees that fifteen minutes have passed by in what felt like five. Wordlessly, Castiel places his hand over the watch face, preventing Sam from looking at it. It's ridiculous, and it pisses Sam off for a few seconds, but then it actually helps. He's not tracking time, so he doesn't feel like he's losing it anymore.
“You have never hurt me,” Cas breaks the silence before Sam has a chance to shut down again. “I’m here, and I’m not hurt.”
And Sam just looks at Cas, like he’s an idiot, because of course he has harmed Castiel countless times. Physically, like stabbing him in the back or their fight in Arkansas last year; and mentally, like the time Cas broke himself healing Sam. So much for helping those he loves. Cas has no idea what he’s talking about.
“Dean’s here, too,” Castiel adds after gauging no verbal response from the hunter. “And he is also unharmed.”
Sam can’t prevent his eye roll. “Not always,” he mutters under his breath. Filled with rage he has no idea where to place. This time, when he starts picking the skin on his hands again, Cas draws his own hand back and lets him.
It takes Castiel a lot longer to find an adequate response. Part of it humours Sam, the way the angel is so determined to constantly wrestle all of Sam’s self-depreciation instead of just accepting that this is the truth and nothing he can do, with or without his powers, can fix how Sam sees himself. This is just how things are. And Sam is fine with that, and he was fine curled up in his little corner of the library processing all of this instead of hashing it out at some random ungodly hour of the night. He was fine before this conversation.
Then, Cas says, “We’ve hurt you.”
“Okay?” Sam raises an eyebrow, folds his arms protectively over his chest more out of instinct than anything else. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
A small smile plays on Cas’ lips, as if this response was what he wanted all along. Sure enough, a chuckle follows before he lifts his head up to look at Sam properly. “Exactly, Sam.”
Confused, Sam glances around the room and then shrugs at Cas, a clear indicator that he has no idea what point the angel is attempting to make.
“You forgave us, regardless of if we deserved that forgiveness. Why can’t people do the same for you? Why can't I do the same for you?”
Sam’s jaw pulses and he lowers his head back down, his fingers freezing in place over the irritated skin on his hand. The reflection of the candle’s flame dances along his jaw, a flickering orange briefly revealing glistening tears on his cheeks before the flame’s shadow conceals it. Sam blinks, but makes no effort to wipe his face.
Cas wonders if he even knows he is crying. Sam often takes a while to register physicalities.
“Sam,” he quietly draws Sam back from another reverie, relieved when the hunter finally drags his hand across his cheek to wipe the tears. “You have done so much more for this world than hurting the people in it. There is nothing even to forgive, from the way I see you.”
Sam looks as though he has a million rebuttals to deny that, but he yawns into his clasped hand and settles for glaring at the table instead, too drained to argue with a being that does not sleep and has all the time in the world to keep this debate going.
“I mean it,” Cas continues when he rightfully senses Sam’s doubts. “I’m not hurt right now. In fact, I am very happy, being here with you.”
The relief that settles in Castiel’s chest when Sam smiles catches the angel off guard, but he welcomes it nonetheless. He allows himself to settle closer to Sam, until their hands overlap once again. Cas traces patterns along Sam’s upturned palm, inadvertently outlining the faded scar.
“We are here, we are okay. And tomorrow, we are going to be free.”
Sam smiles again, a rarity that Cas treasures every time he is lucky enough to see it, let alone be the reason for it. The hunter looks at the candle as the flame dies out completely, eclipsing the bunker library in darkness before Cas manifests a soft beam of blue light with what little grace he has left.
This time, it’s Sam who shifts closer so their legs touch, and his warm eyes focus on the glowing blue in Cas’ palm.
“You are not going to lose us, Sam,” Cas says, so certain in his declaration that Sam believes it without asking any questions on how exactly Castiel is going to ensure that vow. “No matter what, we will always be with you, in some way or another.”
“I know,” Sam whispers, sounding genuine in his belief. His faith always has known no bounds. Cas is glad he still gets to be worthy of that.
In the ensuing quiet, Sam leans forward to relight the candle, an unspoken question for Cas to stay here just a little longer; just until he can stomach being alone again. These little nights just between the two of them, where silences are comfortable and angel grace is s afe — Sam would like for this to continue, at least for now.
And so Cas stays, loyal to a fault, with his grace and candlelight entangled in one another, a near-sentient wing curled gently around Sam’s shoulders. The azure glow caresses Sam’s jaw and he closes his sunflower eyes, content and wrapped up in Castiel’s safety and love.
The sun rises just as the candle fades to nothing more than cinnamon-scented smoke.
And for the first time in weeks, tucked under the safety of Cas' wing, Sam sleeps peacefully.