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One evening, back at Stanford, Jessica had taken Sam to go to a student-run film screening. It was one of their first real dates — sometime after talking became going out but before going out meant actually dating — and Sam can still remember it perfectly. The film was Wings of Desire, a 1987 German art film starring Bruno Ganz as an angel living in Berlin during the Cold War.
“I should get a coat like that,” Sam had said, thinking of the long, wool overcoat the angel Damiel wore in the film. It hit just below the calf, and Sam thought it looked soft and heavy like a quilt.
“We’re in California,” said Jess. “When would you even wear it?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, ducking his head and laughing. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He walked her back to her room, and when he went to kiss her, he accidentally slammed their faces together and nearly broke her nose. Jess hissed and dabbed at the blood with her fingers, but then laughed as she wiped it off of her lip. Sam bent back down to kiss her again, and a bit of the blood ended up in his mouth. A year and a half later, Sam had her blood on his face again — this time a drip, rather than a smear.
It all feels like a lifetime ago. The number of years that Jess has been gone has since outnumbered the years she and Sam were together, but Sam can still feel her hair between his fingers. He can still remember the way the zipper on her favorite dress always caught when he pulled it down for her — can still remember the way she smelled. Cucumber and melon body spray from that store in the mall. That was definitely it.
“Hey, Sam. You gonna finish that?” Dean asks, gesturing to the half-finished Southwest omelet on Sam’s plate.
Sam jumps in his booth.
“Woah. You okay, man?”
They’re in a diner somewhere in central Vermont, heading towards New Mexico after investigating a haunted lighthouse in Maine. It’s cold — damn cold — and even in the dry heater air, Sam thinks his flannel-lined work jacket isn’t quite cutting it. The bleached, midday sun is high in the sky. It chases away the shadows until they’re hidden under the street signs or cars in the parking lot, leaving everything around them cold and washed out. The fluorescent light above them buzzes, flickers once, and it washes out the shadows on Dean’s face as well.
“Yeah,” Sam says, pushing his plate across the table. “I’m alright.”
Castiel is sitting uncomfortably straight in the booth next to Dean, both hands under the table. As Dean hunches over to finish off Sam’s omelet, Cas tilts his head back and gazes out the window over Dean’s shoulders.
“Cas?” Sam asks.
“Hm?”
“Everything okay?”
“No,” Cas says, turning towards Sam. His brow knits together. “No, it isn’t.”
“Besides the obvious, Cas,” Dean says with his mouth full. “Y’know, other than the literal world ending?”
“Of course,” Cas says, his shoulders slumping as he sighs. “In that case, yes. Everything is ‘okay’ other than that.”
“O-oh. Okay,” Sams says. “It's just you ... you don’t usually—”
“Y’know, Sam,” Dean says. His fork clatters against the table. “Cas is allowed to just hang out. Doesn’t have to be anything wrong.”
Sam raises his eyebrows. “O-o-okay,” he says under his breath. He doesn’t deign to ask what crawled up Dean’s ass and died. He just gets up and heads over to the counter to pay. Their waitress is cute and blonde with big brown eyes, and when Sam digs the change out of his pocket he pretends to pull the quarter out from behind her ear. She rolls her eyes but smiles, and when Sam checks the receipt there’s a phone number scribbled onto the bottom in purple ink.
When he gets back to the table Cas is gone. Sam flashes Dean the receipt with a shit-eating grin and neatly tucks it into his billfold. He won’t call her — he doesn’t even know where the hell they are — but it’s the principle of the thing. His civic duty as a little brother.
“Where’d Cas go?” Sam asks.
“What?”
“Where’d Cas go?”
“Oh. He, uh....” Dean clears his throat and slams back the last of the tepid coffee in his mug. He pulls one of his weird faces and flails a hand around. “Y’know. Angel crap.”
“Right,” Sam says. He wonders what Dean said this time. What he waited until Sam was out of earshot to say, and what made Cas fly off in front of everyone.
They have a day of nothing but driving ahead of them, so Dean saunters up to the counter and flashes the blonde waitress a smile, calls her “sweetheart”, and asks if he can get one last coffee refill to go. She doesn’t smile back. Just grabs a near-empty carafe from a hot plate and fills a paper cup.
“Shut up,” Dean mutters as Sam tries and fails to hide the smirk on his face.
They drive.
“Do you want a hair tie?” asked the blonde in the library. Sam’s mouth went dry.
“What?”
“To keep your hair out of your eyes,” she said with a smile. “Here.”
She took his hand and pushed a hot pink hair elastic off of her wrist and onto his. It was tight and dug into his skin, but it wasn’t confining. It felt secure — like taking it off would cause his hand to detach and flop onto the table like a fish.
“I’m Jessica.”
“I’m—"
“Sam?”
Sam is nudged awake by the Impala rocking to a stop in a motel parking lot. When he goes to rub his eyes, he looks at his bare wrist and half expects to see an indent in the skin. He’d worn that elastic under a wristband for years until it broke on a hunt. Now it sits deep in a pocket in his duffel bag, tucked inside a velvet box with a half-karat diamond ring, never to be taken out again.
“C’mon,” says Dean as he cuts off the headlights and kills the engine. “Help me with the bags.”
Sam stretches as best he can, and his arms hit the roof and his knees knock against the dash. He squints and rubs his eyes as Dean hauls himself out of the driver’s seat. Outside, the LED bulbs in the streetlights cast a sickly, greenish glow over the parking lot. It must have rained while Sam was out, and when Dean slams the door, the water droplets shake and reflect that same green hue. Sam looks around, but Cas is nowhere to be found.
The motel is the same as all the others. One room, two beds. Cable and HBO and an air conditioning unit tucked under the window. Usually, there’s a table and chairs, but if not, Dean will just sit at the head of his bed and spread his work out as far across the comforter as he can. He flips through the hundreds of channels until he lands on some Spanish soap opera and splits his attention between it and his debris field of old books and stolen motel notepads.
“Hey, Sammy, you hearing this shit?” asks Dean. “No me digas.”
Sam just crawls into his bed, covers his head with a pillow, and falls back asleep.
Checkout is at eleven, but the two of them pack up everything back up into the Impala before the sun has even come up. Sam’s not sure what time Dean ended up falling asleep last night, but he seems wide awake even as he has his first sip of morning coffee. Dean checks the map against the trunk with a flashlight in his mouth, traces out their next move with his finger, then folds it back up and tucks it into his jacket pocket.
They drive.
It's hours later when they stop in some small town with a historic downtown area that was, according to the names carved into the building facades, once full of offices and county buildings. It now seemed to be mainly comprised of twee brunch joints and boutiques selling soaps and overpriced, crafty-looking jewelry. As they roll down the strip, they pass a chalkboard sign advertising half-price mimosas and Dean makes a bee-line for the door.
“Brunch is more than just a meal, Sammy,” Dean says with all the gravity of a gallows confession. “It’s an event. An institution. You get a bunch of bored cougars together to drink mimosas and talk shit, and if a few of them get too tipsy and pinch you on the ass, so what, y’know? You take it like a man.”
Cas is there again. Sam’s not sure how he’s been finding them with the warding on their ribs, but he can’t muster up the energy to worry about it too much, no matter how much he probably should. He assumes Dean’s been calling or texting him, though Sam rarely sees him on his phone.
An older woman with a pentacle tattoo gets the three of them a table. Cas gets in first, stiffly and awkwardly as always, and Dean aggressively slides in right on top of him, knocking their shoulders together. They order, and even though Sam’s not hungry, he orders a side of wheat toast just so he doesn’t have to hear anything from Dean. Cas seems to be in completely over his head, and Dean watches with his chin in his hand as Cas’ eyes follow a server who walks past carrying a Bloody Mary overflowing with garnish, including an entire mini-burger. Cas gives Dean a perplexed look, but Dean just smiles and orders one for him.
Sam shakes his head as he pulls out last Saturday’s New York Times and begins to look over the crossword.
“Hey, Cas,” says Dean. “Tell me. Why’d you have to pick this stockbroker Ken doll, anyway?”
Sam glances up to see Dean fiddling with Cas’ tie.
Huh. He’s flirting with him.
It’s unexpected, but perhaps not very surprising. Dean is ... well, Dean. And probably not straight. Not entirely, at least. It’s kind of an unspoken thing between the two of them, at least since they were teenagers. The less Sam has to know about the notches in Dean’s bedpost the better, but there have long been nights where Dean had seemed to strike out with whatever woman he’d taken an interest in and still ended up sneaking back into their hotel room in the early hours of the morning. Bartenders, truckers. Other hunters, friends of their dad.
Dean would probably punch him if Sam ever mentioned any of it, so he just shakes his head and tries to finish his crossword in peace.
Cas scrunches his face the way he always does. “Jimmy didn’t work in finances.”
Dean looks over to Sam and makes a big show out of rolling his eyes.
“I’m just saying. What?” Dean’s lips twitch up like he’s trying not to laugh at what he’s about to say. “Was Alyssa Milano already taken?”
Cas shifts in his seat. “I am ... comfortable in this form.”
Cas flexes one hand and looks down at it. Sam doesn’t miss the way Dean steals an appreciative look as well.
“Would you prefer it if I looked like Alyssa Milano?” Cas asks, looking Dean dead in the eye with his chin dipped down a bit.
Dean is actually speechless for a moment, and then he slaps both hands down onto the table and launches himself out of the booth.
“Well, I’m gonna go ‘seek revelation’,” he says, “if you know what I mean.”
Sam looks around for the waitress. For the check.
Dear God, please, the check.
That night, Sam dreams about Jess again.
She's so real. The way she feels as he presses her into the mattress, gasping, and the way the mattress presses her back. The way she smells — just like she always did. That one perfume bottle on their dresser with the plastic daisies on the lid. He’s pretty sure that was it.
She arches up against him, and he drags two big hands from where they’re pinning her wrists over her head down over her ribs. Blue eyes turn deep brown. Deep brown turns black. Voice wrong, slick with ichor.
“It’s nice inside this body, Sam.”
He wakes up, looks over to the other bed, and finds himself alone.
They’re somewhere outside of Kansas City. It’s snowing, and the morning sun is soft against the frost, blending the colored lights of early morning traffic into a wash of pastels. They’re in another diner, the same as all the other ones. Sam’s eyes burn from exhaustion, and he can’t bother looking for the differences anymore. It’s always a highway, a motel room, a diner. Sam and his brother in opposite booths. Though now, it seems like Dean has Castiel on his side more often than not.
Dean’s antsy. He’s leaning across the table with his head down, bouncing his knee and pretending to be cold. Cas sets his arm casually on the table beside him. Dean doesn’t make as obvious a gesture as moving away, but he twists his straw wrapper and wrings it between his fingers. Pulls it taut until just before it breaks.
Sam thinks of the shitty guitar Dean bought when they lived in Fairfax. He was finally gonna learn, he’d said. Sam remembers laying on the floor while Dean clumsily fiddled with the strings. Sam stretched both arms out to his side as wide as they would go and brushed them back and forth over the shag carpet until his palms went numb. Carpet angels.
The straw wrapper rips apart in Dean’s hands.
“I'll be right back,” he says, nearly jumping out of the booth.
The bell above the door jingles as Dean pushes through it. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam can see Cas watch Dean leave. He glances down at Sam, then around the diner, then back to the door. After a moment, he stands and goes after Dean. A wave of cold passes through as the door slowly closes itself.
“Oh,” says the waitress as she sets down three cups of black coffee. “Where’d your friends go?”
Sam forces a polite smile. “Oh, uh, just out to the car. They’ll be back. Thank you.”
“Sure thing, hon.”
Sam glances out the window at the parking lot, but he doesn’t catch sight of Dean or Cas. He rubs his eyes and slowly sips his coffee until long after the other two cups have gone cold.
They drive.
The next time they stop, Dean books two nights. He says he thinks there might be a case and they should check it out. Sam doesn’t know where they are. It’s another one of the same towns with the same motel. One room, two beds. Cable and HBO and the showerheads that are too low.
Dean flips through the channels, landing on some kitchen appliance infomercial and not really paying attention to it as he scrolls through his laptop. Sam doesn’t even pretend to be asleep when Dean gets up and sneaks out. He just keeps his back turned to the door, watching as the light from the parking lot reflects off the wall and disappears again.
As soon as he hears the door lock behind him, Sam gets up and presses his ear against it. He doesn’t hear the Impala start up, but he does hear Dean’s voice, so he cracks one of the blinds and tries to look out.
Dean is leaning against the roof of the car, his head down and hands clasped. After a moment, Cas appears next to him. Dean shoves one hand in their dad’s jacket pocket but reaches out for Cas’ tie with the other. He cracks a smile as he wraps the tie around two of his fingers, and Sam can just barely make out Dean saying, “Missed you.”
Cas cocks his head to the side and Dean glances around before pulling him gently towards him. He turns Cas until Cas is backed against the car. Cas’ face softens and one of Dean’s hands goes under Cas’ arm, against the door, and the other wraps around the back of Cas’ head and, oh God, he’s going to kiss him.
Sam drops the blind. The motel room is plunged into darkness.
Later that night, Dean tells Sam he got his own room for the night. He doesn’t say why; he just tosses the original room key to Sam and says he’s gonna run and grab himself some beers before turning in.
With his brother gone, the room suddenly feels too big. Too dark, too quiet. Sam turns on the TV for some noise, but after flipping through the channels a few times, he just turns it back off again and drags himself into the shower.
It’s after midnight when he hears the Impala pulling into the other side of the parking lot. For want of anything better to do, Sam creeps over to the window and twists open the blinds.
Dean slams the driver’s side door closed, and Cas climbs out of the front passenger’s seat moments later. Dean has a six-pack of beers in one hand, and his head falls back in a laugh. Cas is right on his heels, looking over Dean’s shoulder as Dean fiddles with the key to his room. He quickly shoots a look both ways before he gets it open, turns, and pulls Cas inside by his suit jacket. The door closes, and moments later the lights go out.
Sam turns his back. The lights of the parking lot slice through the cracks in the blinds, and they cast crooked lines over the walls, over the bed, and down onto the floor. His hands shake, and it’s just all so stupid. After everything they’ve seen, despite everything he’s done, there’s still that part inside of himself that thought maybe — just maybe — there exists some form of justice in the world. That after everything Sam has done, trying so desperately to be good, there exists some kind of righteous, divine being who could love him. That he could be saved.
But Dean was saved.
Why can’t you just be happy for him?
Dean, who doesn’t have friends. Dean, who didn’t believe in God — in angels — while Sam prayed every damn day.
Well, Dean prays now. He’ll pray to Castiel.
And the only angel who loves Sam is the Devil.
You’re spiraling.
The whole thing is almost funny. Poetic, even. Not exactly parallel, but ... perpendicular. Two diverging paths sharing a common middle point. Cas wouldn’t even be here if Dean hadn’t sold his soul. If Sam hadn’t died. Sam wouldn’t have died if he didn’t get back into hunting. Sam wouldn’t have gotten back into hunting if Jess hadn’t—
No. You know that’s not how it happened.
Jess wouldn’t have burned if Sam wasn’t gone. If Dad hadn’t disappeared. If Dean hadn’t picked him up that night and—
Stop it.
Sam died, and he came back.
Jessica—
Dean died, and he came back.
Cas died, and he came back. Castiel came back, and Jess ... Jess is still—
Sam puts his fist through the drywall.
The lead in New Mexico turns out to be a bust. After stopping for a late dinner in Tucumcari, the two of them set off on Hwy 104. Around mile marker 35, Dean pulls the Impala off the road at a lookout point, grabs him and Sam two beers out of the cooler, and stops to watch the sunset. There’s a chill in the air, but Sam’s flannel-lined work jacket keeps it mostly at bay. With a rocky scarp to their backs and untouched sagebrush-covered plains ahead of them, it’s easy to forget that Sam and his brother aren’t the only two people in the world.
Dean lets out a low whistle and shakes his head, and it almost feels like the good old days before the world was ending when the two of them would steal the Impala while their dad slept and drive it out to look at the stars.
“I’ve, uh ... we’ve known Cas,” Sam says, “longer than I knew Jessica.”
“Huh,” Dean says. He takes a long swig of his beer then is quiet. “I knew Alastair longer than I’ve known you.”
Sam decides not to bring it up again.
“Seriously, I'm proud of you. You're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday, and you're gonna get that full ride. I know it.”
“What would I do without you?”
“Crash and burn.”
Sometimes when Castiel walks, hands shoved in his pockets and trailing behind Dean like a shadow, Sam sees Bruno Ganz on the streets of Berlin. He thinks of that movie date back at Stanford and the coat he’d wanted and Jessica’s blood in his mouth.
She’s been dead four years, three weeks, and two days. It still feels like yesterday, and sometimes, when the rumble of the interstate and the soft fuzz of a slightly out-of-range classic rock station has lulled Sam to sleep, he awakes thinking that he’s on his way home after finding their dad. Dean will drop him off, say it’d been good to catch up, and Sam will head to his law school interview the next morning. He tries so hard to remember the feeling of the sun coming through their bedroom window. The color of her favorite dress, black or blue? The way she smelled like ... like.... He wasn’t really sure anymore.
Whatever else happens between Dean and Cas, Sam can’t let himself care. There are more highways. More diners, more motel rooms. One room, two beds. There are nights when Dean stays and falls asleep with the TV on and nights when he sneaks out late at night while Sam lies awake on the bed next to him. In the morning, the two of them pack and load up the car. They sip their gas station coffee, look over the roadmap, and pick out their next destination as the sun comes up over them.
They drive.