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“Sam, Samuel”
Castiel catches himself in the mistake as he tries to catch up to the man, a boy still all things considered, as he sees him leave one of the larger lecture halls in this college building. He has an overfilled back bag swung over his shoulder and what appears to be a textbook he hasn’t put away yet under his arm.
“Samuel”
The boy turns, confusion on his face before there’s a hint of recognition.
“Castiel” Castiel tries, seeing Sam nod, his brows slightly furrowed. The hall is busy, multiple students leaving the same room Sam just walked out of, most of them carrying equally as heavy bags, chattering away as they walk right past the both of them, leaving just enough space between Castiel and where Sam is now standing for them to see each other.
“Can we t-“
Several students pass Castiel, crossing his field of vision just long enough to where, when the area finally clears, Sam too is nowhere to be seen. Gone too is Castiel.
“Samuel” the next day.
“Samuel” the next.
“Samuel” Sam turns, Castiel having recognized the flaw in his plan to wait in front of the lecture hall now having stood waiting close to the entrance to the dorms, the day having passed before he had seen even a sign of Sam, the boy still carrying his backpack, returning from the library would be Castiel’s guess.
“what do you want?” Sam squints, keeping his pace up as he nears the building though he seems to plan to walk around the stranger instead of directly past him. Castiel takes a step closer to the door, preventing this plan but clearly annoying Sam in the progress “wat do you-?”
“Sam”
“what?” Sam's so visibly confused, annoyed really, that he doesn't even correct the man on his mistake - it's Samuel, Sam is for friends.
“You need to listen to me, you owe me that much.”
“I owe you that much?” Sam, having stopped walking, stares at him “I don’t know you”
“Sam”
In just weeks the angel has watched the boy and Jessica grow closer to each other. Fast, alarmingly fast, he thought he would have more time but his grasp on said concept is clearly escaping him, the idea that humans, that Sam could just trust someone so completely, so quickly as to hang around them and keep them around as something he considers fun? Allowing people physically close to him without literally pushing them away? He didn’t think he had ever seen the boy happier than around Jessica and to know what was going to happen if he doesn't stop it, he-
“why are you following me? Stalking me? People have started asking questions” Here Sam seems to try to think of the name that’s escaping him, having interrupted the angel’s thoughts.
“Castiel”
“I don’t care” Sam sighs “Can’t you leave me alone?”
“Not if you want that girl to live.”
-
‘In just less than one year you will start having visions, your brother will visit, and your girlfriend will die’ that is what the angel Castiel had told him, in no uncertain terms ‘I am here to prevent that’.
“I have a trap under the mat in the living room, I can salt the windows but not the door. Still, Bibby, even if this is an actual angel I can't just carry a-“
“Who are you talking to?”
Slightly alarmed Sam turns around to find the source of the new voice; Jess, leaning against the doorframe, her back towards the bed she just got out of, her pajamas uncorrected around her body, hair messy.
“You left it open” she explains herself “well, slightly” she rephrased “it wasn’t locked.”
“Bobby called,” Sam answers, a white lie, him having been the one to call. He shifts uncomfortably before continuing, “Wanted to know more about this Castiel guy.”
“The guy from the laundromat, the angel?” Jessica probes, stressing the word angel as if to make clear that she doesn’t consider any truth to be in that statement. Still, she felt a certain amount of intrigue at the term, Sam’s secrecy slightly worrying to her.
“You heard that?”
She nods “at 2 AM?”
“Bobby is a weird one, but he means well, I think you two would get along” Sam approaches her, phone still in hand, Bobby’s slightly agitated ‘’Sam?” audible to them both. Jessica smiles as Sam looks into her eyes, he doesn’t want to dance around this topic with her, and yet, surely with Bobby listening in, he feels this old rule forced upon him, that he can’t just talk about Bobby, let alone who either of them really are, to anyone.
“Sam?”
“We will talk about this later.”
“you always say that” Jess places her hand on his arm once he’s close enough, her fingers gripping around it, feeling his muscles tense and relax at her touch “you don’t need to hide him from me Sam.” 'always' wasn't much longer than a month now, perhaps two, time went fast around her, but Sam did have to admit he was eerily tempted to use exactly those words whenever she asked something, anything, he couldn't quite in good conscious give her an answer to.
“Bobby?” he asked.
“And that Castiel, and whomever else you feel like you have to” she pulls his arm, him stepping closer “You can't scare me off, promise”
Sam smiled, they were standing in his dorm again, Jess staying the night for one of the first times had made him uncomfortable, worried. It wasn’t the very first time but the first since Sam’s cryptic conversation with the man that called himself an angel, that said all those things about him, about her. “I know” he moved his other hand to touch hers, sliding his fingers across it softly, he wished he could make himself believe it, because going by his brain he did but going by his scarred heart he could not, as much as he wanted to blurt out that he thought there could be some truth to Castiel’s claims and that him and his family had been hunters for as long as he could remember, that he had never felt safe the way he did now he was with her “I just need time.”