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Dean would no doubt kill him if he knew but it wasn't like he could help it. It was getting to be like clockwork. Every night, at approximately 2:45 - Sam woke up. For the last week now, his eyes would just automatically open at that exact time and he'd just be wide awake.
After going through the trials, he should probably feel bone-dead tired but he didn't. Maybe his body was finally readjusting. That was also why, every night at 3 am, Sam would go to the main room and read. Every night it was a different book. Every night he'd study something new that might come in handy down the road about demons or monsters. He had a feeling that buried somewhere there had to be some stuff about angels too but sadly they hadn’t located anything of the sort yet.
Sam entered the library and took a seat in his favorite comfy armchair when he heard a loud crash coming from one of the rooms. Not thinking, Sam jumped up and ran to what turned out to be Castiel's bedroom. He threw open the door and, righting an easel and canvas in the center of the room, Castiel clambered back to his feet and had, in the process, squirted black paint on his (Dean's) rattiest tee-shirt.
"What happened?" Sam asked while scanning the room for intruders.
"Umm," Castiel said, turning away and squirting the remaining black paint on his palette, "a spider was crawling up my leg. It bothered me."
"Cas, are you...painting?" Somehow, Sam wasn't surprised. "How long's this been going on for?"
With his back facing the door, Castiel made a few broad strokes with his brush. "A few weeks. There are a few nights where...dreams are a strange thing, Sam. I've never experienced something like them before and..."
"Have they been bad?"
Castiel sighed and bowed his head. A minute later he chuckled. "Imagine an eternity of things a mind can hold - that was what I was seeing night after night. Before painting, I'd read mostly. I suppose like you have been doing. One night though, I found supplies in a closed room and just...started to draw."
"What're you working on now?" Sam asked, taking the empty chair that the room still had and sitting.
Wistfully, Castiel said, "I once saw a beautiful sunset off the coast of Atlantis."
"There really was an Atlantis?"
Castiel turned and tilted his head off to the side, looking at Sam and mentally saying, Don't ask stupid questions, before turning back and adding some orange to the sky.
"You have any others?" Sam asked.
“Others?” Castiel said, distractedly.
“Other drawings.”
Castiel’s brush stilled. "Oh. A few, under my bed."
Sam reached under the bed and felt around with his hand until he found a medium sized cardboard box that he slid out. He lifted the lid and there had to be hundreds of sheets of paper waiting within. Some of them were painted, others charcoal and the majority done in colored pencils. There were a great number of forests and lakes but there were many more portraits of people than Sam had been expecting.
"Cas is this...me?"
Castiel turned his head a fraction to the side. "Yes," he said, turning back to his sunset.
Not only of himself but there were also some of Dean, Bobby, Ellen and Jo. There were a few with figures the size of ants with large, strange creatures of light shadowing them, engulfing the small figures below. Angels? The last image was automatically Sam's favorite. It was so natural, it could've been a photograph.
"Hey Cas?"
Castiel turned and glared, annoyed for being interrupted yet again.
"I'm getting out of here soon; don’t worry. Just, can I keep this one?" Sam asked, holding up the portrait.
"Yes."
"Thanks man."
Sam carefully put the pictures back into the box and slid it back under the bed. He put the chair back to where it belonged and went towards the door.
"Dean mentioned that my walls were bare earlier," Castiel commented.
"Yeah - you should've gotten that nice aerial poster of the Amazon Rainforest I showed you."
"It was better than the one Dean wanted me to purchase," Castiel said as he put down his palette.
"Yeah, I don't see you as the Jethro Tull type."
"I think I'm going to paint a mural."
"A-a mural?"
And suddenly Sam could actually see it. If it was half as good as what was in the box then...
"Okay," Sam said with a smile, "Sounds cool."
Sam held up the picture and said, "Thanks for this."
"It is no problem, Sam. I am glad you like it."
Sam was just about to close the door when –
"One more thing. Can you please put the record player on for me?"
"Um..."
Castiel pointed beside his bed where the matching one to Dean's was innocently sitting with a vinyl already placed on top. Sam got the record turning and put down the needle. Rosemary Clooney's voice rang through the air.
"Soft and tenderly Jesus is calling/Calling for you and for me. See, on the portals, He's waiting and watching/Watching for you and for me."
"Good night, Cas."
"Good night, Sam. Sleep well."
Instead of walking back to the books and his chair, Sam went to his room. He'd just shut his door when the one next to his creaked open. He opened his again and Dean was leaning against the doorjamb.
"I thought I heard something," Dean asked, voice still hazy from sleep.
"Nothing. It was nothing I was just…talking to Cas."
"At 3:30 in the morning?" Dean rubbed his eyes and noticed the paper. "What's that?"
Sam looked at it again and handed it to Dean.
"Cas drew it."
The image was of the three of them, Castiel standing between the two brothers and wearing plaid and jeans just like them. It could've easily been a week ago, fresh off a hunt, except for the part where Castiel had drawn giant wings from out of his back reaching the length of the page. Each of the brothers had an arm around the former angel’s shoulder and everyone was smiling.
"Damn he's good," Dean said handing it back.
"There's more hidden in his room," Sam said. "He also said something about painting a mural on his wall."
Dean thought about it and nodded. "I think we can allow that. Still should've convinced him on that poster though."
"Dude, no."