Our Bodies, Possessed By Light -- Part 1

[obstinatrix]

Jimmy dies on a Thursday. His body is intact, stitched perfectly together with Castiel's omnipotent grace, but his spirit has been ebbing for months now, subjected to every shift and skirmish in the turmoil of souls stuffed into his meat suit, and a man can only endure so much. A year ago, Castiel might have released him deliberately in an attempt to spare him further suffering. Castiel, a year ago, was wholly love, enough steadfast power in him to help avert the apocalypse. That Castiel would not have clung to Jimmy any longer than he had to, not if he had felt his energy failing. Jimmy has paid his dues over and over, after all; enough to warrant the highest place in the heavenly kingdom. Jimmy is a good man, and he deserves to be released.

As it happens, Castiel does not release him willingly, because he is, for an aching three-month span, no longer Castiel. Instead, he is buoyed up on the energy of thousands of souls, a twisted parody of God growing stronger on their light. Jimmy must have been in agony from the moment it began, but the idea of relinquishing even one single soul is anathema to this Castiel, half-crazed with the rush of it, strung out like an addict. It is Dean, in the end, who defuses him; Dean who talks him down, always Dean, as it always has been. When Castiel throws back his head to vomit out the life-force of a million nameless things, he feels relief, and that part, too, is Dean's doing.

He's worn Jimmy so long that he actually forgets what will happen until the moment that it begins to - the frenzy of souls curling up like a spiral of smoke, like a kite, and Castiel behind, clinging to its tail. Castiel leaking out of his body like light until the body is fallen and he is soaring, and both Winchesters have their hands clasped over their ears. Angels, unlike demons, cannot inhabit empty caskets, and thank God for it too, or Michael and Lucifer could have had a far easier time of things. Sam and Dean have both certainly been dead enough that if a corpse could have contained an archangel, the world would not be in existence today. With Jimmy gone - with all his souls disgorged back to where they ought to be - Castiel is, for the first time in recent memory, unvesselled.

The Winchesters, of course, have a plan. They were brought up to plan, moulded and trained that way. Evidently, they can neither of them hear him in his true form, as Jimmy could, but Sam's arms are spread wide as soon as Castiel has risen far enough above the earth that the sound of his energies is diminished. "Castiel," Sam is saying, eyes still scrunched tight shut against the scorching whiteness of his light. "Cas!" Beside him, Dean is still crouching, sceptical and unhappy, but Sam's wide stance, the splay of his arms - it is a yes. It is take me.

Castiel rears up for a moment. Considers the situation. There is no question that Sam would make a resilient vessel - he was, after all, fashioned for Lucifer, the perfect angelic receptacle. Castiel could make an attempt to seek out another vessel the way he sought Jimmy Novak, but that takes time, and moreover, he is no longer sure that he is only an angel. Perhaps he is more powerful now than he was; perhaps his energies are tainted. Humans, as a species, are weak, but Sam Winchester is very strong. On that front, Castiel cannot fault the suggestion.

And then - and then. There is the question of Sam's broken wall, his hell-scarred mind, the worst excesses of which Castiel brought forward himself, forced Sam to confront. Sam showed himself to be more resilient in this than Castiel had ever dreamed, assimilating his splintered selves for the sake of his brother, and he hasn't been the drooling imbecile of Castiel's fears, but he hasn't been quite himself, either. There have been nightmares, uncertainties. Bouts of depression. Headaches worse than any migraine the human mind could imagine without any actual experience of it. Castiel had meant to fix Sam's wall after he tore it down. It is too late for that now, but an angelic passenger in a body heals many of its wounds. If Sam were to take Castiel's grace inside of himself, he would do what he could. It would be a first step toward making amends.

God only knows that Castiel has much to make amends for.

Sam's hands are upraised in prayer, but he has not given consent in so many words, and so Castiel is disabled. He pulses, attempting to communicate this message, and Sam may not hear him the way another vessel might, but he seems to remember himself all the same, ducking his head and clarifying, "That's a yes, Cas." He chews his lip, hair falling in his face, but his shoulders are steady. "You need a vessel, you got one. Come on, Cas." He hesitates. "Please."

Castiel isn't certain if it is the please or the nickname that does it, tips him over into the conviction that, at least for now, this is the right thing to do. Dean has not said a word, and Castiel is unhappily certain that this was Sam's plan, even if Dean has grudgingly agreed to it for want of a better one. It is the last thing Castiel wants, to make Dean unhappy, after all the months he has spent doing that excellently already.

But he needs a vessel, and Sam is offering. Sam needs to be healed, and Castiel owes him that much. He takes a last look at Sam's body from the outside, the length of his limbs, the breadth of his chest. He watches his ribcage move, in and out; listens to the subtle, essential pounding of his heart. If he does this, that will no longer be necessary to Sam's survival, no longer a requirement. If he does this, it will be Castiel that keeps Sam alive. Castiel could keep Sam alive forever.

Perhaps that would be overshooting the mark. Still, he will be able to speak to both Sam and Dean once he has a voice again, one that they can process without their brains bleeding into nothingness under its impetus. He steels himself, spreads himself as broad as he can, making an umbrella of grace over Sam, sufficient to cover and infuse him. And then he descends

"Cas," Sam says, stuttering in his throat as Castiel enters it, fierce and pure.

It is the last thing Dean hears his brother say for quite some time.



For the first week, the mechanics are very faulty. Castiel finds that he can speak to Dean quite easily, in the normal way, using Sam's mouth in the way he learned to use Jimmy's. Communicating with Sam is a little more difficult - he hadn't been in the habit of speaking with Jimmy much - but after a brief struggle, he works through the rust and finds that, certainly, it can be done. If Castiel wants to ask Sam anything, he asks, somewhere deep in the root of their brain where his grace is tangled up around Sam's cortex, and there, Sam responds. If Sam has anything important to say to Dean, he relays it to Castiel, who passes it on and receives a grunt in answer, for the most part. Dean is still sullen for a good portion of the time, and Sam does not attempt to speak to Castiel often, at first, because it is difficult. Still, Castiel is sure that when the one changes, so will the other. Castiel has a plan.

He broaches the subject with Sam after two or three days, when the effort of dredging Sam up to talk to has lessened from 'excruciating' to merely 'very tiring'. Angels, Castiel knows, are as able as demons to muffle and project the soul-voice of their vessel at will, retreating into the extremities of the body in order to let its true voice speak, take possession, as it were. Castiel has never attempted this before, but, as with the process of angel-vessel communication, he suspects that it's a skill that could be learned, which would become swiftly easier with practice. Perhaps Dean would be happier if Castiel were to practise, such that he and Sam could alternate possession of the body?

Sam laughs at first. Castiel feels it as a pulse at the back of his mind, a ripple of amusement. Sam's mental landscape has felt better every day since Castiel entered it, its wounds healing. "You could do that?" Sam asks.

Castiel shrugs. Mentally, the shrug expresses itself as a nudge of neutrality to the energy that is Sam. "It's possible. I've seen demons do it. I see no reason why we shouldn't." He hesitates a moment. On the other side of the room, Dean is crouched on his bed, pointedly not-looking at Castiel as he scrubs at the barrel of his revolver. Castiel knows that this must be hard for him. Harder still when Castiel does this, perhaps, face going blank and immobile while the conversation takes place inside his head - Sam's head.

"You think Dean'd be happier with you," Sam's voice cuts in, "if we traded off. If he could speak to me directly."

For the first couple of days, what Castiel heard rarely bore any relation to Sam's voice as it sounded leaving his physical body. Often, he had felt rather than heard what Sam wished to communicate, experienced it as shifts of energy on a wavelength far removed from that of normal human expression. This, though, is very distinctly Sam's voice, slow and pensive, as if he were making a breakthrough on a case, something far more routine and simple than this. This is Sam making an assumption from what Castiel is looking at, perhaps; and Sam can see Dean too, of course, but Castiel wonders suddenly how much Sam had to go on - whether he can read Castiel's thoughts.

It can happen, Castiel knows, that kind of crossover, the vessel's consciousness bleeding at the edges into that of its possessing force. The problem is that there are certain things in Castiel's mind that he isn't sure he wants Sam to know, particularly when it comes to the question of Dean.

Still. He is getting ahead of himself. Probably, Sam is only making a rational deduction from the direction of Dean's gaze.

"Yes," he says, "yes, I think he'd be happier with me. With both of us." He laughs wryly. "You know he thinks this is a very stupid plan, Sam."

"Yeah, well," Sam says, dismissive, "I disagree. And so do you, obviously, or you wouldn't have taken me up on it. This way you get a vessel that can contain you, I get my various ills cured, everybody wins. Especially if we can get this trade-off arrangement to work." He snorts. "Hey, Dean might even find it helps, to be able to take both of us with him on hunts in just the one handy package. Smite-time or shoot-out, Cas or Sam? Could be helpful."

And now Sam is the one getting ahead of himself. Castiel knows that it may take weeks even to learn how to switch off who is able to speak out of their shared vessel; the idea that Sam may one day be able to control it utterly, with Castiel riding quietly in the backseat, as it were, seems a far-off dream. Still, he recognises what Sam is doing. That, possibly, Sam understands this as well as Castiel does. He is encouraging, supporting, and Castiel cannot help but respond to it. It is a long time since he has felt supported.

"It could be helpful," he concurs, pensive. "It might take us some time and energy, but, Sam - I don't want you to be a prisoner in your own skin. I don't want to do that to you."

"So," Sam shrugs, "then you won't. We'll work it out, Cas, okay? We always do."

Castiel looks at the line of Dean's back, its taut hunched curve, the vertebrae of his spine under the thin cotton of his t-shirt. He hopes they can work it out with Dean. He hopes that Sam's optimism is not misplaced. He hopes a lot of things, among them that Sam will never uncover the contents of the pathetic list of futile desires in his mind.

This, though, is not the time for anxiety. This is a time for action, for moving onward inasmuch as they can. He pulses a wave of warmth in the direction of the diffuse Sam-feeling in his mind, wrapped around his spine. "Yes," he concedes, soft and hopeful, "we always do."

For a moment, he fears he has spoken aloud, from the jerk of Dean's head, the sudden pause in his steady movements. But then Dean shakes himself, goes on cleaning, and Castiel thinks he must have imagined it as he has evidently imagined everything else. That Dean's motivations for defusing him might have been born out of a love for Castiel, as well as a love for the world he'd threatened; that the situation had dispersed not purely because of how much Dean means to Castiel, but because of some measure of the converse, too.

He doesn't want to think about this. Sam might see, might deduce, at least, if he thinks too loudly, if he lets the yearning preoccupy every part of him, the way it often did in the long lonely months.

They will work it out together, he thinks, he and Sam. They must.



The thing about Dean is that he is, whatever else he may be, fundamentally a caretaker. A nurturer, and it isn't in him to fail to look after his brother, however pissed off he may be with whoever is currently wearing his face. However, Dean is also fundamentally kind of a dick, which means that he absolutely won't refrain from showing his displeasure, despite his continued brotherly attentions. The basic outcome of this is that Dean drives the Sam-body places exactly as he always has, takes it to drive-throughs and needlessly feeds it whenever he himself is craving grease, but utterly refuses to cater to any of Sam's particular whims and preferences. By the time Sam's watched himself eat his fourth double cheeseburger in as many days, he's starting to think Dean is actually doing it on purpose. He has a lot of time to contemplate shit, stuck in here like this, and he's pretty sure he can feel his arteries crystallising.

"Here," Dean says, gruff and curt as he tosses a newly grease-filled paper bag in the direction of his passenger-seat companion, "eat."

Castiel - who is evidently wary of upsetting Dean more than he already has - immediately unrolls the top of the bag without comment. Sam sighs, looks down into his lap at his own fingers moving, and needles at the Castiel-sense he can feel at the edges of his consciousness now, the gently glowing shape of him. A few go-rounds of this, okay, maybe they could have dealt with that as Dean letting off some steam, but this is really starting to piss Sam off. Dean may not fancy riding around in cars with angels until further notice, but Sam's of the opinion that it's about damn time Dean built himself a bridge and got the hell over it. The contrite little expression Castiel is wearing is starting to hurt Sam's face. He's had about enough of this.

"Look," he says, "you don't actually have to eat it, you know. He knows angels don't need to eat. Hell, more to the point, he knows I don't eat this crap unless I'm desperate. He's just being a bitch, Cas; you should ignore him."

There's a brief, inexplicably tense pause, during which Sam is suddenly and strangely unable to feel Cas at all over the rush of the irritation pounding in his head, the exhilaration of spitting out days of pent-up pissiness. And then Dean, blinking slowly at him as if he's grown another head and not simply acquired a second consciousness as a room-mate, demands, "What did you just say?"

Sam blinks back. Blinks so he can feel it, the contact of eyelashes with cheekbones bizarrely tangible as never before; his fingers, his toes, the breath in his throat, now hitching in confusion, all fully realised. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Castiel shifts, shakes himself, and Sam feels it like a kick to the back of the driver's seat, the unmistakable presence of a passenger.

Oh.

"Oh," Sam says, slow and with his own mouth. "Uh."

"The fuck?" Dean's working the steering wheel furiously now, spinning the car right back around in the driving loop until they're heading back into the parking lot, most of Dean's attention still fixed on his brother in horrified bemusement. "Sam? Where the hell did Cas go?"

Sam frowns. That part, at least, is straightforward - he can still feel the now-familiar Cas presence very distinctly. It's only the part where they've somehow switched out without either of them apparently intending to that has Sam confused. "Um," he says, a little distracted, "he's still right here. I can feel him."

Dean rolls his eyes elaborately and smacks his hands down hard on the wheel. "Well, that's great, Sam. How the hell is he in there and you're - " he gesticulates vaguely - "out here?"

"Dunno," Sam says, faintly. Dean is kind of loud when he wants to be, and it seems to be taking more concentration than usual to hook himself back into the Cas-loop, or whatever. "Shut up a minute and I'll ask."

"You'll - ?" Dean breaks off; shakes his head. "Fine. Fine, I'll wait."

Sam doesn't dignify the comment with a response - just closes his eyes, lets himself sink back a little into the dark place in his mind where Cas ought to be. It's weirdly more difficult to find the right spot when mind isn't the only thing he is, but after a second, he thinks he feels it - a pulse of light, a flicker of answering confusion. "Cas?"

"It seems," Cas says, ruefully, "that we have managed what we planned. Inadvertently."

"Inadvertently is right," Sam snorts. "One second I was just fuming away about what a dick Dean's being to us, and the next - "

"Strong emotion," Castiel cuts in, slow and pensive. "Yes. I think it was the anger that allowed you to come forward, Sam. I can overtake you, I think, but I wanted to work things out first. Do you remember how it felt? How you did it?"

Sam thinks for a minute. "I really, really wanted to say something," he says, thoughtful. "I guess if I think about it hard enough...?"

"It happens," Castiel finishes, and Sam feels something like a nod, something that might have been an inclination of the head if Sam had not been using their only head just now. "That's something, Sam. Something to work on."

"Well?" Dean interjects, after a minute. "You done with your little multiple personality pow-wow in there, Sybil?"

Dean is not a patient guy. Sam rolls his eyes and smiles over at him. "Yeah. Cas says it seems like I just need to want to talk really strongly, or something, and I can do it." He pauses, thinking. "I guess, if the angel passenger isn't keeping you deliberately trodden down, you can do that. And Cas and I have been talking, so." He shrugs. "It's kind of easygoing in here."

Dean nods for a minute, thinking. "So you guys can maybe, what, trade off like this?"

"Maybe," Sam confirms. "We talked about it. Weren't sure it was possible until today, but we talked about it."

"Huh," Dean says. He looks thoughtful, like he's processing, but no longer anything like as brooding and generally pissed-off as he's been for the whole of the past week. "I guess I could live with that."

Sam refrains from pointing out snarkily that Dean will just have to live with whatever comes up, whether he likes it or not. It wouldn't really be helpful, not when Dean is pulling back onto the motorway and cranking up the AC/DC on the stereo. Sam doesn't mind AC/DC. Dean hasn't played them all week.

By the time they reach the Arizona border, the music has lulled Sam most of the way to sleep. Weird kind of lullaby, but it's the only kind Sam ever knew, and the car feels better now that Dean is smiling, drumming his thumbs on the wheel as he drives. Somewhere on a red dirt road, Sam gives in, lets himself fall. In the back of his mind, Cas is dozing too, the sense of him unusually restful.

The car speeds on into the approaching night.



Sam wakes up some time later in a motel bathroom, mostly due to the fact that there's a toothbrush shoved so far toward the back of his mouth that it's nudging his tonsils. Given that his last memory is of falling asleep to the strains of Back in Black, it seems pretty clear that Cas got them up and out of the car without Sam's consciousness ever having twigged to the fact that they were moving. This has happened a number of times over the past few days, to the point where it's almost close to normal, so Sam doesn't worry about it unduly. What isn't normal, however, is the part where, apparently, an erroneously-placed toothbrush is enough to jolt him forward and displace Cas's control through the expedient of a violent coughing fit. Apparently, having worked out how to do it once, his body - their body - is finding the switch-off easier every time.

"Dude," Dean protests, over the sound of the shower running, "do not frickin' die on me, okay? I'm not getting out to do the Heimlich manoeuvre when I'm still all...lathery."

For a second, all Sam can do is blink while his eyes try to adjust to what exactly it is that they're currently fixed on. Dean, a naked blur of skin through the thin barrier of a motel shower curtain, and Cas has put them in prime staring position. Angels have no sense of personal space, Sam thinks, shaking his head, and drops the toothbrush in the sink.

"I'm okay," he calls, although the hoarseness in his voice does nothing to lend credence to the assurance. "Angel driving. Seems brushing teeth is hard."

"Sam?" There's a pause, and then Dean is peering out around the corner of the curtain through a film of bubbles. "You were Cas a second ago, man. I can't keep up."

"Yeah, well," Sam grins a little, "better get used to it, I guess. One of these days we're gonna work out how to do the switch-around on purpose, and then we'll really be unstoppable." He pauses in the act of retrieving his toothbrush, brow furrowing a little. "What the hell was Cas doing in here when you were showering, by the way?"

Dean shrugs, retreating back under the water. "You're always in here when I'm showering. No big deal."

"That's me, though," Sam points out, slowly. "And I don't - " He breaks off. If Dean has been getting along okay with Cas, finally, in Sam's absence, then it's probably better not to finish that sentence. Or at least, not to finish it with I don't stand around peering at you through the curtain so intently I end up choking on my toothbrush. After all, that was kind of...weird, right there.

"Don't what?" Dean prompts, naturally. Just like Dean to choose this precise moment to suddenly start listening.

"Nothing," Sam puts in, quickly. "Never mind. Guess we all better get used to it." Not like Cas hasn't seen plenty of Sam naked, after all, he thinks ruefully. Mostly, he's been trying not to dwell on that, but now, at least, he might be able to insist on taking over showering duties himself, thus saving himself the embarrassment of having to witness Cas awkwardly washing his - parts. It had been decided early on that Castiel was absolutely not going to be allowed to go more than a couple of days without washing the vessel, whatever he might have done with the last one. Cas is also required to change their clothes, which has resulted in some interesting shirt-buttoning disasters.

"All right then," Dean comments, unconcerned through the pounding of the shower. "Your teeth really needed brushing, dude, I'm just saying."

"Okay," Sam comments, mildly, although his thoughts are starting to mill around in some interesting directions. His Cas-sense is oddly absent, although the absence is tangible, pointed, almost as if he's - hiding? Sam nudges at the edges of where he thinks Cas might have stowed himself, and something sparks in his mind, defensiveness and a twinge of embarrassment. Something close to shame. Sam takes the hint, skirts away and leaves him alone, but it doesn't do much to stop the whirrings of his mind.

That's the first time.



Castiel is trying to contain himself. Sometimes it feels as if he is trying with every ounce of energy he has just to keep his thoughts from bleeding into Sam's; to keep his feelings, his leaps of instinct, from surging up and rushing through Sam as if they were his own. The problem is that, at first, it wasn't terribly difficult to keep himself separate, at a remove. Now, with their switches coming easily and often, the lines between their consciousnesses are becoming blurred. It isn't that they can't quite tell where one of them ends and the other begins - Castiel is still very distinctly himself, and Sam is a solid, outside presence, despite their close confinement. But now, whichever one of them has control, Castiel can feel the way Sam's heart pulls fondly when Dean sings along to Zeppelin in the car, the rush of satisfaction when they chug a vanilla latte and the flicker of pleasure at rain on a sunny afternoon. Sam's feelings, not Castiel's, but Castiel feels them all the same, and the implications terrify him.

He doesn't think Sam is aware just yet of any of the things Castiel feels - or at least, of any of his preoccupations on the level below general, unimportant observations, appreciation for a landscape as the Impala drives into it or quiet annoyance at being made to wait. These things Castiel makes no attempt to conceal, and consequently he is sure that Sam feels them too. The thing is -- these are such generic responses that Sam is, at any given time, probably experiencing thoughts of his own so broadly similar that Castiel's barely register on his radar. Probably, Sam is only aware subconsciously, if at all, that there is a bleed going on between the consciousnesses in his skull, a two-way information transfer. If anything floats to the surface, Castiel judges, then it may be subject to exchange between himself and his companion: the only solution he can muster, then, is to be constantly vigilant when it comes to his more personal feelings, careful not to let them float up to the forefront of his mind. The forefront, now, is effectively a shared space, and Castiel must police what he allows into it.

It feels insufficient to call it exhausting. For the time being, Castiel has the upper hand - it is he, after all, who is the possessor, and Sam the possessed - but he is unnervingly unsure as to how long this might last. Every day, the switching becomes less strenuous, Sam's control over the bits and pieces of himself increasing. Every day, Dean becomes more comfortable with what he calls his 'D.I.D kid brother', no longer so thrown when Castiel takes possession unexpectedly, no longer making any particular effort to treat Castiel in a markedly different way. Castiel imagines that it is easier for Dean this way - it all just looks like Sam, after all, and altering his behaviour with every switch would have swiftly led to exasperation and weariness. Easier for him simply to go on with whatever he was saying, safe in the knowledge that whoever is newly arrived will probably have heard the earlier part of the conversation too. The problem is that, while it may be easier for Dean, it makes matters immeasurably more difficult for Castiel.

Dean and Sam have lived out of each other's pockets for as long as either of them can remember. There's no modesty making barriers between them, not after so many years of sharing bathrooms and, when necessary, beds, and Dean is even less concerned about these things than Sam is, never having had his fit of pubescent younger-brother inadequacy angst. If it's too hot for the feeble air-conditioning unit to temper, Dean will sprawl out on his bed in his boxers, and Sam, quite used to such behaviour, will never even think about passing comment unless he goes so far as to attempt to shed the boxers, too. Castiel, meanwhile, will curl himself into the smallest possible ball he can manage in the comfortable depths of Sam's body, and close his eyes pointedly to what Sam can see. Dean laid out like that has an effect on Castiel that Sam must never see, not least because the outcome might almost be worse if Sam were confused enough to wonder if these were his own feelings. Dean like this is an invitation to sin, his broad freckled shoulders and his neat narrow waist, the smooth line of his clavicle jutting above the rise of his pectorals, casting shadows. Castiel wants, when he lets himself look, to touch him, but Castiel has no hands of his own, no body with which to cover Dean's. Even if Dean might once, perhaps, have yielded to Castiel, on the furthest outreaches of Castiel's hopes, he will not, cannot allow that now, not with Castiel possessing his brother. Now, Castiel is locked away from his temptations. All that remains is to lock the temptations as firmly as possible away from himself.

The brothers, though, oblivious, do not make it easy. One moment, he is coiled away within his consciousness; the next, Dean is saying, "Cas? Think we could handle something like that with rocksalt?" and Sam is stepping back, ushering him forward until he stumbles, blinking and uneasy, into the light. On the bed beside him - and, dear God, Castiel understands neither when Sam manoeuvred himself onto the bed at Dean's side, or how on earth he manages to stand it - Dean lies like a premonition of downfall, one eyebrow cocked in expectation. "Cas?"

The want swims to the surface unbidden; spikes in his stomach, ominous and low. Castiel takes a deep breath and shoves it down, resolutely steering himself away from the lapping edges of Sam's consciousness in their mind. "I'm sorry," he says, slow, apologetic. His voice sounds different to Sam's when he speaks, although it is the same larynx he uses, the same throat and lips and tongue. There is something intriguing, too, in the thought that this mouth is like Dean's in ways that Jimmy's was not, the shared DNA, something in the curve of the lower lip. Castiel wonders if Dean's mouth tastes like Sam's, same human note to the saliva under the tongue. He wants to press his mouth to Dean's and see.

Somewhere in his mind, Sam shifts, something like a kick resonating through Castiel and jolting him back to reality. He is doing terribly badly today, but then, Dean is behaving badly. Perhaps Sam is still unable to feel anything more specific than the edges of feelings, their warm-washed undertones. Perhaps he will only think that Castiel is sexually frustrated. After all, it would not be untrue. Since they worked out how to trade off possession of the body, Sam has jerked off in the shower most mornings, but Castiel always retreats politely, blocking out both Sam's thoughts and their body's sensations. It would seem rude not to do so. Equally rude to use the body in this way himself, although he knows that Sam would probably retreat exactly as Castiel does if ever he asked for it. Still, Castiel doesn't trust himself not to give himself away, abandoning his controls like that. If he were to let his thoughts spill out into the shared space, he is sure Sam would not like what he saw.

He is sure Sam does not like what he is seeing now. The want in Castiel's stomach has given way to anxiety, a sort of low nervousness that squirms like nausea. He looks Dean firm in the eye. "I'm afraid I was elsewhere," he explains, politely. "If you could recap, I will give you the best answer I can."

Dean rolls his eyes, but starts over. Castiel keeps his eyes on Dean's face, above the line of his throat, and thinks very hard about every new image Dean presents. Warehouse. Redcap infestation. He thinks about their little bloodied heads, and as a sexual deterrent, it seems to work. Inside his mind, the sense of Sam is relaxing, tuning back in to the conversation.

In the end, nothing works against the redcaps, despite what the lore says, and so Castiel, exasperated, takes over possession and burns them all away in a burst of holy light.

"Awesome," says Dean.

Castiel cannot suppress the surge of pride that wells up at that, the look on Dean's grimy, blood-spattered face. He only hopes the undertones do not seep through, his mental mapping of the line of Dean's neck, how cleanly his teeth flash against his dirty skin.

When they get back to the car, Sam resurfaces, and Dean reiterates, "Dude, that was awesome. You and Cas are like a two-for-the-price-of-one BAMF machine."

Sam snorts into laughter, and from his place inside their mind, Castiel shares it. "Yeah, Dean," Sam says, "we're amazing."

For the duration of the ride back to the motel, Castiel is entirely in agreement with this assessment.



It isn't too late for pizza when they get back to the motel, so Dean orders the hugest they have, with lashings of green peppers in an attempt to shut Sam up - or so Castiel assumes - about the fact that it isn't actually necessary to buy food for three separate people when they only have two bodies between them all. Sam is unimpressed by the reasoning, but impressed enough by the pizza itself that he deliberately retreats into the passenger seat with a muttered, "Oh, man, Cas, you have to try this," shoving Castiel forward. Castiel is not especially fond of pizza, but he is fond of the warm sense of camaraderie filling the motel room at this moment, the collective sense of a job well done. It is unifying, gratifying, and the pizza is part of that, greasy and foreign as it may be. Jimmy Novak never ate pizza. Castiel has no frame of reference for it, but the Winchesters are giving him one for it now, as they have done for so many more important things. Castiel is happy, he realises. When Dean grins over at him in a way Castiel has only ever seen directed at Sam, his heart soars, purely enough that he does not even make the attempt to conceal it from Sam. He is part of this, of them. The feeling it gives him is irrepressible.

It isn't until later, when Dean has fallen asleep with one hand flung out across the bed, that Castiel lets himself slip a little, the bubbling sense of contentment giving way to something else, something softer. Sam is mostly asleep, and it's reached the point where Castiel is no longer sure who has control of their body. Like this, lying motionless and waiting for sleep, it doesn't seem to matter. Ordinarily, a possessed vessel has no need of human sustenance, but Sam's body is not possessed in the way that any other, to Castiel's knowledge, has ever been, and the rules don't seem to apply. When Sam sleeps, Castiel rests, unless he's needed to move their body from one place to another and doesn't wish to wake Sam up. Their arrangement has brought him to places closer to sleep than he has wandered since his brief span of near-humanity, back when the apocalypse was nigh.

He and Sam had been talking sporadically, but Sam has fallen silent now, and so Castiel lets himself study the swells of muscle in Dean's outflung arm, the angle of his shoulder. Dean looks younger in the face when he's sleeping, all the anxious little lines smoothed out - although they have been smoother in general, lately, since he stopped having to worry about Sam falling back unexpectedly into hell. Castiel did that, and it makes him proud to know that, whatever he broke, he has given Dean more than enough recompense. Dean, who has been everything to Castiel since the moment he held him tight and raised him from perdition. Dean, with his fine-cut face too delicate to exist outside of pure art, his soft, lush mouth, now parted in sleep, showing glints of white teeth between. Castiel could climb out of bed in this moment, crawl up and under that outflung arm. Sam would never be any the wiser, content to sleep at the back of their mind, and Dean, perhaps, might let him stay, never one to deny his brother anything. He knows they used to sleep that way when they were children, and sometimes afterwards, when somebody was hurting. Sam has thought about it, remembered it, since Castiel has lived in his head. Perhaps Dean would allow it, and Castiel could curl up chaste against his side and think his unchaste thoughts.

"Cas," Sam prompts him. The touch of his mind is brief and gentle, but Castiel feels himself seize up in spite of himself, limbs drawing close to his body. He has control, then.

"Sam," he manages, although he barely knows how he does it, with every impulse screaming at him not only to retreat, but to flee, make his exodus through Sam's mouth in a blaze of light to blind them both. "I thought you were sleeping."

"Almost," Sam says, wryly. His voice is light, but there is something else in it that tells Castiel he has seen what Castiel feared he might. Something closer to concern than to anger, or disgust, but Castiel's stomach twists all the same in knots, anxious and unhappy.

"Hey," Sam says, low and gentle, "Stop making me nervous, man. Feel all twisty."

Castiel can't help but smile a little at that. The knots in his stomach are like turns of rope, and he takes deep breaths, putting all his energy into loosening them. "Sorry."

"No problem, Cas." Sam shifts sleepily, his energy brushing warm and soothing along the edges of Castiel's sense of self. "Can't stop thinking, huh?"

Castiel laughs shortly. Sam has a knack for understatement. "You could say that."

"You know," Sam says, tentative, "for what it's worth, I don't think you're alone in this." He pauses, and then adds, "Dean, I mean. He - you know."

The twists of rope recoil themselves at a rate of knots, and Castiel frowns, jerks a little. "What do you mean?" It sounds defensive, he knows, but he cannot help it. Sam's voice is so soft, so easygoing and sympathetic in his mind that Castiel cannot help but think they must be somehow at horrible cross-purposes. Surely, Sam would be more agitated if he knew - really knew - what Castiel was thinking.

But Sam only smiles, gentles Castiel's anxiety with a flicker of something warm and reassuring. They learned this soon and easily, the non-verbal communication, little touches to each other's minds. Castiel wants nothing more than to let himself be gentled, but he is afraid. God help him, but he is afraid. "Sam. What do you mean?"

"Look," Sam breaks in, "You can stop trying to keep it from me, okay? All I know is, all these Dean-related boners are nothing to do with my issues." Sam laughs a little. "I mean, sure, we have issues coming out of our ears, but that isn't one of them."

Castiel is cringing. He doesn't think he's ever felt so small in his life. "No," he admits, miserably, "no. That is my fault, Sam. I'm sorry."

"Happens," Sam says, with a mental shrug. "It's not - look, it's not a problem, okay? I just thought it was probably getting exhausting for you, trying to hide stuff from me all the time. Case you haven't noticed, we sort of share a brain, Cas."

Cas smiles ruefully. "Oh, I know, Sam. Believe me."

"Well, then." Another little touch, gentling. "I know you love my brother. It's nothing to be ashamed of." A snort of laughter. "Hey, I love him too, right?"

"He loves you back, though," Castiel returns, shortly. He doesn't mean to, should have guarded himself better, but the sentiment sort of falls out against his will, like a lot of things of late. "He loves you best. Obsessively."

"But not like that," Sam puts in, voice sharpening with insistence. "Look, Cas, I know it's probably hard for you to get the way all this human crap works from the inside, but Dean - " He breaks off. "Why do you think Dean was so upset by all that stuff last year, with you being gone? With Castiel the nuclear missile?"

Castiel shudders at the reference; turns his face into the pillow. "I don't know," he mutters, shortly. He wants to escape, now, more than ever; wants to abandon Sam on his soapbox, but Sam will not let him, following him back into his corner of their mind, bludgeoning him from all sides with needles of light.

"Yes," Sam says, "you do. Dean doesn't love many people in this world. Yeah, okay, so he loves me best. He's programmed to. But, dammit, Cas, he loves you too, and he loves you because he chose to, not because he was told to and never given another choice. He loves you - " Sam pauses mid-thought, as if groping around for words. "I want to say romantically, but that doesn't cut it. Properly. With his mind and his heart, not just his gut and his instincts. He says he's straight, but I've never seen him love a woman like that. You're so important to him. That's the only reason you hurt him so much."

Castiel winces, cannot help it. He never meant to hurt Dean, not ever, and the knowledge that he did still pains him. But the rest of it - what Sam is saying to him -- "Do you think so?"

Sam shrugs. "I know so, Cas. Believe me. I know him, better'n anyone."

"That's true," Castiel concedes. "But, Sam, even if this is true, he knows me the way he first met me, not - "

"Not as his kid brother," Sam finishes. "Sure, I see your point. But it's you he loves, not - not Jimmy Novak's body. Obviously he wouldn't want to do anything about it so long as you're in me, but that won't be forever, right?" He brushes a tendril of light against Castiel's own, reassuring. "In the meantime, you don't have to worry about offending me, okay? He loves you, believe me. In a way that's totally unrelated to the body you're in. When you get right down to it, it's just packaging."

"I love Dean's - packaging," Castiel points out, ruefully, testing, and Sam laughs a little.

"Well, it's nice packaging, yeah. But Dean's - I don't know - connected to his a lot more fundamentally than you are to yours, since you're kind of - hermit crablike. You're just the inside bits."

Sam has always been so nice to him. Sometimes, Castiel wonders why, given the way he treated Sam at the beginning, as an abomination. Sam is something warm and kind, always there to navigate him through the stormy seas of complicated human existence, and Castiel is grateful for it in more ways than he can say. He tries to communicate this with a little pulse of gratitude, warm and enveloping all of Sam he can find. "Sam," he says, softly, "thank you." It doesn't go anywhere close to conveying all the things he wants to, but it is a start. It is all he can offer.

Sam only smiles, returns the pulse lazily, as if he understands. "Any time, Cas," he says, like it's nothing. "Seriously. I'm right. You'll see."



part 2