Sampler
Title: Sampler
Author: feldspar2
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Prompt: #36--The apocalypse is over and Sam hates that Castiel still comes calling, every Sunday. Following Dean to their meeting place in secret, angry and jealous, he discovers the nature of Dean's latest deal.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 18,967
Spoilers: Mild, for "The Rapture" and "Lucifer Rising"--if you haven't seen the eps yet, pass on this.
Warnings: Nope
A/N: This was written with complete disregard for the geography of California AND that 5-minute clip; this is the happy ending zone, guys. Hope you like.
P.S.: The poem quoted at the end is "Requiem" by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Sam smelled eggs, waffles and bacon in the air--piles of it, and still warm.
"Dean?" he croaked through the open door. No answer. Sam sat up, cleared his throat, tried again. "Dean!"
Still no response. Sam scowled, sleepy instincts stirring, and then he remembered what day it was.
Sunday.
"Dammit," he muttered, and got out of bed. Padding into the kitchen, he found covered pans on the stove and a stack of buttered toast on a plate. A scribbled note on the table read, *make your own coffee.*
Sam's appetite died. The note didn't say where Dean was but he knew who his brother was with.
Castiel. Again.
It was almost a month after the end of the War. Dean had clipped Lucifer's wings, so to speak, Lilith and Ruby were dead, and he'd given the demon horde a huge freakin' smackdown, assisted at the last moment by Cas and a host of angels. They'd fought for and saved the world while the world had rolled on as it always had, with no knowledge of the battles being fought on its doorstep. It ended here in Cali, and he and Dean had remained in the foreclosed bungalow that had been their bunker, picturesque but tiny, and they slept and ate and slept some more, and since the power was still on they took really long, hot showers and swam in the backyard pool.
Sam ground his teeth. He still didn't know what Dean and Castiel had been getting up to, and like an ass he'd been waiting for Dean to just open up and share. Sam snorted; clams were chatterboxes compared to his brother.
Okay. He'd give them one more week, and if neither of them spilled, he'd follow them next Sunday, no matter where they went. That was a promise.
Sam's appetite came back, and with a fierce grin he grabbed the ragged potholders.
**
A week passed. Dean's lips were sealed. Castiel was absent. Sam steamed.
But that didn't mean they didn't have good times. The town was small enough for them to go unnoticed but there was a decent library, and a couple of miles away was a mall with shops, stores, and a multiplex. They sampled it all, and Sam was glad to see some of the weight his brother had carried for years slide off his shoulders.
But when Dean went off with Castiel that Sunday, Sam followed, two car lengths behind, in the black SUV they'd rebuilt together at Bobby's. He drove carefully, hanging further back as the Impala swung left on a gravelled road. Sam parked under an oak tree, its leaves whispering in the breeze, and picked up the pursuit on foot. His sneakers made little crunching sounds and he hid behind every tree and bush along his side of the path; it was hell of a lot harder for a guy over six feet to be inconspicuous in broad daylight.
As he moved, he smelled flowers. Lilacs? The path curved, widening gently to a mowed lawn. He saw two buildings, a one-story house and a separate garage, both painted dark green with brown doors and windowsills. Sam dodged behind the last tree bordering the grass as the Impala parked in front of the garage and Dean and Castiel got out, Dean jingling his keys in his hand. From his cover, Sam saw the shape and shine of a new key, which Dean used to unlock the house's side door. They went in.
Sam sneaked up to a window and peered in. Sunlight bounced off the white walls of a bare kitchen. Dean and Castiel were standing there, talking in low voices, Dean leaning one hip against the countertop. Their gestures were easy, their faces relaxed, and suddenly Castiel reached out and clasped Dean's shoulder over the handprint he'd seared in Dean's skin when he'd yanked him from Hell.
Sam's fingernails dug into the windowsill, chipping the paint.
He remembered that Dean hadn't visited one of the bars, the pool hall, or any of the other half-dozen assorted nightspots in town. Not once. No flirting, not even at the supermarket. No nights out at all. Just Sundays with Castiel.
He didn't kick the door in, but he almost wrenched the knob out of its socket, and the door(a good, solid piece of home improvement, by the way)banged satisfyingly against the inside wall. Dean jumped, and a split second later Sam was looking down a gun barrel. He froze, hands raised. "It's me!"
"FUCK!" Dean roared, and Sam thought he heard the cupboards rattle. His hand shook as he lowered the gun. "Shit, Sammy!"
Okay, that had been a bad idea. Sam trembled with adrenaline and hurt; slowly, he lowered his hands. "Am I interrupting something, Dean?" He cringed at the soap opera line--his voice actually squeaked--but he couldn't help it.
Dean bristled like a angry bear, fumbling the gun back into his waistband. "Spying on me now?"
"Yeah, I am, and you can't blame me, not with all the secrets you've been keeping!" Sam shot a look at Castiel, who said nothing. "I thought we were done with lying to each other, Dean."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You and Castiel, every damn Sunday. Disappearing, never telling me why or what's going on, and now you're at this house...you've got the keys..." Sam blinked hard, his fists clenched. "You're going to l-leave me."
"Leave you? Why?"
"For Castiel," Sam spat. "You're close, I never really understood--but now I do. You love him."
"How do you feel about that, Sam?" Dean's voice was still rough with a residue of anger, but there was an odd, warm note mixed in. "Me and Cas?"
Sam frowned, backtracking. "I...don't know...I guess...I'd want you to be...happy."
"So it doesn't bother you, me being with a guy instead of a girl?"
Sam remembered his first year at Stanford; a few male students had approached him in ways that he'd later realized had been flirtations. But with registration, classes, his issues with Dad and missing Dean, those chances had slipped away. Then he'd met Jess, and any urges to experiment had disappeared. And he'd really missed Dean...
"No," he said.
"Ever the lawyer," Castiel murmured.
Dean laughed, a slow, rolling chuckle. He spread his hands. "Welcome to Open House, Sammy."
Shouldering past them, he led the way to the garage. Dumbly, Sam followed, Castiel a quiet presence at their backs. A hand-painted sign hung by the door. It read:
Ed's Heap Hospital
U Nix It, I Fix It
"Ed wanted to move to Seattle, so I got a good price."
"For the house?" Sam asked.
"For the house *and* this. Only garage in town, doin' well. Ed and I printed up a bunch of flyers and posted them all over to ease the takeover. He told his regs about me, and I've worked on their cars. Word of mouth'll do the rest." Dean grinned confidently. "C'mon, I'll give you the rest of the tour."
Sam shook his head. Things had gotten a bit fuzzy.
They went back into the house, walked through the kitchen, and came into the living room. A new wood floor had been laid. A plump, faux-leather sofa, flanked by twin recliners, faced a flat screen TV.
"Not much furniture yet," Dean said, "but I've been working on it."
A long, tweedy runner ran the length of the hallway. Dean rapped his knuckles on each door they passed. "Bedroom. Bedroom. Bathroom. And this--" He opened the door, and stepped aside. "It's technically a bedroom, but--" He looked at Sam and his smile faltered, wilting like a wet sheet on a line. "Go check it out."
Sam glanced at Castiel, but the angel stayed silent, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, his eyes calm. No help there. Sam turned back to the open door and stepped through.
He froze on the threshold, stunned. The walls were painted a soothing greenish-blue. Solid curtains of a deeper blue hung at the window. A sofa with a patchwork cover stood against one wall, a blue afghan folded over one end. Beside a floor lamp with a foot pedal was a desk--a wide slab of polished wood supported by strong metal legs, with nothing on it but a green-shaded lamp. Before it stood a high-backed office chair on casters, thickly padded enough to support anyone who worked at that desk for hours.
Against the wall nearest the door were three bookcases, two filled, one empty. Sam's jaw sagged. "What the..." he murmured, running his hands over the spines, recognizing many of the titles from his university days. It was a reference library any student would kill for. Any law student.
His heart flopped in his chest like a fly-filled frog.
"What is this?" he asked hoarsely.
"It's yours, Sam. You're going back to school."
Sam stared at him. "That's impossible, I can't--"
"Yes, you can, Sam," said Castiel.
"How?"
Dean snickered. "Zachariah."
"You're kidding."
"No," said Castiel. "It is part of his penance."
"From the Man Upstairs himself." Dean's mouth should have been decorated with canary feathers or cream, he was that smug.
"Your criminal records have been erased," Castiel said. "Yours and Sam's."
Dean's eyes shone with triumph. "You're going to that interview, Sam. The one you missed."
"How?"
"Angel mojo, Sammy." Dean entered the study. "So you graduate a few years down the road, it's cool." Dean shrugged. "What about the room? You like it?"
Sam took it all in again, the good lighting, the smell of new paper, the sparse, masculine furnishings. Gratitude welled up in him. "I don't know what to say, it's...fantastic, Dean. Thank you."
His brother's relieved smile dazzled him. "You're welcome."
"But what happens at the interview?" Sam loved the room, liked the house, but school had been the one bright spot in his life; he'd worked his ass off for his education, and he didn't need his future handed to him on a plate.
"The rest will be up to you, Sam." Castiel entered the room and a fleeting, dusty odor slipped underneath the scents of fresh paint and new wood. "Your future is what you will make of it."
"And what about you, Cas? What's your future?"
"I must go now."
"Why?" Dean asked sharply.
"Jimmy must return to Amelia and Claire." Castiel smiled, a slight, ancient smile. "He will find work at a new radio station called LSTN."
Sam chuckled. "'Listen.'"
Castiel nodded. "In our broadcasts will be messages that will be understood only by hunters." He looked at Dean, a sudden, devilish glint in his eyes. "Perhaps we'll play some of that 'mullet rock' you're so fond of, Dean."
Dean grinned. "Super. Who's making the playlist?"
"Zachariah."
The Winchesters laughed.
Castiel sprouted wings.
Dean choked. Sam gasped.
The wings unfurled, sleek, black, and glossy. Castiel let out a blissful groan, rolling his shoulders, and the wings rustled with a lush, dry sound. He stood tall and proud, his feet spread apart to take the weight of the wings, and Dean might have said that Cas was showing off, but that would have made the angel too...human.
Sam's eyes were saucers. "Cas--you--"
"My full Grace was returned to me as a--reward. My abilities will come back gradually, but they will return."
"Does Zac know?"
"Not yet."
"You gonna tell him?" asked Dean.
Again the old, secretive smile. "Eventually."
Silence settled over the room, the echoes of laughter fading away as the hunters and the angel regarded each other. Dean was the first to move. Three steps and he slid his arms around Castiel's shoulders, feathers brushing his skin like whispers, and hugged him. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because this was the last time they would all be together. Maybe he was saying goodbye to Jimmy, too.
Castiel wrapped his arms around Dean's waist and returned the hug. Dean winced at the strength in that grip, but he held on, breathing in Cas' scent, feeling a feather slide through his fingers. When he stepped back and away from Cas's unearthly warmth, he still felt a glow inside him as he met the angel's serene blue eyes.
"We will meet again, Dean."
"Just don't come back as a girl, okay, Cas?" he replied gruffly. "That would be smokin' weird."
"No, Dean. I won't." Castiel crossed over to Sam, and for a long moment the two looked at each other from their different heights, Sam a little uneasily. Then Castiel reached out and wrapped his pale fingers around Sam's larger, tanned hands. "I'll miss you, Sam."
"You will? After everything I've done? Drinking demon blood, and--"
Castiel gently squeezed his hands. "You were misled, Sam. Deceived by others and blinded by yourself. But you were also an innocent victim, marked by evil when you were only an infant. Didn't you use your abilities to help, more than you meant to hurt? Didn't you drink demon blood to save Amelia Novak?"
Sam pulled free. "You called me 'the boy with the demon blood'," he said softly, bitterly.
"And you were. I didn't trust you. I didn't know you. But I came to know you, Sam, and see your goodness, your heart, the part of your soul that was untouched by the evil inside you. That evil is gone now, burned away." Power radiated from the angel in soothing waves. "You are forgiven, Sam. Now you must forgive yourself."
"I'll try," Sam said low.
"I know you will. And you'll succeed." Cas' wings rustled, tucking close to his body. "Songs will be sung about the Winchesters and of their pain, their sacrifices, their loyalty and their love." The study seemed brighter without the feathery shadows, and Castiel's face was radiant. "And I will sing loudest of all."
The wings snapped out and he was gone.
**
Sam blinked. "What do we do now?"
Dean shrugged. "You'll commute. You'll study and write term papers and drink too much coffee. You'll be Joe College. Then you'll graduate and get into a top law firm because they'd be stupid not to hire you, Sammy, and you'll win all your cases because you're smart and hardheaded as hell. You'll wear ties and eat salad for lunch and...and come home every night."
"And you'll smell like oil and grease. You'll really *stink*," Sam replied. "You'll blast music out of the garage and you'll get a dog you can play with at lunchtime. You'll be tired and grouchy and and stuffing your face with burgers and fall asleep on the couch with the dog and everybody in town will want you to fix their cars and you'll be nice to old women and babies and you'll always be here..."
Neither was a classic declaration of love or a fairytale proposal. But both messages were received and understood.
Dean's eyes darkened and he strode out of the study and opened the opposite door. Sam tailed him slowly, his heart thumping in a slow rhythm he felt down to his toes. There were old curtains and a new bed, but his mind ignored the details and focused on Dean. In his eyes Sam saw love and possession and a trace of fear; he soothed that by closing the door behind him and toeing off his sneakers.
"Welcome home, Sam."
**
The bed was huge, perfect for an ex-boy king. Sam wriggled his toes. The sheet covering him was thick, costly white cotton with a pattern of pale gray pinstripes, crisp enough to eat, and the pillowcases had knife-sharp creases in them(not as sharp as Dean's knife, shoved under his pillow). He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow.
"You think Dad would have been okay with this?" he asked Dean. "With us?"
Dean turned his head on the pillow, his eyes heavy-lidded, his body bare to his waist, and he tugged Sam's half of the sheet down and just *looked*, silently, his lazy gaze scorching Sam from his toes to the top of his head. Sam shivered. Dean smelled like sunshine and sex, all boyish freckles and a lush, swollen mouth. The bed had been his battlefield and he'd fought with a fiery tenderness, demanding nothing less than Sam's surrender, which he'd given only after Dean had crumbled in his arms.
"*I'm* okay with us," Dean replied firmly. "Are you?"
"Yeah." Sam smiled. "I love you."
"Me too, you big girl." Dean yawned, pulling him close.
As they drifted into sleep neither of them noticed the faint reflection in the framed sampler hung on the far wall. It was the misty outline of a handsome, bearded face that seemed weary, but was lit from within with joy.
"I love you, boys," he whispered. "Be happy."
The face faded away, leaving the poem stitched on the sampler clear to read, if they'd stayed awake:
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me,
'Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.'
Author: feldspar2
Pairing: Dean/Sam
Prompt: #36--The apocalypse is over and Sam hates that Castiel still comes calling, every Sunday. Following Dean to their meeting place in secret, angry and jealous, he discovers the nature of Dean's latest deal.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 18,967
Spoilers: Mild, for "The Rapture" and "Lucifer Rising"--if you haven't seen the eps yet, pass on this.
Warnings: Nope
A/N: This was written with complete disregard for the geography of California AND that 5-minute clip; this is the happy ending zone, guys. Hope you like.
P.S.: The poem quoted at the end is "Requiem" by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Sam smelled eggs, waffles and bacon in the air--piles of it, and still warm.
"Dean?" he croaked through the open door. No answer. Sam sat up, cleared his throat, tried again. "Dean!"
Still no response. Sam scowled, sleepy instincts stirring, and then he remembered what day it was.
Sunday.
"Dammit," he muttered, and got out of bed. Padding into the kitchen, he found covered pans on the stove and a stack of buttered toast on a plate. A scribbled note on the table read, *make your own coffee.*
Sam's appetite died. The note didn't say where Dean was but he knew who his brother was with.
Castiel. Again.
It was almost a month after the end of the War. Dean had clipped Lucifer's wings, so to speak, Lilith and Ruby were dead, and he'd given the demon horde a huge freakin' smackdown, assisted at the last moment by Cas and a host of angels. They'd fought for and saved the world while the world had rolled on as it always had, with no knowledge of the battles being fought on its doorstep. It ended here in Cali, and he and Dean had remained in the foreclosed bungalow that had been their bunker, picturesque but tiny, and they slept and ate and slept some more, and since the power was still on they took really long, hot showers and swam in the backyard pool.
Sam ground his teeth. He still didn't know what Dean and Castiel had been getting up to, and like an ass he'd been waiting for Dean to just open up and share. Sam snorted; clams were chatterboxes compared to his brother.
Okay. He'd give them one more week, and if neither of them spilled, he'd follow them next Sunday, no matter where they went. That was a promise.
Sam's appetite came back, and with a fierce grin he grabbed the ragged potholders.
**
A week passed. Dean's lips were sealed. Castiel was absent. Sam steamed.
But that didn't mean they didn't have good times. The town was small enough for them to go unnoticed but there was a decent library, and a couple of miles away was a mall with shops, stores, and a multiplex. They sampled it all, and Sam was glad to see some of the weight his brother had carried for years slide off his shoulders.
But when Dean went off with Castiel that Sunday, Sam followed, two car lengths behind, in the black SUV they'd rebuilt together at Bobby's. He drove carefully, hanging further back as the Impala swung left on a gravelled road. Sam parked under an oak tree, its leaves whispering in the breeze, and picked up the pursuit on foot. His sneakers made little crunching sounds and he hid behind every tree and bush along his side of the path; it was hell of a lot harder for a guy over six feet to be inconspicuous in broad daylight.
As he moved, he smelled flowers. Lilacs? The path curved, widening gently to a mowed lawn. He saw two buildings, a one-story house and a separate garage, both painted dark green with brown doors and windowsills. Sam dodged behind the last tree bordering the grass as the Impala parked in front of the garage and Dean and Castiel got out, Dean jingling his keys in his hand. From his cover, Sam saw the shape and shine of a new key, which Dean used to unlock the house's side door. They went in.
Sam sneaked up to a window and peered in. Sunlight bounced off the white walls of a bare kitchen. Dean and Castiel were standing there, talking in low voices, Dean leaning one hip against the countertop. Their gestures were easy, their faces relaxed, and suddenly Castiel reached out and clasped Dean's shoulder over the handprint he'd seared in Dean's skin when he'd yanked him from Hell.
Sam's fingernails dug into the windowsill, chipping the paint.
He remembered that Dean hadn't visited one of the bars, the pool hall, or any of the other half-dozen assorted nightspots in town. Not once. No flirting, not even at the supermarket. No nights out at all. Just Sundays with Castiel.
He didn't kick the door in, but he almost wrenched the knob out of its socket, and the door(a good, solid piece of home improvement, by the way)banged satisfyingly against the inside wall. Dean jumped, and a split second later Sam was looking down a gun barrel. He froze, hands raised. "It's me!"
"FUCK!" Dean roared, and Sam thought he heard the cupboards rattle. His hand shook as he lowered the gun. "Shit, Sammy!"
Okay, that had been a bad idea. Sam trembled with adrenaline and hurt; slowly, he lowered his hands. "Am I interrupting something, Dean?" He cringed at the soap opera line--his voice actually squeaked--but he couldn't help it.
Dean bristled like a angry bear, fumbling the gun back into his waistband. "Spying on me now?"
"Yeah, I am, and you can't blame me, not with all the secrets you've been keeping!" Sam shot a look at Castiel, who said nothing. "I thought we were done with lying to each other, Dean."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"You and Castiel, every damn Sunday. Disappearing, never telling me why or what's going on, and now you're at this house...you've got the keys..." Sam blinked hard, his fists clenched. "You're going to l-leave me."
"Leave you? Why?"
"For Castiel," Sam spat. "You're close, I never really understood--but now I do. You love him."
"How do you feel about that, Sam?" Dean's voice was still rough with a residue of anger, but there was an odd, warm note mixed in. "Me and Cas?"
Sam frowned, backtracking. "I...don't know...I guess...I'd want you to be...happy."
"So it doesn't bother you, me being with a guy instead of a girl?"
Sam remembered his first year at Stanford; a few male students had approached him in ways that he'd later realized had been flirtations. But with registration, classes, his issues with Dad and missing Dean, those chances had slipped away. Then he'd met Jess, and any urges to experiment had disappeared. And he'd really missed Dean...
"No," he said.
"Ever the lawyer," Castiel murmured.
Dean laughed, a slow, rolling chuckle. He spread his hands. "Welcome to Open House, Sammy."
Shouldering past them, he led the way to the garage. Dumbly, Sam followed, Castiel a quiet presence at their backs. A hand-painted sign hung by the door. It read:
Ed's Heap Hospital
U Nix It, I Fix It
"Ed wanted to move to Seattle, so I got a good price."
"For the house?" Sam asked.
"For the house *and* this. Only garage in town, doin' well. Ed and I printed up a bunch of flyers and posted them all over to ease the takeover. He told his regs about me, and I've worked on their cars. Word of mouth'll do the rest." Dean grinned confidently. "C'mon, I'll give you the rest of the tour."
Sam shook his head. Things had gotten a bit fuzzy.
They went back into the house, walked through the kitchen, and came into the living room. A new wood floor had been laid. A plump, faux-leather sofa, flanked by twin recliners, faced a flat screen TV.
"Not much furniture yet," Dean said, "but I've been working on it."
A long, tweedy runner ran the length of the hallway. Dean rapped his knuckles on each door they passed. "Bedroom. Bedroom. Bathroom. And this--" He opened the door, and stepped aside. "It's technically a bedroom, but--" He looked at Sam and his smile faltered, wilting like a wet sheet on a line. "Go check it out."
Sam glanced at Castiel, but the angel stayed silent, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, his eyes calm. No help there. Sam turned back to the open door and stepped through.
He froze on the threshold, stunned. The walls were painted a soothing greenish-blue. Solid curtains of a deeper blue hung at the window. A sofa with a patchwork cover stood against one wall, a blue afghan folded over one end. Beside a floor lamp with a foot pedal was a desk--a wide slab of polished wood supported by strong metal legs, with nothing on it but a green-shaded lamp. Before it stood a high-backed office chair on casters, thickly padded enough to support anyone who worked at that desk for hours.
Against the wall nearest the door were three bookcases, two filled, one empty. Sam's jaw sagged. "What the..." he murmured, running his hands over the spines, recognizing many of the titles from his university days. It was a reference library any student would kill for. Any law student.
His heart flopped in his chest like a fly-filled frog.
"What is this?" he asked hoarsely.
"It's yours, Sam. You're going back to school."
Sam stared at him. "That's impossible, I can't--"
"Yes, you can, Sam," said Castiel.
"How?"
Dean snickered. "Zachariah."
"You're kidding."
"No," said Castiel. "It is part of his penance."
"From the Man Upstairs himself." Dean's mouth should have been decorated with canary feathers or cream, he was that smug.
"Your criminal records have been erased," Castiel said. "Yours and Sam's."
Dean's eyes shone with triumph. "You're going to that interview, Sam. The one you missed."
"How?"
"Angel mojo, Sammy." Dean entered the study. "So you graduate a few years down the road, it's cool." Dean shrugged. "What about the room? You like it?"
Sam took it all in again, the good lighting, the smell of new paper, the sparse, masculine furnishings. Gratitude welled up in him. "I don't know what to say, it's...fantastic, Dean. Thank you."
His brother's relieved smile dazzled him. "You're welcome."
"But what happens at the interview?" Sam loved the room, liked the house, but school had been the one bright spot in his life; he'd worked his ass off for his education, and he didn't need his future handed to him on a plate.
"The rest will be up to you, Sam." Castiel entered the room and a fleeting, dusty odor slipped underneath the scents of fresh paint and new wood. "Your future is what you will make of it."
"And what about you, Cas? What's your future?"
"I must go now."
"Why?" Dean asked sharply.
"Jimmy must return to Amelia and Claire." Castiel smiled, a slight, ancient smile. "He will find work at a new radio station called LSTN."
Sam chuckled. "'Listen.'"
Castiel nodded. "In our broadcasts will be messages that will be understood only by hunters." He looked at Dean, a sudden, devilish glint in his eyes. "Perhaps we'll play some of that 'mullet rock' you're so fond of, Dean."
Dean grinned. "Super. Who's making the playlist?"
"Zachariah."
The Winchesters laughed.
Castiel sprouted wings.
Dean choked. Sam gasped.
The wings unfurled, sleek, black, and glossy. Castiel let out a blissful groan, rolling his shoulders, and the wings rustled with a lush, dry sound. He stood tall and proud, his feet spread apart to take the weight of the wings, and Dean might have said that Cas was showing off, but that would have made the angel too...human.
Sam's eyes were saucers. "Cas--you--"
"My full Grace was returned to me as a--reward. My abilities will come back gradually, but they will return."
"Does Zac know?"
"Not yet."
"You gonna tell him?" asked Dean.
Again the old, secretive smile. "Eventually."
Silence settled over the room, the echoes of laughter fading away as the hunters and the angel regarded each other. Dean was the first to move. Three steps and he slid his arms around Castiel's shoulders, feathers brushing his skin like whispers, and hugged him. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because this was the last time they would all be together. Maybe he was saying goodbye to Jimmy, too.
Castiel wrapped his arms around Dean's waist and returned the hug. Dean winced at the strength in that grip, but he held on, breathing in Cas' scent, feeling a feather slide through his fingers. When he stepped back and away from Cas's unearthly warmth, he still felt a glow inside him as he met the angel's serene blue eyes.
"We will meet again, Dean."
"Just don't come back as a girl, okay, Cas?" he replied gruffly. "That would be smokin' weird."
"No, Dean. I won't." Castiel crossed over to Sam, and for a long moment the two looked at each other from their different heights, Sam a little uneasily. Then Castiel reached out and wrapped his pale fingers around Sam's larger, tanned hands. "I'll miss you, Sam."
"You will? After everything I've done? Drinking demon blood, and--"
Castiel gently squeezed his hands. "You were misled, Sam. Deceived by others and blinded by yourself. But you were also an innocent victim, marked by evil when you were only an infant. Didn't you use your abilities to help, more than you meant to hurt? Didn't you drink demon blood to save Amelia Novak?"
Sam pulled free. "You called me 'the boy with the demon blood'," he said softly, bitterly.
"And you were. I didn't trust you. I didn't know you. But I came to know you, Sam, and see your goodness, your heart, the part of your soul that was untouched by the evil inside you. That evil is gone now, burned away." Power radiated from the angel in soothing waves. "You are forgiven, Sam. Now you must forgive yourself."
"I'll try," Sam said low.
"I know you will. And you'll succeed." Cas' wings rustled, tucking close to his body. "Songs will be sung about the Winchesters and of their pain, their sacrifices, their loyalty and their love." The study seemed brighter without the feathery shadows, and Castiel's face was radiant. "And I will sing loudest of all."
The wings snapped out and he was gone.
**
Sam blinked. "What do we do now?"
Dean shrugged. "You'll commute. You'll study and write term papers and drink too much coffee. You'll be Joe College. Then you'll graduate and get into a top law firm because they'd be stupid not to hire you, Sammy, and you'll win all your cases because you're smart and hardheaded as hell. You'll wear ties and eat salad for lunch and...and come home every night."
"And you'll smell like oil and grease. You'll really *stink*," Sam replied. "You'll blast music out of the garage and you'll get a dog you can play with at lunchtime. You'll be tired and grouchy and and stuffing your face with burgers and fall asleep on the couch with the dog and everybody in town will want you to fix their cars and you'll be nice to old women and babies and you'll always be here..."
Neither was a classic declaration of love or a fairytale proposal. But both messages were received and understood.
Dean's eyes darkened and he strode out of the study and opened the opposite door. Sam tailed him slowly, his heart thumping in a slow rhythm he felt down to his toes. There were old curtains and a new bed, but his mind ignored the details and focused on Dean. In his eyes Sam saw love and possession and a trace of fear; he soothed that by closing the door behind him and toeing off his sneakers.
"Welcome home, Sam."
**
The bed was huge, perfect for an ex-boy king. Sam wriggled his toes. The sheet covering him was thick, costly white cotton with a pattern of pale gray pinstripes, crisp enough to eat, and the pillowcases had knife-sharp creases in them(not as sharp as Dean's knife, shoved under his pillow). He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on one elbow.
"You think Dad would have been okay with this?" he asked Dean. "With us?"
Dean turned his head on the pillow, his eyes heavy-lidded, his body bare to his waist, and he tugged Sam's half of the sheet down and just *looked*, silently, his lazy gaze scorching Sam from his toes to the top of his head. Sam shivered. Dean smelled like sunshine and sex, all boyish freckles and a lush, swollen mouth. The bed had been his battlefield and he'd fought with a fiery tenderness, demanding nothing less than Sam's surrender, which he'd given only after Dean had crumbled in his arms.
"*I'm* okay with us," Dean replied firmly. "Are you?"
"Yeah." Sam smiled. "I love you."
"Me too, you big girl." Dean yawned, pulling him close.
As they drifted into sleep neither of them noticed the faint reflection in the framed sampler hung on the far wall. It was the misty outline of a handsome, bearded face that seemed weary, but was lit from within with joy.
"I love you, boys," he whispered. "Be happy."
The face faded away, leaving the poem stitched on the sampler clear to read, if they'd stayed awake:
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me,
'Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.'