SPN fic: "A certain term to walk the night" (Sassy gift, PG)
title: "a certain term to walk the night"
author: fannishliss
recipient: woodstarling
word count: 3700
rating: PG
pairing: Sassy! (Sam/Castiel)
spoilers: through end of s5. Not fully s6 compliant! Written after 6.10 but before 6.11
author's notes: This is for woodstarling -- I hope you like it! Loosely affiliated with this prompt: "After Cas heads back to Heaven, the other angels totally reject him and he comes back to Earth to hunt w/ Sam. Angst. And guns."
summary: Sam walks out of Hell.
Sam fell backwards, out of the world. It would almost have been peaceful, an eternal floating freefall, except for Lucifer raging and screaming inside his head. Adam fell beside him, flailing, no wings from the plummeting archangel riding him.
Darkness had come fast as they fell away from the surface of the earth, but now it thickened, choking Sam with the stench of sulphur. Sam was dizzied by the speed of his fall as the pull of the cage grew stronger. Maybe when he hit, it would all be over. Surely Lucifer wouldn’t need a vessel anymore? He’d want out, to deal with Michael as Angels, face to face?
The pull grew terrible, the speed immense, and with a sudden sickening impact, he was slammed unconscious.
When Sam awakened, everything was different. The air didn’t choke him anymore, it didn’t smell, it didn’t taste like anything. He felt no pain, he heard no screaming. Everything was dark, peaceful and calm. Most important, the horror of Lucifer in his head was gone at last, vanished without a trace. Somehow, he’d succeeded in carrying Lucifer back down into the cage. With a huge sigh of relief, he tried to sit up and figure out where the hell he was.
Nothing happened. He couldn’t move. Panic surged through him. He couldn’t feel his body, he couldn’t see or shout. He gave a mighty lunge, willing something to give.
A sensation of tearing, pain white hot for an instant, and Sam sat up. In relief, he shoved up from the ground, and standing, shaky, he tried to get his bearings.
Still nothing -- no sound, no sight, no smell. Only a sense of himself, standing. He squatted down. Surely he was standing on something, some kind of ground.
He felt a formless, muffled surface, nothing more. He patted his hands around seeking more information, and he found something. A mound, something soft. Fabric?
Oh, god, was it Adam? He patted toward the head, felt as if through gloves the long thick hair.
He sprang backward in shock. It wasn’t Adam’s body! It was his own!
Trying to swallow down his panic, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening, he forced himself forward again, creeping reluctant fingers toward his own prostrate body.
How was this even happening? Was he a spirit? How could he touch if he had no hands -- if his hands, indeed, were lying there before him?
He patted his body frantically. As he patted, the sense of feeling seemed to come back to him, no longer as muffled as before. He felt his own body, intact and warm. Holy crap, what was going on?
His body lay still and relaxed, but as he reached for it with both hands, he felt the ribs moving in and out. It was breathing! His body was still breathing, but he was stuck outside of it?
He tried to get back in. He tried lying down on top of himself. It was just like lying down on top of another person. He tried hugging himself as tightly as he could. He repeated the spell Pamela had used when they’d done that out-of-body thing -- no luck. He tried breathing into his own mouth, concentrating hard on re-entering his body. Nothing worked. His body remained motionless, heart beating, warm, unresponsive and impervious.
He lay there, next to his own body, for what seemed like a long time. Every so often he’d pat the body. Nothing changed. He felt no hunger. His body lived on.
As he sat, his senses began to return. The first thing to come back was a spare sense of light and dark. He began to see little flashes in the darkness. He wondered if his brain would go blind from being kept in the dark, and what the effects on a spirit’s eyes would be. Just the opposite, it appeared. The more he looked, the more he could see, until the vague outline of his own body lay revealed on the featureless surface.
He was just a little bit amused, there for a second. He’d pictured Hell with gravel and fire, hewn rock walls -- there was none of that. There was hardly anything. Just an inky void, lightening here and there into slightly chaotic form.
After some time he thought he should look around. He moved from beside his own body where he’d kept watch, and keeping it in sight, moved about in a long arc. At last he found something -- another body. With relief, he knelt down to shake Adam, to see if he could be awakened, but his happiness was short-lived. The body was stiff and cold. It had been dead for some time.
Sam felt the pang of helplessness shoot through him again. Would his own body die in time? How could it survive, here in Hell, as he had to assume? Was Adam’s spirit nearby, invisible to him? If not, where had it gone? Were they near the cage? Was Adam somehow trapped in there with Michael and Lucifer? If the cage were nearby, why couldn’t he sense it?
As if in answer, Sam felt a slight, warm breeze coming from somewhere behind him. Puzzled, he turned to look, but could see nothing. If anything, the darkness was thicker, more palpable. The warm wind quickly grew hotter and it reeked of sulphur, dank and vaguely swampy. Alarmed, Sam hurried back to where he had left his body.
To his horror and dismay, he couldn’t find it. In the rapidly building heat, he dashed here and there, peering through the gloom, trying to find his body, but it was no use. The relentlessly rising heat finally drove him away, and he fled with no sense of purpose or direction, away from the cage, into the gloom.
Sam walked across the barren surface. He saw nothing, no one. There were no landmarks. He had read that wanderers will quickly begin to circle, and he wondered if he had already fallen into that vicious trap. The only clue he had was to walk away from the heat. Every so often, he stopped, turning his face this way and that, aiming for the direction of least discomfort.
John had trained the boys to count time, to count steps, to count turns. Sam had been blindfolded and driven through the darkness many times, till he could give better directions than a gps voice. But the number of steps he had taken baffled even Sam’s honed tracking powers. He lost himself in the monotony of one foot in front of the other. He never grew tired, hungry, or thirsty. He seemed to breathe, he seemed to feel a pulse in his wrist and neck, but he doubted it was real. He felt like an illusion of himself, but all he was missing was his body -- that, and somewhere real to be. The disturbing blankness of the landscape around him seemed to dull his mind into a haze. He had a lot of tricks to while away madness in solitary -- John had spared nothing in training his boys -- but he grew tired of them. If only something, somewhere around him, would change.
It was an endless plain of gray and black. Blackness arched over him like a dome, moving forward as he moved, with indecipherable foggy greyness before him, behind him, and all around. If it didn’t change soon, Sam felt, he might as well quit walking and just lie down. From time to time, indeed, his footsteps would grind to a halt, and he would simply stand, breathing, till a hint of sulphur set him moving again.
Always the thought of Hell, of demons, though he had seen none, spurred him on. He couldn’t take the chance of being captured by a demon in the midst of Hell, where he had no weapons at all and they were in their own stronghold. He smirked, thinking maybe he could will himself a weapon, as he had surely willed himself into familiar clothes --- his lost yellow Carhartt jacket, a soft t shirt and hoodie, frayed old jeans, his best broken in boots. Couldn’t he will himself a sawed-off, or at least his old folding Buck knife?
He laughed a little to himself. It seemed that the dead did not go barefoot. But he didn’t feel dead. And his body, at least, had been alive. Would his body ever awaken? Would he ever return to it? He had no way of knowing just how much time had passed.
To keep his mind active, he searched his mind for his earliest memories. He couldn’t remember being strapped into a carseat, but he could remember the booster, the frayed blanket underneath it that protected the upholstery, Dean’s six year old self leaning over him pulling faces around a toothless grin that made little Sammy laugh and laugh. He remembered how Dean had slept, curled around him, until he learned to read, and he read himself to sleep while Dean sat propped up on pillows next to him, flipping through channels to find whatever show he liked best. Tiny Sammy had loved that Dean with all his heart, and Dean had loved him back, cared for him, fed him, tied his shoes, held his hand on the way to school, and introduced him to the never-ending stream of teachers, till he was old enough to speak for himself.
Sam looked up, and the greyness had thinned. Ahead of him he saw a star. Blinking, rubbing his eyes, he still saw it. A star! He practically yelled, he was so overjoyed. He begun to run. Now at least he had a direction.
The star wavered as fog thickened or dissipated around it, and Sam found that as he told himself his own life stories, crying over them or laughing, it didn’t matter, that star would burn clearer. And as he progressed through his life, the memories coming clearer, that single star was joined by others, forming a pattern Sam had never heard of. It didn’t matter. If searching his soul led him somewhere, at least it was somewhere more interesting.
Sam relived the moments Zachariah’s Heaven had prompted. He watched himself looking for a way to be Sam, but he let himself feel it all now -- his soul-deep love for Dean, his conflicted respect and disdain for his dad, his reluctant pride in his own training, his hatred of the constant moving, his need to explore who he, himself, could become. Most of all, he let himself feel everything he had felt when Dean and Dad would go away on a hunt, or worse, when they would post him as backup. He hated it so much, that feelling of helpless rage, whenever Dean got hurt, which was often, and Dad just let him heal up to send him back into the fray.
This time was different though, because Sam began to let himself see the satisfaction on Dean’s face at the people they saved, his sorrow and earnest resolve to do better when they failed. Sam wished he’d been able to see it then. He felt that he’d never given Dean the words of praise that Dean had craved -- it could have come from Sam just as easily as from Dad. Sam saw that now, and in his heart, he was so proud of Dean. Overhead, the stars bloomed bright, untwinkling, patterned as though ready to dance.
At last, the ground had begun to take form. Gravel? Rocks? Sam felt ready to kiss them as they solidified under his feet, as he picked his way forward over the pathless desert.
Sam worked his way painfully through his career with Dean as a Hunter. He saw himself in his grief over Jess, his anger and guilt, his need for revenge, and he saw how Dean grieved with him in his own way, even as he welcomed Sam back with open arms. He saw the visions, the battle against Azazel, his return from death, and his hopeless despair as Dean was stolen away. He felt everything again, and the land around him took form, hills and valleys. As he knelt, wracked again, sobbing over Dean’s torn corpse, a brook welled up and flowed past him, trickling through the gravel. He could hear it. As his tears choked and slowed, he touched the surface of the water, and it was wet. He splashed his face and it was cold and clean. He hadn’t scented sulphur for a long time now. Somehow, he’d made it out of Hell.
That year after Dean’s death was a blur, a reddish haze of power, rage, and determination. But he worked steadfastly through it, walking. He probed his feelings for Ruby, finally allowing himself to feel his betrayal, his grief, the love he’d begun to feel for her before it all shattered. He relived his rage as he thrust her forward as Dean plunged her own knife into her belly, the thud of his hopes as she hit the chasming floor.
And the last year, the year of his repentance, of trying to make amends, of stepping forward to throw himself down, the ultimate gauntlet. He felt his disgust at the Angels and their stupid, pointless wars. He felt his despair at ever regaining Dean’s confidence or respect. He felt the love pouring out of him, like his life’s blood from a mortal wound, as he tried to convince Dean he could really be trusted, that he was truly the brother Dean had raised, and had been all along.
At least there had been Castiel. Sam couldn’t deny the awe he’d felt for Castiel at first, though that awe had turned to caution as he realized how torn Cas was between his orders and his growing sense of right and wrong. In the end, he had given everything to help save humanity from the machinations of the Angels and demons, and Lucifer had killed him, right in front of Sam’s horrified eyes. They’d all made mistakes, but Castiel had been an ally and a true friend.
Tears welled up in his eyes as Sam relived the final battle at Stull. So much had been lost there -- Adam, Bobby, Cas-- but somehow, Lucifer had slipped, and Sam had taken hold long enough to pitch himself into the hole. Somehow, in the end, Sam had won.
Like the most beautiful music Sam had ever heard, the flutelike trill of a wood thrush rippled through the air. Startled, he darted his eyes to the top of a tree. An honest to god tree, growing up out of emerald earth. It was a larch, carpeting the ground with soft golden needles. He sank down underneath it, more than ready to shelter there a while as the stars above dimmed toward dawn.
The sun broke low over the horizon, and Sam shook himself, as though awakening from a dream.
There before him stood Castiel, alive and well, and next to him, his own body! Sam hadn’t realized how large and intimidating he appeared. Both of them were heavily armed, bristling with guns and bandoliers of ammo. They seemed like they’d been hunting together for a while.
“I think, somewhere close,” Sam heard his own voice say. Damn, his voice was kind of cool. That was nice to know.
“How close?” Castiel said, his gravelly voice full of concern.
His heart began to pound in his chest. What if they couldn’t see him, or hear him? How could he make himself known?
“Very close. It’s almost like... like a fever chill, or a numbness. A numbness just before it comes back to life.” Sam’s body spoke with detached curiosity. He wondered what had animated it all this time -- but he trusted Castiel that at least, it couldn’t be a demon.
It sounded like his body could sense him. That was an improvement, at least, from when it had lain unconscious outside the cage.
He had to take the risk. Trying to remember what he’d learned from the experiment in astral projection, he stood, and reached out to touch Cas on the arm.
“Cas, it’s me. It’s Sam.”
Castiel’s eyes opened wide. “Sam. It.. I think it touched me.”
“Bad touch?” Sam said, impassively. “You look kind of shocked.”
“No, Sam,” Castiel said, rolling his eyes. “On the arm. Pay attention.”
Sam concentrated again, bringing to bear all the force he could, and gripped his body tightly by the shoulders.
“I’m right here!” he shouted. But his body just stared, looking alertly here and there.
Just as Sam’s hands fell away, and he was ready to try another tack, the body spoke again. “I think ... I felt something on my shoulders? They’re kind of. .. tingly?”
“Yes! Yes!” Sam yelled, but they couldn’t hear him. Castiel seemed easier to reach than his own body, so he turned back.
“Cas! Come on, man! It’s me!” Sam grabbed Castiel’s hand in both of his and squeezed it for all he was worth.
Castiel lifted his hand and peered at it, brows furled.
“He’s definitely here, Sam. He squeezed my hand.”
“Yes! Oh my god. Cas!” Sam was shouting at the top of his lungs, dancing from foot to foot and lunging at Cas and his body like a madman.
“What do we do?” the body said, as though he were asking directions at a gas station. Sam was rather appalled at himself.
“I had assumed that you would be able to sense your own soul. But, apparently, I must act as intermediary.”
“And?” Sam asked, coolly. Sam had never known he could bitchface without, apparently, any real face at all, but he felt himself doing it. At himself. Dean would pee laughing, Sam thought.
“Sam, if you can hear me, come into my arms,” Castiel enunciated, loudly and clearly.
Sam had never been so happy to take an order. He stepped into the embrace of the angel, fully and without reservation, clinging to him with all the will he could muster.
“Oh,” Castiel said.
“What?” the body asked.
“He’s so, so warm. So full of love. He wants so badly to go home, to go back to you. Oh Sam.” Castiel’s voice was softer, gentler than Sam had ever heard it. Sam prayed then, with all his heart.
“Please, Cas, take me home. Put me back somehow.” Sam felt his love and gratitude for the Angel welling up inside him. The embrace warmed him, and his energy rose up to meet that warmth, compounding it and building it to a rosy glow. He had been so cold, so frozen in Hell, that even the exhalations of warring archangels, their panting breaths as they fought inside the cage, had been enough to burn.
Now, Castiel gently returned his embrace. Somehow, Cas could feel him--some insubstantial thing that had wandered across the wastes, to the edge of whatever this was. He clung more tightly, desperate for Cas to somehow understand. He needed to be back inside his body, to live, to really breathe. He knew he was only part of himself, and the body carried parts of himself that he couldn’t be without.
“Sam,” Cas said. “Come here.”
Sam’s body shrugged and stepped closer. Castiel closed the distance, and pressed his mouth against the body’s. Sam himself, whatever he was, was held there in between them, safe and warm.
Castiel kissed him, and the body kissed back. Sam felt Castiel’s heat deepen and grow, igniting an answer in both body and soul.
Sam felt Castiel’s grip, some miraculous thing between iron and silk, flowing along his shoulders, his sides and waist. Castiel was pressed against him, as close as two bodies could be, his kiss tender and full of love, a kiss from heaven in the very best sense.
Sam wanted nothing so much as to kiss Cas back. He leaned down, tilted Cas’s face with a brush of his fingers, and the two simply held each other, breathing together, lips gently touching, sharing a love and an intimacy that Sam had never known with anyone but Dean, a love that knew him from the inside out, and found him a pearl beyond price.
“Sam,” Castiel said, looking up into Sam’s eyes.
“Cas,” Sam answered, and the rush of realization hit him. He was back in his own body! “Cas! You did it! You found me! Where the hell are we?”
Sam was shaking with joy, his face split with grinning. He had a hold of Castiel and he couldn’t let go. And somehow, Cas wasn’t pulling away. He was grinning back, a sweet smile of happiness gracing his lips.
“It’s Faerie. These guns are all loaded with iron. We have a sort of passage, since I... no longer represent Heaven, the Fey were willing to let us pass. Dean paid our passage in the court of Oberon.”
“Oh, crap! Is he okay? That sounds bad!” Sam felt his emotions leap and churn the way they hadn’t since he was a teenager. His soul-searching seemed to have loosened things up.
“Not so bad as some might think. The Fey are terribly bored... they just wanted Dean to recount the plots of movies.”
Sam laughed in delight. “Dude, that’s his dream job! Why so much ammo?”
“You never know with Fey. Better to be prepared,” Cas said darkly, and Sam had to kiss him again.
“What was that for?” Cas said, a little dazedly, when Sam finally let him up for air.
“You. It was for you, for coming here to find me, for caring enough to bring me back.”
“Thanks. I rather liked it,” Castiel said.
“I’m so glad,” Sam smiled.
Sam had to relinquish his grip on Castiel so the two of them could walk, but they held each other’s hands as they went, leaving the sands of Purgatory behind, as they crossed the Land of the Young to join up with Dean and make their way home.
author: fannishliss
recipient: woodstarling
word count: 3700
rating: PG
pairing: Sassy! (Sam/Castiel)
spoilers: through end of s5. Not fully s6 compliant! Written after 6.10 but before 6.11
author's notes: This is for woodstarling -- I hope you like it! Loosely affiliated with this prompt: "After Cas heads back to Heaven, the other angels totally reject him and he comes back to Earth to hunt w/ Sam. Angst. And guns."
summary: Sam walks out of Hell.
Sam fell backwards, out of the world. It would almost have been peaceful, an eternal floating freefall, except for Lucifer raging and screaming inside his head. Adam fell beside him, flailing, no wings from the plummeting archangel riding him.
Darkness had come fast as they fell away from the surface of the earth, but now it thickened, choking Sam with the stench of sulphur. Sam was dizzied by the speed of his fall as the pull of the cage grew stronger. Maybe when he hit, it would all be over. Surely Lucifer wouldn’t need a vessel anymore? He’d want out, to deal with Michael as Angels, face to face?
The pull grew terrible, the speed immense, and with a sudden sickening impact, he was slammed unconscious.
When Sam awakened, everything was different. The air didn’t choke him anymore, it didn’t smell, it didn’t taste like anything. He felt no pain, he heard no screaming. Everything was dark, peaceful and calm. Most important, the horror of Lucifer in his head was gone at last, vanished without a trace. Somehow, he’d succeeded in carrying Lucifer back down into the cage. With a huge sigh of relief, he tried to sit up and figure out where the hell he was.
Nothing happened. He couldn’t move. Panic surged through him. He couldn’t feel his body, he couldn’t see or shout. He gave a mighty lunge, willing something to give.
A sensation of tearing, pain white hot for an instant, and Sam sat up. In relief, he shoved up from the ground, and standing, shaky, he tried to get his bearings.
Still nothing -- no sound, no sight, no smell. Only a sense of himself, standing. He squatted down. Surely he was standing on something, some kind of ground.
He felt a formless, muffled surface, nothing more. He patted his hands around seeking more information, and he found something. A mound, something soft. Fabric?
Oh, god, was it Adam? He patted toward the head, felt as if through gloves the long thick hair.
He sprang backward in shock. It wasn’t Adam’s body! It was his own!
Trying to swallow down his panic, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening, he forced himself forward again, creeping reluctant fingers toward his own prostrate body.
How was this even happening? Was he a spirit? How could he touch if he had no hands -- if his hands, indeed, were lying there before him?
He patted his body frantically. As he patted, the sense of feeling seemed to come back to him, no longer as muffled as before. He felt his own body, intact and warm. Holy crap, what was going on?
His body lay still and relaxed, but as he reached for it with both hands, he felt the ribs moving in and out. It was breathing! His body was still breathing, but he was stuck outside of it?
He tried to get back in. He tried lying down on top of himself. It was just like lying down on top of another person. He tried hugging himself as tightly as he could. He repeated the spell Pamela had used when they’d done that out-of-body thing -- no luck. He tried breathing into his own mouth, concentrating hard on re-entering his body. Nothing worked. His body remained motionless, heart beating, warm, unresponsive and impervious.
He lay there, next to his own body, for what seemed like a long time. Every so often he’d pat the body. Nothing changed. He felt no hunger. His body lived on.
As he sat, his senses began to return. The first thing to come back was a spare sense of light and dark. He began to see little flashes in the darkness. He wondered if his brain would go blind from being kept in the dark, and what the effects on a spirit’s eyes would be. Just the opposite, it appeared. The more he looked, the more he could see, until the vague outline of his own body lay revealed on the featureless surface.
He was just a little bit amused, there for a second. He’d pictured Hell with gravel and fire, hewn rock walls -- there was none of that. There was hardly anything. Just an inky void, lightening here and there into slightly chaotic form.
After some time he thought he should look around. He moved from beside his own body where he’d kept watch, and keeping it in sight, moved about in a long arc. At last he found something -- another body. With relief, he knelt down to shake Adam, to see if he could be awakened, but his happiness was short-lived. The body was stiff and cold. It had been dead for some time.
Sam felt the pang of helplessness shoot through him again. Would his own body die in time? How could it survive, here in Hell, as he had to assume? Was Adam’s spirit nearby, invisible to him? If not, where had it gone? Were they near the cage? Was Adam somehow trapped in there with Michael and Lucifer? If the cage were nearby, why couldn’t he sense it?
As if in answer, Sam felt a slight, warm breeze coming from somewhere behind him. Puzzled, he turned to look, but could see nothing. If anything, the darkness was thicker, more palpable. The warm wind quickly grew hotter and it reeked of sulphur, dank and vaguely swampy. Alarmed, Sam hurried back to where he had left his body.
To his horror and dismay, he couldn’t find it. In the rapidly building heat, he dashed here and there, peering through the gloom, trying to find his body, but it was no use. The relentlessly rising heat finally drove him away, and he fled with no sense of purpose or direction, away from the cage, into the gloom.
Sam walked across the barren surface. He saw nothing, no one. There were no landmarks. He had read that wanderers will quickly begin to circle, and he wondered if he had already fallen into that vicious trap. The only clue he had was to walk away from the heat. Every so often, he stopped, turning his face this way and that, aiming for the direction of least discomfort.
John had trained the boys to count time, to count steps, to count turns. Sam had been blindfolded and driven through the darkness many times, till he could give better directions than a gps voice. But the number of steps he had taken baffled even Sam’s honed tracking powers. He lost himself in the monotony of one foot in front of the other. He never grew tired, hungry, or thirsty. He seemed to breathe, he seemed to feel a pulse in his wrist and neck, but he doubted it was real. He felt like an illusion of himself, but all he was missing was his body -- that, and somewhere real to be. The disturbing blankness of the landscape around him seemed to dull his mind into a haze. He had a lot of tricks to while away madness in solitary -- John had spared nothing in training his boys -- but he grew tired of them. If only something, somewhere around him, would change.
It was an endless plain of gray and black. Blackness arched over him like a dome, moving forward as he moved, with indecipherable foggy greyness before him, behind him, and all around. If it didn’t change soon, Sam felt, he might as well quit walking and just lie down. From time to time, indeed, his footsteps would grind to a halt, and he would simply stand, breathing, till a hint of sulphur set him moving again.
Always the thought of Hell, of demons, though he had seen none, spurred him on. He couldn’t take the chance of being captured by a demon in the midst of Hell, where he had no weapons at all and they were in their own stronghold. He smirked, thinking maybe he could will himself a weapon, as he had surely willed himself into familiar clothes --- his lost yellow Carhartt jacket, a soft t shirt and hoodie, frayed old jeans, his best broken in boots. Couldn’t he will himself a sawed-off, or at least his old folding Buck knife?
He laughed a little to himself. It seemed that the dead did not go barefoot. But he didn’t feel dead. And his body, at least, had been alive. Would his body ever awaken? Would he ever return to it? He had no way of knowing just how much time had passed.
To keep his mind active, he searched his mind for his earliest memories. He couldn’t remember being strapped into a carseat, but he could remember the booster, the frayed blanket underneath it that protected the upholstery, Dean’s six year old self leaning over him pulling faces around a toothless grin that made little Sammy laugh and laugh. He remembered how Dean had slept, curled around him, until he learned to read, and he read himself to sleep while Dean sat propped up on pillows next to him, flipping through channels to find whatever show he liked best. Tiny Sammy had loved that Dean with all his heart, and Dean had loved him back, cared for him, fed him, tied his shoes, held his hand on the way to school, and introduced him to the never-ending stream of teachers, till he was old enough to speak for himself.
Sam looked up, and the greyness had thinned. Ahead of him he saw a star. Blinking, rubbing his eyes, he still saw it. A star! He practically yelled, he was so overjoyed. He begun to run. Now at least he had a direction.
The star wavered as fog thickened or dissipated around it, and Sam found that as he told himself his own life stories, crying over them or laughing, it didn’t matter, that star would burn clearer. And as he progressed through his life, the memories coming clearer, that single star was joined by others, forming a pattern Sam had never heard of. It didn’t matter. If searching his soul led him somewhere, at least it was somewhere more interesting.
Sam relived the moments Zachariah’s Heaven had prompted. He watched himself looking for a way to be Sam, but he let himself feel it all now -- his soul-deep love for Dean, his conflicted respect and disdain for his dad, his reluctant pride in his own training, his hatred of the constant moving, his need to explore who he, himself, could become. Most of all, he let himself feel everything he had felt when Dean and Dad would go away on a hunt, or worse, when they would post him as backup. He hated it so much, that feelling of helpless rage, whenever Dean got hurt, which was often, and Dad just let him heal up to send him back into the fray.
This time was different though, because Sam began to let himself see the satisfaction on Dean’s face at the people they saved, his sorrow and earnest resolve to do better when they failed. Sam wished he’d been able to see it then. He felt that he’d never given Dean the words of praise that Dean had craved -- it could have come from Sam just as easily as from Dad. Sam saw that now, and in his heart, he was so proud of Dean. Overhead, the stars bloomed bright, untwinkling, patterned as though ready to dance.
At last, the ground had begun to take form. Gravel? Rocks? Sam felt ready to kiss them as they solidified under his feet, as he picked his way forward over the pathless desert.
Sam worked his way painfully through his career with Dean as a Hunter. He saw himself in his grief over Jess, his anger and guilt, his need for revenge, and he saw how Dean grieved with him in his own way, even as he welcomed Sam back with open arms. He saw the visions, the battle against Azazel, his return from death, and his hopeless despair as Dean was stolen away. He felt everything again, and the land around him took form, hills and valleys. As he knelt, wracked again, sobbing over Dean’s torn corpse, a brook welled up and flowed past him, trickling through the gravel. He could hear it. As his tears choked and slowed, he touched the surface of the water, and it was wet. He splashed his face and it was cold and clean. He hadn’t scented sulphur for a long time now. Somehow, he’d made it out of Hell.
That year after Dean’s death was a blur, a reddish haze of power, rage, and determination. But he worked steadfastly through it, walking. He probed his feelings for Ruby, finally allowing himself to feel his betrayal, his grief, the love he’d begun to feel for her before it all shattered. He relived his rage as he thrust her forward as Dean plunged her own knife into her belly, the thud of his hopes as she hit the chasming floor.
And the last year, the year of his repentance, of trying to make amends, of stepping forward to throw himself down, the ultimate gauntlet. He felt his disgust at the Angels and their stupid, pointless wars. He felt his despair at ever regaining Dean’s confidence or respect. He felt the love pouring out of him, like his life’s blood from a mortal wound, as he tried to convince Dean he could really be trusted, that he was truly the brother Dean had raised, and had been all along.
At least there had been Castiel. Sam couldn’t deny the awe he’d felt for Castiel at first, though that awe had turned to caution as he realized how torn Cas was between his orders and his growing sense of right and wrong. In the end, he had given everything to help save humanity from the machinations of the Angels and demons, and Lucifer had killed him, right in front of Sam’s horrified eyes. They’d all made mistakes, but Castiel had been an ally and a true friend.
Tears welled up in his eyes as Sam relived the final battle at Stull. So much had been lost there -- Adam, Bobby, Cas-- but somehow, Lucifer had slipped, and Sam had taken hold long enough to pitch himself into the hole. Somehow, in the end, Sam had won.
Like the most beautiful music Sam had ever heard, the flutelike trill of a wood thrush rippled through the air. Startled, he darted his eyes to the top of a tree. An honest to god tree, growing up out of emerald earth. It was a larch, carpeting the ground with soft golden needles. He sank down underneath it, more than ready to shelter there a while as the stars above dimmed toward dawn.
The sun broke low over the horizon, and Sam shook himself, as though awakening from a dream.
There before him stood Castiel, alive and well, and next to him, his own body! Sam hadn’t realized how large and intimidating he appeared. Both of them were heavily armed, bristling with guns and bandoliers of ammo. They seemed like they’d been hunting together for a while.
“I think, somewhere close,” Sam heard his own voice say. Damn, his voice was kind of cool. That was nice to know.
“How close?” Castiel said, his gravelly voice full of concern.
His heart began to pound in his chest. What if they couldn’t see him, or hear him? How could he make himself known?
“Very close. It’s almost like... like a fever chill, or a numbness. A numbness just before it comes back to life.” Sam’s body spoke with detached curiosity. He wondered what had animated it all this time -- but he trusted Castiel that at least, it couldn’t be a demon.
It sounded like his body could sense him. That was an improvement, at least, from when it had lain unconscious outside the cage.
He had to take the risk. Trying to remember what he’d learned from the experiment in astral projection, he stood, and reached out to touch Cas on the arm.
“Cas, it’s me. It’s Sam.”
Castiel’s eyes opened wide. “Sam. It.. I think it touched me.”
“Bad touch?” Sam said, impassively. “You look kind of shocked.”
“No, Sam,” Castiel said, rolling his eyes. “On the arm. Pay attention.”
Sam concentrated again, bringing to bear all the force he could, and gripped his body tightly by the shoulders.
“I’m right here!” he shouted. But his body just stared, looking alertly here and there.
Just as Sam’s hands fell away, and he was ready to try another tack, the body spoke again. “I think ... I felt something on my shoulders? They’re kind of. .. tingly?”
“Yes! Yes!” Sam yelled, but they couldn’t hear him. Castiel seemed easier to reach than his own body, so he turned back.
“Cas! Come on, man! It’s me!” Sam grabbed Castiel’s hand in both of his and squeezed it for all he was worth.
Castiel lifted his hand and peered at it, brows furled.
“He’s definitely here, Sam. He squeezed my hand.”
“Yes! Oh my god. Cas!” Sam was shouting at the top of his lungs, dancing from foot to foot and lunging at Cas and his body like a madman.
“What do we do?” the body said, as though he were asking directions at a gas station. Sam was rather appalled at himself.
“I had assumed that you would be able to sense your own soul. But, apparently, I must act as intermediary.”
“And?” Sam asked, coolly. Sam had never known he could bitchface without, apparently, any real face at all, but he felt himself doing it. At himself. Dean would pee laughing, Sam thought.
“Sam, if you can hear me, come into my arms,” Castiel enunciated, loudly and clearly.
Sam had never been so happy to take an order. He stepped into the embrace of the angel, fully and without reservation, clinging to him with all the will he could muster.
“Oh,” Castiel said.
“What?” the body asked.
“He’s so, so warm. So full of love. He wants so badly to go home, to go back to you. Oh Sam.” Castiel’s voice was softer, gentler than Sam had ever heard it. Sam prayed then, with all his heart.
“Please, Cas, take me home. Put me back somehow.” Sam felt his love and gratitude for the Angel welling up inside him. The embrace warmed him, and his energy rose up to meet that warmth, compounding it and building it to a rosy glow. He had been so cold, so frozen in Hell, that even the exhalations of warring archangels, their panting breaths as they fought inside the cage, had been enough to burn.
Now, Castiel gently returned his embrace. Somehow, Cas could feel him--some insubstantial thing that had wandered across the wastes, to the edge of whatever this was. He clung more tightly, desperate for Cas to somehow understand. He needed to be back inside his body, to live, to really breathe. He knew he was only part of himself, and the body carried parts of himself that he couldn’t be without.
“Sam,” Cas said. “Come here.”
Sam’s body shrugged and stepped closer. Castiel closed the distance, and pressed his mouth against the body’s. Sam himself, whatever he was, was held there in between them, safe and warm.
Castiel kissed him, and the body kissed back. Sam felt Castiel’s heat deepen and grow, igniting an answer in both body and soul.
Sam felt Castiel’s grip, some miraculous thing between iron and silk, flowing along his shoulders, his sides and waist. Castiel was pressed against him, as close as two bodies could be, his kiss tender and full of love, a kiss from heaven in the very best sense.
Sam wanted nothing so much as to kiss Cas back. He leaned down, tilted Cas’s face with a brush of his fingers, and the two simply held each other, breathing together, lips gently touching, sharing a love and an intimacy that Sam had never known with anyone but Dean, a love that knew him from the inside out, and found him a pearl beyond price.
“Sam,” Castiel said, looking up into Sam’s eyes.
“Cas,” Sam answered, and the rush of realization hit him. He was back in his own body! “Cas! You did it! You found me! Where the hell are we?”
Sam was shaking with joy, his face split with grinning. He had a hold of Castiel and he couldn’t let go. And somehow, Cas wasn’t pulling away. He was grinning back, a sweet smile of happiness gracing his lips.
“It’s Faerie. These guns are all loaded with iron. We have a sort of passage, since I... no longer represent Heaven, the Fey were willing to let us pass. Dean paid our passage in the court of Oberon.”
“Oh, crap! Is he okay? That sounds bad!” Sam felt his emotions leap and churn the way they hadn’t since he was a teenager. His soul-searching seemed to have loosened things up.
“Not so bad as some might think. The Fey are terribly bored... they just wanted Dean to recount the plots of movies.”
Sam laughed in delight. “Dude, that’s his dream job! Why so much ammo?”
“You never know with Fey. Better to be prepared,” Cas said darkly, and Sam had to kiss him again.
“What was that for?” Cas said, a little dazedly, when Sam finally let him up for air.
“You. It was for you, for coming here to find me, for caring enough to bring me back.”
“Thanks. I rather liked it,” Castiel said.
“I’m so glad,” Sam smiled.
Sam had to relinquish his grip on Castiel so the two of them could walk, but they held each other’s hands as they went, leaving the sands of Purgatory behind, as they crossed the Land of the Young to join up with Dean and make their way home.