SPN: Lovely, Dark, and Deep
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Written before the 7.17 official description was released
Notes: Title from Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods; Written for Moishacollins@tumblr for winning Sastiel Week's animation category with this lovely piece of work.
Summary: Cas had thought that getting his memories back would make things easier, but the silence that plagued him as an amnesiac drives him to insomnia even after he's rejoined with the Winchesters. Sam helps him sleep.
REPOSTED AT AO3
The doctors tell him he's hearing voices that aren't there. That isn't strictly true. It's just the one voice -- the one that slips into his mind and is as impossible to ignore as the aching silence that brackets its presence; the same one that calls him Cas. That name feels more right to him than the one the doctors insist is actually his.
Jimmy, they tell him.
They tell him a lot of things -- when to take his medication, when to sleep and eat and where, and that it's only a matter of time before he remembers who he was. Cas believes very little of what the doctors tell him, but he does as they say because he has no other option. He feels powerless -- not just in the sense of being unable to care for himself without nurses keeping an eye on him, but just... He's hollowed out. Drained. As if he once had something inside him but has since been poured out. He feels split open and stitched together -- as if he should be filled to the brim but is instead empty. His life is without memory, without power, and without sound, and there's nothing left but the faint sense that he's waiting for something to happen.
That's what he tells his psychiatrist during their meetings. Cas' psychiatrist tells him that this feeling may be a manifestation of his amnesia, but Cas chooses not to believe that either.
So Cas listens to that lone voice whisper to him during the night, tries to remember who he was, and waits. He thinks that maybe he should give up on waiting after months pass with no change, but it's not in him to give up wholly when there's always another tomorrow to look forward to.
Then, the Winchesters happen -- painfully so, as is their wont. At the end of that day, Cas stumbles, empty, and gasps as he rises again, still not altogether whole but more than he was. He thought it would be easier to have his memories again. He would know his real name. He would understand who he was and why. He would understand why it is he can't drive or understand cultural references, while languages came as easily and naturally as breathing.
He has his memories back, yes, but he has neither power nor purpose -- and the silence remains.
*
Cas follows the Winchesters because he can't imagine doing otherwise, and none of them sleep very much. Dean gets the most out of all of them, or at least, he pretends to for long enough that the idea will finally take if he stays still. Sam doesn't sleep nearly at all, though clearly he wants to, and he keeps Cas company when the silence pushes all thoughts of rest aside.
The difference that memory makes is palpable. Before, the silence had merely been an ache -- like that of a phantom limb or a deep bruise. Now that he knows what the silence means, Cas thinks of it as something more real. It's a solid wall between himself and what he once had, and he stays up to prod at its edges, feeling around where his family used to be. There's small comfort in the knowledge that it can never be again -- that it was he who erased the hope of that possibility. The only family he has left are these two broken boys, and even then, Cas is unsure of his welcome. Perhaps they've only taken him in because they know not what else to do.
For now, Cas and Sam play cards through the night. Sam says it's easier to deal with his hallucinations when he has something to occupy him, and Cas learns to play poker and crazy eights and gin rummy under Sam's careful tutelage. He's slower at learning than he thinks he should be -- his head so full of thousands of years of memory that adding something as simple as a card game takes practice. He doesn't mind so much; Sam enjoys teaching, and it's better for him to be busy talking with Cas than paying attention to the devil on his shoulder.
He watches Sam's hands for much of their games. The large fold of his fingers. The way the cards fan against the inside of his knuckles. They're rougher than they used to be, and so are Dean's, now that he looks at them. Cas thinks it's good that the two of them have been working still -- that the Leviathan and his absence and Bobby's death haven't meant the crumbling of their entire world. Sam and Dean should continue on for as long as they can bear, he thinks and quietly, selfishly hopes that he can go with them. As long as he has his memories, Cas fits nowhere else.
"So I have hallucinations of Hell," Sam says casually during one of those first nights. He shifts the cards between his fingers and cups them with both hands. The cards are nearly swallowed up by his palms. "What's keeping you up?"
Sam sounds off-hand about his condition, and because he's trying so hard to downplay his difficulties, Cas does not let his guilt show. It's easier now than it used to be. As an angel, he was unaccustomed to large surges of emotion, but the last several months taught him how to be properly human -- how to embrace fear and anger instead of smothering them.
Cas refocuses his thoughts on the silence that keeps him from sleeping. "It's too quiet," he says.
"Could give you some music to listen to if you need it..." Sam offers hesitantly.
Sam is trying to be helpful. He's the type of man who would take care of others while his world fell apart. It's different from how Dean is helpful; he derives purpose from being an aid to others. It's not that Sam doesn't do the same, but it's more like Sam looks at his problem, sees no solution, and so chooses to give his attention to what he can help fix. It's not that he doesn't care, but rather that Sam is always so aware of his own problems that he'd rather be distracted -- with Dean's drinking or card games or Cas' insomnia.
"If it could be stopped by mundane noises, I wouldn't be awake right now," Cas says as he draws a king of clubs from the stack and discards a nine of spades. He pins the king with his brothers in diamond and heart and splays them on the table. "Few things would make up for the chorus of a host of angels."
He isn't sure that Sam would understand why he can't sleep without the white noise of his brothers in his head -- even with his hallucinations or maybe especially because of them. Cas isn't like Anna; he didn't Fall naturally. He's been wrapped in the utter darkness beneath Death's coat four times now and each time been put back -- sometimes with less, sometimes with more, but always with this silence in the back of his mind where his brothers and sisters belong.
"No?" Sam says, head tilting and brow lifting inquiringly. "So what would help?"
"This helps." Cas gestures with a finger to encompass the motel room and everything and everyone in it. "Company. Evidence of life."
Sam's lips quirk upward, triggered helplessly by some good memory. "You're reminding me of when I first went off to Stanford. I'd paid extra for a private room, but ended up getting a roommate because I couldn't sleep those first few nights. I was so used to having Dad and Dean nearby that I couldn't sleep without hearing someone breathing."
Cas tries to imagine what a younger Sam must have been like. It's difficult; Sam and Dean's early years were never his to observe, at least not directly. He comes up with an image that is slighter that Sam's current bulk -- a Sam softened by long hours of study and youth. He thinks of that Sam lying in the dark, wide awake and listening to the undisturbed breathing of his neighbor. He wonders if it actually helped or if this is a story Sam's telling him so he can accept his helplessness. So he asks.
"It helped some," Sam says. He straightens out his cards and refans them with firm pushes of his thumb. "It got easier when my roommate and I got to know each other a bit better, so I think it sort of depends on the person."
That makes sense to Cas. One would feel safe with someone they knew and take comfort from a familiar presence, even if it wasn't the one they truly sought. He stares down at his cards; there are few options left. He moves to draw, and Sam's hand covers his before he can pull back.
"Do you want to try?" Sam asks.
Cas does.
*
They lie on the bed, one after the other, and Sam opens up his arms across the sheets, welcoming. Cas is reminded of Morpheus -- a spinner of dreams, weaving gossamer strands of memory and imagination into something as substantial as fog -- and as he crawls in beside Sam, he thinks it fitting that he's welcomed so readily, that Sam should let him pillow on his arm with the promise that proximity alone would prove helpful.
The bed is a little small to hold two, fully-grown men, but they're snug next to each other, trying to give the other as much room as possible. Cas stares up at the ceiling and listens to the wind and the soft rain outside the motel window, the creak of the bed, and the soft whir of Sam's laptop as it finds sleep before they do. There are no voices -- no angels -- and Cas hates the silence that sits in the back of his mind, lurking like an accusation.
He does not deserve to sleep. That is what the universe must have decided. What God has decided, perhaps -- if He even cares anymore about what His ageless, powerful children do. But that's just the bitterness speaking, Cas knows. If God didn't care, He wouldn't bother bringing Cas back again and again, as undecipherable as His reasons are. Maybe He means to punish him -- for disobedience and for pride and for the host of other little betrayals that knot under his skin and leave scars upon his spirit.
Cas suspects he's just a damaged and broken remnant of his former self -- a graceless angel, not altogether human but decidedly mortal. He has a limited life ahead of him and probably a short one, even by the standards held by hunters like Sam and Dean. His body's weak and vulnerable, and his knowledge, too outdated to be of any use outside a hunter's lifestyle. He would learn, of course -- slowly, as a human would -- but in the meantime, there's just the silence.
Out of anyone in this whole world who was left to understand what Cas is experiencing, Sam is it, and he says things like close your eyes and count your breaths as he pets through Cas' hair, putting sound into the dense quiet that smothers all else. Cas does as he's told, and the sound of Sam's breath falling into sync with his is distant and small. It's pleasant enough, Cas supposes, but slow and with a strange disconnect. He feels no closer to Sam than he does to Dean, sleeping several feet away and none the wiser, and that's just not enough.
"It's not working, is it?" Sam whispers. His fingers tickle against the back of Cas' arm.
"No," he says. Cas can't keep the resignation out of his voice.
His body aches with a weariness that's bone deep. There was a time when his body required nothing -- neither food nor drink nor rest; fueled purely by God's will and his faith in it. While it's hardly the first time he's slept, his memories give him enough reason to worry, and this time, he has no purpose to distract him and no Impala to safely surround him. He has nothing, and he is tired in a way that is terrifying.
Cas shudders and softly admits, "I just want to sleep."
Sam hums under his shoulder, acknowledging, and he shifts closer. "Budge up," he says, "and com'ere."
Blinking slowly, Cas moves to his side and lets Sam drag him in. Sam tucks him under his arm, scooping one hand over Cas' shoulder and the other through his hair. Cas feels Sam press a kiss to the top of his head, but it's so absentminded that he isn't sure that Sam is even aware that he did it. All the same, Cas hugs Sam in response and presses his nose into the soft cotton under his cheek, breathing deeply and counting.
Sam smells of gritty things -- of leather and sweat and grave dirt, of the plain detergent from laundromats and gun oil. It's such a vast difference from the ward -- which was somehow sterile, medicinal, and sickly all at once -- that Cas nuzzles in so that Sam's scent is all he can get. Sam is warm under his hands. When he presses hard enough, he can feel the fading grooves of the sigils he carved into Sam's ribs. They'll be completely gone within a few years, thanks to the natural growth of the human body, but it isn't as if there are angels to hide from anymore. Like Cas, they're useless, but he touches them fondly through thin skin and muscle and remembers a time when all of his existence centered around protecting the fragile lives of Sam and his brother.
"You keep thinking," Sam murmurs. His hand scoops through Cas' hair and cups his cheek. "Stop. Just listen."
Huffing, Cas squeezes his eyes shut. Gradually, he hears a steady heartbeat under his ear. It has a slow pulse to it, like that of an athlete -- as strong as the peal of thunder in the wake of a storm, rumbling deep beneath Sam's breast. He could count music to its beat -- lub-dub, two, three, lub-dub, five, six -- and the song would never falter; the dance of blood through his veins would never pause.
Cas is sure that, if he listens for long enough, he'll be dragged under by that solid, pure sound. It is pure; of that, he has no doubt, though he has no way of verifying that his faith is well placed. For all he can tell, Sam's blood may be tainted with demonic influence, but in this moment, he does not care. Let him drown in it. Let the swift humanity of it envelop him. Let the tide of its life wrap around his mind like a heavy fog. Let it sing to him in soft whispers, in the same voice that was his comfort during the months and months of nothing -- the voice that spurred him on--
Cas, Cas, Cas
He nestles slightly closer until he and Sam are aligned from shoulder to ankle. It's reassuring, Cas thinks, to be near life after so long being adrift. "Sam?" he says. He gets a mumbling response in return. Cas slides his fingers along Sam's breastbone; they wrinkle Sam's shirt, so he curls them instead. "I'm glad you're alive."
Above him, Sam's breath hitches. Beneath his ear, the beat of Sam's heart picks up. Cas doesn't look to see if Sam is watching. In a way, he does not need to. Sam's hand settles low on the back of his neck, covering the exposed skin with its broad palm. It's warm like the rest of him and gentle.
Sam's breath evens out again. He says, "I'm glad you're alive too," in a voice that's small and very, very young.
Cas smiles and hums, content. He breathes. He counts.
Lub-dub, two, three...
Lub-dub, five, six...
And sleeps.
Spoilers: Written before the 7.17 official description was released
Notes: Title from Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods; Written for Moishacollins@tumblr for winning Sastiel Week's animation category with this lovely piece of work.
Summary: Cas had thought that getting his memories back would make things easier, but the silence that plagued him as an amnesiac drives him to insomnia even after he's rejoined with the Winchesters. Sam helps him sleep.
REPOSTED AT AO3
The doctors tell him he's hearing voices that aren't there. That isn't strictly true. It's just the one voice -- the one that slips into his mind and is as impossible to ignore as the aching silence that brackets its presence; the same one that calls him Cas. That name feels more right to him than the one the doctors insist is actually his.
Jimmy, they tell him.
They tell him a lot of things -- when to take his medication, when to sleep and eat and where, and that it's only a matter of time before he remembers who he was. Cas believes very little of what the doctors tell him, but he does as they say because he has no other option. He feels powerless -- not just in the sense of being unable to care for himself without nurses keeping an eye on him, but just... He's hollowed out. Drained. As if he once had something inside him but has since been poured out. He feels split open and stitched together -- as if he should be filled to the brim but is instead empty. His life is without memory, without power, and without sound, and there's nothing left but the faint sense that he's waiting for something to happen.
That's what he tells his psychiatrist during their meetings. Cas' psychiatrist tells him that this feeling may be a manifestation of his amnesia, but Cas chooses not to believe that either.
So Cas listens to that lone voice whisper to him during the night, tries to remember who he was, and waits. He thinks that maybe he should give up on waiting after months pass with no change, but it's not in him to give up wholly when there's always another tomorrow to look forward to.
Then, the Winchesters happen -- painfully so, as is their wont. At the end of that day, Cas stumbles, empty, and gasps as he rises again, still not altogether whole but more than he was. He thought it would be easier to have his memories again. He would know his real name. He would understand who he was and why. He would understand why it is he can't drive or understand cultural references, while languages came as easily and naturally as breathing.
He has his memories back, yes, but he has neither power nor purpose -- and the silence remains.
*
Cas follows the Winchesters because he can't imagine doing otherwise, and none of them sleep very much. Dean gets the most out of all of them, or at least, he pretends to for long enough that the idea will finally take if he stays still. Sam doesn't sleep nearly at all, though clearly he wants to, and he keeps Cas company when the silence pushes all thoughts of rest aside.
The difference that memory makes is palpable. Before, the silence had merely been an ache -- like that of a phantom limb or a deep bruise. Now that he knows what the silence means, Cas thinks of it as something more real. It's a solid wall between himself and what he once had, and he stays up to prod at its edges, feeling around where his family used to be. There's small comfort in the knowledge that it can never be again -- that it was he who erased the hope of that possibility. The only family he has left are these two broken boys, and even then, Cas is unsure of his welcome. Perhaps they've only taken him in because they know not what else to do.
For now, Cas and Sam play cards through the night. Sam says it's easier to deal with his hallucinations when he has something to occupy him, and Cas learns to play poker and crazy eights and gin rummy under Sam's careful tutelage. He's slower at learning than he thinks he should be -- his head so full of thousands of years of memory that adding something as simple as a card game takes practice. He doesn't mind so much; Sam enjoys teaching, and it's better for him to be busy talking with Cas than paying attention to the devil on his shoulder.
He watches Sam's hands for much of their games. The large fold of his fingers. The way the cards fan against the inside of his knuckles. They're rougher than they used to be, and so are Dean's, now that he looks at them. Cas thinks it's good that the two of them have been working still -- that the Leviathan and his absence and Bobby's death haven't meant the crumbling of their entire world. Sam and Dean should continue on for as long as they can bear, he thinks and quietly, selfishly hopes that he can go with them. As long as he has his memories, Cas fits nowhere else.
"So I have hallucinations of Hell," Sam says casually during one of those first nights. He shifts the cards between his fingers and cups them with both hands. The cards are nearly swallowed up by his palms. "What's keeping you up?"
Sam sounds off-hand about his condition, and because he's trying so hard to downplay his difficulties, Cas does not let his guilt show. It's easier now than it used to be. As an angel, he was unaccustomed to large surges of emotion, but the last several months taught him how to be properly human -- how to embrace fear and anger instead of smothering them.
Cas refocuses his thoughts on the silence that keeps him from sleeping. "It's too quiet," he says.
"Could give you some music to listen to if you need it..." Sam offers hesitantly.
Sam is trying to be helpful. He's the type of man who would take care of others while his world fell apart. It's different from how Dean is helpful; he derives purpose from being an aid to others. It's not that Sam doesn't do the same, but it's more like Sam looks at his problem, sees no solution, and so chooses to give his attention to what he can help fix. It's not that he doesn't care, but rather that Sam is always so aware of his own problems that he'd rather be distracted -- with Dean's drinking or card games or Cas' insomnia.
"If it could be stopped by mundane noises, I wouldn't be awake right now," Cas says as he draws a king of clubs from the stack and discards a nine of spades. He pins the king with his brothers in diamond and heart and splays them on the table. "Few things would make up for the chorus of a host of angels."
He isn't sure that Sam would understand why he can't sleep without the white noise of his brothers in his head -- even with his hallucinations or maybe especially because of them. Cas isn't like Anna; he didn't Fall naturally. He's been wrapped in the utter darkness beneath Death's coat four times now and each time been put back -- sometimes with less, sometimes with more, but always with this silence in the back of his mind where his brothers and sisters belong.
"No?" Sam says, head tilting and brow lifting inquiringly. "So what would help?"
"This helps." Cas gestures with a finger to encompass the motel room and everything and everyone in it. "Company. Evidence of life."
Sam's lips quirk upward, triggered helplessly by some good memory. "You're reminding me of when I first went off to Stanford. I'd paid extra for a private room, but ended up getting a roommate because I couldn't sleep those first few nights. I was so used to having Dad and Dean nearby that I couldn't sleep without hearing someone breathing."
Cas tries to imagine what a younger Sam must have been like. It's difficult; Sam and Dean's early years were never his to observe, at least not directly. He comes up with an image that is slighter that Sam's current bulk -- a Sam softened by long hours of study and youth. He thinks of that Sam lying in the dark, wide awake and listening to the undisturbed breathing of his neighbor. He wonders if it actually helped or if this is a story Sam's telling him so he can accept his helplessness. So he asks.
"It helped some," Sam says. He straightens out his cards and refans them with firm pushes of his thumb. "It got easier when my roommate and I got to know each other a bit better, so I think it sort of depends on the person."
That makes sense to Cas. One would feel safe with someone they knew and take comfort from a familiar presence, even if it wasn't the one they truly sought. He stares down at his cards; there are few options left. He moves to draw, and Sam's hand covers his before he can pull back.
"Do you want to try?" Sam asks.
Cas does.
*
They lie on the bed, one after the other, and Sam opens up his arms across the sheets, welcoming. Cas is reminded of Morpheus -- a spinner of dreams, weaving gossamer strands of memory and imagination into something as substantial as fog -- and as he crawls in beside Sam, he thinks it fitting that he's welcomed so readily, that Sam should let him pillow on his arm with the promise that proximity alone would prove helpful.
The bed is a little small to hold two, fully-grown men, but they're snug next to each other, trying to give the other as much room as possible. Cas stares up at the ceiling and listens to the wind and the soft rain outside the motel window, the creak of the bed, and the soft whir of Sam's laptop as it finds sleep before they do. There are no voices -- no angels -- and Cas hates the silence that sits in the back of his mind, lurking like an accusation.
He does not deserve to sleep. That is what the universe must have decided. What God has decided, perhaps -- if He even cares anymore about what His ageless, powerful children do. But that's just the bitterness speaking, Cas knows. If God didn't care, He wouldn't bother bringing Cas back again and again, as undecipherable as His reasons are. Maybe He means to punish him -- for disobedience and for pride and for the host of other little betrayals that knot under his skin and leave scars upon his spirit.
Cas suspects he's just a damaged and broken remnant of his former self -- a graceless angel, not altogether human but decidedly mortal. He has a limited life ahead of him and probably a short one, even by the standards held by hunters like Sam and Dean. His body's weak and vulnerable, and his knowledge, too outdated to be of any use outside a hunter's lifestyle. He would learn, of course -- slowly, as a human would -- but in the meantime, there's just the silence.
Out of anyone in this whole world who was left to understand what Cas is experiencing, Sam is it, and he says things like close your eyes and count your breaths as he pets through Cas' hair, putting sound into the dense quiet that smothers all else. Cas does as he's told, and the sound of Sam's breath falling into sync with his is distant and small. It's pleasant enough, Cas supposes, but slow and with a strange disconnect. He feels no closer to Sam than he does to Dean, sleeping several feet away and none the wiser, and that's just not enough.
"It's not working, is it?" Sam whispers. His fingers tickle against the back of Cas' arm.
"No," he says. Cas can't keep the resignation out of his voice.
His body aches with a weariness that's bone deep. There was a time when his body required nothing -- neither food nor drink nor rest; fueled purely by God's will and his faith in it. While it's hardly the first time he's slept, his memories give him enough reason to worry, and this time, he has no purpose to distract him and no Impala to safely surround him. He has nothing, and he is tired in a way that is terrifying.
Cas shudders and softly admits, "I just want to sleep."
Sam hums under his shoulder, acknowledging, and he shifts closer. "Budge up," he says, "and com'ere."
Blinking slowly, Cas moves to his side and lets Sam drag him in. Sam tucks him under his arm, scooping one hand over Cas' shoulder and the other through his hair. Cas feels Sam press a kiss to the top of his head, but it's so absentminded that he isn't sure that Sam is even aware that he did it. All the same, Cas hugs Sam in response and presses his nose into the soft cotton under his cheek, breathing deeply and counting.
Sam smells of gritty things -- of leather and sweat and grave dirt, of the plain detergent from laundromats and gun oil. It's such a vast difference from the ward -- which was somehow sterile, medicinal, and sickly all at once -- that Cas nuzzles in so that Sam's scent is all he can get. Sam is warm under his hands. When he presses hard enough, he can feel the fading grooves of the sigils he carved into Sam's ribs. They'll be completely gone within a few years, thanks to the natural growth of the human body, but it isn't as if there are angels to hide from anymore. Like Cas, they're useless, but he touches them fondly through thin skin and muscle and remembers a time when all of his existence centered around protecting the fragile lives of Sam and his brother.
"You keep thinking," Sam murmurs. His hand scoops through Cas' hair and cups his cheek. "Stop. Just listen."
Huffing, Cas squeezes his eyes shut. Gradually, he hears a steady heartbeat under his ear. It has a slow pulse to it, like that of an athlete -- as strong as the peal of thunder in the wake of a storm, rumbling deep beneath Sam's breast. He could count music to its beat -- lub-dub, two, three, lub-dub, five, six -- and the song would never falter; the dance of blood through his veins would never pause.
Cas is sure that, if he listens for long enough, he'll be dragged under by that solid, pure sound. It is pure; of that, he has no doubt, though he has no way of verifying that his faith is well placed. For all he can tell, Sam's blood may be tainted with demonic influence, but in this moment, he does not care. Let him drown in it. Let the swift humanity of it envelop him. Let the tide of its life wrap around his mind like a heavy fog. Let it sing to him in soft whispers, in the same voice that was his comfort during the months and months of nothing -- the voice that spurred him on--
Cas, Cas, Cas
He nestles slightly closer until he and Sam are aligned from shoulder to ankle. It's reassuring, Cas thinks, to be near life after so long being adrift. "Sam?" he says. He gets a mumbling response in return. Cas slides his fingers along Sam's breastbone; they wrinkle Sam's shirt, so he curls them instead. "I'm glad you're alive."
Above him, Sam's breath hitches. Beneath his ear, the beat of Sam's heart picks up. Cas doesn't look to see if Sam is watching. In a way, he does not need to. Sam's hand settles low on the back of his neck, covering the exposed skin with its broad palm. It's warm like the rest of him and gentle.
Sam's breath evens out again. He says, "I'm glad you're alive too," in a voice that's small and very, very young.
Cas smiles and hums, content. He breathes. He counts.
Lub-dub, two, three...
Lub-dub, five, six...
And sleeps.