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I.
Castiel crashed, tripping on their own feet and landing–not so much as teleporting–into a motel room that the Winchesters occupied. Sam had his books sprawled out on a table, journals beside him and his laptop on his lap. Dean was eating a burger lounged out on his bed on the farthest side of the room away from the door, he was channel surfing.
Sam had a plastic container full of green stuff that they assumed were vegetables, a plastic fork and a packet of white sauce beside him. The only window in the room broadcasted the darkness and bright red neon lights in the parking lot.
“Cas?” Dean asked, as soon as their feet touched the floor and they appeared in front of the boys. “What are you here for?”
Sam looked up, and smiled the same genuine and endearing smile he always had, and Castiel’s chest felt full of feathers. Or butterflies, or insects, they didn’t know the metaphor.
Sam felt grateful with Castiel being there, and grateful that Castiel always answered his prayers. Suddenly feeling self conscious about his day-old flannel shirt and his tattered jeans from the hunt two days ago which he hadn’t gotten the chance to change out of, he straightened his posture and focused his energy on acting less nervous. Besides, he had a feeling Castiel only came because they wanted to see Dean.
“Hey Castiel.” Sam said their name with all the syllables.
Castiel felt a surge in their ego when Sam pronounced their name like an angel’s name should always be pronounced.
“I heard Sam’s prayer, so I came.” Castiel explained, in response to Dean.
“How come you never answer any of my prayers?” Dean asked.
“I favour your brother over you, if I’m being quite honest with you.” Castiel said bluntly.
Sam started blushing, his theory proven wrong that Castiel was here to see Dean. They were here to see him, and that made Sam feel more valued than he ever felt in his life.
“Great, well I just needed some help for a case if that’s okay. It’s sort of…well…I’ve heard nothing like it before. Think maybe it’s a deity, just need your help identifying which one.” Sam rambled on.
Castiel stood statue-like, then Sam pushed a chair out towards them using his foot, sensing their awkwardness. Castiel took this as an invitation to sit and join research with Sam. Something they had done many times with Sam before. But as they started to develop feelings for him over the last few months, they found themself nervous as they sat down at the motel table.
Dean finished his burger on his bed.
“I honestly don’t know how you can enjoy that rabbit food Sammy.” Dean grumbled, Sam rolled his eyes.
“And I don’t know how you can eat on your bed like that.” Sam sassed back.
Castiel just looked around for a moment ignoring the banter between the two siblings.
The motel was surprisingly comfy looking. With red wallpaper, red carpet floors, red bed sheets covering the two twin sized beds and not to their surprise a red fridge. Castiel watched when Sam cringed at the sight of the bright red fridge. Sam hated that thing ever since he had walked into the motel earlier that night.
“Never seen anything like that before.” Sam said, pointing his thumb towards the fridge.
Sam had noticed Castiel with a certain charm at their curiosity. He thought they were adorable.
“Are red fridges unusual?” Castiel asked, having only seen a few varieties of fridges.
“Very.” Sam confirmed. “Unless they're mini fridges.” Sam clarified, thinking back to all the mini fridges in college that parents would lug into their kids' dorms, and how he had only brought what he could take on his back.
Castiel goes, “ huh.” At the thought of mini fridges.
“So, what is a salad?” Castiel inquired.
Dean groaned from his bed, and Sam sat up, adjusting his posture, genuinely excited at the prospect of introducing Castiel to salads, even if Castiel didn’t eat. It was like introducing someone to Taylor Swift for the very first time or Celine Dion.
“Don’t get him started Cas.” Dean grumbled.
Castiel ignored Dean and watched the brightness and enthusiasm appear in Sam’s pupils.
Sam placed his laptop on the table so he could have more room to move his hands and body in excitement.
“Salads are this dish mostly made of vegetables. A traditional salad has some sort of kale, spinach, or lettuce. And some sort of sauce or dressing like oil.” Sam explained.
He opened the plastic container Castiel had noticed before, and opened the packet of white sauce and squeezed it over the food.
“This is ranch dressing since it’s a Caesar salad…” Sam mixed the salad with his fork making sure the sauce was equally distributed. “But not only can you use vegetables, but also fruits and even nuts as well. A lot of people like to add quinoa, or avocado and I think that enhances the flavor and overall texture. They’re very versatile and adaptable and-”
Sam continued talking about salads, but Castiel could only focus on the man in front of them and not the words coming out of his mouth. They watched Sam move his hands passionately as he talked and all Castiel could do was look at Sam's lips.
They started to zone out, looking at Sam in endearment, and imagined pulling Sam over the table by the collar and kissing his mouth hard.
They imagined what it would be like to kiss Sam Winchester, the boy with the demon blood, the boy a part of the prophecy he couldn’t break.
Would it make them a sinner, or would it make them devoted to the cause? Would Sam’s lips fit perfectly on theirs, would his lips be soft like they imagined?
“Cas?” Sam asked, interrupting their thoughts. “What do you believe would be the best outcome?”
“Apologies, what was the question?” Castiel asked, feeling their cheeks become sore with heat.
Sam just quietly cackled.
“You know what…don’t worry about it Cas.” Sam assured, stabbing his fork into a piece of lettuce.
II.
Sam banged on the door and Bobby advised Castiel not to go in there.
Castiel winced, and closed their eyes at the sound of Sam banging against the door of the safe room. The clang and clash of Sam’s fists against metal made Castiel jump. The darkness and the banging contrasted the quietness of Bobby’s house. Dean had left hours earlier, to drive somewhere on a backroad, murmuring something about not listening to his little brother suffer.
“Help! Get me out of here! I swear to God.” Sam’s screams echoed in the chamber.
Sam’s chest throbbed. Not only that, his head pounded and it felt like his throat was being pulled like a rubber band and being snapped back in. He was thirsty, and he knew it.
Sam gripped his throat as he banged on the metal door with his right hand, resting his forehead against the cool metal. He sensed Castiel was on the other side, and slid down to the floor with a scream when he watched his brother who was really just a hallucination, run towards him, smack his face with the back of his hand and call him a freak. Sam understood that the hallucinations came with the detox.
So he sobbed quietly, gripping the left side of his body, his ribs now feeling like they were about to spring out of his body. And dragged himself across Bobby’s panic room, and collapsed into a fetal position. Auditory hallucinations of his mother circling the room like a ghost and Sam wondered whether he might die finally from all this blood.
He wondered what his salvation could be.
When Castiel had heard Sam’s sob from the other side of the door, that was when they clenched their fists beside them and turned around towards the chamber.
Castiel didn’t know why they stayed…well, they did, but they didn’t know why they thought it was a good idea.
They wanted to protect Sam in a way that they could never speak of outloud, and in a way they would never imagine Sam reciprocated.
Castiel reached for the wheel of the door, which kept the door locked tight. Like a bomb shelter.
“Don’t, kid, I know how much you want to comfort him, or whatever the hell you’re thinking of doing, but don’t open that door until he’s clean. Or it’ll end badly.” Bobby warned.
Bobby walked away, head low, hat covering his tender eyes. Castiel stood their ground and reached for the door again frowning when they heard the sound of Sam whining in pain.
And against Bobby’s advice, Castiel cranked the door open, and it creaked eerily like it didn’t want them to enter.
The sight of Sam curled on the floor with his legs pulled in front of him, his hands gripping onto his knees. The room was barren, the fan spinning above them, and the barren mattress in the middle of the floor looked barely comfortable.
“You’re not real.” Sam said barely audibly, his voice shaking.
Castiel left the door ajar, and hopped inside. Carefully walking towards Sam. They kneeled to the floor and pulled Sam close, resting his head on their lap. And running their hands through Sam’s hair in a motion they had hoped was comforting, something they witnessed in movies and Doctor Sexy whenever Dean let them watch as well.
“Sam…how unholy.” They said more to themself than anything.
Sam immediately registered through the touch of Castiel's hand that this was real. He gripped onto Castiel’s leg, tighter than he’s ever before, feeling like his soul was jumping in and out of his body.
“Castiel, don’t let go.” Sam begged, sobbing into the fabric covering their legs. “So good, you could be God, and I wouldn’t be surprised.” Sam said with eyes milky and half closed.
“It’s okay. You are protected. Always by me.” Castiel whispered, running their fingers through Sam’s hair more softly, massaging his scalp. “Let me protect you. Let me hold you. Without worship.”
And when Sam tilted his head up to stare at them, with those same milky and bloodshot eyes, with the stare of a ghost. Castiel pictured themself leaning down and catching their lips on his. Even though the blood still lingered on the corner of his mouth, even though his soul was circulating in his body in a way Castiel had never seen, they felt like kissing him.
But instead, raised their fingers to Sam’s forehead, and allowed him a brief moment of comfort, and Sam went limp in their hands in unconsciousness, soaking the grace up from Castiel’s fingers. Avoiding the hallucinations, and the surging pain that begged to sting inside his chest.
III.
Sam tossed his clothes under the dim lighting of the laundromat. It was empty and barren, late at night was the perfect time to do laundry.
He put his whites into one machine on the left, and wet darks rested in another on the right. Two machines in the corner, coin in slot machines, with doors on the top, that liked to rattle as they started up.
There were dryers on the opposite wall behind him, and the laundry mat looked as if it was brand new, which was surprising in a small town.
Sam had a bottle of laundry detergent, resting on the top of the open machines. It was open ready to be poured into the tiny cup, and was resting beside the laundry basket that also rested on top of the machine.
Sam reached for the basket and knocked the bottle into the machine accidentally, and the bottle glugged laundry detergent quickly into the machine.
He dropped the basket on the floor quickly and reached into the machine pulling the detergent bottle, which was now half empty out of the whites.
“Shoot!” Sam gasped.
The clothes in the machine were now drenched in detergent. Sam just pinched the bridge of his nose and slammed the door of the machine closed.
He then opened the top of the machine on the right and loaded his wet clothes into the basket, transferring his clothes into the dryer’s that were stacked on top of one another, aiming for the dryer on top.
Sam started the drying cycle and walked back over to the washer machine, then reached over, inserted some coins, and pressed start on the machine.
He leaned his back against the washer as he watched his clothes spin around through the window on the dryer machine.
Sam’s phone rang as the buzzing and whirring of both machines became louder. He picked it out of his pocket and raised it to his ear. Dean .
“Yea?”
“Where are you?” Dean asked.
“I’m just doing my laundry, I told you I’d be done in an hour, then we can hit the road.”
Sam suddenly smelt something strong, not bad, just strong and clean. Then looked around the room, then down at himself, his body against the machine. Bubbles were starting to foam out from behind him, in large quantities. Sam turned around, pivoting his head around the room, not sure what to do.
“Uh, Dean, I gotta-I’m gonna call you back.” Sam hung up the phone, against Dean’s protesting.
He froze, bubbles bursting from the machine and practically filling the laundromat. Spewing from the top and creating a pool of foam so deep it went up to Sam’s knees. He leaped on top of the machine as if that would help stop the bubbles from sprouting out. It didn’t.
Sam attempted to shut it off, but it had to be one of those machines that doesn’t let you stop the cycle once the coins are inserted, because the second he pried the door open, soap and water foaming even more shot out of the machine, landing on Sam’s head and on the floor. Flooding the laundromat almost entirely with soap bubbles.
Sam yelped as he slipped on the wet floor, and landed on his ass on the ground. Then he closed it and prayed, begged for this all to stop and for someone to come help him. Not necessarily for anyone specific, maybe just the universe, but his mind drifted to the image of Castiel and their trench coat and grinned devilishly as his mind wandered to his desire to kiss Castiel and lift him up onto a laundry machine.
He rested his head on his knees in defeat ready to just get out of there. And then heard the swifting of wings and the clash of a door.
Castiel must’ve heard their prayer—intentional or not—because there they were standing in front of Sam, deep in bubbles too.
Sam hoped that the prayer didn’t include Sam’s active imagination involving Castiel and a certain recreational activity.
Castiel was surprised at the mere image of Sam on the floor in a pool of soap, and how this is what they were summoned for. Grateful that it wasn’t life threatening. And confused as to why Sam’s first person to ask for help was them.
“Sam, you prayed to me because of this?” Castiel asked, in mere amusement.
Sam blushed bright red and shrugged, blowing the bubbles out of his face.
“I didn’t think I was actually praying in my defense.”
Castiel stepped closer and reached their hand down to help Sam up, and Sam grabbed their hand. Only for Castiel to also slip and land right on top of him.
Sam placed his hands on Castiel’s hips, and Castiel started blushing. They froze and looked at Sam’s face, and his hair covered in soap suds. But rolled off of Sam and sat right beside him shoulder to shoulder, their cheeks flushed.
“I don’t know how you manage to do it.” Castiel shrugged.
“Do what?”
“Make a mess like this. How exactly did this occur?”
“I dropped the bottle of detergent into the machine accidentally.”
Castiel bobbed their head in recognition. Then Sam pulled bubbles off of the floor, and smacked them lightly onto Castiel’s head. They now had suds in their hair just like Sam did.
“Hey!” Castiel argued, and sensing their revenge Sam got up and ran around the laundromat.
But Castiel caught him, jumping on his tall body, and smothering his face in bubbles as Sam moved his head left and right away from their hands shouting ‘ blegh’ , and laughing like a child.
Did God intend for this kind of play? If Sam was destined to be Lucifer’s vessel, could Castiel still touch him this way? Could they touch him in the other ways they wanted to?
Castiel didn’t know, all they knew was that when they looked down at Sam in that moment, their hand holding soap up to Sam’s cheek, that they imagined themself kissing him. Even if his lips tasted like detergent, and even if Sam had never intended to prayed to them in the first place. That Castiel would’ve found him, shown themself to him, and pulled him by the collar down to their mouth if they could.
Sam cleared his throat and after a fit of giggles they both sat perfectly still on the soaped up floor. Sam was begging to say something, but felt again that it was logical to not say anything, if he wanted Castiel to stay in his life.
“Well, you mind zapping this all away? I mean if you can?”
Castiel rested a hand on Sam’s back soothingly and in the blink of an eye, the bubbles were gone and Sam’s laundry was done and folded in a neat pile on top of the washing machine. And of course Castiel was gone.
1
“What’s your dying wish?” Castiel asked.
Castiel and Sam were sitting shoulder to shoulder, on the hood of the impala in the middle of nowhere. Watching a meteor shower, and feeling the world crumble as Lucifer bursted from his cage mere hours ago and Castiel found out God didn’t give a shit.
A highway laid out behind them and a field of dark grass in front of them, perfectly clear skies with no light pollution.
“What?”
“You know, humans always seem to have a dying wish that never comes true. We heard about them a lot in heaven. What’s yours?”
Sam thought for a moment, entirely aware that his being was about to be sacrificed one day, to give way for Lucifer. That heaven and hell had them both on a most wanted list. There’s something so intimate to him about the world in flames, and running to watch it light on fire with your best friend and secret love of your life.
Sam shrugged, bumping his shoulder with Castiel’s.
“I guess I’d wish to be a bug stuck on the bottom of a glass.”
Castiel didn’t catch the metaphor, they both went silent. And Castiel thought of Sam, and how lucifer was on his way any moment. How much they wanted to protect Sam. How Lucifer would drain the grace out of them if they tried.
“It’s views like these, moments like these, when I try to remember that the wrath of the devil was also given him by God.” Castiel philosophized.
Sam cringed at the mere thought, a thought that he felt was true in a way he couldn’t explain.
“Well, I sure hope God gave me at least some salvation to make up for that.”
“What would your salvation be in the form of?”
“Love. And the right to my own body.”
Sam stopped speaking to shiver, the wind blew through the darkness of the summer night now. Not at all feeling like summer, more like a cold brisk air. Castiel felt him shiver, and peeled their trench coat off of their body and handed it to them.
“No Cas, you need it. It’s getting colder.”
“That jacket will not suffice,” Castiel pointed at the single thin zip up hoodie Sam wore. “Please take it. I don’t feel cold.”
Sam nodded trusting Castiel, and pulled his arms through.
“Thanks.”
Although it was baggy on Castiel, the bottom of the coat reached just to about the top of Sam’s knees. And the sleeves fit perfectly around his wrists. He pulled it up to his nose, always wondering what Castiel had smelled like. Then smiled at the mere thought of wearing their coat.
Castiel couldn’t help but admire Sam, feeling the corner of their lips tilt up at the sight of him in their clothes. They wanted Sam in that coat more often, maybe even naked.
Castiel looked back at the sky when Sam noticed them staring. Castiel started to hypothesize that Sam felt the same way they did. And Sam was thinking the same thing, as they leaned their head onto his shoulder.
Maybe that was Sam’s salvation. Maybe salvation was experiencing this all, with Castiel, with the angel he desired invariably.
“What’s your dying wish?” Sam asked.
And without thinking Castiel raised their head from Sam’s shoulder, looked deep into Sam’s soul and without hesitation said:
“To kiss you.” Hoping that their hypothesis was correct.
“What?” Sam asked in astonishment, through flustered laughter and blushing.
He was vibrating with excitement and happiness at the idea that Castiel wanted to kiss him. He felt the ridiculousness and the nervousness Sam had felt for years about asking Castiel out. And felt the desire he’s felt for years crawl up his throat.
“Can I kiss you?” Castiel asked. “It’s my dying wish.”
Castiel waited, and when Sam bit his lip and whispered a ‘yes’ cut through the darkness and the violence, they cupped his face and pulled him down to kiss his lips.
They kissed him tenderly, religiously, and softly. Not hard and with urgency, allowing Sam to control the kiss. In order to cherish Sam’s body the way so many before had not.
Sam kissed back hard and with pressure, soon pulling back to look at Castiel with love in his eyes. Realizing that indeed this was a form of short term salvation.
And Castiel realized at that exact moment, that kissing Sam Winchester was religious liberation, it was worship without believers guilt.
“I’ve been thinking about doing that for a while.” Castiel admitted, shyly.
“Yea? Well, I’m glad to have fulfilled your dying wish.” Sam sputtered through an endearing chuckle.
Castiel gripped the front of the trench coat that Sam was wearing and smirked like Sam had never seen Castiel smirk before.
“This looks good on you.” They whispered.
“Well, you seem to have pretty good taste,” Sam leaned forward and gently pecked their lips. “In men and in jackets.”
Castiel shook their head in amusement and leaned their head against Sam’s shoulder again. Waiting for the crash and the burn.