-1Guardian Angel.
Part One of Two.
Patroclus76.
Sam and Dean Slash. Category M.
Usual disclaimers: I do not own Supernatural, and merely emboss other peoples talents, no violation of copy write intended.
Summary: Dean encounters Sam's obsessions with angels. Mid series two in the wake of Houses of the Holy, but before the Roadkill, in which Sam himself seems, to me at least, to take on the qualities of Uriel, an Angel of death, gently leading lost souls to their redemption.
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I know Sam is wide awake. I can tell by the pattern of his breathing; irregular, preoccupied, deep sighs followed by silence. I can also tell by his movements: sudden, angular spasms of restlessness followed by unnatural stillness. Lying with the side of my head wedged into the pillow and facing in his general direction, I see him hunkered up, leaning into the bed head, over attentive, a smudged outline against the grey wall. Not only is Sam wide awake, he has obviously been awake all fucking night!
Irritated, vaguely worried; smitten, I feel a ghost of a smile on my lips. Sam seems to sense it because his head moves slightly and I catch a gleam in his eyes. I then hear him mutter something to himself, shaking his head like a drifter or a bag boy. Despite myself, the smile on my face becomes a grin, and my heart swells heavy with affection. I move slowly, faking sleep, enjoying my voyeurism, my solitary obsession with my brother. I can almost hear Sam's brain whirling and clanking, spinning away like a fucking mainframe computer! I try and guess the time: it must be early morning, has to be: no traffic, no distant buzz from television sets; not even a dog barking. Fuzzy and comfortable in my own smell, I lean up on one arm and rub my face theatrically, simulating semi-conscious surprise.
`Sam?'
'Hey, Dean man, did I wake you?' His voice is eager, glad to have succeeded. He can be such a manipulative bitch at times.
`Course not: I'm a light sleeper!' I hear him snort, knowing his exact smile, the precise curve of his cheeks. Sam is totally high on some moral dilemma, a fundamental clash within his ethical sub-routine. Jesus! I know Sam's every tone, every colour of mood: he is actually part of me in some weird sense: always has been, right down to the 1970's poster boy hair cut and his side burns. I throw the sheets back, swing around, re-arrange my balls and then decide that I need a piss. Sam turns his face towards me, and I catch another flash of his eyes, feral like, as if he is a giant cat.
`What's up Sammy, milk and cookies keep you wake AGAIN?' I parody my sense of irritation but more a moment is it very real.
I hear another appreciative snort. I sway towards the washroom, click on the light, lift the pan lid and piss loudly, provocatively, eager to provoke Sam into one of his preppy asides.
`Dean, piss to the side for god's sake – you're such a jock!'
`Hey! Let me piss on my own!' I enjoy the innuendo, shaking my cock appreciatively.
`Hey and don't forget to wash your hands!'
`You're a bully, Sam: all this crap about me bullying you is a complex decoy – a ruse.' I turn the faucet on and make as much noise as I can. For good measure I splash my face several times and then scrutinise myself in a shaving mirror. `You handsome bastard!' I mutter, although my eyes are baggy and slightly swollen. I see that my lower lip is still cut and bruised and there is also a crease mark from the pillow on my left cheek, as if someone has undertaken facial surgery and then wandered off, forgetting to stitch the wound. I click the light off. Sam is saying something in that light, flirtatious, cocky way of his.
`Dean, did you just use the word `ruse'?'
For a nanosecond I almost miss the skilled dig at my IQ.
`Yeah? I believe I did, Sammy: I believe I heard you use it the other day. I'm a quick learner.'
I pause by the foot of his bed. My eyes have adjusted to the monochrome gloom of the motel room. At some stage on his lonely vigil, Sam has peeled his T shirt off and is now sitting up holding his knees, a prudish, self contained gesture that makes him look like a genie, with his long arms snaked about his legs. He looks contemplative, painfully cute. For a moment my need to protect him, to watch over him, literally overwhelms me. I am aware that Sam is looking at me.
`What?'
`Nothing. Please god tell me you got some sleep tonight. Sam: please!'
`I tell God everything, Dean: well almost everything!'
I rub my face again and cross over towards my own single bed but then stop midway. I have a sudden, compulsive urge to be close to Sam, to let him touch me. I cross over and sit on the edge of his bed, my back towards him. I feel about one million years old, worried sick; deeply in love. The object of my love picks up the scent of my anxiety and leans up, attentive.
`I know exactly what this is about, Sammy boy: this is about fucking angels, isn't it? Thus is about the nature of god and divine judgement?'
`Dean, you have to watch your use of syntax: I don't want to fuck any angels, at least not tonight.'
Why is it that, sometimes, the tone of his voice gives me goose bumps? Why does he sometimes take my breath away? College boys! One minute all cock and assertion, then suddenly soft, beguiling, like a caress. Sam's young man's vulnerability seems to stab me metaphorically between the eyes. I half turn towards him.
`I'm right though, aren't I? This is about Father Gregory and a higher power!'
Sam leans forward and, without warning, snakes his hands around my waist. His face is so close to the back of my neck that his breath tickles me. Or perhaps it's the David Cassidy hair again?
`Hey!' my voice feigns irritation, in part to hide my smug sense of satisfaction. Sam is so easy to goad, to tempt. He's is so fucking tactile; he probably thinks in textures! Rebuked, Sam dutifully disengages and backs away from my personal space, but suggestively, as if the loss is all mine. When I turn around his is surprisingly close, as if trying to see my thoughts. His bone carved face looks very young, especially angst ridden now: I feel an almost physical pain in my chest. God save me from my brother! I have a weird urge to stick my tongue out and lick his nose. I want to hold him tight and close and tell him I love him and that nothing will hurt him, ever.
For a while we scrutinise each other like strangers. At a moment like this, Sam is utterly beautiful to me; a burden, a responsibility, something that I can neither express or fully discharge. Has it always been like this? Did dad's revelation make the burden heavier? Did I always know that Sam was different, special? `
`What is it?' Sam's voice is deadpan, mischievous as if he can taste my thoughts. But it also sounds sad, as if he has caught my anxiety!
`God you can be a smug little bastard sometimes!' I want to lighten the mood. `You should be careful, I might bite you!'
I move my face back a bit, as if I am trying to scrutinise him. He then whispers very gently `If that's what you want.'
`I want you to sleep and stop thinking, dude! You'll think yourself into an early grave – we've already talked about this Sammy, exhaustively! why can't you leave it!' My voice had turned plaintive, `You're so fucking retentive! And why do you always have to touch!'
`Touch?'
I am tired. I am not sure I had meant to say that exactly.
`I was working on a complex metaphor – part of which was touch, but' I raise my voice `but you know what I mean?'
He moves his face towards me very slowly, very suggestively. For a moment I am afraid he is going to kiss me. I nerve myself to not jerk my head back. He stops very close to me. I can smell him, soapy: a trace of alkaline, sharp, like a damp forest.
`Flirt.' I murmur. The room is cold. I feel light headed, in need of sleep. `Look I've told you I'll save your ass, Sam: you think you're damned and your not! It's about free will - why do I have to tell you that! You can make your own life? I will always be there for you!'
Sam sighs, and then he says something odd, revealing.
`I need to believe in Angels, Dean. I need to believe that we can be saved, all of us, not just me, but you and Dad. I want to believe that we send spirits to a better place or to eternal judgement.'
`Why?' I am exasperated. We are still looking at each other as if we have met by accident in a crowded elevator or something. `Why do you think so much, all the time! You should try not thinking at all, Sam! Just do the job, move on!'
`Yeah?' But Sam is distracted again, I can tell - he has pursed his lips and half closed his eyes. `Dean, listen: we have seen demons - we have seen evil, why haven't we seen Angels? Why haven't we seen some manifestation of God! Wy do we see only half of the picture? If there is evil in the world there has to be good? Satan is a fallen Angel, he was cast out and contained!'
Deftly, chick-like, Sam resumes an argument I thought I had satisfactorily concluded and won three days ago.
`You know you defy description, Sam, you really do!' I swing up and find I am lying next to him, shoulder to shoulder, the headboard on our necks. He seems mildly surprised, either by the movement or the rebuke, but he suddenly moves over slightly across the single bed to make room, cursing under his breath.
`I'm cold, ok!' I say as he looks at me searchingly. Next minute amid a mild storm of fidgeting, Sam has peeled back an edge of the duvet and slipped it over my legs. We must look vaguely absurd, like Laurel and fucking Hardy. I can feel Sam's warmth cocooned around his buttocks and lower back.
`I've been reading up on Angels, Dean.' Sam sounds so wide awake and so fucking motivated I want to put my fist through a wall. I lean forward, re-arrange the pillow, and next minute Sam has slipped out of the bed and is looking for his laptop like a dog searching for his bone.
`Sam it's nearly four am! Can't this wait!'
`Quit whining, Dean: I am going to make you believe if it's the last thing I do! I want to see God!' the intensity of his voice surprises me, even for Sam. I roll my eyes and say `God damn it!' The chances of an early start have clearly evaporated.
Surprisingly Sam is naked. It's unusual in that we have both long adopted the habit of sleeping in boxer shorts and T shirts. It's weird also in that the room we're in - some empty moonscape - is chilly as fuck. Perhaps all the thinking has caused my brother to overheat? I watch Sam as he ferrets about for his gizmo, lithe, broad shouldered, his waist narrowing elegantly. His looks both boyish but incredibly svelte. So unlike me and Dad and yet so alike at the same time. He finds the laptop under a pile of books, swings it towards him, grins and walks back towards me. I catch a glimpse of a toned stomach and a dark boss of pubic hair in the dim light. Next minute he clambers into bed next to me, the laptop on, it's ghostly grey light catching his eyes.
`Did you know that the word Angel is an old English derivation of a Hebrew word for messenger? That early Christian discourses on Angels were derived from Judaic traditions and that at the council of Theodosius, around the 4th century AD, there was a long debate as to whether Angels had free will or were merely manifestations of god's purpose?'
I am lying down looking up at Sam. He is reading something, half turning to tell me this, his cheek bone and jaw gently shaded by the LCD screen. He is excited. Seeing him like this vaguely excites me. I feign disinterest.
`Really?'
He elbows me and then snakes himself down and starts to read again. He is on a roll.
