Castiel wanders back to the main lounge area where he left Sam after spending two silent hours in the lower level to find Sam awake.
He's pulled himself to a sitting position, but he's not moving. His eyes are fixed rather sightlessly on the thick white casts encasing his legs, and his head turns ever so slightly towards Castiel when he enters the room, but his eyes remain glued to the same spot. Castiel notes immediately that his shirt is unbuttoned. Many of the wounds the area sustained had to be healed for him to be able to use his body again, but Castiel had to leave several, ones that had not damaged any internal organs or major arteries, as they were. So his chest is covered with bandages and must be paining him horribly, but… but at least he can't tell how extensive the damage really was, so there's hope that… that he doesn't know what happened.
"Sam," Castiel says by way of greeting, voice light with relief. "It's good to see you awake."
At this Sam does meet his eyes. And his own are dark. Darker than Castiel has ever seen them. To Castiel's surprise and dismay—though "dismay" is really far too weak a word—they seem to carry no questions. Uncertainty, perhaps, and dull terror, but no true curiosity. It is a look of heavy silence.
"How long was I out?" is all he asks, his voice soft and shaky.
"Almost twenty hours," Castiel supplies, voice just as low.
Sam doesn't directly react. His eyes flicker back down to his legs, and Castiel can feel the confirmation hanging in the air. He can feel the already answered questions running through Sam's mind, Sam's conscious refusal to give them a voice.
Nothing needs to be said out loud. None of this has to be made any more real than it already is.
But Castiel can't think of a single thing to say that doesn't terrify him. If he lists Sam's injuries for him, he runs the risk of Sam asking for clarification. Same if he describes what happened. Anything like "You just need to rest" would be at best patronizing and at worst an outright lie. Every second the silence continues his fear of what Sam might say grows.
In his countless millennia of silently keeping vigil over humanity, one of the things he grew very good at spotting was temptation. And he can see in Sam's eyes how dangerously close he is to wanting to give up.
Not giving himself time to consider whether it's a good idea, he blurts, "I've been on angel radio."
Sam blinks, and slowly raises his eyes again to meet Castiel's, his brow slightly furrowing questioningly.
"Asking around," he elaborates, voice quieter, reminding himself to tread a little more carefully than that. "Seeing if anyone has any information on the Mark, or the Blade. Particularly the older angels. The ones who might remember."
Sam's look of mild puzzlement has fled, and now he just looks dead tired, and he opens his mouth but this is exactly what Castiel was afraid of, this lack of feeling, of purpose, of hope, so he barrels on before he has to hear Sam say it: "I know there's not much of a chance that there's any useful information out there that we don't already have, and even less that anybody will know it and be willing to share, but it's something. If nothing else, I've gotten a few angels to agree to keep an eye out for him."
Sam blinks at him, still looking ready to fall asleep and never wake up again, but something is returning to his eyes—some level of resolve. Castiel knows that he, in his more human times, would have wept at this simple fact. It's probably best that he doesn't now.
"I guess I'll do the same," Sam whispers. "Talk to other hunters. See what they know, what they've heard. Chance of success seems even less than with you, but…"
Castiel shakes his head. "It doesn't matter. It's this or nothing, and 'nothing' has never been and will never be an option."
Sam is, in his heart, not convinced. Castiel can see that. But he doesn't have to be. He just has to try. "Fake it till you make it," as Dean might say.
"Now then," says Castiel, clasping his hands together, "you're probably hungry."
Sam slightly draws back the corners of his mouth. "Starving."
Castiel pauses, admonishing himself as he remembers he has no idea how to cook.
"You can just grab something out of the fridge," Sam says, obviously sensing this. "I think there should be some leftover takeout in there."
Castiel nods and immediately departs, ecstatic to be able to do something useful, and quickly locates the small bowl of rice and rangoon. From what he recalls from personal experience and has observed, it really doesn't seem like enough to quite constitute a full meal, of which Sam probably needs more. As he carries it back to the couch, he figures he can head to the nearest convenience store to pick up something a bit more substantial. Though his only mode of transportation at the moment is a recently stolen vehicle… That's something they'll have to think about. But not yet.
As he reenters the room, his eyes immediately fall on Sam, and it takes him a few seconds to register how he's leaning forward, face buried in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking—though even through it all he still doesn't make a sound.
Castiel almost loses his grip on the food but manages to drop it safely on the end table before he slides onto the end of the couch where Sam's head was previously resting and takes the younger Winchester into his arms.
He doesn't say "it's okay," because it isn't. He doesn't say anything. All he does is hold on tight, making his presence known.
At the moment, simply being present is a feat on its own, and the most either of them can really manage.
He considers it his greatest accomplishment so far when he walks into a small bar containing only three patrons and the bartender and kills all of them before a single one manages to scream.
He stands there, completely high on bloodlust, ears ringing, just reveling in the carnage around him and the stains on his hands, and he thinks the absolute perfection of this moment is going to be soiled by the fact that he has to walk through a door to get out.
It's so mundane, he muses as he drives away. So… irritatingly humbling. The kills were flawless and the whole endeavor should have been allowed to end there. He's dimly aware that it's strange this is suddenly bothering him, especially since he can't find the proper words to effectively explain why it does. What's changed since his last getaway? What's different?
Well, he has now been a demon for even longer.
And he's not just any demon; he has the freaking Mark of Cain. He should not be subjected to shuffling around on two feet like the human being he's glad to say he no longer is. Now he can throw people around with his mind, but there is more, there must be. He can feel the unholy power inside him scratching at the walls, yowling to be set loose; he just has no idea how to channel it.
The speedometer never dips below 90 in the hour that follows, and he drives with the windows rolled down and the music turned up as loud as it gets, because even with the slight inconvenience at the end, those kills were fantastic and he's going to ride this high for all he's worth.
Once he starts to come down, though, his head begins to clear a little, and he recalls a detail regarding the recent activities of his former brother that just might benefit him hugely. It takes another thorough search in the trunk after he pulls over at a rest stop, but before long he finds what he's looking for tucked away in the back behind all the weapons—a couple gallons of suspiciously-colored liquid and three large maps of the States.
They used it to find him, but if he's not very much mistaken, that's not the only piece of information this spell will give him.
Grinning almost manically, unable to hold in his excitement, he spreads one of the maps over the trunk of the car, throws some of the liquid across it, and torches it.
Sure enough, the scorched outlines of two states remain: one of Utah, where he is now, and one of Kentucky.
He's on the road again with an actual destination in mind before the sun comes up.