Archive of Our Own ^beta

Where were the angels, Sam wonders, when my brother was dying?

He wonders less, about John. About Jess. Not at all, about Mary. God works, he had been told, in mysterious ways. But God works, he had been told.

He knows that people die, and that sometimes, there is purpose in their death – obvious, the purpose of John’s death. Jess, killed as alchemical catalyst, the combustion to send the engine of his grief into motion. He knows this. Knows his father better, for knowing it. Wishes he did not know his father half so well, wishes he did not at times feel dressed in his vacated skin, like a prehistoric hunter draped in the hide of a wolf. Sometimes, the way his brother looks at him, round eyed with fear, he’s not sure what Dean is seeing, besides teeth.

These days, Sam thinks a lot about teeth.

Dean died, he thinks, under the crude blade of a dog’s mouth. And where were the angels?

Grave dirt still under his nails, arm still freshly branded, Dean insisted that there had to be more to it, than angels and demons, than Heaven and Hell. Sam remembers chastising him, asking if it was really so hard to believe, that he was saved by one of the good guys. He’s not sure where the knee-jerk reaction comes from, the one that makes him chalk out a line between himself and his brother. Perhaps God Himself felt this same impulse, an appeal to binarity, a need to contain through division. To separate parts, assign counterparts. A universe of arbitrary if-then statements, conjured for the sake of symmetry. If man, then woman. If Heaven, then Hell. If right, then wrong. If father, then son. If dark, then light. If life, then death. If Dean, then Sam. If doubt, then faith. Sam can’t help but to paint a line down the center of everything, and he doesn’t know how his brother can resist the temptation to do the same.

He remembers telling Ruby that he was not afraid of angels. And he isn’t. When he said it, he meant it differently, than he does now.

Castiel called him the boy with demon blood, and Sam shook his hand anyway, because he has always had trouble seeing the difference between criticism and aspersion. He was too caught up in being grateful that his brother was saved, to wonder where the angels were, when his brother was dying. And where were they? He asks inside himself, blood echoing back the query.

By the time the angels take Dean to do their bidding, Sam is beyond delusions of purity. Whether he drinks the blood of demons or not, he is tainted. Abstention is not a cure, indulgence is not a vice, mercy is not exclusive to Heaven, damnation is not solely the purview of Hell. Demons taught his brother to torture, and angels commanded a reprise. His brother was nearly killed at the hands of the demon who tormented him for decades, and Sam’s bloodborne blessing rescued Dean and Castiel both. He doesn’t even have to ask, where the angels were this time, when his brother was being killed.

Dean is worthy, in the eyes of Heaven, and all it’s gotten him is a ring of bruises around his neck and a nasal cannula. Sam is blessed, to be unclean. He is free to defile himself however he wishes, to transmute blood into power. If dirty, then clean. If lead, then gold. If mercury, then silver. If wuji, then taiji. He does not drink blood, as a vampire might. He consumes it, effuses it into his body, like rain into soil.

In the hospital, Dean bleeds, and Sam can smell how clean his blood is, like a foxhound, lip curled, teeth bared. Castiel breezes by, barely a hitch in his step as he passes in the hall, and Sam is on him in seconds. He isn’t afraid of angels.

“Get in there and heal him. Miracle. Now.” Sam issues these words as commandments. Perhaps God Himself felt this same impulse. Perhaps He derides the angels as much as Sam has come to. Perhaps it was God’s derision, that made the angels so contemptible, and not the other way around.

“I can’t,” Castiel lies, because it is easier than saying he is not permitted to. It is easier than saying that he will not.

He doesn’t know how Dean can look at this creature and call it Cas. How he can nickname it at all. Like giving a pet name to a can opener. At least Ruby had been human, once. Castiel has only ever been a blade.

Heaven is just as eager to chew Dean up as Hell had been, it seems. Every angel, a tooth in the mouth of God. He knows where the angels were, when Dean was dying, when he was being ripped apart by hellhounds. They were watching from on high, jaws wide, hungry.

Maybe Sam is an angel, because his hunger is holy. His teeth are consecrated weapons. He can even perform miracles, of a kind. Maybe angels, like mercy, are not relegated to Heaven. Maybe Dean is afraid of Sam in the same way that he is afraid of angels, in the same way that he is afraid of John. Maybe when Dean is afraid of something, he draws it closer, tethers it to his ribcage, his fears a constellation of ships moored to him as they weather a storm. Maybe Dean would rather chain a wild dog to a post in his yard, than loose him on the unsuspecting world. Maybe Dean thinks that Castiel can be made tame, if held tightly enough.

Perhaps God works, Sam thinks, teeth buried in the flesh of a human body, remarkable only in its capacity to host the infernal, in mysterious ways. Dean and Castiel look on in twin horror, and Sam feels their eyes on him, and wishes there was time to explain it to them. That Castiel is weak, and he is strong. That he can expel the demon from Amelia Novak’s body, can preserve the woman it belongs to, even though Castiel cannot. That he can make something, but not out of nothing. Perhaps God Himself felt this same impulse, to defend the transmogrification that underpins all beginnings, that necessitates all endings. Perhaps He, too, lacked the time required to make everyone understand.