“i don’t remember you,”castiel says, “i’m sorry. sam… your name is sam?”
he seems so disoriented, so deer-in-headlights about everything that sam believes him. he believes him and believing makes him panic. so sam closes his eyes, feels his breathing ratchet up, looks for lucifer’s red tinge splashed across the backs of his eyelids, because that hurts but at least it’s familiar.
no, sammy-boy, now you’re doing it to yourself, the devil tells him.
he opens his eyes, and castiel’s still there. (if he could sleep, he manages to think, cas might be gone when he woke up. if he could sleep.)
“dean,” he says, and his voice sounds hoarse, gravelly; he wonders when he last spoke aloud. it’s a great effort to raise himself from the pillows and find his brother with his gaze, there behind castiel. “this isn’t—”
dean sighs. ”just… just let him try, alright?”
sam shakes his head, at the same time as cas starts, agitated and sad and lost, “i told you, i don’t remember. i wish i—”
“no,” sam insists, “no. this isn’t you. it’s not.” he stares at cas, sees him flicker. lucifer says, don’t you want him to be real, sam? don’t you want him back?