I see light at the end of this tunnel

It looks like Max might be possessed/antagonistic this episode based on the promo. If SPN brings the twins back just to kill them I stg

Sam’s been missing Max since last he saw him, obviously, but more particularly since the moment that Cas’s eyes turned gold. Last time Cas went super-powered, it’d been Lucifer hitching a ride. The time before that, he shattered Sam’s hell wall and turbo-charged himself on souls. That’s not to say Sam blames Castiel for either occurrence, not exactly; Cas meant well, both times, and Sam understands good intentions and the kinds of paths they strew. But forgiveness, or understanding, can’t do much to fix the anxiety that’s been tugging on Sam’s nerves since he and Dean woke blinking on the playpark’s dark, deserted ground. This baby that Cas has put his faith in is Lucifer’s, too. Sam can’t shake the thought of what that means: Lucifer’s hands in his chest, that voice ringing in his ears, the grimacing face lurking constantly on the periphery of his vision. It’s keeping him up at night and the more he lies awake, the easier it is to recall the sleepless, scrambling slide to the edge of his sanity precipitated by the wall collapsing. Cas wouldn’t do that to him a second time, not deliberately. But he never meant to do it before. And Lucifer… Sam knows better than anybody the devil’s taste for repetition. The idea of sending Sam through the wringer again would delight him.

He can’t talk to Dean about it because Dean’s too angry. He was mad enough when Castiel came back after months of silence; madder when he stole the Colt; and now, after he dropped them and left? Sam can’t raise the subject without prompting a tirade, which is fine because Dean’s got the right to be angry but Sam just. He’s just desperate to see Max, and he hasn’t realised how desperate until Alicia calls and says, terse, “Mom’s gone missing,” and they’re suddenly in the car heading north.

Sam hadn’t thought of talking to Max about this, about any of it. What’s between them is still new; they’re still feeling out the shape of it. He knows he likes Max, a lot, likes him more than just platonically. He thinks Max feels the same. They’ve had some real conversations. They’ve kissed, just once. But as he sits in the passenger seat and watches the streetlights slide past the window – as the rhythm of them starts to dull him into a doze – he feels the possibility of talking to Max rise like a platform underneath him. If Max is anything, he’s solid. He doesn’t judge, didn’t sneer or laugh when Sam stumbled messily into an account of what happened with Lady Bevell this year (and yeah, a great conversation to have with a crush, jeez Sam, well done). (But it might not be fair not to tell Max why he’s so fucked up.)

In the event, Max had frowned quietly, listened, and at last laid a hand warm over Sam’s. “You know that wasn’t okay,” he’d said, and Sam had said, “Yeah,” and Max, “What she did to you, I mean. Not what you did. Or didn’t.”

It had helped.

The thing about Max is that Sam’s reality can be kind of shaky, and it’s not Dean’s fault or Cas’s that sometimes his nightmares are wearing their faces, eyes shifted black or blue or gold. God knows Dean’s seen someone foreign look through Sam’s eyes, often enough that Sam worries at times about all the layers that must have built up, the masks Dean has to look through to see Sam underneath. So. Sam doesn’t blame Dean, or Cas. But the fact that Max hasn’t been tangled up in it, in any of it, that he’s just… when Sam sees Max, he knows what he’s seeing. He knows the hand on his is real and he knows, by extension, that he’s real himself. It helps. It helps, too, that Max isn’t bound up in any of the complicated tangle of loyalties that bind Sam to his brother and even to Cas. It’s not complicated, or it’s only complicated in normal ways that relate to Sam’s social awkwardness. He doesn’t have to second guess himself, to try and look three steps ahead to where what he’s saying comes to bite him in the ass. It’s just. It’s not often Sam finds someone he can talk to.

This is selfish. Max is worried, Alicia is worried, that’s why they’ve called. But once Sam and Dean have helped out with this thing with their mom, Sam’s wondering if maybe he and Max might talk.

Max’s eyes are golden, almost, clear golden-green. Sam can see them now.