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Of all people, Sam would know that heartbreaks tend to happen in silence.
The songs were wrong. There were no big announcements about the pain, no sabbaticals taken to mourn what had been lost, no final words spoken for closure. For Sam, his own small world of pain could only be background noise. He was a Winchester after all. Heartbreaks were expected by this point. How many lovers or almost lovers had he lost while he tried to hold it together long enough to save the world? The universe always demanded him to move on quickly, too—shove another broken dream of a happy ending under the rug so he could beat the monster of the week again and again.
Sam had been careful about opening his heart to anyone. He curated his ability to be interested in another person.
But when Cas had returned from the Empty, for the first time, Sam’s conviction stuttered.
Sam confessed—it had always been there. A persistent murmur in his heart that just said: what if? Apart from Dean, Cas was the only constant in Sam’s life, the only person he could trust through hell and back—literally. They were brothers in arms, the world’s last line of defence, nothing more. Sam would die for him and knew Cas would do the same for him. But what if?
Whenever Sam prayed for him and the angel would appear, answering his call with concern in his eyes, Sam knew it was more than just relief that he was feeling in his heart.
What if things could be different between them?
Sometimes Sam would catch Cas’ reflection in the Impala’s rear view mirror and, for a fleeting second, wondered how it would feel if they filled the space in the backseat of the car—together. How their hands and lips would wander, fogging up the car’s windows with only their body heat.
What if Sam could finally have this? A happy ending?
Sam had never told Cas but whenever he felt Cas’ grace surging through his body—Cas healing him from the inside out—it was the closest thing that Sam had felt to being pure.
Escaping the Empty was thought to be impossible. Sam thought being in love was impossible. But Sam needed to know.
Lately, Sam felt like the Bunker had become too big for them.
It started to become common: Sam would find himself meandering alone in its hallways, always a few steps behind Cas and Dean. Deep in research mode, he would suddenly realise that he was alone in the library. Then, when he would find something, anything at all that could give them hope to get Jack and Mom back, he had to follow the echoes of their voices to find them. Sure, Sam knew he had been off his game lately, that he was less of his usual optimistic self. That he was happy to falter behind and let anyone take the lead for once. Losing Jack had unsettled him more than he allowed people to know.
Yet, it always felt as though Sam was interrupting Dean and Cas’ conversation, stepping into a discussion already midway with Sam only getting the footnotes of it.
Almost as if he was an afterthought.
Sam walked into the kitchen, needing another hit of caffeine, when he overheard Cas discussing with Dean about chasing a possible lead for the Seal of Solomon, one of the last few ingredients to open the rift to the other universe.
“Leaving already?” asked Sam calmly, masking the bitterness. As usual, they had talked out the details, leaving Sam out of the picture.
“Yes, it won’t take long. It doesn’t look very promising, but it’s all we have right now,” said Cas curtly, hardly giving Sam a second glance. That was another new development: Cas’s thorny impatience.
“Well, you gotta do what you gotta do, Cas,” said Sam quietly, more to himself as Cas and Dean were already walking out of the room.
Sam picked up a mug and walked to the coffee maker purposefully but found himself simply standing there, staring at the machine. Sam couldn’t move any further. He felt at a loss.
Apart from the Winchester brothers, Cas was one of the few within their circle who had repeatedly survived death. People would assume that they would be indifferent to the notion of dying by now, that they would somehow bend the will of the universe from kicking the bucket. Hell, Dean had even murdered Death himself. But they had never taken it for granted because they always come back different—more broken than before in ways that nobody could predict.
There’s also that chance that, this time, the death would stick.
Cas came back different.
The change had been subtle—subtler than a different coat and a new navy blue tie.
A few months ago, Sam remembered how he wrapped his arms around the angel, floored by Cas’s miraculous return and their sudden stroke of luck. Sam kept waiting for the shoe to drop—not only because Cas defied his own death again but because Sam had finally decided to answer the what if .
What if Cas could return his feelings? What if there could be more to them?
Sam knew what a double-edged sword hope could be for him when it comes to love. He knew yet he kept the fire burning anyways, praying that it would be different this time. Didn’t he deserve it?
Could he deserve an angel’s love?
But Cas came back different. There was a hardness in his eyes that made Sam pause now when he never did before. Cas talked about impending war like he was anticipating it. Cas also made decisions that frightened and pained him: Cas’ casual mention of talking to Lucifer and his annoyance at Sam’s hesitation as though Sam was stupid to distrust a possible ally, despite how said ally tortured him for years in hell.
When Sam put his foot down and stopped Cas against killing Donatello, Cas exploded and decided to hurt the prophet anyways, which ended up hurting Sam all the same.
Remember when you said that nothing was worth losing me, Sam desperately wanted to ask the angel.
When did Sam become a liability to him? When did Cas decide Sam was worth the risk?
Maybe Sam was naïve about them becoming anything more than friends. Naïve and stupid. It wouldn’t be the first time Sam wished for the impossible.
“You okay, Sammy?”
Sam almost dropped the mug from his hand. He looked up to see a worried Dean.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Sam pretended to cough and turned his back on his brother, finally pouring himself coffee. “Why?”
“ Why ?” Dean snorted. “For one thing, you’ve been staring at the coffee maker for the last 15 minutes.”
“I’m fine, I’m just a little tired—”
Dean closed the space between them and took the mug away despite his brother’s obvious annoyance. “Maybe you should get some sleep. Take a power nap or something.”
“Dean, it’s 4 in the afternoon. I’m not a baby. I don’t need a nap.”
“Then tell me what’s wrong,” said Dean, crossing his arms in concern. When Sam offered nothing, Dean began, “Look, I know you’re worried about Mom and Jack—”
“No, it’s not that,” Sam blurted. “Yes, I’m worried about them but … it’s more than that.”
“More?”
Sam paused and stared at his feet. He felt guilty. Guilty for thinking about himself and not the million things happening to them now. Guilty for making his problem into Dean’s problem, rather than pushing it down where it should never surface. Guilty for putting himself first.
Yet he couldn’t stop it if he tried. He couldn’t stop thinking about Cas and he couldn’t stop wanting him either.
But he couldn’t find the words to tell Dean any of it.
“Sam, you have to—”
“It’s Cas,” said Sam finally, wincing. “I … there’s something about Cas. He’s different.”
Dean frowned as frustration settled on his face. “If this is about the Donatello thing, I’ve talked to him about it—”
“It’s not just about the Donatello thing,” said Sam with gritted teeth, resentment bubbling over. “It’s more than that. He’s just not the same Cas that we know—that I know! He’s angrier, he’s reckless and he couldn’t care less if … And since when are you his spokesperson anyway ?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, where is this coming from?” asked Dean, defensively putting his hands up. “Come on, Sammy! The guy just came back from the dead . We’ve been here before. Obviously, there will be some screws loose but at least he didn’t come back batshit crazy with power or brainwashed. It’s Cas, Sam. It’s really him.”
That was what Sam afraid of—that it wasn’t some external influence making him act this way. Cas was now indifferent to him. There was nothing he could do to fix it.
Sam had been too late. He waited too long. Maybe there was a time, with a different Cas, where Sam could dream of it becoming possible. But that window of opportunity was long gone. Sam had saved the world too many times to even stop and consider that he had lost his.
“You know, when Cas went AWOL a few months back?” Sam began slowly, his voice betraying the hurt. “I couldn’t even tell it was Asmodeus I’ve been talking to on the phone. I talked to a demon for weeks and I couldn’t even tell it wasn’t him.”
Dean sighed. “Sam, please, we have to focus, okay? We have a lot on our plate right now—”
The world has no time for your pain. Sam wanted to scream.
“I mourned for him too, you know.”
Dean gulped at the statement and bit his lip, unsure how to proceed. Dean could see now the pain in his brother's eyes.
“Sam, I’m not saying …"
“He was mine, too.”
Sam let his words linger in his wake as he left the kitchen. If he stayed any longer, Dean would’ve seen the tears down his face.