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“Dude. You told me to say ‘break a leg’! Don’t worry, it’s just a theater tradition, it’s an old theater superstition to wish someone the opposite kind of luck as what you want them to have, I’m not gonna really break my leg, you said.” Dean threw an arm out in the direction of Sam’s broken leg. “So what the hell? There a reason I get called to come to the hospital because you broke your leg?”
Sam huffed a laugh. If there was one thing he could count on his brother for, it was this. There wasn’t anything he could do for Sam, so he reverted to making fun of him. “Yes, Dean. The reason is I broke my leg.”
“Which wasn’t supposed to happen! How? If you were a stunt guy or even an actor or crew guy, I could understand, but… aren’t you basically a desk guy now?”
“Sure, I can be just a desk guy if I want. I prefer to be a little more involved. The group that’s staging Cats was having a problem in the catwalks above the stage…”
“Seriously?” Dean interrupted. “You’re making that up, right?”
“No. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.” Sam paused to get his thoughts back on track. “Anyway, I went up with them to see if I could help figure out a solution, and I slipped. That’s it. No foul play, the guys tried to catch me, a couple crew guys were alert enough to see me falling and shove this ribbon thing under me. Probably why I’m not hurt worse.”
Dean opened his mouth to retort, but let it snap shut again. “Fine. Where the hell’s that stupid boyfriend of yours? Shouldn’t he be here for you?”
“Dude, what is your problem?” Sam forced himself to sit up a little straighter so he could glare at Dean. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what the problem was, in Dean’s opinion. He just didn’t understand why Dean couldn’t move on like he had in other cases. “You’re all but married to a dude who used to torture me for kicks!”
Dean rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, he could be a dick, yeah, but torture? Really?”
“Junior year of high school, he told the entire school I had genital herpes and then hit me in the junk during dodgeball, on purpose!” Dean’s snickering was so not helping. “First year of college, he set me up to be abducted by ‘aliens’ as a frat hazing prank! The slow dancing was weird, but if the cops hadn’t arrived when they did there would have been probing.”
“You know he’s the one who called the cops and told them what was happening, right? That wasn’t about you, he’d heard so many stories about that frat from his douchebag big brother that he wanted it shut down.”
Sam had not, in fact, ever known that. It didn’t make him suddenly willing to forgive; the timing had been far too close for comfort. “And then our last year, he fucking made me think you were dead! Killed by bad tacos of all things!”
“Dude, come on, he didn’t think you’d actually believe him. After knowing him all those years, he figured you’d know how dedicated he was to his pranks and just call me, not freak out and start calling our friends and researching the lawsuit! Besides, given that that’s how you met your stupid boyfriend, I can’t believe you’re still this upset over it.”
“Dean, at least once a month I wake up in a cold sweat from where it wasn’t a prank, Gabriel really had broken the news to me that you were dead and I was alone in the world, and Cas has to talk me out of the panic. And this is after years of therapy. I don’t get how you can forgive Gabriel for all of that, but you can’t forgive Cas.”
“Gabe was just screwing around and honestly thought you knew him better than that, and he’s right, you should’ve. Cas fucked you over despite claiming to care about you. You were so screwed up after that.”
“Dean, I needed that. He was absolutely right to do it. He probably saved my life.”
Castiel was a bartender with an advanced degree in psychology. Sam met him after Gabriel’s big prank, when he’d started drinking heavily as his first attempt to cope with the dreams. Castiel was good about cutting him off and making sure he got home, and in the meantime, they chatted while Sam drank. They became great friends. One night, when Castiel cut him off, Sam complained that he was just going to go home and drink a six-pack anyway so Cas might as well get the bar the money. When Castiel took him home, he refused to leave. He didn’t interfere with Sam’s drinking, just made sure that Sam made it to bed safely and watched him for signs of alcohol poisoning.
When Sam woke up, he was in a hospital, where he discovered he was under a 72-hour psychiatric hold. At first, he was pissed off. During the hold, he’d started to come around, and when he left, it was with a referral for psychiatric help. He could see why Dean thought he was screwed up after that, but the truth was, he was just letting out the problems he’d been holding in and burying with alcohol.
Three months later, he went back to the bar and ordered a beer. Castiel had served him, but not happily. When Sam switched to Coke for his next drink, Castiel’s smile had nearly blinded him. “One thing I don’t understand, though, Cas. How’d you get them to let you check me in?”
“After you went to bed, I faked the paperwork to convince them I was your husband. You’re the theater guy, but I think you’d have been proud of my acting that night, playing the distraught husband who couldn’t take his love’s self-destructive behavior anymore.”
Sam broke into a brilliant smile of his own. “Heh. I was gonna ask if I could take you to dinner – or lunch, if that works better with your work schedule – to say thank you for saving my life, but maybe I should find some other way to do that and ask to take you to dinner as a date.”
“You always refused to believe it was as bad as it was, because you and Gabe were dating. The doctor said that if it weren’t for Cas getting me to the hospital, my blood alcohol was high enough that I could have died. Wasn’t a guarantee, but there was a possibility. Even if I’d gotten lucky that time, I’d have done it again.”
Dean was staring at Sam, mouth hanging open. “Then why’d you get worse afterward?”
Sam stared at his broken leg. “The break, that barely hurt. Getting the bone set, though… that hurt like hell. Sometimes you’ve gotta make the pain worse before you can heal from it.”
“Shit, man. I… I had no idea.” Dean scrubbed a hand down his face. “There a reason you never told Gabriel to fuck off and never talk to you again?”
“Yeah, there is. He’s your boyfriend, you love him, he loves you, I don’t wanna screw that up for you. I just wish you’d show Cas the same courtesy.”
Castiel picked that moment to walk in. He looked between the brothers glaring at each other. “Should I come back later?” he asked Sam.
“No,” Dean said before Sam could answer. Sam glared, but Dean surprised him. “Sammy was just telling me some stuff I never realized, and man, I owe you a ton of apologies. Thanks, dude.”
Castiel stared at Dean for a long time before finally just saying, “You’re welcome.” He gave Sam a soft kiss. “Are you ready to go home?”
“Just waiting for the nurse to get back with the release paperwork and instructions.”
Between Castiel and Dean, Sam was never left alone. It was starting to irritate him – all he wanted to do was get back to work, really. It was a broken leg. He wouldn’t be able to get up on the catwalks, but he could sit at his desk and do the paperwork and make the phone calls and have the meetings. He’d given into Castiel and Dean’s joint pleading for him to take a week off, mostly out of shock that the two of them were teaming up, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.
He was especially not happy about it when Dean and Cas both had something they couldn’t cancel. It wasn’t that he minded them both being gone. It was that Gabe showed up to babysit. “I can take care of myself for three hours, Gabriel. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“I don’t, actually. I brought dinner, and I would like to talk to you.” Gabriel held up a plastic bag with two bowls in it and a hot food carrier. Sam rolled his eyes, but Gabriel was too stubborn to leave, so Sam didn’t bother to try. He stepped aside and followed Gabriel to the kitchen. He tried to take the carrier from Gabriel, but Gabriel shook his head. “I got this. You’re supposed to be sitting down as much as possible, so just relax, okay?”
“Whatever.” Sam sat down, crutches propped against the table beside him and arms crossed. He watched in surprise as instead of the dinner he’d expected, if you could call pie, jello, and pudding dinner, Gabriel pulled out grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and steamed broccoli. Sam stared at the food in silence, trying to figure out what Gabriel was doing. He couldn’t. He’d have to ask. “What’s the prank, Gabriel?”
Surprisingly, instead of protesting, Gabriel just flinched. “No prank. Just a good dinner.” Gabriel sat across from Sam and started filling his plate. “Cas came over yesterday and talked to me. Sam, I am so sorry. I knew you had some drinking and mental health issues, but I never realized that I was the one who caused them.”
Sam nearly dropped the forkful of mashed potatoes. “Technically, you didn’t, the mental health issues were there before you,” he made himself say.
Gabriel bit his lip. “Poor wording. I caused the breakdown. I never connected the timing between that prank and you starting to drink so heavily. Just thought it was one of those things, college was ending and you were feeling the pressure of getting out in the real world and finding a job and all that. I know I can’t change the past, but I can try to make up for it.”
“And I’m supposed to believe this isn’t setting up some kind of prank because…?”
Gabriel set down his fork, looking Sam in the eyes. “Because I crossed a line. Doesn’t matter that I have no idea why it hit you so hard, it did. I could have killed you and never even realized it was me. I love you, which is why I used to prank you so thoroughly, but now that I know why Cas was so vehement that I never prank you again, I agree with him. I fucked up hard.”
Sam blinked, trying to process that. “You really have no idea why Dean dying would hit me hard?”
“It would. That I know. What I don’t get is why you believed me at all in the first place, or why it’s still affecting you six years and a fuckton of therapy later.” Gabriel picked his fork back up and took a bite of potato. “Doesn’t matter why. What matters is that it is.”
Sam didn’t answer that. He couldn’t. Instead, he focused on eating. Given Gabriel’s usual tendencies, he hadn’t expected much, but the food was amazing. When Gabriel got out the second bowl and dessert turned out to be a mixed berry compote, Sam gave him a somewhat suspicious look. Passing up a chance at something completely unhealthy?
Gabriel held up his hands. “Hey, I like fruit, and pie is Dean’s thing. I can get my sugar fix later. I brought lollipops.”
A short laugh burst out of Sam, catching even him by surprise. “You remember summer after freshman year of college, Dad had that heart attack?”
“Yeah, I remember, Dean felt so guilty about barely spending any time with him that summer because he and I had started dating and he was spending as much time with me as he could. What brings this up?”
Sam took a couple bites of berries. He’d never talked about this before outside of a proper therapeutic office, and that he was telling Gabriel of all people took a minute to feel right, but it did. “I don’t know if you know this, but you can probably guess I’m the one who found him. I woke up that morning, walked into the kitchen, and found him lying cold on the floor. They said he’d probably been dead for over an hour by then. Until the autopsy came back, I thought it was my fault.”
“How could it be your fault? It was a heart attack.”
“We didn’t know that. I don’t know if Dean’s talked to you about what it was like, that year we were in college and he was back in Lawrence with Dad. He never told me anything about this. I only heard it from Ellen Harvelle, after the funeral. He started drinking hard, getting in fights, bought himself a motorcycle and rode it like a maniac, and Dean patched him up. I don’t know if Dean just figured it was my turn, or if he thought me being back would cheer Dad up and he’d stop pulling that kind of shit, but with Dean off with you so much I got to be the one looking after Dad. The night before he died, Dad told me he was heading out to the bar, and I told him I was sick of having to be the dad in our relationship and he could sleep it off in jail, or even get himself killed, for all I cared. When I found him dead that morning…”
Gabriel got up and walked around the table, hugging Sam. Sam’s first instinct was to shove him off, but it felt kind of nice, and he could definitely use the hug at this point. “Dean never told me anything like that, either. I mean, I knew your dad was struggling with you being gone, but I didn’t realize it was that different from my dad having trouble with the idea that his youngest kid was at college.”
“So, yeah. Mom dying saving me from the fire, the regrets over my last words to Dad being a fight where I told him I didn’t care if he died, and the dawning realization that in just a few months my friends and I would be scattering thousands of miles apart… Jess had just told me that morning she’d been offered a job in freaking London.” Sam smiled ruefully as Gabriel’s arms tightened. “Bad timing and unresolved issues that had nothing to do with you, but that’s why it hit so hard. It wasn’t until I was talking to my therapist about this that I realized if Dean was dead, I had no reason to follow you to your grad school in Indiana and could go with Zach and Becky, or Luis, or even go to London with Jess myself.”
“I am so sorry. I know I said that already, but I think it bears repeating.” Gabriel let go, going back to his berries. “If I’d had any idea, I would never had even considered messing with you like that.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re an asshole, but you’re not Luke.” That got a smirk out of Gabriel. “So, I have a question. Did Dean and Cas really both coincidentally have plans they couldn’t cancel, or are they at a bar somewhere watching the game to give you an excuse to come here and apologize?”
“Okay, so before you yell at me for pranking you after swearing never again: this was their idea. After they’d both talked to me about this, I asked them for help coming up with a way to get you to listen to me while I apologized. They’re at a bar watching the game.”
“Heh. Fair enough.” Sam finished off his berries. “You worried at all?”
“Huh? About what?”
“About Cas and Dean. I know you and Dean have an open relationship, in theory anyway, but neither of you has actually done anything. For years now I’ve been trying to get Dean to get over his anger at Cas because they are going to love each other once they’ve sorted out their issues. You worried?”
Gabriel’s brow wrinkled. “I take it from you encouraging it that you wouldn’t have a problem with it if the two of them hook up?”
“Only if someone gets hurt, and yes, even before tonight, that included you.”
“I’m all for it, as long as you’re not getting hurt.” Gabriel got up and started cleaning up the dishes. “You do know why Dean and I have an open relationship, don’t you?”
“No. None of my business, is it?”
“Actually, it is. It’s because of you. I’ve had a crush on you since eighth grade.”
Sam’s eyes bugged out. “You have got to be kidding me. I thought you hated me!”
“Nope. Just really bad at flirting like a normal person. When Dean and I hooked up, he asked about that, I was honest, and he suggested the open relationship. Said you two wouldn’t have a problem sharing. Somehow, I don’t think it’s ever gonna happen now, not after all the crap I put you through, but that’s why I don’t have a problem if Dean and Cas hook up. I know Dean knows that, not sure about Cas.”
At first, the only thing that changed was that Dean and Gabriel started spending a lot more time with Sam and Castiel. As Sam predicted, it didn’t take long before Dean and Castiel were best friends, and the only surprise about Gabriel shouting “FINALLY!” upon discovering the two of them kissing was that it took over a month.
Sam’s therapist was surprised to hear that Sam and Gabriel had talked, and impressed to hear that Sam had opened up to Gabriel and that the two of them were becoming friends. She was thoroughly amused to hear that Sam was developing a crush on Gabriel, and though she encouraged caution, she didn’t see any inherent problem with it, as long as they made sure to keep up strong communication with each other and with their boyfriends.
After an appointment where the therapist asked him when the last time he dreamt Dean’s death and Sam couldn’t remember having one since breaking his leg, he packed Dean and Cas off for a date and set up a candlelight dinner of pizza and pastries. Gabriel stared in confusion when he got home. “Sam?”
The look on Gabriel’s face had Sam forcing down laughter. “Have a seat.”
Gabriel did as he was told, staring suspiciously at the pizza on his plate. The Jolly Rancher toppings were Sam’s favorite part of all of this. It looked festive. “What’s this?”
“Dinner?” As Gabriel continued to look baffled, Sam added, “Pizza. Sit down.”
Gabriel sat down and poked the pizza. “Are Dean and Cas joining us…?”
Sam looked pointedly at the two empty places at the four-person table. “They’re on a date.”
“Good for them. About time Dean took Cas out properly. So if they’re not here, what’s with the whole romantic atmosphere?” Gabriel picked a candy off his pizza and popped it into his mouth. “Holy crap. It is what it looks like.”
“Exactly.” Sam grinned and took a bite of his own – much more traditionally topped – pizza. “Yeah, I know, I’m being a little cocky here, but eighth grade was, like, fourteen years ago. If your thing for me hadn’t disappeared after all the horribleness, I really don’t think it’s gone anywhere now that we’re actually hanging out.”
“Wait, this is a date for us too?” Gabriel dropped his pizza. “You’re serious about this? I meant it when I said I never expected anything to happen, even with Dean and Cas happening. If you don’t want this, you don’t have to try to force it.”
“I know. I’m not forcing anything. I like you. It’s not gonna change anything major, like Dean and Cas hooking up didn’t mean the two of us weren’t still their great loves, but I’d like to have something like they do with you. Good?” Gabriel didn’t answer in words. Instead, he got up, walked around the table, and bent his head to kiss Sam.