Chapter Text
What do you mean you can't?"
"I mean there's nothing left to rebuild."
"Why not?"
"Because it crumbled. The pieces got crushed to dust by whatever is happening inside his brain right now."
"So you're saying there's nothing. He's gonna stay like this till his candle blows out?"
I'm sorry. This isn't a problem I can ma—"
"Dean?"
For the first time since their arrival, Sam acknowledges Dean. He looks to the left of Dean, with squinting eyes to see the other person his brother is conversing with such aggression, then back at him with a look of disbelief, wondering why he's hallucinating Castiel.
"Dean, is..."
"Yeah, it's Cas."
Sam gingerly tries to sit up, finally giving his whole focus, at least as much as he possibly could, to them instead of the empty chair. "How..?" He asks Cas directly, the corners of his lips crease, a poor attempt at a smile. The man intended to speak further but the half-fried brain of his could not verbalise anything any longer. He sits there, silent, in his dilemma of whether to speak further or not.
"I'm sorry to ask when...just when you're...back, but, can you fix me now, Cas, please?" He finally whispers, just enough to be heard in the stilled silence among them all (or just Cas and Dean) but to himself and His ongoing monologue.
"Sam, I'm sorry to tell you this, but there's nothing left to rebuild the wall," Cas says looking away, eyes too heavy with shame. Dean shoots him a glare, wanting his thoughts known to even the tulpa of his brother.
You are going to fix this, one way or another.
After a long silence in the room, Sam finally breaks the silence. "Ah," is all he could let out. "I see. It's...alright." He attempts a smile which appears as a grimace. Slowly, as if unsure, he slumps back against the headrest and stares at the chair again, or out of the windows. No one can tell anymore. Not even himself.
"'I see'? Is that all you have to say about this?" Dean stomps beside him, furious, over the situation with his brother. He grabs his brother's shoulders, at which he winces, and pulls his attention towards himself. "Sam, say something! Don't just sit there and pretend this is the end."
Sam stares for a moment, trying to process what his brother is saying with squinting eyes. "What's there to say? Cas can't..." he pauses to catch his breath. "There's nothing left, Dean. It's not like...like we can do anything about it."
Dean glared at Cas, beyond furious at him for doing this to his kid brother. He takes a deep breath, palms on his closed eyes, then looks down at Sam, now with determination in his eyes. "Nah," he looks back at Cas. "Cas, heal him. We're getting outta here."
"Dean—" They both begin.
"Screw both of you and what you want!" He interrupts their complaints. "You," he points at Cas, "Heal. And you," he points at Sam. "Freshen up. I don't care what both of you want right now. We can talk in the car when one has settled their memories and the other doesn't have a fried brain."
"Dean, please. I'll be of—of...of no use against Leviathans, you know that. I can barely see, let alone shoot a gun." Sam looks up at Dean, with his puppy eyes, but all Dean sees is the defeat in his gaze, which was never there before, not ever this tragic, and ever should be.
"That's my call to make, Sam."
Dean felt nothing else could convince his brother to live except giving his life to himself.
_______
"Mmh, anyone ever told you white's your colour?" Meg smirks at Sam.
Sam stills in his track of wearing Dean's jacket, questioning why she was here. Why was she just standing there casually as if this were an expected friend's gathering?
"Sammy, quit beating around the bush. You know none of this is real, pal. You know it. I mean, come on! Big bro getting you out when you can barely stand?"
If it were not real, you would never talk me out of it.
"If it was something I was showing you, that is. You are beyond gone, buddy."
He looks at his surroundings, questioning the reality of it all. For all he knows, this could be him running away alone. Seriously.
Why would Dean break him out, when he's of no use?
How is Cas alive and why Dean is now talking to Meg?
"Not the right time, bitch." Dean barks.
Sam takes a step back, "No," he pants. "No, you are not real." He steps back further, colliding with the wall of the building he just left, stabbing his right thumb in his left palm.Or was it opposite?
At the muttering of continuous disagreement of his brother with reality, Dean whips his head in Sam's direction. "Sam—Sammy! I'm—kiddo, I'm real. If I'm not, then how do you have that jacket, huh? You ain't a wizard, who can just pop—"
Cas rested his hands on Dean's shoulders before he could step further to comfort his brother. "Sam's getting worse by the second, we have to move. Now."
"Damn it." He grits his teeth. "You, get the hell outta here, do your demony stuff somewhere else because we ain't your chauffer," Dean says to Meg.
"Seriously, Dean? You really gonna do this to poor ol' me?" Meg tilts her head towards the man who's spiralling down in his own thoughts, shooting glances at things only he can see. "I'll make you a deal. We work together and I babysit your giant."
"I'll do you one better, piss off." Dean shakes Cas' hand off his shoulder and walks slowly towards the wounded animal of a man. He grabs the man's shoulder at which he startles and weakly tries to free himself. "Sammy, look at me, man. I'm here and I'm real." He separates the thumb and palm, holding the latter by the wrist. "Stone number one, remember?" He looks intently, as if reminding the man of his own last name. Before the other man could speak, he was dragged off to a vintage shiny black car and gently shoved into the passenger seat.
Sam looks up at Dean when he gently ruffles his hair. "Try to rest, 'kay? You're gonna be fine, Sammy, you know I'm never wrong." At solemn defeat, Sam nods with pressed lips, still being disturbed by the beast no one can see. Only his. As it was supposed to be from the beginning. He and the beast.
Always together.
______
"—pe. I don't care if there's no cure. Figure it out. This is your mess, Cas. Just cause the whole God thing didn't work for you, doesn’t mean you get to be all mopey. First Sammy, then Leviathans."
Mess.
"Dean, how must I tell you, there is no way to fix this."
Fix.
"Look at that, Sammy~ There is no way to separate us. We are going to be together till death do us 'part." He giggles.
Perhaps even that won't.
"—know it's my fault, Dean. And I'm trying to figure out a way."
"Are you? 'Cus from what I see, you're still sitting in the backseat."
"Dean—"
The yelling and the voices and the banters and the words and the phonetics are thrown around in the closed space, and the man doesn't want to be a part of it.
"Reminds you of the cage, doesn't it? Me and Mikey fighting, your ears bleeding like crazy. This is giving me nostalgia. What about you, bunk buddy?"
Sam now understands where the disgusting smell is coming from. It's from the flesh that once let the devil reside in it. Which once lay down in the prison of two archangels, begging and crying and pleading and screaming and wailing and—
The urge to leave triples when He chimes into the verbal war between the two other men.
"I know it's hard for just when—Do you—Why did you have to be born—"
"Dean, stop the car." He pleads in a whisper, anything above it rings his hunter bell now. What if the other angel appeared too? One is bad enough as is.
The man tries again. Thrice. At the failure of being heard, the man grabs the door handle and swings it open, throwing himself out, as before intended. He lets out a yelp as his knees slam on the concrete, and palms bloom beads of blood, but his bigger concern is the building headache covering his skull. Before him, the car halts on the side with a loud screech and at the same time the angel teleports beside him.
As Cas lowered himself, Dean sprinted out towards his brother. "What the hell was that move, man? You could've seriously injured yourself!" He said hardly. Sam, sandwiching his head between his palms, looks up at his older brother with a pained look. "I'm—I'm sorry! It's just—it was loud, and it was such a small space—I just had to get out! I couldn't handle three people yelling in my ear!" He said, believing he hid his hysteria well.
Cas and Dean glance at it eachother and the human lowers himself on his knees. "I see. Uh, sorry, Sammy. We will...we will try not to yell, 'kay? Just get in the car," Dean says as softly as he could, while frustrated, extending his hand towards his brother, "please."
_____
They arrive at a cheap motel, the interior of their room being all lavender. Bedsheet, carpet, rug, wall painting, wallpaper, kitchenette, counter, and on and on. "People who like purple have to be a kind of cult or something," Dean remarks.
"Lavender." Sam corrects.
"What?"
"It's, uh, lavender. You wouldn't call maroon pink."
Dean frowns.
Of course, his hours-ago-on-death-bed brother finds it necessary to correct him. And God, did he not miss that? His nerdy know-it-all brother. Not whatever that (faintly) breathing cadaver of a being was.
"Oh yeah? You know a lot about colours, huh?" He grins, tired as he is from all the driving, killing and sleep deprivation, talking with his brother can cure it all, even if just momentarily. "Then tell me, which orange came first, the colour or the fruit?" He challenges as he sits on the bed closer to the door.
"The fruit, you can technically say. Originally, the colour was called—" he winces, then pauses to stare right behind Dean, shakes his head. "—the colour was called geolurēad, which basically meant "yellow-red" and—" he sits down on the other bed with a huff of exhaustion, as if standing was a chore in itself. "—people, over time, adopted the fruit's name as the colour."
Usually, Dean would tease his brother, calling him a nerd for knowing this, but he remembered when a 7-year-old Sam asked the same question to him once, and two days later, at Bobby's, he told Dean the same thing that day. And it mattered more than anything. It was proof that Sam is not all gone. Yet, at least. And never, hopefully.
"Yeah, right—" Dean begins but pauses with wide eyes when Cas presses his index and middle fingers on Sam's forehead and sends him lying unconscious on his right side. He sprints up, "Cas, what the hell?"
Cas stares at Sam, deeply tangled in guilt, "He needs sleep. While I had healed him whole in the ward, he should still sleep." He looks up, "Don't worry, he won't have any dreams. I made sure of that."
Dean's shoulders slump but his eyes remain hard. "Kid can't live like that forever. Cas, if my brother dies because of your stupidity..." Dean pauses, inhaling patience from the air.
"You said you can take his memories. Why not do it?"
"Would Sam allow it?"
"I don't care. And not like he wants to remember it."
"He won't remember it, but he would know I have his cage's memories. Do you believe he can live with that?"
"He will learn to."
"Dean," his brows furrow. "Don't do this to your brother."
"Cas—"
"When I pulled your brother—well, his body, out of the cage, it was still too late. Lucifer had already begun his torture.
I had taken his memory of the cage beforehand, and I now understand he wouldn't have approved of it even then, if he knew."
"You know what else Sam would not have approved? You breaking his damn wall, Cas! You're telling me suddenly you care about what he wants? That's bullshit."
"At the moment I thought stopping Raphael was more important than anything. I was wrong, seeing how I started an apocalypse while stopping another."
A silence is emerges between them.
"When..." Cas begins. "If Sam agrees, I will take his memories right away. I swear."
"Fine, so all I have to do is convince him, right? I can do that."
"Dean, you can't force him into agreeing. And, before you ask me why, you should know that it's not something you want to know."
Dean stares at nothing for a while. He went to hell himself. Torture and tortured. Cas did not give a crap about him then. Even threatened to throw him back in the pit of fire and cruelty if his memory serves him right. Just what did he see in there while rescuing Sam, the same person he once called abomination?
Well, whatever it was, it wasn't enough to stop him from poisoning his brother.
"What about Meg? What did you do to get her off our tail?"
"I didn't do anything, I just gave her an angel blade."
"Your angel blade?"
"No, just one of the many scattered blades of Raphael's follower."
Scattered blades of his brothers' and sisters'. Cas corrects himself in his mind. Whom he killed.
"And she just left?"
"I gave her the confidence to fight alone, apparently. She is really...different when she's...in mood."
Dean felt the need to drink for this conversation to move further, and he needed rest. Real long and nice.
"Yeah, alright, good talk. I'm gonna go sleep now. I really need it. But first..."
Dean gets up with a grunt and walks over to Sam and leans down on the floor beside his brother's leg to pull off his shoes. After getting up, he positions his brother on his back instead of his side and tucks him under the blanket.
"Wake me up if he does before me."