Archive of Our Own

Something was wrong with Sam. What exactly, Dean didn’t know, but he suspected whatever it was had something to do with demon blood. Sam kept ducking out of the motel room to make phone calls, and when they were actually out working the case, it was supposed bathroom breaks that kept pulling him away. He smiled tightly and moved stiffly, and he had completely checked out during multiple conversations with witnesses.

“You okay?”

Sam gave the same answer every time.

“I’m fine, Dean.”

He would then follow that answer with a half-baked explanation like, ‘I’m just not feeling the best’ because ‘I woke up with a headache.’ And then he would speculate about what might have caused the headache—“Maybe I slept in a weird position last night, and even if I didn’t, the beds in this motel suck.”—but Dean didn’t believe a word of it.

“Do you think Castiel could help us?” Sam didn’t look up from his laptop, brow furrowed. “I know he’s busy, but some of these symbols remind me of the carvings he put on our ribs. Maybe it’s some form of Enochian?”

Piecing together the vague outline of a plan, Dean jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Sure. I’ll give him a call.” And he started for the door.

“You can’t call him from here?” Sam looked both suspicious and annoyed.

Dean spread his hands and responded in kind. “Oh, so you can disappear every thirty minutes to make your calls, but if I step out for one, we’ve got a problem?”

“I wasn’t calling someone we—” Sam cut himself off. He sighed but then cut that off, too. “Fine. Share whatever intel you think I can’t be trusted with. I’ll be in here, researching and trying to do the whole ‘teamwork’ thing.”

Dean snorted. “Because you’re so good at that.” He didn’t wait for a response, leaving the room in a huff and fishing his phone from his pocket as he thudded down the hall. “Cas, get down here,” was what he said as soon as the call connected. “Something’s up with Sam, and if he’s drinking demon blood again…” He trailed off into a sigh.

“That would be extremely problematic considering Sam’s status as Lucifer’s vessel.”

Dean turned around to meet the unwavering blue eyes staring back at him and offered his exhausted response. “Yeah. Exactly.” He nodded down the hall in the direction he had just come from. “Room 211. Stay with him until I get back. I’m gonna talk to our last witness now that I can actually pay attention.”

Castiel quirked a brow. “Is there a reason I can’t investigate while you stay with Sam?”

“Because if I stay with Sam, he might end up with a broken nose,” Dean growled, that same irritated fatigue sparking in his chest before fizzling out. “Not even six months since his lying and sneaking around jumpstarted the end of the world, and he’s already giving me excuses. One more, ‘I’m fine, nothing’s wrong,’ and I might just snap and kill him.” He gave a sarcastic smile. “So now you get to deal with him, and I get to reinterview the witness. And maybe that busty detective.”

Castiel opened his mouth, probably to speak, but Dean wasn’t about to have that. He turned on his heel and strode toward the exit, doing his best to push the whole infuriating mess into a small, dark corner at the back of his mind.

Castiel watched Dean disappear around the corner at the end of the hall, still feeling like there was some aspect of the request he didn’t fully understand. But if Dean felt Sam needed someone to keep him in line or weed out some deceptions, Castiel figured it was prudent to accomplish that. He didn’t know Sam, after all; he only knew about the half-bred abomination, and what little he did know involved the younger Winchester inciting the end of the world in the vilest, most profane way Castiel could comprehend.

Hmm. Castiel flew to the room Dean had identified, observing Sam’s hunched shoulders from the corner. He doesn’t look particularly strange. Tense, perhaps, and incredibly tired if the half-lidded, heavily shadowed, faintly reddened eyes were anything to go by. His body temperature was elevated, but that didn’t necessarily mean he had consumed demon blood; human body temperature often fluctuated by fractions of degrees for seemingly no reason.

“Sam.”

Sam inhaled sharply and turned his head just enough to send a simmering look across the room. “Really? You couldn’t just walk back in with Dean like a normal person?”

“Dean is not walking back in,” Castiel replied seamlessly. “He is going to requestion a witness. And potentially a detective with a busty disposition.”

For a moment, there was surprise, but it evaporated quickly. “Of course.” Sam snorted. “I don’t know why I’m even surprised.” He shook his head and turned to his laptop. “Are you at least going to help with research? Did Dean even tell you there is research? Or are you just supposed to stand there and babysit me until he gets back?”

Castiel considered the question. I do not want to receive corporal punishment from either of them, so… “I do not want to be the babysitter.” Granted, neither of them were pizza men, but Castiel didn’t want to give the wrong impression.

“Great.” Sam did not sound like he thought it was great. “I’ll bring you up to speed on the basics of the case, and then…” He slowed and stopped. “You know what? Forget that. Start with the papers on the bed and figure out what you can with no context. Once you…” He blinked and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know, just figure out what you think when you’re unbiased, and then I’ll tell you where we are with the case and, I don’t know, figure stuff out.” He lifted a hand as if to place a barrier between them, visibly frustrated.

Castiel wasn’t offended; he was far more interested in the anomalous behavior and what it might mean. “You seem disoriented.”

“Yeah, well, the truth is…” Sam sighed heavily, casting his eyes to the floor. “I drank too much demon blood this afternoon, and it’s hitting me harder than I expected.”

Castiel’s eyes widened, but his surprise was cut short when Sam sneered.

“I have a headache, Castiel. That’s it.” Sam held his hands up, and despite Castiel’s lack of understanding human expression, he sensed disgust. “My head is pounding, I can’t keep anything down, and I’m exhausted and miserable and in pain. Nothing devious, nothing world ending, just the worst migraine I’ve had in a long time. Okay?”

Once again, Castiel was bewildered. Nothing about the situation made sense to him. “If your condition is so innocuous, why didn’t you say as much to Dean?”

“I did. But I’m not about to tell him I keep disappearing because I’m puking my guts up or sitting down until the room stops spinning. Because then Dean will drop everything, including the case, and mother hen me to death.” Sam typed a few words and rubbed his left temple. “Besides, I can do without the guilt trips and feeling of being a burden.”

“But you freely shared the information with me despite me being here on Dean’s behalf.” Castiel furrowed his brow.

Sam cleared his throat, sliding his finger across the indented rectangle to operate the screen. “You’re not going to tell Dean something like that. Especially not while we’re hunting and researching or trying to figure out a way to save the world. I’m not doing anything devious, so you’ve got nothing to report to Dean. If I lied, you would have something to report to him, and then we’d, you know,” he gestured vaguely, “we’d be back here. Square one.” He opened his mouth, stopped, wiped his eye, and then waved a dismissive hand.

Feeling a feeling he didn’t know but didn’t like, Castiel approached the paper-strewn mattress. “And you… cannot simply tell Dean you want to prioritize the hunt?”

“Ha!” Sam laughed, sharp and bitter. “What I want has never mattered. Not to Dean, not to Dad. I learned long, long ago that honest communication gets me nowhere with my family.” He smirked faintly, seeming almost sad. “If you last long enough, you’ll figure out the same thing.” And with a sigh, he got back to work.

Castiel frowned, that feeling he didn’t like receding beneath a wave of aggravation, which was unpleasant but preferable. He sat on the emptier bed and leaned forward to look at a picture of what appeared to be an aged scroll. It took only seconds to conclude the text was not Enochian, but it was a close relative of the angelic tongue, and some of the lines did seem familiar.

Time passed in fractured silence, the stillness broken by typing, clicking, turning pages, and the creaks and thuds that came with most human shelters. Sam entered the bathroom on two separate occasions, bending over the sink to heave and gasp for minutes at a time before shuffling back to his table. Then the gaps in silence grew more varied and frequent. Every few minutes, Sam would clear his throat, and before long he was doing it once a minute at least. He began to sniff from time to time, his hands habitually slipping up to brush against his eyes, nose, forehead, face, neck…

“Perhaps you should do something to ease your symptoms,” Castiel suggested, keeping his gaze on the text he was translating in the same way Sam refused to look away from his laptop.

“Such as?” Sam spoke roughly, and there was a distinct change in the heat of his bite.

Castiel hesitated—really, he had no idea what eased any human experience other than the divine intervention of grace—but he did his best. “You should drink something to soothe your throat, such as water or… some other thing humans drink.”

“You mean like medicine? You want me to drink medicine or water? So I can immediately throw it all back up?” Sam held eye contact for about three seconds, and then lowered his head and pressed his palms to his eyes.

Oh. Yes. He did say he ‘couldn’t keep anything down,’ didn’t he? Castiel honestly hadn’t known what Sam meant at the time, but in retrospect, it clearly meant his stomach was determined to stay empty. “I can heal you. Dispatching a headache should take very little grace, so the risk will be minimal.”

“Minimal?” Sam managed to get his head up enough to look at the angel in judgement. “You carved sigils into our ribs because our normal, average, human selves can be tracked by Heaven, but you, sigilless and far from human, can use your grace to heal me with ‘minimal risk’ of being discovered?”

“It… is minimal comparatively.” Castiel knew that was a poor argument.

“Compared to what?”

“…to a risk that is maximal.”

Sam stared for a moment, and then he let out chuckle that quickly dissolved into a hiss. “Ow.” He rubbed his face again, focusing on the eyes and nose. “Seriously, Cas, it’s just a migraine. I’m gonna white-knuckle the next few hours, hopefully Dean will call us with something helpful, we can finish the hunt, and then I’ll be able to pass out.”

Castiel wasn’t entirely convinced, and that feeling he didn’t like feeling was coiling through his stomach again. “Your core body temperature is elevated.”

But Sam waved it off. “I’m in pain and straining my entire body every time I start heaving. It’s bound to take me up half a degree.” He took a slow breath through his nose, straightened up, and just like that, he was back to work.

Castiel spent a few moments in quiet observation, and then he returned his attention to the papers spread on the mattress. It took twenty minutes or so, but he strung enough words together to determine it was, indeed, an angel who had written the text. Why they had used an offshoot of their language instead of true Enochian, Castiel had yet to figure out, but there was clearly intent behind it. He said as much to Sam, who seemed to have redder, glassier eyes now, and after some back and forth, Sam suggested updating Dean with what they had, however little, in case Dean had learned something that could help put the pieces together.

“Did you figure out what’s wrong with him?”

Castiel squinted, trying to figure out if Sam could hear Dean from where he sat at the table, or if he just had that unhappy expression on his face naturally. “I determined the language on the scroll is a derivative of Enochian. I explained to Sam that there are many spiritual weapons both sides would be remiss to leave out of their arsenals—”

“How does any of that tell me what Sam is hiding?”

I do not understand how lying about the sickness is supposed to keep Dean from abandoning the hunt. He seems just as fixated on Sam’s deception as Sam seems to think he would be on the treatment of an illness. But Castiel wasn’t one of them; he didn’t know how these things worked. “Sam isn’t hiding anything. It’s as he told you: he has a headache. It just happens to be—” the words ‘a very bad one’ were killed by a glower from Sam before they could leave his lips, “—ah, distracting him more than he was hoping or expecting that it might. Distract him, that is. His headache.”

There was silence on the line for three beats.

“Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now?”

Castiel struggled to think of a response.

“How did Sam manage to pull the wool over your eyes in a matter of hours? You’re an angel for—” Dean cut himself off. “You know what? I’m coming back to the motel. If you can’t figure out what’s wrong with Sam, I’ll do it myself. And you can get lost any time you want.”

“Dean—”

But the call had already ended.

“Isn’t honesty with Dean so fun?” Sam tried to sound bitter and aggressive, but it was hard to pull off while he was struggling to keep his head up. Part of Castiel wondered if Sam was so heated for that exact purpose; to make himself believe he was more coherent and ‘fine’ than he was, a fact which was disputed, as if on cue, by a violent shudder.

“Your body temperature is continuing to rise.” Castiel said nothing else, waiting to see what Sam would do with the reality of the situation.

“Yeah. I got that.” Sam jerked his head and rubbed his eyes again. “I guess there’s no point in keeping up the facade. It’s not like Dean won’t figure it out the second he sees me, and I’m no good to anyone like this. Whatever I have is more than a headache.” He swallowed thickly. “Figured that out as soon as the sore throat got bad.”

Castiel tilted his head. “You didn’t inform me of that revelation.”

“Why would I? It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes.

“Oh, come on, Castiel. You wouldn’t have done anything. You can’t stand me—you haven’t been able to stand me from the moment we met—and you’re the most pragmatic, heartless being we’ve ever had on our side.” Sam threw his hand out aimlessly. “Two weeks ago, you were ready to kill a child because he might be a threat someday, and you expect me to believe you would sacrifice a hunt because, what, my tummy huwts?” He drew the words out, somehow mocking both Castiel and himself. “Go off.”

“You might not understand the measure of this war, boy, but I do, and it is not a fight I’m willing to lose.” Castiel rose to his feet, heat swelling in his chest. “I gave up everything to help you and your brother, and you might not appreciate that, but—”

“You’re such a pampered prince, you know that?” Sam shook his head, nothing but ice in his eyes despite the sheen of sweat on his brow. “No accountability, no remorse.”

Castiel closed the distance between them, and Sam’s refusal to back up only made the angel’s hackles raise higher. “Do not speak to me about accountability. You don’t know the meaning of the word. I have had more weight on my shoulders in one century of my millennia of responsibility than you will have in your entire life a thousandfold.”

Sam pursed his lips, tilting his head with a whine. “Aw, poor baby.” He slammed both hands on Castiel’s chest, which accomplished nothing. “Tell me, Cas: in all those thousands of years, how many near wake-up calls did you have? How many situations were you in where you could have turned away from Heaven, could have disobeyed orders, could have pulled an Anna Milton and ripped out your own grace and escaped?”

“My flaw is loyalty, then?”

“No, your flaw is that you’re a spoiled brat who talks about your free will as if it’s some horrific burden nobody else is unfortunate enough to bear.” Sam towered over the angel, and the closeness allowed Castiel a better look at the glistening pallor and glassy, bloodshot eyes. “It took you this long to think for yourself, and on your very first try, you succeed. You do the right thing, make the right choice, get away and find freedom… and all you do is whine.”

Castiel was obviously furious—more than he had been in a long time—but he was more in control of his faculties than Sam, and that enabled him to peer between the blinding shades of red and see something wasn’t quite right.

“You act like you’re some martyr, forced to bear the cross of free will when I would kill—when I have killed—for the chance to so much as taste what you have. You—” Sam grabbed Castiel’s shirt and jacket, his knuckles hot against Castiel’s throat. “You did it once, and it just worked out for you! Years of fighting for the right to make a choice—struggling to choose one thing, just one thing for myself—and I get dragged back and beaten into submission over, and over, and over, but you—you just wing it, win it and then complain about how hard it is to carry the burden of choice?”

What is this? It wasn’t Sam, that was certain. It had the anger of Sam, and it bore all the rejection of authority and order Castiel expected in an abomination like Sam, but there was something raw in it; something small and vulnerable crouched behind the spitting and screaming that Sam would never have allowed this close to the surface if he were in his right mind.

“You threatened Dean, you threatened me, you threatened a town full of innocents, you forced him to torture Alistair, you tried to kill Anna, and yet all you do is switch sides at the last second, stopping none of the things you had a hand in starting, and—and that’s it? That’s all it takes? You turn your back on everything you ever knew—on your family, your brothers and sisters—and Dean admires you for it?”

“Sam, you aren’t well.” Castiel lifted his hands, intending to take Sam by the wrists.

“I hate you. I hate you so much. I hate you!” In an instant, Sam’s hands were wrapped around Castiel’s throat. “Why did you have to be the one to save him, huh? Why couldn’t it have been anyone else?”

Castiel stepped back, letting Sam strangle and push him until they were close enough to the bed that Castiel could turn, hook Sam’s waist, and throw him onto the mattress.

Whether from the motion or inner turmoil or the illness itself, Sam began gagging and dragged himself onto his side. Like every time before, nothing came out except an abundance of saliva, yet the ordeal left him panting and slick with sweat. He brought a hand up to shield his eyes, moaning softly as he struggled to regain coherence. “What was that?”

“I believe the term is ‘dry heaving.’”

Sam shook his head, going to swallow before changing his mind and spitting instead. “I… I don’t know why I got so angry. I don’t… What’s wrong with me?”

“As I said, Sam: you are not well.”

“I don’t—I’m sorry.” It was as if Sam hadn’t even heard him. “I didn’t… I…” He struggled to navigate his own head, getting his fingers tangled in his hair as he pressed and wiped in an attempt to do something Castiel couldn’t decipher.

What Castiel could do was lean down and put Sam to sleep with a gentle tap. Knocking someone unconscious took almost no grace at all—it was something even a human could do if given a heavy object or ligature—so it didn’t run the same risk of detection as healing. It still ran a risk, but it was a risk Castiel was willing to take, whether or not Sam believed that to be true.

And then Castiel stood there, hovering over the motionless form on the bed with a scowl on his face. He knew he shouldn’t have let it bother him; the words of demon spawn spoken in a haze of anger and confusion were the farthest thing from the truth, and yet that final question was burned into the forefront of his mind.

“Why couldn’t it have been anyone else?”

By which Sam meant, ‘Why couldn’t it have been me?’ Castiel didn’t know much about humans, but he knew an awful lot about sin, and jealousy was one of the oldest. It had claimed the first pair of brothers in human history, and Castiel knew when he was hearing it.

“Why couldn’t it have been me? Why couldn’t betraying how I was raised work for me? Why couldn’t I perform an act so monumental that Dean forgave all my wrongs? Why couldn’t Dean admire me for choosing my own path?”

It was all Castiel could do not to scoff. And you deign to call me spoiled.

The door to the room flew open, slamming against the closet with a bang. “I can’t  lea—”

“Quiet. Sam is sleeping.” Castiel lifted his gaze to meet Dean’s. “He is very sick but didn’t want you to abandon the hunt and chicken him to death.”

Dean’s face screwed up. “To what?”

“I am simply repeating what Sam said.”

“I d—” Dean cut himself off, closing the door with far more care than he had used to open it. “It doesn’t matter.” He walked to the bed. “What matters is that you actually made sure he was sick and didn’t just bel—” He stopped the moment he touched Sam’s face, turning his hand over and pressing the back of it against several patches of Sam’s skin. “Holy crap.”

Castiel watched, somewhat interested by the steps Dean was going through but mostly wanting to emphasize that, “Of course I didn’t take the word of a known liar without verifying the claim for myself. I noticed he was getting worse before he even admitted he needed to lie down.”

Dean didn’t seem to hear, putting one knee on the mattress as he leaned over his brother and cupped his hands around the glistening throat, gingerly pressing up and down. “That has to hurt.” He held his hand in front of Sam’s mouth. “Did he at least take something before he passed out?”

“No.”

Dean looked at him, waited, and made a rolling gesture with his hand. “Because...?

Oh. Perhaps I should clarify. “He has been unable to keep anything down. He spent a fair amount of time heaving, and at no point did anything come up—demon blood or otherwise.”

Dean looked confused at first, but then he closed his eyes and sighed in frustration. “That’s where he kept disappearing to.” He looked at the clock on the nightstand and swore. “It’s already been too long since the last body. There has to be another one coming soon.” Stepping back from the bed, he rubbed his face and then ran that hand over his head and down the back of his neck. “Well, I can’t do anything about that.”

“Sam said he didn’t want you to abandon the hunt to care for him.” Castiel opened his mouth to continue.

“Yeah, well, that means a whole lot of nothing to me. I’m not going anywhere.”

Castiel wasn’t sure how he felt about that statement.

“What I want has never mattered. Not to Dean, not to Dad.”

It struck a cord he didn’t like, but Castiel had no idea what that cord was or what he was supposed to do about it. “Sam and I discussed a few theories that will take some time to look into. You can stay here with Sam while I try to find some answers.”

“What k—?”

But Castiel was gone, not interested in explaining himself. He doubted Dean could offer him anything substantial, and he was tired of standing around. He had work to do.

Dean closed the laptop with a sigh, rubbing his face and looking at the clock, red numbers blaring in the dark. It was nearly two in the morning, there still hadn’t been a new victim or a report from Castiel, and Dean was just about out of brain function. Hit the head, go to bed.

Exhausted, he dragged himself to his feet and ambled to the bathroom, mind wandering as he relieved himself and washed his hands. When is he going to learn that lying doesn’t help anything? How many times does the floor have to fall out from under him before he figures out not to do this kinda crap anymore? Green eyes stared back at him from the mirror, tired and frustrated, and he just barely resisted the urge to punch the glass to pieces. Not like it’ll help anything.

Dean flicked the light off and stepped out of the bathroom, freezing as soon as he rounded the corner and saw a crouched form in the corner. He reached for his gun instinctively, silently cursing himself when he realized it was still under his pillow, but before he could even consider a secondary plan, he heard a quiet moan and realized the intruder was Sam, turned away from him and hunched over his duffle.

“Hey,” Dean whispered harshly. “What’re you doing? Get back in bed.”

Sam canted forward, barely catching himself as his silhouette tilted its head back, a flask pouring something down his throat.

“Because alcohol is what you need right now.” Dean crossed the room with an eyeroll, and right around the time his grip closed on the metal, he realized he had never seen Sam carry a flask around before. Where did he even get one? And right around the time he had that question, Sam startled enough to send a dark liquid over his mouth and chin, and Dean’s stomach dropped out.

Sam struggled for a moment and then slurred out, “Dean?”

And Dean’s stomach came rising back up, white hot and pounding. “You’re carrying a flask of demon blood?” And then, even though he knew that had to be what it was, he stormed to the nightstand and turned the light on, illuminating the dark red smears on his hand. I’m gonna kill him. And with the pure, unadulterated rage blazing under his skin, he wasn’t entirely sure he was exaggerating, so he whipped out his phone and dialed the only person he could think of who might be able to hold him back.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice came again, higher in pitch.

Whirling around, Dean growled out a, “What?”

And then he froze.

Sam was on his knees at the foot of the bed, peering up at him with an expression that didn’t belong to someone who had just been caught literally red-handed. No, Sam looked elated, eyes wide and shining with an awe that overpowered the bloodshot whites and dark circles and film of mucus. “You’re here?” he breathed, inching forward and hesitantly reaching out with a trembling, bloody hand.

“Did you think I wasn’t?” Dean snapped the words sharply, but his anger was fading fast under the hastening realization that something was very wrong.

Sam whimpered at the sound of Dean’s voice, crawling forward a few paces before rising back onto his knees and winding his arms around his brother’s waist. “It worked.” He buried his face in Dean’s stomach, letting out another miserable sound. “It worked. You’re here. It worked.”

“Dean, what’s wrong?”

Startling, Dean looked up from the top of Sam’s head and found Castiel standing a few feet away, holding an open cell phone and looking concerned. Dean looked at his own hand, at the phone he had used to dial but never spoken into, and then he looked at the other hand, which still had the flask. “Uh…” He looked back down at the softly crying Sam and felt several long, spindly fingers digging into his back. “Sam drank some…” He lifted the blood a little higher.

“I’m sorry, Dean. I had to. I had to.” Sam moved closer, nearly knocking Dean over, and before Dean could even come up with a response, Sam was wrenching out a harsh, shuddering cry as he sobbed through the words, “You’re here.”

Dean looked at Castiel. What do I do? He looked back down. What am I supposed to do here? He looked back up, but Castiel was expectedly unhelpful, so he looked down once again. He tossed his cellphone onto the nearby mattress and put his hand to the back of Sam’s head. “What’s going on, Sammy? Talk to me.”

“I had to bring you back,” Sam croaked, tilting his head back to look at Dean, tears rolling down his flushed cheeks. “You understand, don’t you? That I had to bring you back?”

Trying to stay calm—and failing spectacularly—Dean crouched down and kept the blood from Sam’s field of vision, extending it toward Castiel. “Well, it, uh, it must’ve worked, Sammy.”

Castiel stepped close enough to take the drink away, but even that small movement had Sam whirling around with a gasp. “Hello, Sam.” And to Castiel’s credit, he must have understood the situation enough to realize he should push it back onto Dean. “I’m just assisting your brother.”

But Sam didn’t accept the distraction. He stared at Castiel for a long time, and then his head dipped. “Oh.” He sniffed. “I’m dreaming again.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked, crouching down a bit to try and redirect Sam’s attention, and even the fraction of a touch he used to pull Sam’s face toward him was more than enough to know Sam’s fever was through the roof. This is bad. In many more ways than he initially thought.

“You’re not really here.” Sam nodded toward Castiel. “I don’t know him. So I must be dreaming. And you…” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “You’re still in Hell.”

Dean’s heart convulsed in his chest. “No, I’m not, Sam. I’m right here.”

But Sam only shook his head, miserable and defeated. “I’m not strong enough. It’s only been a month.”

Since I died?

“She told me it would take longer than that. I don’t know why I thought…”

Oh. He meant one month since Ruby began teaching him; one month since he started drinking demon blood. Oh.

“You’re gonna hate me…” Sam closed his eyes and slumped against the side of the motel bed. “You’re gonna hate me.”

Dean opened his mouth to deny the claim, but he realized he sort of… couldn’t.

“You don't need me. You and Ruby go fight demons.”

Then one punch, and then another.

“It's already gone too far, Sam. If I didn't you know... I would wanna hunt you.”

“You were gone. I was here. I had to keep on fighting without you.”

“Then why'd you lie about it to me?”

Dean closed his eyes. Because he would have been an idiot not to. He opened them again and knelt down, making up his mind. Reality didn’t matter; Sam wasn’t actually in the four-month window without Dean, so Dean didn’t need to give a reply that matched what was in that Sam’s future. “Sammy.” He inhaled, taking the feverish face in his hands and lifting it. “Hey. Listen to me.”

Sam did as he was told, but he didn’t look like he was going to believe anything Dean said. Because in his mind, this wasn’t really Dean, this was an idealistic scenario his brain made up to help him survive; what Dean was about to say was only what Sam wanted to hear, nothing more.

“Listen to me.” Dean didn’t know why he repeated that line, but he assumed it had something to do with his overwhelming need to stall. “You… did… what made sense. And, you know, maybe your sense of… sense wasn’t…” He scrambled to find the right words, his eyes stinging. “Maybe, you know, without me here you were, you know, not thinking… great.”

Sam deflated, eyes closing as his head ducked down and swayed back and forth. “I can think fine. I know what I’m doing. I know what I am.” He swung his head again but leaned too far and toppled, just barely avoiding a faceplant thanks to Dean. “I know what I am,” he whispered, staring blankly at the side of the bed across from him. “But it’s okay. Because I’ll have you back.” He nodded absently. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay. You’ll be here, and it’ll be okay.”

Dean swallowed around the lump in his throat, stomach churning as he looked up in the hope Castiel might have something to offer. Why he hoped that, he didn’t know, because Castiel wouldn’t know a normal human interaction if it smacked him in the face, but he hoped it nonetheless.

Castiel didn’t meet that hope, however, staring helplessly before averting his gaze with a somewhat guilty expression.

I don’t know how to make this better. Dean snaked his arm around Sam’s shoulders and pulled him close, winding the other one around and up and tucking the messy head of hair under his chin. “Hey. Listen to me, Sammy. You’re sick right now. Okay? You’re confused. I got out. I’m here now. That guy you didn’t recognize? That’s Cas. He’s an angel, and he got me out, and everything’s okay now.”

Sam was silent other than his heavy breathing, and then the silence morphed into muttered words as he tried to understand what Dean was saying. “Guy I didn’t… s’Cas… angel got you out…” He started hesitantly reciprocating the hug, his hands just barely brushing against Dean’s sides before he screeched to a halt, every muscle in his body turning to stone.

“Sammy?”

“I—Oh, God.”

Oh no.

“I started—I—oh, God.”

“Sam, don’t—”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, God, forgive me.”

“Sam, stop.”

“Please, forgive me.”

“Cas, knock him out.”

“I don’t—”

“I don’t care if we get caught! Put him to sleep and get rid of the fever, now!” Dean held on tight as Castiel approached, a single touch causing Sam to melt in his arms, frantic pleas and gangly limbs dissolving on the floor as the ghost of a grip kept his fingers curled through Dean’s shirt.

“He’s asleep. I reduced the fever enough to ease his delirium but left it high enough to continue fighting whatever virus is making him ill.”

Dean didn’t respond.

“I do pray every day. I have for a long time.”

He wasn’t saying ‘God, forgive me,’ like I would. He was actually…

Asking God to forgive him. Because he knew nobody else would.

“Dean—”

“Go finish the hunt.”

Castiel opened his mouth.

“Go, Cas!”

There was a pause, a flutter of wings, and then silence. Silence broken only by the congested, quavering breaths of the unconscious baby brother in his arms.

“You don’t tell me anything, do you?”

“The things you learn about a guy.”

And Dean had always blamed Sam for that. But he didn’t really have a right to, did he?

“Well, I'm sorry, Sam, but you can't. It's too little, too late.”

That was what came out when Sam was grieving. When he had just lost his dad, when he was ashamed of his mistakes, when he was scared and hurt, when he was full of regret and scrambling for some way to make even a little bit of it better. When the last thing he needed was his failed relationship with their dad shoved in his face like he would have forgotten if Dean hadn’t been there to pour salt in the wound. And how did Sam respond?

“And I'm not all right. Not at all. But neither are you. That much I know.”

He responded with support and care.

“I'll let you get back to work.”

He responded by leaving the door for a conversation open, not forcing Dean to face the facts as Dean had so cruelly done to him, but simply letting him know that, if and when he was ready, Sam wanted to be there.

“Why don't you take a swing at me? I mean I'm the one that dragged you away from her in the first place.”

“I don't blame you.”

“Well, you shouldn't blame yourself, because there's nothing you could've done.”

“I could've warned her.”

“About what? You didn't know what was gonna happen!”

Did Dean ever respond with kindness when Sam felt something Dean didn’t approve of? Because with every passing second, another moment of weakness from Sam was coming to mind, and every single time Dean saw himself lashing out or using aggression to beat a better mindset into him.

“Now that this is all over, I want you to tell me what that secret is.”

“Look...you're my brother and I'd die for you, but there are some things I need to keep to myself.”

And who could blame him? Why would Sam go to Dean with anything painful or hard when Dean’s response to simple guilt—the thing almost every felt after losing a loved one regardless of the facts—was more guilt? Why would Sam ever expose even more of himself to that kind of ridicule? Who in their right mind would ever willingly start a conversation like that?

Dean inhaled deeply through his nose, blinking away the tears welling in his eyes. He gave Sam a few firm pats on the side, squeezed him once, and then hauled him onto the bed with a grunt. It took some doing, but he got the blanket somewhat on top of him, and after a few moments of staring, he went back to the laptop.

“Sam said he didn’t want you to abandon the hunt to care for him.”

Was it going to fix anything? Probably not. But it was all Dean could think to do; the only thing he thought might help. If Sam woke up, and the hunt was done, and Dean told him the reason was because Castiel said that was what Sam wanted, well… maybe Sam would give him another chance to respond to honesty the right way. He didn’t deserve another chance—he knew that—but Sam had often given him chances he didn’t deserve. Maybe he would do it again.

And maybe that time, Dean would get it right.

“So, it was an angelic weapon they were after.”

Castiel stood near the door to the motel room, watching Sam and Dean pack their bags. “Yes. I took it to Bobby’s at Dean’s request, and we thoroughly concealed its presence to keep it from being found.”

Sam nodded a bit absently, sniffing and wiping some combination of saline and discharge from his eye. “I’m glad you guys were able to get it before anyone else died.” Then, a bit nervously, he continued. “I’m, uh, sorry I wasn’t any help.”

“You were sick,” Dean responded, zipping up his duffel. “Besides, me and Cas took care of it and, like you said, nobody else died.” He shrugged, and Castiel wondered if the gesture looked as strange to those who didn’t have the supernatural ability to sense just how uneasy he was.

“Yeah.” Sam nodded a bit stiffly, opening his mouth to continue before losing the words to a clearing of the throat and a thick swallow.

Dean threw his bag over one shoulder. “Let’s hit the road. I wanna get out of here before the real feds show up, and we need to get you somewhere you can do a little R&R. Maybe like a beach or something.”

Sam squinted. “And a beach would make me feel better how…?”

“Oh, it wouldn’t, but while you were stuck at the hotel being sick and gross, I would have an unlimited supply of bikini babes to keep me occupied.”

“Ah.” Sam wore a fondly amused smile despite not being recovered, and then he chucked his bag across the room. “Well, since I’m so sick, maybe you should carry my stuff for me.”

Dean barely managed to catch it while also holding his own bag, but once he had both, he gave Sam a dirty look and replied, “Don’t be surprised if you get it back and it smells like farts.”

Sam smiled again, not quite able to manage a laugh. “Jerk. I’m gonna hit the head and I’ll be right out.” He held up his hands. “And I really am just hitting the head. No puking or passing out, I promise.”

“Yeah.” Dean nodded toward their angel. “Thanks for helping out, Cas. We’ll call you if we need you again.”

Castiel arched a brow. “You do understand I exist outside of my ability to serve you, yes?”

“What? No, you don’t.”

Castiel opened his mouth, but Dean disappeared through the doorway before he could respond, leaving the angel alone with the abomination.

“Hey.”

Castiel turned his head.

“I don’t actually have to use the bathroom. I just wanted a second to talk to you alone.” Sam took a deep breath, rubbing the back of his neck. “I, uh… I don’t remember a whole lot from last night, but I know I said some stuff to you, and I remember being mad, so I’m sure it wasn’t nice stuff, and…” He lifted his hands, taking another deep breath and letting it out. “I’m sorry, is what I’m trying to say. Whatever I said, don’t take it personally. I was sick, and I was tired, and I probably said all this whiney, emotional, life’s-not-fair crap, and I shouldn’t have, especially not to you. So, I’m sorry. That’s all.” He smiled weakly, shame lingering in the shades of hazel. “And for the record, in case I’ve never made it clear, I’m glad you’re on our side. I’m glad Dean has you when things go wrong.” Flashing another uncomfortable smile, he walked toward the door and turned his body in such a way that he avoided contact as he passed Castiel.

“You have me, too, Sam.” Castiel watched, outwardly impassive, as Sam turned around to give him a bewildered look. “It isn’t only Dean I’m invested in. I am… pleased to be on the same side of this fight as you.”

Sam stared for a long moment, eyebrows raised. “Uh-huh.” He almost looked like he was about to laugh. “What did Dean threaten you with?”

Castiel blinked, confused.

Sam did actually laugh then, a tired but genuine chuckle. “Don’t take it seriously. It’s just this older brother posturing thing he does that’s all bark and no bite, I promise. There’s no real consequences for not liking me.” Sam chuckled softly. “Unless you count him snarking at you a consequence.”

Castiel opened his mouth.

“Thanks again for helping, Cas. And I really am sorry.” Sam backed out the doorway, offering a slight wave. “If I don’t get to the Impala soon, I’m in for a long interrogation, especially after this whole ‘sick’ thing, so… see you around. Okay?”

Castiel’s mouth was still slightly open when Sam left. He left it that way for a few seconds, and then it slowly closed. What was that?

It wasn’t the sarcasm; he knew that much. It wasn’t the accusatory, duplicitous words from the night before.

“Oh, come on, Castiel. You wouldn’t have done anything. You can’t stand me—you haven’t been able to stand me from the moment we met.”

No, it wasn’t that. And yet, it was essentially stating the same thing.

“What did Dean threaten you with?”

‘Because you wouldn’t have apologized of your own free will; you can’t stand me,” was implied.

But he apologized for what he said last night. If he still believes what he said is the truth… Castiel’s train of thought faltered and fell off as he recalled another piece of their dialogue.

“I probably said all this whiney, emotional, life’s-not-fair crap…”

His apology wasn’t for saying I dislike and don’t care about him. It was for saying so within a context that implied he didn’t deserve it. For a moment, Castiel considered flying to the parking lot and attempting another conversation with Sam before the brothers were on the road. No. I have never been in relationship with humans before, and this most recent series of events has proven there are vast differences between the two humans I’ve chosen. So he wouldn’t act just yet. Instead, he would observe and listen, trying to learn the proper way to care for Sam in particular. Because if the last twelve hours were evidence of anything, it was that Sam was far more broken than either Castiel or Dean had realized, and Castiel did not want to break Sam further. He wanted to heal and shield and guide. He wanted to care for Sam, and he wanted to do it right.

As far as Castiel was concerned, Sam deserved nothing less.