Dean sprayed a mouthful of PBR. "You invited who?"
"You spit-took," Sam said, giggling.
"Tell me you did not just say what I think I heard you just say!"
"I did not just, I did not say what the...what I think you. Um." Sam pointed. "You got it on the wall."
"Sam! Focus!" Dean snapped his fingers in front of Sam's face. "This is important. Who did you say you invited over to watch the Colts game on Pay-Per-View?"
Sam scratched at his chest. "Dean, He's lonely."
"Dude!"
"Dude, what?"
"Dude! Lonely my ass, He's got every soul in purgatory floating around in there! He's the undead Mark Zuckerberg!" Dean covered his eyes. "This is so not cool."
"Well if I knew it was gonna be a thing." Sam frowned. "Look, you're so overreacting. I just felt like it might go a long way towards mending fences if we reached out, or whatever. So I prayed on it."
"And have you not noticed, reaching out to this guy lately tends to get people smitten? ...Smote. Smited-motherfuck!" Dean hurled the TV Guide at the wall. "I'm cutting you off, Sam, swear to Go-"
"Shh!"
"For real this time! I don't care how much it helps your episodes."
"Totally," Sam said, head falling back on the sofa. "You'd think Death would've skipped the whole 'Wall' thing and gone straight to the part about medical marijuana."
"No, I get all the credit for that brainstorm," Dean said, bitterly. "Man. I was so looking forward to this night, too. Bought the cheeseburger-flavored Doritos and everything."
Sam sat up.
"Oh, hell no!" Dean snapped. "You bring that deified douchenozzle up in here, you can forget about sharing my shit. Go buy your own groceries. And do a frigging load of laundry while you're at it, you smell like Duane Allman's jock strap. God almighty!"
"Ix-nay on the od-Gay." Sam blinked, then started to giggle again. "Dude. 'Odd gay'."
Dean rolled his eyes. "Yes, Sam. Very good. Now, where did we leave the emergency warding-blood flask?"
"In the c-" He cracked up again.
"Sam," Dean said, patiently.
Sam took a deep breath.
"Concentrate," Dean said.
"In the car. No," Sam said, screwing up his face. "In my duffle. Your duffle...? Dean, do you think-"
"Yes, I think 'duffle' is a weird word. No," he cut Sam off, "I don't know its derivation or how it entered the American vernacular. All I want to know right now is where did we leave the blood?"
Sam was fishing for the remote under a sofa cushion. "What for?"
"What for?" Dean stared. "Uh, to keep Zuul from cornholing us with lightning bolts, or whatever demigods do when the Steelers tank? Help me!"
There was a loud knock.
"Stay cool," Sam advised. Dean gave him a look of deep disgust and went to answer the door.
"I BROUGHT TACOS," Castiel said.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Dean screamed.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Sam screamed. "Dude, dial it back! Dial it back!"
"I'm sorry," Castiel said. "I was trying a new thing. Is this better?"
"Sonofabitch," Dean sobbed, clutching at his ears.
Castiel held up a plastic takeout bag.
Sam wiped a trickle of blood from his nose and stood up. "Gimme."
"Hello, Sam. Hello, Dean." He stood awkwardly by the door.
"Grab a chair, game's starting," Sam said, tearing open the bag.
Castiel said, "I no longer repose upon the soil of this, My earthly kingdom."
They blinked at Him. "You don't sit down anymore?" Sam asked.
"Never," He said.
"Like, ever?" Sam looked troubled. "...Dude, how do You take a-"
"Sam," Dean said, quietly. He made a slitting motion across his throat. Sam chewed his taco and stared at Castiel. Dean slouched next to him, arms crossed and mouth pressed thin.
"It's good to see you," Castiel said. "You both seem well. Sam, your...condition seems much improved," He added, peering into the quarks bonding Sam's atomic structure.
"It's this incredible weed," Sam told him through a mouthful of ground beef. "No more nightmares, no seizures or flashbacks, nothing. And it really helps with the OCD, which, major bonus. Goddamn this is tasty," he added, then froze, glancing at Castiel. "My bad."
Castiel raised His hand. "You are forgiven," He said.
"Blowme," Dean coughed.
Nobody spoke for the rest of the first quarter. It was a pretty tight game, but the Colts seemed to be pulling ahead by halftime despite a weak offensive line. Castiel offered to tell them how it would end, which might (Sam pointed out) kind of defeat the purpose of watching in the first place. Castiel confessed that He saw little purpose in watching football under any circumstances, considering the players exerted great effort advancing in one particular direction for the sole privilege of turning around and advancing in the opposite direction, with little to show for their toil besides internal injuries and the accrual of metaphysical constructs called "points". He added that He was considering unMaking football, along with astrology and the United States Census Bureau, and that was pretty much it for conversation during halftime as well.
"Sam," Dean said, nudging his brother awake. "Third quarter."
Sam stretched, then rolled off the sofa and wandered over to rummage in a bureau drawer. He came back with a baggie and rolling papers. Castiel observed this with some interest. "You mind if I...?" Sam asked, pulling a joint out of the bag.
"No scripture exists condemning the use of medicinal herbs," Castiel said. "It's a natural balm, no less wholesome a fruit of the Earth than wheat or the lily-of-the-valley. Elijah smoked in the wilderness."
"Did Elijah nearly get his brother ganked by giant flukeworms on a midnight Sonic run?" Dean asked, staring at the screen.
"I don't pretend to be firing on all six...things lately, okay, Dean? I'm distracted here." Sam said. "Honestly, I thought that manhole had a cover. I can't apologize forever."
"Just crack a window, Spicoli," Dean said.
Sam sighed and lit up. "So, Castiel. Is the whole God thing working out pretty well for You, or...?"
"It is more difficult than I could have dreamed," He said. "The responsibility is staggering and the obstacles infinite: sin, corruption, agents of evil and of doubt." He narrowed His eyes at Dean. "Being an angel was effortless by comparison. At times I wonder whether the torments of hell could rival the agony of apotheosis. Surely it is the greatest spiritual trial possible for a sentient being."
"Well, yeah." Sam exhaled. "Yeah, fuckin'-a. Apotheosis sounds really, really hard. I doubt it's worse than hell, though. Hell is...You can't even." There was a pause. His eyes had gone a bit glassy. "The burning and the chains. And all the screaming. It's so terrible You can't even..."
"New subject," Dean said.
Sam ground at his eye with the heel of his hand and toked again. "Anyway," he said, "I get what You're saying about the pressure, Cas. Sometimes I remember how bad I needed to be a great lawyer, like, a million years ago in some other lifetime, and look where that obsession got me." He snorted out a plume of smoke. "So I moved on and my new thing was being this hunting machine, then saving Dean, then saving the world from Lucifer, and blah blah blah. And everything getting more and more royally screwed the harder I tried to make it right and, and perfect. Perfect all the time, like some watch with a dial you just keep winding and winding until...Sometimes I just, I wonder..." He was staring off, looking haunted.
There was silence for a minute.
"Why does..." Sam struggled for the words.
"Sam?" Dean said, gently.
Sam looked at him. "Why does every motel room we stay in have a matching partition?"
"Game's over." Dean switched off the TV.
"Sam," Castiel said. "What were you trying to tell me, speaking of perfection? What was your point?"
"Little fishing lures and mudflap girls...I don't even-oh." Sam snapped his fingers, took another drag. He turned to Cas and smiled. "Relief."
"Relief?"
"Yeah. Get it." He flopped back onto the couch. "Whatever You have to do, even if You totally lose Your shoe, just. Get some fucking relief."
"Thank you, Sam," Castiel said. "You have given Me something to ponder, although God can never, in the strictest sense, lose His shoe."
"Wanna bet?" Dean asked, holding the door open for Him.
Sam waved as He went. At the last moment, Castiel turned to Dean and said, "I came today to urge you to reconsider your refusal to worship Me. My reach is infinite, Dean. My patience is not."
"Go piss in a halo." Dean swung the door shut.
"That wasn't really why He came," Sam said, confident. "It was just to hang. He totally misses us. You know, I heard what you said about family right before I, uh." He made the Psycho stab motion.
Dean reminded him, "Then you heard what He said next."
"That's how I know I'm right." Sam smiled. "Remember what Dad told me when I left for Stanford?"
Dean plopped down on the sofa again. "That's deep, Sam. I think I liked you better when you were smoking Ruby's wrist."
"Ah, you love me like this."
"Oh yeah? How do you figure?"
Sam shrugged. "Because this time you know I'll be okay."
Dean stared. "...I will never worship that guy."
"Fine." Sam shrugged again. They were silent for a minute.
"Fuck," Dean said. "I give up. Pass it here."
Sam gave him the joint. "You can't roll for shit," Dean grumbled, then took a long drag. His head fell back and his eyes closed. "Ohhhhh, man. That's nice."
"Right?" Sam elbowed Dean. "Hey, you know who could use a hit of this?"
Dean looked sideways. "Word. And we thought He had a stick up His ass last year."
"Seriously, who died and made Him God." That cracked them both up for a minute.
"Yeah, well." Dean leaned back and grabbed the pipe for another drag. "Don't blame me, I voted for Chuck."