SPOILERS! S6 - I read something that Jensen said and it was kind of where I thought they were going with Sam so I wrote this. May contain spoilers for episodes not aired, read at your own risk!
Not what I'm supposed to be writing but it wouldn't leave me alone. Finally had to watch S6, couldn't hold out any longer!
Dean was sitting on the wall outside the motel, feet kicking the bricks as he waited. The cold eased itself through the fabric of his jeans and he shifted, sliding a hand under each cheek to halt its progress. "Any time now Cas would be good, preferably before I literally freeze my ass off." He turned his head to study the area around him, hoping for the best and fearing the worst.
"I'm not at your beck and call Dean. I have other more important matters at the moment than your concerns for your brother."
Dean jumped at the sound of the angel's voice. "Can you not do that? Please? Can't you cough first or something? How many time have I gotta ask?"
"Always once more. What can I do for you Dean?" Cas smoothed his trench coat and settled down on the wall as well.
"I need to know if there is something wrong with my brother."
The angel sighed at his friend's troubled tone. "I told you I do not know how or why Sam was released from Hell, nor do I know who did it."
It was Dean's turn to sigh. "That ain't what I'm asking. I'm asking is there something wrong with Sam?"
Cas turned the question back on him. "Do you feel there is?"
Dean shrugged. "I don't know. I…perhaps…he's….I…," He couldn't find the words he wanted to express how he felt chills in his brother's presence. How sometimes he felt Sam's absence still even when he was standing right beside him. "He's different," he settled for.
"Hell can change a person," the angel offered up as his reply.
Dean's eyes flashed angrily. "Jesus Christ Cas, don't you think I know that! Ain't I living, breathing proof of that? It isn't that though, he's not haunted by what happened down there. It's like….like he's a shifter or something…..something's different. I can't put my finger on it."
"Is something different or is something missing?," Cas replied cryptically.
Dean turned and stared at him. "Missing? How do you mean?" The angel had hit on a thought that Dean didn't want to be having. "What's missing?"
"I didn't say something was missing, but if you feel a difference maybe it is the absence of something in your brother than you recognise and not a change in him per se."
Cas' calm tones irritated Dean more than his avoidance of an answer did. "So tell me then Cas, what could be missing? What do you know?"
The angel finally turned to look Dean in the eyes. "I could not hear Sam when he called to me. His prayers did not reach me, that was why I did not answer him."
The chill creeping through Dean this time wasn't from the cold around him, it was the chill he'd been feeling every time he stepped near his brother and finally he knew what it was. It was fear. "And?," he questioned quietly. "Ain't the first time you've ignored my prayers."
"Ignored, yes, but I could still hear them Dean."
"So what would cause you not to hear Sam's prayers?"
Cas turned to look back out over the car park. "You speak the prayer Dean but it is your soul that carries the word to our ears, not your voice. It is your soul that cries out to us for help and guidance. It is your soul that we answer."
The chill was now ice in Dean's blood. "So, wait. You couldn't hear Sam's prayer so what does that mean? Does that mean that he doesn't have a soul? Is that what you're trying so hard not to say to me here? How does that even work? Is he like a vampire but without the bloodlust?" He forced away the image of Sam draining the demons to be able to let Lucifer in. "Did drinking all that blood change him?" Consuming the amount of blood it would take to kill Lillith would change your brother forever, Castiel's own words fought in Dean's head for attention. So what the hell would drinking enough blood to take Lucifer in and being locked in Hell with him do? Dean pushed his thoughts down, concentrated on the angel's reply.
"Sam's soul did not speak to me. That's all I can tell you."
"But what does that mean?" Dean's question was asked to the empty air around him as Cas winked out in front of his eyes. "Sonuvabitch! Get your feathery ass back here." He dropped his head to his chest, spoke quietly. "I need you to help me."
The silence around him was complete.
"Sam has to have a soul," Dean questioned aloud even as he remembered the look in his brother's eye as Cas had tortured the child in the motel room. "Doesn't he?"
Chapter End Notes:
Jensen made a comment about wanting Sam with a soul back (don't know where I read this, sorry and I was already thinking that this is where we were headed. (would explain Samuel's attitude as well maybe?)