A/N: This is the next story in a mild AU/canon divergence series called The Other Guardian 'verse. There's a detailed note about it on my profile page, but in brief: after Dean is raised from Hell by Castiel, an entire year passes before the Lilith rises and the seals start to break. During that time, Castiel is assigned to watch over the Winchesters, and finds himself growing closer and closer to Sam.
This story follows "A Change in the Weather," but it's not necessary to read that story first.
Special Note: One challenge of adding a "gap year" between Dean being raised from Hell and most of the events of Season 4 was getting in a few important canon events in a new way. This story surrounds/follows Dean finding out about Sam exorcising demons with his mind while he was in Hell, but since in this 'verse it isn't Castiel but Uriel who tells Dean what Sam was doing with Ruby, we needed a different story to explore that. This story is much darker than the last couple, with equal focus on Sam and Dean and Sam and Castiel.
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Dean listed to the side, slamming his shoulder into a street lamp and trying to make the gravel under his feet stop moving. His brain sloshed painfully around in his skull, and his eyes kept sliding closed and then springing open as he squinted through the blackness. His hand was curled around something hard. It took Dean a moment to realize it was the neck of a beer bottle.
The hunter pushed himself off of the metal post, angling away from the dark, empty street. He hadn't gone half a fucking step before his feet tangled, though, and in a second he was going down, the glass bottle crashing out of his hand into the gutter as he sat down hard on the edge of the crumbling sidewalk. Shards of glass spread out across the circle of light under the streetlamp, reminding Dean all too clearly of the broken windows, and the bloody house. Suddenly he remembered why he had been carrying a bottle to begin with.
He let his head sink into his hands, the sight of the beer running down the storm drain making him feel like he either needed to take a piss or puke his guts out. Dean couldn't honestly remember the last time he'd been this drunk. When he was seventeen, maybe, and Caleb had set him down in front of a glass of absinthe and he'd knocked it back like a shooter to impress the older hunter.
Twelve years old and Sammy had been giving him bitchface when he eventually regained the ability to process and retain thoughts. You brought this on yourself, Dean, the brat had said condescendingly. And then maybe Dean had puked on himself, or the floor, definitely Sam's socks—or at least he'd hoped he had. But there was no evidence of that the next morning—just a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water beside his bed, and his brother somewhere in the distance telling their father that Dean had the flu, covering for him in bare feet.
Maybe he'd spilled the Tylenol and all the water too, struggling out of the bed to find his brother. He didn't remember. What he remembered was holding Sam to his chest and swearing never to get that pissed out of his mind again. Sam had looked at Dean like he didn't believe him—the same look he gave their father, whenever he made promises they both knew he wouldn't keep—but he'd hugged him back anyway.
Maybe his bladder was too full after all. Dean got the distinct impression that he was going to piss himself if he sat here any longer, seeing ghosts in bottle shards. He struggled to his feet, trying to force his skedaddled mind to remember the way back to the hotel room Cas had plucked out of his ass when he went in for the landing. The hotel room where Sam was probably still splayed out in the bed closest to the door—the bed Dean always plunked his bags on, easier to the get in and out for those late nights, and still between Sam and anything that might try to come in. But now the problem wasn't things that could break into a hotel room. The problem was inside. His brother.
Dean could see a fuzzy white light in the distance that looked like it might be the sign for their hotel. A single car sped past him on the road, the taillights leaving a trail of red that seemed to linger in the air. The hunter continued stumbling forward, reaching out to steady himself against some kind of building with tall dark windows—silent because nothing was open at…Dean squinted at his wrist for a moment before deciding he'd never worn a watch on either arm. He could call Sam, ask him what time it was, but that soft, raspy voice was exactly why he had left.
The hunter staggered heavily as the wall he was using for support disappeared, abandoning him to lurch into the narrow space between the building and a tall line of shrubs. The back of his throat constricted and his stomach churned at the unexpected move, shooting bile straight up to the back of his throat. He couldn't do anything except swallow convulsively over and over and brace his hands against the corner of whatever shit shop had the misfortune of being between him and his hotel.
Hanging his head for a moment seemed to clear the worst of the sick feeling, and Dean decided he would rather puke in the bathroom at the hotel than the hedges of this alley. He'd spent enough fucking time in there to know, after all. Dean leaned his forehead against the cold wall of the building, fumbling with the slippery-ass buttons on his pants and cussing out his useless fingers. Maybe if he at least pissed out some of the battery acid he'd been drinking the hotel would be closer.
Sam had been mostly unconscious, mostly asleep for the last thirty-odd hours while Dean went in and out, retrieved the Impala, paid for their room before the owner called the cops, stacked the nightstand next to the bed with Twinkies and Oreos and a whole barrel of apple juice—offerings he left to get every time he found himself reaching out to take the limp hand that lay across the light blue comforter.
And then Sam woke up. Dean had been in the bathroom at the time, toweling water off his face and trying to think of anything else he could go out and grab. Dean? Sam's voice had barely reached him through the mostly closed door, and his fists had closed around the towel so hard he knuckles had gone white. Because Sam awake, Sam making faces, Sam bitching at him was the only thing that ever made him feel better. Somehow his feet stayed frozen on the tiles.
Dean? Are you here? Dean? He could imagine Sam's bleary expression, could imagine him squinting at the piles of cookies and juice and cough syrup and headache medicine and Tums and a dozen other things he probably didn't need. Dean? His brother called out one more time before the room returned to silence.
And all Dean could do was slide silently down the bathroom wall until he was sitting on the cold tiles, and wait for Sam to be asleep again so that he could escape. And this time Dean didn't try to pretend he was doing anything but leaving. He'd ended up at a bar—and then another bar, and then a liquor store or a gas station or something. And now he'd washed up in the alley of some building with manicured lawns so perfect they could probably use a little piss. The button on his jeans was ten times as hard to get back through the hole as it had been to get out, and Dean had to lean against the wall and squint down at it to make it stay between his fingers.
He was determined to make it back to the hotel room now though, before the puking and passing out, because he had words for Sam, finally. The words he had been too cowardly to come out of the bathroom and say.
Dean staggered down the darkened walk once more, pushing away from the wall and forcing his feet to carry his weight without dumping him on his ass. At last he could see the rows of doors and the little balconies behind the waist-high wall appearing on his right—much closer than he remembered the fuzzy sign. His sense of distance was shot, though, so he couldn't be sure—and even though it would usually have been no problem to hop over the tiny wall, Dean just scraped his leg slowly over the top until he was straddling the stone, and then pulled his other leg up behind. The stars spun like the end of a top above him as he stood up, his head lolling backward.
Dean considered quitting and just sitting down on the wall, but he was so fucking close—Sam was so fucking close. The hunter pushed himself forward, squinting at the numbers on the line of doors until he found 103. He brought up his hand, tracing the silver numbers nailed into the wood with his finger twice to be sure before feeling around his pockets for his room key. At first he found only receipts for drinks he didn't remember buying, and loose change and crumpled ones shoved into every pocket. The little plastic piece-of-shit keycard finally appeared at the bottom of his jacket pocket. It was bent and it had some kind of deep scuff on it, as though Dean had shoved it into something mechanical. He vaguely remembered some kind of automatic card eater, and wondered what the fuck he'd been trying to do.
Dean kicked the door with the tip of his shoe, but there were no sounds and no lights on the other side. It took a few tries, but he managed to get the bent card into the lock, pulling it in and out and watching as the light buzzed red over and over.
"Sam!" Dean finally called. A headache was blistering in his temples, and the spinning behind his eyes had reached mechanical bull on the disorientation scale. "Sam, please!" he yelled, pressing his cheek against the door. Only dead silence from the other side.
And suddenly Dean didn't give a fuck if this was a hotel room, or if Sam was sleeping—he levered himself back on his heel, lifting his foot and smashing the door inward. The impact jarred all the way up his leg as he hit the lock slightly off his mark, catching the frame instead, but the door splintered inward all the same. The image of the shattered door of the farmhouse slid through his mind, making his heart pump in an ugly way.
"Sam!" Dean called, staggering through the door. There wasn't so much as a drip of water in here, and as the hunter looked around, he realized that the beds were empty—both of them. Panic welled up in his chest and all at once the bile and booze were back in the rear of his throat, his mind spinning like a goddamn Tilt-a-whirl.
There hadn't been any forced entry—no sign of a struggle, no sign that anyone had ever been there. Just the way the rooms looked when they packed up and left. Dean surged forward, spreading his hands across the dark blue bedspread where he brother had been lying. He would have settled for one fucking wrinkle in the comforter, but no—nothing.
Sam was gone. Dean felt wetness on his cheeks, a raw burn in his throat. No, not just gone—Sam had left him. Sam had left him, and he had no idea what to do. His mind was back in the bathroom as he listened to his brother call for him and didn't answer. He had fucking driven Sam to this, he knew that—knew it every time he looked at that bruise on Sam's jaw.
But he hadn't known what the fuck else to do, because Sam didn't understand. He was sobbing now, sliding to his knees on the side of the bed and fisting his hands in the comforter like he could wring its neck.
Sam thought he had everything under control, but he didn't. Because that dark road he was on, Dean had already been to the end of it. It hadn't been that hard to raise his fist, because he had tortured Sam a hundred times already in Hell—a hundred thousand, maybe. It was one of Alastair's favorite games, to pick the ones that looked like his brother, to goad him to make the first cut, and the only thing that had kept Dean was from losing his mind was that the screams were always wrong. The screams were the howling, unending suffering of others, suffering he was learning to make even worse, but Sam was still alive—still all right somewhere.
Except that he hadn't been, and now he was going to end up like those other souls, tortured in Hell, which somehow always screamed with Sam's voice in Dean's dreams. He wrapped his hands around his head, beating his temple against the empty bed. Because it didn't matter if the rest of the world burned, or the fucking angels fell from the sky—all the mattered was him and Sam, and he didn't know how he'd almost lost that before, but it wasn't fucking happening now.
Dean pushed himself roughly off of the bed, staggering to his feet and spreading his arms out as he threw his head back.
"Cas—please, Cas!" he yelled. "I know you fucking hear me, so just…don't let him be gone. Don't let him be gone. Cas!" He shouted the name again, louder this time, spinning to face the rest of the room, and then lurching against the angel who had appeared suddenly behind him. Dean hadn't heard the rustle of wings, but his ears were starting to ring and a layer of fuzz seemed to have grown right behind his eyeballs.
"Dean," the angel said. The hunter watched his name as it formed on the other man's lips. He shrugged himself off of Castiel but kept one hand braced on the tan material of the angel's shoulder, for balance or leverage, he wasn't sure.
"Please, Cas," Dean repeated, shaking his head like he could shake it right off. "Please, you gotta bring him back. He can't be gone, he just can't…" Dean ground his fist against the coat as he spoke.
Castiel frowned darkly, and the hunter watched as his eyes flickered slowly around the room. "Who has left, Dean?" he asked finally.
The hunter choked, his face contorting in a way that made him feel puke-heavy and lightheaded all at once. He shoved Castiel away hard, waving at the space that was too goddamn empty—nothing had ever been so empty as the place Sam had abandoned him without a fucking word.
"Sam!" he shouted disbelievingly at his infuriating angel. "Sam left me. And I can't…he can't…" Dean's head pounded at the volume of his own voice, smashing his train of thought to pieces until all that was left was the desperation. "Just bring him back, Cas," he demanded, feeling the slick of tears on his cheeks again. "You can fucking do that much, can't you?"
Castiel's narrowed eyes fixed on Dean, and his shoulders tensed for a moment as though he were considering something, before he stepped forward.
"Sam had not gone anywhere," the angel said firmly, and there was something in the tone that sounded almost like Sam when he got on Dean's case for drinking too much. Dean's desperate eyes traced the empty room again, confusion swirling around in the alcohol haze.
"But…"
The angel lifted his hand slowly and deliberately toward Dean's temple, meeting the hunter's eyes briefly. "This is not the room where you and Sam have been staying." Then the angel's fingers met Dean's skin, and everything was a cosmic blur.
It was the worst fucking trip Dean had ever taken, and for a second he thought maybe he was stuck inside the girly kaleidoscope Sam had dragged around as a toddler, colors shifting and moving around him in a psychedelic smear. And he would yell at Cas properly for doing that without his permission at some point, but not right now. Because right now he was at the foot of a bed, with a light blue blanket stretched across it, and a huge figure curled to one side with Dean's phone in his hand and a stack of empty apple juice containers next to him on the floor.
"Sam!" Dean rushed forward, peeling the phone out of his brother's fingers and replacing them with his own hand. It took a second for the hazel eyes to blink open and fix on him, and there was some confusion there, maybe some exhaustion still, but Sam was smiling, and it was the best smile Dean could ever remember getting.
"Dean," he said, squeezing his brother's hand in return. And right then, Dean knew they were going to be okay. He would make sure of it.
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From the sidewalk across the street, through walls and windows that were as nothing before his eyes, Castiel watched the Winchesters come back together. It would have been equally simple to hear their voices, but he chose not to, settled for studying their faces as Dean shook his head and gritted his teeth against his tears and Sam swung his legs over the edge of the bed, only trembling a little as he pressed a reassuring hand to his brother's shoulder. Castiel wondered if Dean was apologizing. Even at a distance, he could feel the tension that had surrounded the Winchesters since he was called down beginning to dissipate—something more natural, more familiar, settled in between them, something anchored in Dean's fingers tightening around his brother's hand and the small, fond smile on Sam's face even as he rubbed his eyes. Castiel wondered if this was the rhythm of all human relationships, or just of this one—an endless cycle of conflict and resolution, incited by drink and aggravated by violence. Forgiveness never seemed to last long enough for the bruises to heal.
Dean would be ill soon; Castiel could see it in the pallor of his face, the way he groped for a handhold to pull himself onto the bed, his body listing like a ship at the mercy of a storm. Perhaps Sam could see it, too—already he was pushing to his feet, fetching a trash can, a washcloth, a water bottle he pressed into his brother's hand. For a fragment of a second, an infinitely short span of time, Castiel regretted returning Dean to the correct room, because what Sam needed was rest, not someone else, equally broken, to suffer into his care—then he chastised himself, because matters between the Winchesters were not his concern and he had no way of knowing what Sam needed.
Perhaps Dean did. Perhaps there was a reason Dean found a way to break himself so often when Sam was in need.
Castiel watched through the window and remembered Sam the night before, at war with his delirium, begging him to go to Dean—Dean, manic with self-inflicted madness, demanding that he drag Sam back to the cold room where delusion had led him. There was something out of balance between them, the angel knew, but he would not have known how to fix it, even if it had been his place.
For one more moment, Castiel hesitated, his black shoes uncertain on the pale concrete. Then he turned his back and unbound his wings, tilting his face to the stars. For now, he would leave them to each other's care—but already he knew he would return to check on Sam before too long. Just to be certain.
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This story only has one chapter left to go. Thanks to everyone who's been reading and enjoying it.
