Chapter 89.

Sam watched Dean walking up and down the length of the table several times and found it didn't help him to focus on the tablet in his hand. "Look, man," he said, "We can't alter the outcome or talk to either of them before morning. Cas isn't going anywhere. Realistically, only one of us needs to be awake and I have inventory stuff to do and you're just wearing a trench in the floor. Stop pacing and go to bed."

Dean stopped. "I wasn't pacing. I was just standing here."

"Standing there while moving back and forth is called pacing. I'm serious. You're tired, you're stressed and tomorrow morning you're gonna need to be rested and calm."

"Why? You think tonight will go badly?" said Dean. He looked thoughtful. "Maybe I should disable his car."

"You don't think he might consider that a little controlling and manipulative."

"I don't think he'd even know I'd done it. He's clueless about that thing."

"Don't be so sure. Jules has been teaching him."

Dean looked instantly offended. "Yeah. He never let me teach him."

Sam tried not to look as amused as he felt. Dean instantly took it as a slight, whereas it was nothing of the kind. Rather than stoke his insecurities, Sam decided to explain. "He asked her to because you think it's bad he doesn't know. When you were ... away, I think learning about cars was both a preparation for your return and an act of faith that you would come back. He really needed to believe that. We all did."

"You think I worry over nothing with him." said Dean.

"No, I think you're tired and stressed, as I said."

"We ... I've been dragging him down since we met."

"That's not how he tells it."

"I don't think he sees it, but I do. He was strong and certain ... "

"A righteous dick with no compassion."

"Yeah, granted, but at least he wasn't the wreck he is now. We taught him to question, so he questions his own worth. We taught him to feel, so he feels he's useless. We ... I taught him to trust me, so he believes it when I call him stupid. The reason why he can't form a proper relationship is that he's been around us too long."

"You're the reason he's able to consider a relationship and the reason he's brave enough to try. You're forgetting that he came to you tonight, because he always comes to you when he's scared or confused."

"I caused all this. I'm the reason he feels unworthy of love, because I'm the worst friend in the history of bad friends. I make Brutus look loyal and encouraging."

"Brutus who?" said Sam.

"Julius Caesar's Brutus." said Dean.

"Oh. I was not expecting a classical reference."

"I read."

"I know you do. You also blame yourself for everything. You always have. You still think what happened to Mom was your fault."

"How was that not my fault. I was there. I got out. She didn't."

"You were four. You got me out. This is my whole point. You have a list in your head of the people you couldn't save and the long list of the people you did save will never count against it."

"And you don't have that list?" said Dean, sitting opposite him.

"I didn't say that. We're not talking about me."

"No, we never do. My issues are always top of the agenda, but yours? We pretend they don't exist, don't we, Sammy?"

"I'm not pretending anything. I just think now, here, tonight, yours are more pressing."

"And you'll think the same next time and the time after and the time after that."

"Well, let's fix your issues and then I won't be able to. But let's start by acknowledging that you and Cas are David and Jonathan, not Brutus and Caesar. You've both made mistakes. You've both said things that you didn't mean ... "

"Oh, I meant them."

"No you didn't. Your brain short circuits and throws out, 'You're stupid!' because, 'I love you.' feels too honest and vulnerable. You do the same to me, so I see the pattern. My point is, you both sometimes get things wrong, but you've been good friends for years and that friendship is important to you both."

"It is, yes, but he needs a better friend."

"There is no better friend. Trust me. I've relied on you my whole life."

"Hell, Purgatory, Lucifer."

"Yeah. And look who's been beside me all the way. Look who forgave every one of my mistakes. Except Charlie."

"My mistake, not yours. Do you really feel like I still blame you for that?"

"I guess I still blame me."

"More than I ever did or could. The stuff I said ... it was the mark, not me."

"Getting a little off-topic here." said Sam. It was not something he wanted to talk or think about.

"Whenever we argued, over anything, there was a voice in my head, saying, 'Kill him.'"

"Good to know. Thanks." said Sam.

"I'm saying it was the mark. It wasn't me. It wanted to twist everything so I would eventually kill you and there were times when it nearly succeeded. That stuff I said about her death ... that was what the mark was putting in my head. It took my grief and guilt and turned them into anger and hatred."

"I know, Dean." said Sam.

"You don't know, because you still think I said that stuff because that's how I felt."

"At the time, it was." said Sam.

"At the time, I wasn't me."

"No."

"I've screwed you up more than the angel." said Dean.

"It's late, you're tired, you're not you now, either. We can talk about this another time. Drink enough whisky to dull the edges and get some sleep."

"I can't."

"You can." said Sam.

"No, because he and Jules are in a moment of crisis and it might all be fine and they might have sex and get back together permanently."

"Or they might just talk, with the same result."

"The lights don't flicker because they're having a deep conversation." said Dean.

"But everything might be okay by the morning, in which case, you've had a sleepless night for nothing."

"Or it may not. And what if I happen to be asleep when it all goes to Hell for them?"

"You don't think he'd wake you? You don't think I would?"

"I need to know I was here, awake and ready to help. I have to know that, because the weight of the guilt of all the ways I have messed up and messed him up and messed you up is already more than I can carry."

"You're the reason we're both still here. All that guilt is self-inflicted and only you believe it should exist at all."

"So, I have to ask, Sammy, why are you still up?"

"Because I have to be. Because you and Cas and Jules are going through stuff I can't protect you from, so the least I can do is go through it with you."

Dean gave him a slight smile. "Winchesters, huh?"

"Yeah, Winchesters." said Sam.