Chapter 37.
"They've been gone a long time." said Jack.
"Yes." said Sam, who had been thinking the same thing.
"Should I ... "
"No. If anyone goes looking, it should be me. I don't know whether I should go now, in case things are going wrong, or wait and trust that Cas knows what he's doing."
"Cas knows Dean." said Jack.
"Yes, he does."
"But he's not always good with emotions, Dean's or his own."
"No." said Sam.
"I haven't heard anything that sounds violent."
"Which has to be good." said Sam. The last thing he wanted was for Jack to see how worried he was, but Jack was not stupid and it was hard to hide it. Bringing them all to the woods had been a risk and there had always been at least a fifty percent chance that it would make things worse.
He would feel more confident if Cas were feeling good, but Cas had not gone out there with confidence or optimism. It was desperation that had sent him after Dean, just as desperate fear had driven Dean from the fireside. They were out there alone, two wounded, scared former friends, each likely to lash out with little warning, each willing to blame themselves forever if they hurt the other more.
Sam's fears were yelling at him to go and find them before that happened. His head agreed with Jack, that they had been gone too long and that neither was likely to discuss things calmly. His gut told him to trust them and their long friendship. His gut told him that believing in Dean had never been the wrong decision.
One wrong word, one clumsy phrase, from either, would have a devastating effect and Dean was less than diplomatic at the best of times. On the other hand, a moment of honesty, even just a moment of actually listening to each other, could do them both so much good.
Cas looked into Dean's eyes and saw hatred. Dean looked at Cas and saw a manipulative angel, a sinister being with immense power. All Sam saw, looking at either of them, was a heart so scarred it barely continued beating and a head so full of self-condemnation that neither could imagine that anyone who claimed to like them could possibly be telling the truth.
He couldn't blame either of them for their defensive prickles or skewed self-image. The life they had all lived was always a life of bad decisions, painful sacrifices and constant, soul-destroying doubt.
Sam knew what it meant to host an archangel. Dean thought Lucifer was worse than Michael, but Sam didn't think so. Sam had unknowingly been prepared for it all his life, by Azazel and his minions. There had been a kind of inevitability about it. Dean had never thought it would happen. More than that, he had made it a fundamental part of who he believed himself to be that he would never let it happen.
Sam had tried that too, but without Dean's strength of will. Dean had bet everything on his ability to go on saying no forever and, having denied this world's Michael with what was very nearly his last breath, he had been sure he had won.
Sam had also believed it, right up until Dean had teleported to his side, archangel on board, to destroy Lucifer. He couldn't talk about that to Jack, either. They shared the guilt that, for their sakes, Dean had sacrificed his autonomy and become a helpless vessel to a violent, narcissistic archangel with a predilection for burning worlds.
To them, it would always be heroic; one more way in which Dean had shown his selfless, courageous nature and he wished Dean could see it that way too. Dean saw nothing noble in it, nothing brave. To him, it was a stupid act, by someone too dumb to find a better way. It was an abject surrender, a cowardly collapse of his will. To mention it was like beating him with a spiked whip. Sam wished he could take every thought of it from Dean's head, but knew he could not.
Technically, Cas could do that, but would not, because it was a bad idea and because he had never recovered from wiping the memories of Dean from Lisa and Ben's minds. It was a bad idea, like letting Michael take control, but letting Dean live with this for the rest of his life didn't seem much better.
Sarah was a counsellor and this ... well, it wasn't quite her field of expertise, but it wasn't far from it. She'd helped victims of torture, mental and physical, she understood abuse and terror and violation. She knew how a blameless victim could feel shame and an anger at themselves that seemed insane to others. Sarah could help him, if he could just once allow anyone to do that.
He wasn't sleeping. Hunters never slept much and Dean and Sam had both spent a lot of nights awake. They functioned well on almost no sleep. Dean could grab a nap in the car after twenty-four hours of hunting and be up and fighting again thirty minutes later.
Now, though, Sam could see the barely perceptible slope of the shoulders, the little sigh of weariness when Dean stood up out of a chair, the shadows around the eyes. He knew his brother's limits and he knew that Dean was edging ever closer to them.
Normally, there was an easy solution. Wait until he was too tired to pretend he wasn't and nag him until he agreed to let Cas put him under. Then he'd get a nice, long sleep and wake up looking and feeling much better. Much more difficult when the main reason he wasn't sleeping was that he felt he needed to be alert for a sneak attack by angels. He was not about to put any trust in Cas.
He looked off into the dark woods. Perhaps he was needed out there. Dean and Cas could be standing spitting insults at each other. They might be fighting, though the fight would be brief and one-sided, since Cas was armed and had angelic strength to begin with.
Maybe they did need him out there, or maybe it would be best to let them have some time alone in the darkness. For now, at the campfire, he was needed by a child who looked like a grown man, but still needed kindness and reassurance.
"Come on, Jack." he said, "Let's get those marshmallows."