"Just take us back to that Tuesd— Wednesday," Sam instantly corrected. "Take us back to when it all started. Please."
"So, you two chuckleheads can come after me again?" He shook his head. "I think not, Sammo."
"Look, my brother and I won't come after you." Sam held his hands up, a soldier in full surrender. "I swear."
Still, he hedged. Not that he wasn't getting a kick out of seeing Sam beg, but there was more to this little session than met the eye. There was a lesson here to learn here. One Sammy-boy clearly hasn't gotten.
"Even if I could…"
"You can." The quiet earnestness on Sam's face almost made him weaken. Almost. "I know you can. Look…"
"— just because I can doesn't mean I should," he interjected. "I mean, there are plenty of reasons for why I should just leave Dean smoldering on the pyre."
Like the prophecy that says that you and Dean will play a significant role in the coming apocalypse.
"Please, man. He's my brother."
And that was the problem. Something that Sam, for all his supposed brains, didn't seem to get.
"Sam," he said with as much patience as he could muster. "There's a lesson you need to learn here. One I've been trying to drill into that freakish Cro-Magnon skull of yours for the past few months."
Admittedly, teaching Sam this subtle lesson about his co-dependency upon his brother had been the most fun he'd had in a long while. Not that he overly enjoyed killing Dean. Well, he didn't dislike killing him, but still. He knew what Heaven's plans for Sam and Dean Winchester were. And I will no sooner ruin those plans than I will return to the family fold.
"Lesson?" A frown puckered Sam's brow. "What lesson? That you can screw with us and there's nothing we can do about it?" He snorted a sound that was a combination of humor and exasperation. "Look, man, I get it. You've made your point. Alright?"
He swallowed back a litany of curses. Is he really this thickheaded? he wondered as he stared into Sam's eyes. Can he not see just how corrosive his bromance with his brother is? Well, he'd get it through that thick skull of his somehow. Even if I have to beat it into him.
"This obsession of yours with saving Dean?" He enunciated every word slowly and carefully. "The way you two keep sacrificing yourselves for each other?" He shook his head. "Nothing good is ever going to come out of it. Just an endless amount of blood and pain and death." He saw the heated denial forming in Sam's eyes and held up a hand to cut it off. "Look, man, Dean's your weakness. I know it, you know it, and more importantly, the bad guys know it."
And not all the bad guys come from the land down under, he added silently. Much as he loved his father and brothers, he had to admit that they could all be one great big pile of douchebags.
"Yeah?" The word positively sizzled with heat. "What's your point?"
"My point is that it is gonna be the death of you, Sam."
"He's my brother."
"And that?" His lips kicked up at the corner. "That is why sometimes you just gotta let people go."
"No," Sam predictably replied. "No, I can't. I won't. He's my brother. Don't you get that? I'm never going to stop trying to save him."
"And like it or not, this is what life's gonna be like without him."
"Please," Sam begged. "Just—please."
"I swear, it's like talking to a brick wall." He heaved a long, frustrated sigh. "Okay, look, Sam. This all stopped being fun months ago. You're Travis Bickle in a skirt and I'm just so over it."
"Meaning what?" Sam demanded. "Huh? What's that mean?"
"You know what it means, buttercup?" He leaned towards Sam. "It means that it is for me to know and for you to find out." He sent him an easy-going smile. "Peace, Sam."
And the archangel once known as Gabriel warped away to his own private Garden of Eden. Or Casa Erotica Cabaña as he called it.
A/N: Hello, all! Hope the week has been good to you!
This is tagged to episode 3x11