"Is Dean…?"

"I've healed his wounds completely. He's in the study with Donatello."

"Ah."

"Sam, what about your -"

"I'm fine, Cas."

The angel huffed and locked his gaze on the back of the youngest Winchester's head. Sam still hadn't turned to face him.

"You're upset," he concluded. Sam tensed. Castiel watched him tighten his jaw, stiffen his shoulders. "You're upset with me."

Sam sighed and raked a hand down his face, shoulders going lax as he turned and finally looked up. "Cas…we can't trust him."

"He wants Michael stopped. He wasn't lying about that."

"I never said he was," Sam answered. He looked down at his book but the words blurred into nonsense.

Castiel frowned and sat on the nearest chair. "Then I don't understand."

Sam knit his brows, stared at the page of the tome but it was no good. Cas, damn him, was trying his best. He was trying to help Dean, trying to help Sam, and even though he made a stupid move –

"I met with Lucifer."

Yeah, well. Who was Sam to judge against that particular course of action?

Sam closed the book, his frustration fading and memories taking its place. Memories of darkness and pain and ice and the bars of a cage that was always too small for its intended inhabitant. Tried to stuff the power of a sun in a shoebox.

The quiet weighed on them. Sam felt Cas's stare on him, felt the angel watching and analyzing and whatever else.

"I've spent more time with him than anyone. More than you. More than Dean." Sam looked away. "He doesn't have to lie."

Cas bowed his head. "That's true."

"You remember?" Sam asked. He cleared his throat, looked up.

They caught eyes, the crushing weight of the question on both their shoulders pushing down and down.

Do you remember…?

The questions hung in the air.

"Do you remember the first time he killed you?"

"It was fast, careless," Cas recalled.

For Sam - "It was slow, intimate."

"Do you remember the first time he possessed you?"

"He tucked me away," Castiel mused.

He didn't tuck Sam away.

"I didn't see much."

"I saw everything."

And then more quiet.

And finally-

"Did you see his face?" Sam asked.

"No."

"Ah."

An elephant in the room, the truth hung heavy over their heads.

"Everything he said to me was true," Sam said, "He didn't ever lie to me – not until after."

"After what?"

"After I betrayed him."

Castiel looked over. "I don't understand," he echoed.

Sam shook his head and pushed the book away. "You wouldn't. No one could. I don't think."

"There were no expectations between you to betray," Cas noted, brows knit in confusion.

"That's not entirely true."

"What do you mean?"

They caught eyes again and Castiel saw it, clear as day. Sam gnawed on his tongue, debating and hesitant. Sam glanced away again, decision made to not share. Not today, not when mom and Jack and an alternate universe were things – not while an uncharged archangel was looking for a power up.

So, he gently waved Cas off and softly chuckled.

"It doesn't matter. I just – It seems like after everything we should know better than to go down that road, man, you know?"

"I was trying to help-"

"I know - I'm not pissed. I did the same thing two years ago. Trust me, I get it. But seeking him out alone… it never really works out."

Understatement of an eternity.

"I am sorry about that, Sam. I never did apologize to you."

Sam waved him off again and cracked a tired smile, but he blinked in surprise when the angel grabbed his hand.

"I feel regret," Cas offered, quiet and earnest and too much pain in his features to even grasp, "The fragility of your soul and I still… If I hadn't said yes, then he never could have touch-"

"It wasn't you, Cas."

"I know. But still, I-"

"It wasn't you."

A pair of blue eyes, a pair of hazel fell to their clasped fingers. A gesture that once Castiel had been so hesitant, so reluctant to accept.

Now, it wasn't near enough.

Sam Winchester deserved a handshake from an angel of the Lord.

Sam Winchester deserved an embrace from an angel of the Lord. He deserved gratitude and reverence, admiration and awe.

Sam Winchester withdrew his hand from Castiel's grasp. A small smile pulled at his lips – a real one, this time – and a touch of red spilled to his cheeks.

"Thanks, Cas," he said, knowing the bruises that had been there before, the bruises that the Devil had given him in that hotel room, were now gone.

"Of course, Sam."