Here we are, ahead of S6 like I promised! Thanks so much [again!] to everyone who is taking a few minutes to leave feedback and especially to those who are spending that bit longer to leave really long and insightful comments - I consider myself so lucky to have a group of regulars on this site who take the time to read between the lines and see the subtext in what I write - there is always a lot of that! Big hugs again to Suz, Cerridwen, Amber1960 and to ster1, who have all been awesome in their support and concrit... ;-)

Warnings Foul language, blasphemy, S5 spoilers

Freaks Like Us

Sam jolts awake to something, maybe Bobby's jackhammer snoring from the couch, or Castiel's confused rambling, or Brady's intermittent yells from the other side of the house, permeating through the balled-up strips of Kleenex he finally shoved in his ears at dark-thirty in an attempt to get some sleep, because even if his brother doesn't need to catch up for whatever reason Sam doesn't want to think about, he does, and fitful, restless dozing punctuated by nightmares is better than nothing.

It's first light out, and the cold gray dawn is peeking in through the window. He reaches up his hand, kneads the back of his neck hard, circles his head slowly because the angle his head was lolling at has left him cramped and sore, feels the vertebrae crack in there. He yawns, sits forward and rolls his shoulders, groans out the ache, glances up at the drip Bobby rigged, and reaches out to press his palm to Castiel's forehead, and the angel is staring back at him, blinking slowly.

"How are you doing, man?" Sam whispers, motions his head behind him. "Keep it down, Bobby's sleeping. Bad night, you were pretty loud."

Castiel furrows his brow, licks his lips. "What did I say?" he croaks, and he sounds almost suspicious, almost furtive.

Sam shakes his head. "No idea, Bobby thinks it was mostly Enochian. But it was pretty intense." He pauses, leans in closer. "You've been burning a pretty nasty fever, Cas, and we can't figure out why that is. Bobby rigged you up a drip, antibiotics, just in case. Is that okay? I mean – it won't mess with you, will it?"

Castiel shakes his head slowly, drifts a distracted gaze around the room. "Where is… Dean?" he says softly, and now his voice is laced with so much sheer unease it makes Sam's gut tighten and his heart lurch, and when the angel looks back at Sam, his eyes are a plea.

"Uh." He's caught on his backfoot, trying to catch his balance, and he flounders for a few seconds. "He's upstairs, crashed out," he lies, badly he knows. "He was pretty tired after Van Nuys. And we had problems, we think he's cursed." And then, to change the subject, "Cas… were you in Hell?"

He stops there, almost brays out a laugh at the fact Hell is a safe topic for discussion, and that he might prefer to sit and listen to a litany of torture and abuse than look the angel in the eye and tell him he thinks his brother might be lost to them.

Castiel is frowning, thinking. "You think it's a curse?" he whispers. His eyes are wider now, and they spark brighter, and for a second it's so intense Sam can feel gooseflesh prickle his arms and an itch start up between his eyes, as if the angel's stare is a LaserMax gunsight and its pulsating red light is burning right into the bridge of his nose.

And then the heat dies away, and Castiel shifts slightly on the bed, walks his hand ponderously up over the gauze dressings to his shoulder, to the mark, and rests it there. And it makes Sam shiver, because it's something he's noticed his brother do during his nightmares and he can't count the times he's reached out, half asleep, and placed Dean's flailing hand there himself, because it comforts his brother, quiets him.

"Maybe you're right," Castiel murmurs. "But, maybe not."

Sam swallows, finds the thought of an angel of the Lord strapped to a rack in the Pit is still easier than shooting the padlock off the door to there. "Were you in Hell, Cas?" he says again. "Is that why you have the handprint?" But suddenly it's not really a safe topic at all, because he finds he's diving into it head first without a snorkel, and that he's already out of his depth, searching for answers he doesn't really think he wants to hear even if he knows he needs to. "How did you get out, Cas?" he says, low and urgent, right into the angel's ear. "And you said his name. Why? Why did you say his name?"

Castiel smiles, and now Sam's looking harder he can see that the spark in the angel's eyes isn't a spark at all, it's tears. "Because he was gone for such a long time," he breathes out. "And I missed him."

His eyelids fold shut, and Sam reaches out, clicks his fingers just above his face. "Cas. Wake up," he says urgently. "So you missed him, fine. But why did you say his name to me right then? Cas? How did you get out? I don't understand…"

The angel's eyes crack open again. "You will," he sighs out. "You will, Sam."

"But Cas—"

"I'm feeling pain…"

"We can fix that," Sam races out. "We weren't sure what to do, if you needed anything while you healed yourself. But Cas, why did you—"

"I'm not healing myself this time, Sam," the other man whispers, and he winces. "It hurts. I feel sick. And I'm very thirsty."

Sam pulls back, frowns. "But… why aren't you? Healing yourself? I mean, why would you – feel sick, be thirsty, Cas, why aren't you—"

There's a noise, over at the door, and Sam whirls his head around as fast as his aching muscles will allow, and he's already smiling, already starting to push up from the chair because there's no one else it can possibly be, but his hopes tailspin, trailing smoke as they crash and burn.

"Gabriel," he snaps, and he narrows his eyes. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Sam. It's good to see you too…" the angel says, around a crooked, insincere grin. "How goes your percentage of life?"

"How did you even find us? We have sigils, you shouldn't be able to…" It dawns on Sam then, and he glances back at Castiel. "You're tracking him," he says. "Did you track him to Van Nuys? Have you been following us since then? Dean said he thought someone was watching us, have you been watching us, did you—"

Bobby is stirring, stretching out his arms and making phlegmy, congested sounds, and Gabriel rocks himself forward off the wall where he's leaning, bends over the back of the couch, and touches his fingertips gently to the older man's brow. "What? He looks like he could use the sleep," he says defensively at Sam's look, and he makes a face. "Sam, I'm going to give you some good advice. Reach up into your crack – gently now – and give those panties a little pull, you'll feel much less cranky." He smiles, slight and sly. "And yep, I've been tracking my brother since Van Nuys."

Sam feels his brain shift back into gear, pushes up onto his feet, points behind him to the man on the bed. "What's wrong with him? And can you help him?"

The angel shrugs, throws up his hands. "Castiel – slipped," he announces, and he leans across to look past Sam. "Slipped and fell by the looks of things, kiddo."

Sam doesn't get it for a minute and then it hits home. "He fell? He's fallen?" he stutters out, as he gapes at the smaller man. And his mouth hangs slack and stupid for a few seconds while he stares dumbly, can't wrap his mind around it even though they all knew Castiel was fading, even before the hangover from the black lagoon. And then he remembers what Bobby said. "The sigil didn't work on him," he breathes out.

Gabriel smirks. "Yep. The fallen. Has anyone alerted Optimus Prime?" He cocks his head. "Come on, Sam," he chides, and he tsks impatiently. "It can't be a surprise. Castiel has been falling for a long time – ever since he started caring too much for your brother. He knew it. And it's the last straw that breaks the camel's back." He flashes his teeth in a smile. "He's toast, basically."

Sam sits back down heavily, palms his cheeks. "He knew what would happen," he murmurs. "He knew, and he still did it." He looks up. "Where did he go?"

The angel studies him for a minute. "Castiel?" he says. "You mean Castiel?" He shakes his head, sucks in a breath. "He sinned," he says, serious now at last. "Willingly. He rebelled willingly too." He shrugs. "He has no means of propitiation."

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. "Wait… a minute, slow down. I don't – what does that even mean?"

Gabriel flaps a hand dismissively. "Oh, it's all that religious crap," he says brightly. "One of the myriad reasons I became a pagan. I'd much rather wear a crown of leaves and dance naked around an oak tree at midnight than read the bible."

"But what does it mean?" Sam repeats sharply.

"I see the sense of humor bypass worked," the angel snarks. "Whatever."

"Look," Sam says softly. "I'm at the end of myself. Please."

Gabriel stares back at him for a moment, flicks his eyes to Castiel, exhales sharply. "It means that he can no longer appease or satisfy our Father," he says, and his tone is suddenly somber, all traces of humor gone. "He has no atoning sacrifice to offer."

Sam finds his hand is resting on his own shoulder, and he has no memory of placing it there. "So he went to Hell."

Slow nod. "The Lake of Fire was created for the Devil and his angels."

"He isn't one of the Devil's angels," Sam says quietly, firmly.

Gabriel chuckles. "If we're splitting hairs he isn't an angel, period. Not any more." He strolls over to Bobby's desk, flits his fingers over books and documents, lifts the scrap of paper with Crowley's number on it and snorts. "Watch this one," he says confidentially, waving it at Sam. "Total conman. Even sweet talked me into buying a pair of wings from him once."

It's deflection worthy of his brother, and Sam grits his teeth, ignores it. "Can you help him?" he repeats.

Gabriel grimaces. "No can do, Sam. It would compromise my neutrality in all of this."

"Neutrality?"

"Yep. Consider me Switzerland."

"You have to be fucking kidding me," Sam spits out. "He's your brother."

The angel takes a few steps forward. "Screw you," he grinds out, and his eyes flash as he stabs a finger at the bed. "He fell. That makes him unclean. Untouchable."

Sam stands up again, steps forward himself, can feel his fingers clenching into fists, and he has a sudden memory of Uriel's disgust for Anna, knows that's what he's seeing here. "Are you telling me you guys work to some kind of caste system?" he says, incredulous. "Besides, you fell."

"That was different," Gabriel hisses. "I didn't betray my family. I just went undercover. Deep, deep undercover."

"How? How is it different?" Sam demands. "You can paint it how you like, but you still bailed. And Cas is still your brother."

There's a long, strained silence.

"Look… he fell," Gabriel says finally, and Sam thinks his voice might be tinged with regret. "It's the worst thing any of us can do, and it means he isn't my brother, not anymore. I can't do anything for him, it isn't permitted… it would be disobedience, and I'm not falling from grace for him." His gaze drops away from Sam's, and he crosses his arms in a gesture that looks suspiciously defensive. "Castiel knows how it works and he won't take it personally, believe me. But I am sorry."

And Sam knows it's non-negotiable, and he turns back to the man lying on the bed, watches Castiel's eyes scurry around hectically under his closed lids.

"Will he dream about it?" he says suddenly. "Like Dean did?" And it matters to him, it matters to him that this angel, man, whatever he is now, won't be destroyed by it like his brother was, might come out of it with no memory of what happened to him down there.

He feels that movement of air beside his ear that tells him the angel is right up behind him now.

"He was there before," Gabriel says quietly. "He fought his way through Hell for forty years to find what he was searching for. He endured things you can't even imagine. He survived it then."

Sam chews his lip, has a clear memory of what Castiel said to him, the only reference the angel ever made to his incredible journey: that Hell was like an infection, that it made him feel remote from God and starved of His light. "That isn't good enough," he says. "Even if you won't – can't – heal him, can't you take away his memories? So he won't remember it?"

Gabriel snaps his fingers and in the stillness it sounds like a gunshot. And there in his hand is a bottle of water, and he dangles it down in front of Sam. "He said he was thirsty, didn't he?" he offers neutrally. "You can help him with that. He said he was hurting. You can help him with that too." He considers Sam for a minute, eyes shuttered. And then he trails a finger through the air a few inches above Castiel's chest. "He'll live," he announces. "It looks worse than it is. He's just not used to being this fragile."

Sam takes the bottle, unscrews it. He leans over Castiel, lifts his head slightly, drips the water on his lips, and the other man's eyes flicker open briefly and he gulps it down, chokes. "Easy," Sam whispers. "Sips… sip it, man." Castiel's eyes drift closed again and Sam lays him back down.

Gabriel moves around Sam, parks his butt on the end of the bed. "Untouchable…" he remarks. "That wasn't quite what I meant. It came out wrong."

Sam snorts. "Surely not?" He puts the bottle of water on the floor just under the bed, shoves it to safety with his foot, heaves out the first aid kit and starts rooting through it, retrieves a syringe and the small brown bottle he's seeking. He looks across briefly from drawing up the morphine. "And you didn't answer my question."

Gabriel meets his gaze steadily. "I could do that," he concedes. "I could do what you ask. But here's the thing, Sam. Castiel was given a gift down there, and I think he might want to keep a hold of it."

Sam is rolling Castiel over, pulling up the man's shorts. He buries the needle in his flank, tugs the blankets up again. "A gift? What could he possibly have—"

"Love," Gabriel says softly. "Joy… peace, grace." And he smiles. "He was gone for such a long time, Sam," he echoes Castiel's words, and his face is suddenly euphoric, his voice low and wistful. "And we all missed him… my brother, who was rain, hail, snow, thunder, lightning, who was fire, who was the Prince of Light. Who was like God." He sighs, and then he reaches out, almost reluctantly, pauses in mid-air for just a second before he takes a deep breath and then pats Castiel's leg gently through the blanket, wincing as he does, almost like he thinks something will happen. "He saw that, at his time of greatest need. Our brother redeemed him… it was his heart's desire, and I'm never taking it from him." He looks Sam in the eye and his gaze is heavy with a meaning Sam isn't sure he gets. "It might be all he has left."

Sam swallows. "Cas said his name to me," he mutters. "When he came back. And he said I'd understand. But I don't…" He clenches his fists. "Was it him – was it Michael – who brought him back? Is that what you're saying? Because that isn't how it happened. Michael wasn't there when Cas came back. He wasn't there."

Gabriel hooks his legs up and under him, settles himself comfortably on the bed. "That is how it happened, Sam," he says gently. "Only an angel can pull someone out of the Pit. You know what it means. Michael was there. Standing right in front of you."

Sam is fighting it, isn't going to concede defeat. "But – it just can't be, he can't have—Dean wasn't gone, he was there all the time. He wasn't searching, for years, like Cas said he had to do."

Gabriel shrugs. "They just didn't bother hiding Castiel. He doesn't matter in the scheme."

Sam is breathing slow, staying calm even though his heart is beating at a rate of knots now, going for the record, and he feels like it might explode out of his chest. "But that isn't what I saw happen," he insists again, weakly now.

"Sam, Sam." Gabriel sighs. "That is what you saw happen. It's like I told you. Zachariah made a pretty big splat, I dropped by to check it out… and suddenly there he was. My brother. And I've been following him since Van Nuys."

Sam looks up at him, back down to Castiel. "And he isn't your brother anymore…"

"Are you finally getting it?" Gabriel says, not unkindly. "He isn't why I'm here. I'm here because I'm returning something you misplaced." He looks up at the ceiling. "Bathroom. He's hiding. Maybe you can help him too."

Sam hesitates for a heartbeat, and then stands up very slowly, and he feels hollowed out and empty. "How can I possibly help him?" he whispers.

Gabriel shrugs, waves him on. "Just. Go. Talk to him."

He's halfway up the hall when the archangel's voice floats out after him.

"After all, you know what it's like to find out you're a freak, Sam."

There's a moment in the upstairs hallway when Sam chokes out his brother's name, and his knees buckle and he sags against the wall, presses his forearm up to his mouth and howls his anguish silently into his sleeve.

He slides down into an abyss of grief, and curls in on himself, fetal, his cheek pressed to the bare wood of the floor, because it hurts him, cramps in his gut. And in that moment he thinks wildly that he could turn and leave, walk out of this house and never look back, secure in his memories of Dean, of his brother, instead of whatever is hiding in the bathroom. And he wonders if that might be how Dean felt when Castiel beamed him to Maryland, wonders if Dean might have dreaded finding some monstrous facsimile of him, drunk on demon blood, humanity long gone. You still came, he thinks suddenly. You came for me, when you could have run the other way.

He breathes himself through it, pushes himself onto his hands and knees, and up to his feet. Nausea has his mouth dripping brackish saliva, and he forces himself to swallow it down, rubs circles on his belly like his brother used to do when they were kids and Sam was sick, be fine Sammy, you'll be fine, I'm right here, ain't goin' nowhere, you hear?

He doesn't flick on the light switch, he can see well enough in the pale sunlight shining through the window.

Dean is sitting in the space between the bath and the sink, his knees bent, and he flicks his eyes up, reaches for the bottle of Wild Turkey he has parked next to him, gulps back several mouthfuls and wipes his mouth aggressively with the back of his hand.

"I can't get drunk," he says softly. "I've been sitting here for a half-hour drinking to forget. Only I can't get fuckin' drunk any more." He snorts out a hollow laugh, stares at the bottle, dregs now. "Fuck. It doesn't even warm me inside." And his arm flexes, almost too fast for Sam's eyes to track, and he smashes the bottle down on the tile, where it explodes into glittering diamond-sharp fragments that skitter in all directions. He sniffs, considers the mess. "Man, Bobby's gonna be pissed. It was his best liquor."

Sam stands at the doorway, and he's stock still, rigid, but his skin is tingling on the cusp of pain and inside he's shaking, he's like jelly quivering on a plate, can feel his bones, muscles, organs, blood cells, atoms, ricocheting off his skin in there, all bouncing about like they're ping-pong balls in an air-mix lottery machine. He doesn't know what he was expecting but it wasn't this, he thinks, he didn't think it would be this cruel, didn't think it would rub his nose in his loss by parading a carbon copy of his brother in front of him, even down to the heavy drinking and harsh language.

His mouth is so parched it feels like he toweled it down in there, and when he manages to speak the words are dust dry. "Please," he whispers. "Please. Tell me. Tell me that you're tired, that you need to sleep… it's been going on thirty-six hours, you must be tired."

Dean stares resolutely ahead, doesn't react. His eyes are red-rimmed, and Sam thinks he might have been crying.

"Tell me that you're thirsty… that you're hungry," Sam says, and he knows he's pleading now, can hear it in his voice, that he's begging. "Tell me your ribs hurt because Cas has a kick like a mule. Tell me, tell me – that you can't hear them whispering to you, and that you can't understand Enochian." He can feel his eyes filling, and he knuckles away the moisture, sniffs snot back up and in. "Tell me you can't smell demon on me," he says. "Tell me you didn't look into the light. Tell me you got a do-over, tell me it was conditional, tell me." His voice is higher, panicked now, and he stops himself, takes a breath. "Tell me. Tell me who you are. Tell me what you are."

For a long moment there is silence, and then Dean leans into his hand, rubs at his temples with his thumb and fingers. "I don't know what I am," he breathes out. "Or maybe I do, I don't know. I do know I'm not – what I was. But I'm still who I was."

He peers up at Sam from behind his hand, and his eyes are unreadable. "Mary Campbell was my mother," he says softly. "John Winchester was my father. Just like they were your mom and dad. They made me, just like they made you, and I was born into this family just like you were, Sam. And we were kids together, and I carried you out of the fire and I took care of you, I tried to keep you safe, tried my best. And you left, and I missed you. And you died, and I mourned you. And I went to Hell for you. So no matter what I am, we had that life, nothing can change it or wipe it out. I'm still your brother. That's who I am. But. I'm him too."

Sam stares back, mute. His insides have stopped spinning, and now they're like lead, weighing him down so his feet are glued to the floor and he can't move.

Dean waits for a minute, waits for him to say something, and then his eyebrows lower in a frown and he visibly stiffens, from his boots up, and Sam can see every single muscle lock tight. "Are you afraid of me, Sam?" he says, and now the look in his eyes is one Sam couldn't describe if he tried, and his voice is raw, hopeless, angry. "Do you think I'll smite you now I'm all juiced up on angel blood? And maybe take off out of here with Gabriel and leave you lying on the floor while I deal with my broth—" He pulls up short, blinks hard. "With Lucifer?"

He falls quiet, shakes his head, drags a hand across his chin, and the silence is explosive, charged, like one single word will set it off.

"That was a cheap shot, Dean," Sam whispers. "If that's even still your name."

Dean sighs out, and it's heavy with despair. "Whatever." He stares at the wall again. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Sam." And then, after a beat, and softer now, "I won't hurt you. And that is still my name." He slants his eyes up, and his expression is complicated now, twisted and tangled with meaning. "One of them, anyway. Like I said… I'm still your brother. And that was a cheap shot, Sam."

Sam stares down, transfixed, flexes his fingers, and his woozy head and rubber legs finally give up the battle and fold him gracelessly down onto the floor, where his butt crunches on broken glass, and in the middle of it all he's fairly sure he scrapes out his brother's name.

"Watch yourself, Sammy," Dean mutters. "I'm not putting my angelic magic healing fingers on your hairy ass."

"Well, that's fine, since I don't want my hairy ass being touched by an angel anyway," Sam trills out, his nerves making him ludicrously high pitched.

Dean's eyebrows shoot up. "It's not as bad as you make it sound," he leers.

Sam gulps. "I don't understand."

"It isn't complicated, Sam. She put her hands on there when I was—"

"Dean, for Christ's sake," Sam snaps, and he bites his tongue. "Fuck… sorry, I'm sorry. Blasphemy, cussing, gotta watch that now." He knows his voice has an edge to it, honed by the mix of fear and grief that had him collapse outside the room. His belly still rolls queasily, and he slaps his hand there, rubs it into submission again.

"I'm a soldier," his brother says quietly. "I've heard and said way worse than that in languages that don't exist any more, believe me."

There's another eternally long moment of silence.

"That's why you can read Enochian," Sam mutters. "And that isn't what I meant. And you know it."

"Yeah, that's why I can read Enochian. And yeah, I know that isn't what you meant."

"Are you really him?"

Dean looks at him sideways and Sam can see his brother formulating his approach, see him editing his words in his eyes as he starts to speak. "I'm him," he says soberly. "He's me. It's always been that way, Sam. Remember what Gabriel said? About being born to it?"

The knot of tension starts to roil in Sam's gut again, and he blinks, thinks it through. "Always," he says. "I don't understand. You mean you've always been the vessel, yes?"

Dean laughs and it's hollow. "Not exactly," he grates out. "In fact, in a way I did this to myself. By saying no. Can you believe that?" He leans forward, braces his forehead on his knees, stares down at the floor.

"You did it to yourself? By saying no?" Sam scrubs at his head in frustration. "Dean, I don't get it. You're gonna have to give me more, because I don't understand what you mean, or anything that's going on here, and I don't—"

"No one's seen Michael, right?" his brother cuts in. "Lucifer was popping into your dreams, but Michael was just awol." He throws up his hands, shrugs. "He never made contact, never showed up in any burning bushes, never flew down to knock skulls when Zachariah was busy giving his vessel stomach cancer. Cas just said he was keeping a low profile. Jesus." He sounds exhausted, even though Sam knows he'll never feel tired again, and he shakes his head. "But then suddenly there he was," he continues flatly. "Right out of the blue, in nineteen seventy eight. In the flesh. So to speak." He glances over at Sam, and his expression is opaque. "You know how many years Michael was off the radar?" he asks, and he doesn't wait for Sam's answer. "Roughly three thousand seven hundred."

Sam is trying to follow his brother's rambling, can't figure out where he's going with this at all, and he stares helplessly back. "I still don't get it. Where is this leading to?"

Dean smiles weakly. "That's roughly three thousand seven hundred Heaven years. Because in Heaven, time moves like it does in Hell." He raises an eyebrow. "You know how many earth years Michael disappeared for?"

And Sam starts doing the math, long, long, long division, and somehow it's slotting into place, starting to sound logical even though it isn't in the same county, the same state, the same continent as logic, even though it's pulling everything he thought he ever knew out from under him and tearing it into shreds in front of his eyes while it laughs in his face. "Roughly thirty-one," he breathes out. "Fuck. Michael fell… and then he was born. Like Ann—"

The atmosphere is suddenly as incendiary as it was a few minutes before, and it feels like a physical thing and he stops abruptly, because Dean is staring at him, and his eyes are brilliant.

"Let's get one thing straight here, Sam," he says slowly, carefully, like he's saying it once and once only, and Sam better commit it to memory or else. "I never fell. I wasn't banished, or exiled. I never disobeyed, and I never fuckin' rebelled. Don't you ever set me down at the same level as my brother, because what he did… it's unforgivable sin, and he is not forgiven in this age or the age to come." He's calm, breathing steadily, and he turns to face the wall opposite him again. "Is that clear?"

As crystal, Sam thinks, because suddenly he's lost for words, and he's flipping to what Gabriel said about Castiel's memory of Michael, it might be all he has left, and maybe he's finally decoding the message that was in the other angel's eyes. And it's another thing he just doesn't even want to think about, so he files it under pending and slams the desk drawer of his mind closed, and when his eyes flick back to Dean his brother's expression is somehow knowing. Jesus, he thinks, he never has been really sure if they can read minds.

"We never saw him, I never dreamed him, because he was already me," Dean continues after a beat. "Anna went back to kill our parents, and it changed everything because he was sent back too." He barks out a sudden laugh. "It's like the Terminator or something. He was sent back to protect me, to protect their glorious leader, their fuckin' Michael sword. And Mom was pregnant. And then I was born. Like you said." He shakes his head, seems miles away from Sam all of a sudden. "Fuck," he mutters. "Fuck. If I had just said yes before she went back… before she changed it all. Fuck."

And he shoots upright, erupts into a frenzy of punching the wall, and Sam can hear the tile cracking, hear chunks of it fall down, and he flinches at the force. And finally Dean stops, holds his hand out in front of him and examines his knuckles. "That didn't hurt at all," he says, and his voice is dreamy, awestruck. "It could come in useful."

"Can you fly too?" Sam blurts out, with a lack of diplomacy that surprises even him, because for a second he remembers honeybees and how his brother stared up at the sky when he told him what Ruby said. Because he was Michael, he was of the air, and they didn't even know it.

"I believe I can," Dean says softly. "I believe I can fly, Sam. I believe I can touch the sky. I think about it every night and day—"

Sam goggles at him. "R Kelly? Seriously?"

Dean sits down on the toilet seat, smiles, barely. "Perils of knowing it all, Sam. What's your excuse?"

Sam swallows thickly. "Jerk."

"Bitch."

"Dean…" He shifts, moves to push up, needs to put a hand on his brother, needs to feel flesh and blood, and warmth, a heartbeat, contact.

And Dean's face falls and he recoils, almost jumps out of his skin, and his hands are up, palms out. "Don't, Sam. Just – no. I can't do that."

Sam swallows back acrid disappointment. "Because you can smell her on me," he whispers. "Smell the Pit on me."

Dean smiles a brittle smile, doesn't deny it. "You want to talk about our feelings don't you?" he says distantly. "Well. I'm not even close to dealing with this. And neither are you. Maybe we'll get there, but for now you know damn well I'm doing what I always do, and just pretending it isn't there." His eyes harden. "And maybe you should too, because we have work to do. We need to get Pestilence, get his ring."

It hangs there between them, and finally Sam leans back, plants one hand on the floor beside him, winces at the sting of glass and snatches his hand back, examines his palm.

"Don't cut yourself on that," Dean says. "Though I guess I could just heal you if you did. You know, since it isn't your hairy ass."

Sam presses his hand up to his mouth, sucks the bead of blood at the base of his thumb. "It's just a scratch," he mumbles, and then he remembers something, shakes his head ruefully. "That poor old guy and his arthritis," he says. "I guess you really could have fixed his hip, made the pain—"

And he stops abruptly, because Dean is exploding up on to his feet again, skirting past him, and Sam can already hear the clatter of boots on the stairs. He pushes up himself, follows in his brother's wake, and there Dean is, and he's kneeling down next to the couch, shaking Bobby awake.

The old man is blinking frowsily, rubbing at his eyes, and his face lights up. "Dean! Dammit, boy, it's good to—"

And Dean is beaming up at him, megawatts blazing, and he's putting his hands on Bobby's legs, and he's telling him yes, he really can walk again.

TBC

Thanks for reading... I'd love it if you reviewed! ;-)