Side By Side
By: Abby Ebon
Summary: a Supernatural, Sam/Dean/Cas, it feels right, prompt, from comment_fic.
It's always felt right to be at Dean's side. Sam can admit when he thinks he's screwed things up, and this, above all, is a screw up. Cas is standing by Dean (where Sam should be) when Dean looks at him and Sam knows that something is wrong between them.
"I don't trust you anymore." A part of Sam's heart breaks to hear his brother say that, and he wants to protest – to say it isn't his fault. That he can be trusted still. He didn't mean for any of this to happen. It did though, and Sam must face the facts of it.
"Just give me some time, Sam, that's all I'm asking." Dean says with a sigh, and Cas looks to Dean as if he's only now been clued in that something is wrong. Sam hates Cas right then, when Cas touches Dean on the shoulder and all the tenseness visibly drains from his shoulders, Cas lightens Dean's emotional burdens when Sam can only watch his brother seem to weaken under them. Hell changed Dean, made Dean realize what only a few people live to, that Dean can do anything, and the only thing that's stopping him is his own morals.
"We can work this out, Dean – I…" can change, Sam wants to say, but does not finish, because Dean is turning away, as if he can't look at Sam without hating him. Sam can't get the words out, for the first time in his life, he isn't sure if they'd make any difference to Dean.
"I want you to leave me alone. I'm not hunting with someone like you. I'd hunt you, Sam, if I didn't know you – and you …you sided with them, believed in them when you should have believed in me." Dean doesn't sound upset or sad, just tired, as if he wants something simpler then this life, and yet won't throw hunting aside because it's the only thing he knows.
For Sam, time passes grudgingly slow, and a week goes by with no word from Dean, only a phone call from Cas; it's a month before Sam sees his brother, and Dean comes reluctantly through his door, limping with blood running down his legs, Cas at his left side, Sam doesn't hesitate to go to support his right. It's where he belongs.
"What happened?" He demands of Cas, who was supposed to keep Dean safe - if Cas was taking Sam's place. After the words leave his mouth, Cas gives him a look, and he realizes he's wrong, Cas didn't take his place with Dean, he found his own. And, somehow, Sam realizes that Cas fits with him as well as he does with Dean, it doesn't matter what happened – it only means they'll deal with it together.