Sam Winchester likes to think of himself as a pretty self-aware individual. If he told Dean that, he would scoff and give him that super annoying exaggerated eye-roll that he does, but, Sam maintains that it's true. Hell, it was a fucking intense process coming to this point—a really long process that involved John and Jess and Ruby and demon blood and Lucifer and an Apocalypse, and a lot of mistakes that, no matter what he does, he can never truly make up for or erase. The point is, after all of that, Sam is relatively certain that he has a pretty firm handle on his internal landscape (he does not use that phrase in his brother's presence to avoid the immature teasing). He knows that he's obsessive. He gets that he is angry. He's well aware of the fact that he is more than willing to go dark side in extreme circumstances. He's a lot like his dad, only worse, and the thought makes him uncomfortable. When he was a kid, the comparison would have made him want to jump off a cliff; when Dean was in hell, the thought would have been a source of pride, but, now, after everything, he's not sure what exactly that association does to him. He just knows that it's something of a cautionary tale. He doesn't want to be that person. He knows not to do go down that road, and he tries, god, how he tries, not to repeat his father's mistakes. Sam knows that he can never truly make amends for everything that he's done, but he's trying to take this new lease on life and do something right with it. At the very least, he wants to avoid repeating the past.
This is all to say that Sam Winchester is very aware of himself in relation to the world around him—unlike some people, who shall remain nameless (and unfortunately share his residence), and are so in denial about their feelings that they are basically walking blindly into walls. Sam rolls his eyes in frustration a lot these days.
When Bobby comes out to visit them in July, Sam fully expects (and he will not deny that, on some level, he is mildly excited by the prospect) some sort of intervention for Dean. He is chomping at the bit to participate if necessary. He's definitely ready to help with a pseudo pep talk for Castiel. Sam does not, by any stretch of the imagination, expect to be the target of Bobby's intercession, and he's blindsided by it in a truly unpleasant way.
No matter what Dean might say to the contrary, Sam has not spent the intervening time between his discussion with Bobby and the present sulking. This accusation—which his brother makes with increasing frequency, in increasingly nonverbal, but, distinctly more troubling ways—is, Sam strives to maintain, unfounded.
"Little defensive there, Sammy," a whisper taunts him, "Methinks, the Lady doth protest too much," the voice sounds hauntingly like Lucifer. For a moment he smells sulfur, fire, blood.
Sam groans and runs his hands agitatedly through his hair, blocking out the image, the ghost of a memory only partially realized. Here and now, he counsels himself, here and now.
The here and now involves being pissed at himself. Jesus Christ, Dean is the one who sulks. It's his big brother who pouts, suffering in silence, brooding. It's Dean who succumbs to teary eyed confessionals. It's Dean who represses his emotions to an annoyingly stoic degree and gives new meaning to the phrase "man-pain." Hell, Dean's picture should be included in the dictionary as the quintessential example of emotional repression. He's quite literally a textbook case. It's Dean who is viciously embroiled in this shit. It's Dean who shuffles around all twisted up inside. Sam is centered, Sam is self-aware, Sam faces his shit head on…doesn't he?
"Like I said, the Lady. Doth Protest. Too Much."
"Shut up," he tells himself, pressing his fingers hard into his eyes sockets. Colors blossom in kaleidoscopic arrangements behind his eyelids; interspersed with flashes of light.
He blinks, blearily at the room, expecting to see his brother or a hallucination. He's relieved to find neither. Dean has taken to checking up on him with bizarre, uncomfortable, (and, in Sam's reckoning) unmerited frequency. Sam is, subsequently, beyond annoyed. Dean pokes his head around doorjambs, peers at him critically from the stove top (when he should be focused on the oil spitting dangerously from the pan), watches him with narrowed eyes from across the table. Sam half expects him to use his spoon as an airplane and threaten to send him to bed without dessert if he doesn't finish his greens. Dean scrutinizes Sam's appearance, the color of his skin, the rings around his eyes, his general state of unkemptness and unease. Even worse, he's taken to solicitously inquiring after him all the damn time. Yesterday, he brought a heart healthy study snack to library. He even, alarmingly, referred to it as a 'heart healthy study snack," which means that Dean took the time to research what that consisted off and is now worried after Sam's cardiorespiratory system, which, in Sam's estimation, is kind of overkill. He would undoubtedly be appreciative under other circumstances, in which, you know, he had an appetite. As it stands, the apples and peanut butter, yogurt granola parfait, and orange, had lain uneaten. Dean's mouth had thinned to a hard, disappointed line when he realized his gesture had gone unacknowledged, and Sam had a fleeting moment of guilt, before he hastened (not skulked, the distinction is important), back to his work.
Dean's queries about Sam's sleeping habits, his dietary exploits, his alertness, health…it leaves Sam grumbling, bad tempered, and, after two weeks, it's resulted in him snapping impatiently.
"I'm not a baby, Dean," he had spat earlier.
Dean had pulled himself up to his full height and glared fiercely, "Coulda fooled me," he barked, before turning on his heel and stomping down the stairs.
Sam had chucked a book at Dean's head. Embarrassingly, he missed and was forced to collect the volume shamefaced, frustrated, and compelled to throw something else all at once.
They're at odds and the tension is thick, uncomfortable, and abrasive. They're grating on each other's nerves. Sam has the niggling suspicion that this could all be resolved if they'd just talk it out, but…he ignores the impulse. He feels a strange sense of triumph and self-righteousness in refusing to give in to Dean's queries and concern. Letting Dean take care of him feels strangely like capitulating in this battle of wills, and Sam refuses to do it. He doesn't even care if that's stupid or irrational. Letting someone else take care of him is at the root of his fucking problems. Dean can go fuck himself and leave Sam alone.
The trouble is that, no matter how supposedly self-aware or emotionally mature he may be, Bobby's words ricochet around Sam's brain almost incessantly. The leave him feeling lost, guilty, confused, trapped, and angry. He reaches a boiling point before spinning around, coming full circle, and starting on a slow simmer again. He can't shake their conversation. It replays endlessly. It overrides the words in his texts, plays over and over in his head when he tries to sleep. It keeps him up at night, distracts him during the day, and troubles him at every point in between.
Sam honestly wishes that he could completely extract the whole thing from his brain. He wants to expunge everything about it, not least, the residual, and overwhelming, sense of uncertainty and, almost, panic. He hasn't wished so fervently to be rid of an intruder like this since Lucifer. It doesn't help that the stress is causing him to have uncomfortable flashbacks to hell and hauntings. Possession addles you. He wonders what soul branding scars the Devil left on his way out because, even now, it's far too easy for Sam's sub-consciousness to conjure him in exacting detail.
Sam buries his face in his hands again, this is not an emotional or psychological place that he wants to be. See? Self-awareness. He is in full understanding and appreciation of the fact that he does not want to be so fucked up that he's back to seeing and hearing Satan. He does not want to be in a place where he can't sleep or focus. He sure as hell doesn't want to be this frustrated or confused or uncertain. Yet…he's unwilling to acknowledge or consider how the hell he's supposed to climb out of this place. He just…he can't…
That's how Cas finds him.
Cas showing up in the library isn't weird. He and Sam frequently work together: research, cataloguing, translation. They spend a lot of time together up here. It's a comfortable ambience and arrangement, all things told.
What is weird is Cas dropping into the chair across from him. Cas usually sits on the floor, he tucks (or attempts to tuck) his six-or-more feet tall frame into the various nooks, crannies, and corners afforded by the space. What is unusual is Cas fixing Sam with a penetrative stare. It's the intense, unblinking, Dumbledore-esque surveillance that he usually reserves for a particularly complex problem or Dean (it should be noted that the two are not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination). Sam is not regularly the subject of this gaze, and, now as he peers at Cas through his fingers, he can appreciate that Dean's categorization of the 'angel eyes' as being 'freaky' is pretty much right on the mark. Sam has the strangest sense that Cas can see his soul; can see straight through him, unearth all of his secrets, good or bad, and pass judgment if he so chooses. It leaves Sam feeling alarmingly exposed, like no shield would ever fully conceal him. A sense of panic, a need to bolt, races through his veins. He wonders if this how Dean feels all the damn time. It's a troubling, almost cautionary thought.
Sam inhales deeply, forcibly removes his hands from his face, and sits up straight in his chair. He feels that he may be on the verge of an angelic inquisition. He knows he's guilty of whatever sins shall be brought to bear. Sam makes a show of marking his page; the one that he's read seven separate times without understanding it in even the slightest. So much progress to mark, he mocks himself. It's hard sometimes, to distinguish between his mental voice and something much darker. Perhaps, after so much time, there is no distinction to be had. Perhaps that darkness is just a part of him, inextricable, blighting, damning, forever instilled.
He clears his throat, draws himself back to the here and now. In the here and now, Cas sits across from him, clearly waiting for him to make the first move. He wonders how much of his internal dialogue is discernable to the former-angel. He feels uncomfortably like maybe all of it.
"Do you, ah, have something on your mind, Cas?" he asks, hoping against all hope that the answer is no; that his worry and Cas' presence are mere coincidence. His voice sounds overly tentative. Does it sound overly tentative? How does one accomplish normalcy when it feels like one's insides are diseased tissue held together, just barely, with paperclips, string, and some superglue? He should be better at this by now. Better at the act. He'd been doing so well at it for weeks (hell, for years)…he'd almost fallen for his own charade, and now? Now he can barely keep it together for the length of a conversation. He doesn't have the confidence for the show. He's given up on his own lies. There's nothing left but a pasted on smile and even that is tenuous at best.
Cas blinks, "You seem troubled."
Now it's Sam's turn to blink. He wonders if Dean maybe clued Cas into his concerns. Has his brother gotten that desperate? Sharing the angel perched on his shoulder? Sending Cas on a reconnaissance mission? Jesus. He feels his ire rising, heady and thick, but Cas apparently is just as good at reading him as Sam had feared.
"Dean didn't send me," Cas notes.
"Then—?"
Cas rolls his eyes and shakes his head and he's suddenly, incredibly human, and Sam feels again embarrassed, though he's not sure exactly why.
"I was worried about you," he continues with a frown, as if this should have all been plainly obvious to him—ah, Sam recognizes his guilt, it's the brand that comes from underestimating or disappointing someone you care about, who cares about you, "I thought perhaps, that you might want to 'talk'."
Sam sort of stares blankly.
Cas continues, somewhat sheepishly, "I'm given to understand that, when friends notice distress they intervene and inquire after the source."
"Yeah," Sam begins, hoarsely, clears his throat, "They, ah, they do that."
Cas nods, sharply, relieved that his assumption has been proven true, perhaps also relieved that Sam is deigning to speak with him at all. The tension between the brothers has apparently been affecting Cas more than Sam thought…honestly, he hadn't thought about it at all; he suddenly feels like a shitty friend.
Cas continues to consider Sam, "Do you want to, ah, 'talk about it'?"
"No, yes, I," he grips his hair in frustration, "I don't know."
"A wise friend once told me that talking would help."
Cas' penetrative stare leaves him with no illusions of who, exactly, that friend had been. He's both touched and embarrassed at once. There's also a faint creeping of pride along the edges.
"Perhaps it would help for me to begin?"
"Cas, that's really nice of you, but you don't have to—"
Cas shrugs and shakes his head. The gestures fall more naturally on him than they did weeks ago.
There's an almost sheepish smile playing on Cas' lips; if you weren't looking for it, it would be imperceptible, "Bobby Singer has an uncanny ability to make you, ah, reflect upon yourself in uncomfortable ways," his mouth twists wryly, Sam recognizes the expression, it's a perfect echo of how he himself has been feeling for weeks, "You were not the only one who was affected by that particular characteristic."
On the one hand, Sam is reluctant to violate Cas' privacy; but, on the other hand…he's curious as to what Bobby said to him. He can't help it. It's a morbid curiosity perhaps. Curiosity killed the cat, a voice murmurs in the back of his head. He and Death, he counters, are old friends. Been there, done that.
"What did you talk about?"
Cas sits back a bit, less ramrod straight, leaning into a storytelling posture. It's new. Sam catalogs it. He occasionally thinks of these moments as entries in a mental folder he labels, "Cas' Baby Book." He will never mention this to a soul.
"We went to a Veteran's Association meeting."
Sam stares disbelievingly.
"You went where?"
"A Veteran's Association Meeting," Cas affirms, carefully, a bit of angelic impatience coming through in the sharpness of the consonants, "Bobby thought it was important for me to, ah, recognize that I was not a, in his words, 'special snowflake.'"
"A special snowflake," Sam repeats dumbly.
Cas inclines his head, "That was his phrasing, yes."
Sam rubs the back of his neck, "Cas, no offense to Bobby, but you kind of are a special case here…"
Cas has a pronounced furrow between his brows, but he isn't frowning. It's more like he's struggling to fully express himself.
"I am not," he eventually intones, "the only one who suffers…there are others who suffer in similar ways…"
Sam raises his brows. Last time he checked, fallen angels weren't exactly crowding the sidewalks in downtown Main Street; and, thank god for small miracles on that. He cringes at the prospect of Cas' brothers and sisters running amok on earth. He's getting carried away here, Cas, he's relatively certain is speaking figuratively, which is, in its own way more difficult to wrap his head around…His mouth tightens and he's trying to stay neutral, but his incredulity may be shining through regardless…Cas is not normal, none of them are, but Cas perhaps least of all…to equate his issues with your average Joe is, well, Sam's not sure what the hell Bobby had been thinking.
Cas, perhaps sensing Sam's skepticism, responds more bluntly this time, seemingly frustrated by his lack of understanding.
"I was a soldier, a warrior-," he explains, "That was my purpose, my only purpose, and now…," he shrugs again, the furrow deepens, and Sam feels a strangely overwhelming sense of empathy and sorrow for his friend, "now it is not. I'm not the only one who has experienced such a transition."
Cas blinks and tilts his head, "The scale is obviously different, but the general experience…is not so unique."
Sam remains unconvinced: species reassignment against your consent isn't exactly a widespread phenomenon, but Bobby apparently had had a different perspective.
As Cas explains, he had driven him to the VA and told Cas to 'suck it up and play nice.' Bobby had concocted a story—two tours of duty in Afghanistan, the lone survivor of an attack, phantom limb syndrome (he neglected to specify which), PTSD, TBI—he'd even brought paper work to back it up. Cas had sort of just allowed it to happen, confused, uncertain on his feet, dubious of the purpose of this exercise, much more willing to drift around the house, left to his own devices.
He had received calculating looks and sympathetic glances from the others, as if he were being judged, weighed, and measured.
Sam imagines it, almost too easily; Cas slinking to the VA, awkwardly following Bobby, scandalized by the old hunter's inability to even remotely encapsulate his experience within such a flimsy back story. He can picture Cas, glaring indignantly when Bobby stepped on his foot and narrowed his eyes warningly, telling Cas to shut up and 'quit acting like a baby.' Cas unused to chastisement, torn between righteous indignation, pride, and a clinging sensation that Bobby may be right, that he himself might be behaving immaturely, even disrespectfully, choosing to concede the point and doing as he was bid almost penitently.
Sam can clearly visualize Cas, taking deep breaths through his nose, frightened and unsure in the face of so many strangers, new surroundings, unflinching eyes. Sweaty palms, jumping stomach, a vague sense of unease—sensations that are so unbearably unfamiliar, and yet so much a part of Cas interactions with the world as a human; a defense mechanism born of limited (human) senses and an encroaching feeling of danger. Cas straightening his spine and glaring back anyway because Cas does nothing better, in all the universe, than give as good as he gets. Sam wonders, occasionally, what it is that Cas tells himself in such moments; he imagines that it's something like 'you pulled the righteous man out of hell, you can do this, suck it up,' though, probably more eloquent and probably not in English.
Bobby had nodded encouragingly when Cas puffed up his chest defiant, daring, unknowingly gaining the respect of the others in the room with his posture, with his carriage, with his confidence despite his fear.
Cas has seen wars, Sam knows, he has seen death, carnage, Hell itself—fuck, the man has waged war in hell—so it's no surprise that he could adapt his stories. This first time though, it had been more important, he admits now in the comfort of the library, that he listen. In listening, he'd found a shred of comfort, rooted in sympathy and empathy and sorrow and pain…feelings that, as an angel, he had never been able to fully master—there had been no human experience with which to take on the full range of human emotion and subsequently 'put himself in another's shoes.' Sam's mouth quirks of its own volition in response to Cas' finger quotes and use of a new idiom.
Cas had, apparently, in addition to understanding and comfort, experienced a shred of shame, for thinking that he was the only one, however briefly. Sam can relate to that sensation all too well. In fact, he muses ruefully, it seems to be a running theme through Bobby's heart-to-heart chats.
The individuals that Cas had met—different ages and genders and races and creeds—suffered trauma, dislocation, fear, an inability to connect upon their return, an almost complete inability to speak of what they'd seen, or even understand it. They knew what it was to look upon other humans, normal humans, and see them, occasionally, as an alien species, so different were their perspectives and experience of the world. The return to 'civilian life' had jarred and shocked, suffocated and stifled, made them feel alone and alien; foreigners in their own homes, strangers to their families. They had lost limbs, jobs, brothers, sisters, sanity, security, their very sense of self. It was agonizing and embittering and painful and much of that—almost all of it—Cas could understand all too well. He had nightmares, he questioned himself, he could sometimes not bear to be touched or spoken to; he could barely give voice to what he had lived through or seen in his many many years and here…there were people who understood that…who understood what it was to be part of a network, a cog in a machine, 'fox in a hole' ("you mean you shared a foxhole?" "yes, exactly"), they understood that sensation ("though not exactly—in the Host our connections were metaphysical, our graces could touch and link and sensations were used more oft than language to express things, in this way we could literally become one in certain moments of battle"); they also understood being removed from that and no longer understanding their place.
"You and your brother are, of course, great warriors," Cas continues with an inclination of his head, an acknowledgment, "but—," he hesitates.
"But it's different," Sam contends. He and Dean have each other and they've been to hell and back for one another, literally and figuratively, but there is something very different about the two of them. Sam's not going to touch on the codependency and the daddy issues and the mommy issues and the crippling way in which to lose his brother was like losing half of himself, but, he sighs, it's a unique situation. They have their own personal, two man foxhole. Hell, they grew up in that foxhole, they've grown inextricably close in that foxhole—it's different. Sam and Dean against the world, fighting for each other, for family, it's different from Cas' eternity fighting someone else's war. Cas brought into creation for the sole purpose of fighting someone else's unwinnable, unknowable war. Stationed, waiting, watching, fighting, with untold billions of siblings, most of whom were strangers to him, ever more the pawn of his superiors, trained to take orders and do his duty and nothing else—well, Sam can maybe relate to that bit. Cas at the end of all that, finally choosing for himself, choosing the war that he wanted to fight, choosing humanity, choosing what he thought was just and rebelling and living and dying for that cause—and finally, being discharged, disarmed, stranded and maimed by his father…Sam's jaw tightens with sympathy, with regret and sorrow, with something that feels like wrath. He sometimes thinks that Lucifer's greatest influence, the legacy he left, was to take the nascent rage, which had always been an intimate, inextricable part of Sam, like molten lava, flowing, simmering in his veins, and crystalize it into something pure, to turn it into something icy, clean, clear, razor sharp. His anger freezes and congeals; burns cold; it sharpens his vision and strengthens his sense of purpose. It crystalizes within him, roots him to the spot—makes his jaw clench and his spine straighten before he breathes and lets it go.
It's not fair, what's happened to Cas. It's not fair what's happened to any of them. And for what? On bad days, Sam asks himself that and he hates that he even wonders. Two tours in hell, fallen angels, sacrificed childhoods, lives, love…it's not right. It's not fair…
He clears his throat.
"So that's, ah, where you and Bobby kept going? The VA?" He wonders whether this news would assuage Dean's fears or open up new pathways for his big brother's nerves. He imagines Dean, narrow eyed, suspicious, falsely cheerful, as he worries about some handsome Marine, sweeping Cas off his feet with his brooding silent scowl. Cas has a type, he imagines Dean shouting panicked; it's almost enough to make Sam laugh. Almost. Dean's an idiot if he thinks that Cas would have eyes for anyone else. Ever.
The former angel in question, nods, "they, have a 'support group' that meets twice a week," he informs Sam, "Bobby and I also went to the park."
Sam repeats dumbly, "The park?"
"I enjoy watching humanity," Cas shrugs—it's getting to be his favorite gesture, "Bobby believes that observation will eventually encourage more active participation."
"Oh."
Bobby was apparently giving Cas some homemade, modified CBT, and, interestingly, though maybe unsurprisingly, the old man had found a way to do so that was respectful and forceful at once. Trust Bobby to figure out angel psychology.
Cas pauses and waits, blue eyes bright and piercing. He's infuriatingly patient, and, in this moment, seems incredibly old and wise, like a favorite grandfather who would give you peppermint candies and smoke a pipe and listen to your stories. Like a character out of C. S. Lewis or Tolkein (or the authors themselves), and Sam isn't sure how the hell he manages to look like that, given the fact that he just confessed that Bobby more or less took him on a field trip to learn that he wasn't a 'special snowflake' and told him to stop acting like he was so damn special already before taking him to feed the birds.
Sam tries to not feel badly about the fact that Cas has widely outpaced him in terms of maturity. Bobby pointed out an issue, that no one else in the fucking family—yeah, Sam is going to designate them as that, because, if they're at the stage where they can go on support group field trips and have holiday picnics, they are, family—even realized was an issue, and, instead of pitching a fit and sulking in the library for a few weeks, Cas basically just said, 'oh, you make a very good point,' and worked on fixing the problem, head on. Sam knows that would be difficult—would mean swallowing angelic pride (which is, quite honestly an impressive feat) and accepting difficult social situations, and forcibly making himself uncomfortable—but he did it anyway. Sam tries to remind himself that Cas has billions of years on him, of course, he'd be more mature, but somehow, the amount of trauma that Cas has endured in his few weeks as a human stand as a glaring chastisement to Sam.
Cas is still waiting—no judgment on his face, just placid, quite, calm. It's an invitation for confidence, a promise of acceptance.
Sam feels his throat constrict against an onslaught of verbosity. The kindness, the strange wounded wisdom that emanates from Cas in waves, is almost paralyzing. It makes Sam feel unclean by contrast, makes him feel stilted, dirty, unworthy. He has no right to a friendly ear, no right to comfort or compassion. No right to the empathy or the sympathy that Cas has developed such an abiding propensity for.
Cas blinks, still waiting. Sam clears his throat.
"I believe that it is your turn," Cas nudges, "if you feel comfortable."
"Yeah," Sam runs his hands over his face and through his hair. It's a nervous habit, born of stress and exhaustion. He really hasn't been sleeping well.
"You don't have to talk," Cas reminds him, "and I don't presume to know much about these 'chick-flick' moments—"
Sam gives a wet laugh at that.
"—but I think it may help you to exorcize what has been troubling you."
Sam takes a deep inhale through his nose—it's fortifying, like the gulp of air you take in before you jump off the diving board and into the deep end.
"Bobby said that I was turning into Emily Dickenson," he blurts out, louder than he originally intended.
Cas frowns at the outburst; Sam wants to cover his eyes. Cas hesitates for the barest second before he speaks, "I was unaware that you had taken up poetry, but I'm certain that Dean would be amenable to publishing your work posthumously if you so desire."
Sam blinks. Cas blinks.
"Did you just make a joke?" he asks almost dumfounded.
"Was it funny?" Cas has a perfect poker face, but there is the tiniest gleam in his eyes, a weird flicker of humor, wry wit, shining out of their depths.
"Holy shit," Sam snorts and he's laughing almost hysterically.
Cas smiles hesitantly.
"I presume then that you haven't taken up poetry in your leisure time," Cas continues in light of Sam's laughter.
The young Winchester wipes at his eyes.
"No," he admits, suddenly sober, "no, I haven't."
Cas cocks an eyebrow, "So Bobby was referring to your self-isolation."
"You think I'm isolating myself?"
Cas' mouth twitches at the corner, "I can see why you would have been successful as a lawyer."
Sam laughs drily, almost painfully. He's not a lawyer and that is the whole damn problem in a nutshell.
Before he can stop himself, the story pours out of him.
Bobby had browsed the shelves before sitting exactly where Cas now perches, giving him a stare that was just as piercing.
That's when Sam knew he was in trouble.
"What're you doin', boy?" he had asked, face a strange mix of levity and concern.
Sam had the strangest sensation that it was a trick question, for the barest moment he worried that Bobby was going senile, because Sam was clearly working in the library. It was common knowledge, a totally transparent action. Considering the relatively innocuous nature of his current project in comparison with Sam's earlier, ah, 'ventures', Bobby's questioning posture seemed entirely out of place. Sam decided that the best course of action was to respond as sensibly as possible, treat Bobby the way that he would treat Dean on the verge of a breakdown of some kind.
"I'm, ah, sorting the medieval collection?" he brandished the volume of parchment in his hand by way of explanation.
Bobby watched the movement critically, as if Sam were the one who were losing his mental acuity, "Yeah, I can see that," he inclined his head solemnly, "and at the rate you're goin' you're gonna be done sortin' a lifetime's worth of archive an a year—maybe two."
He said the last as if it were a serious problem, rather than a hallmark of fastidious work ethic.
Sam felt a frown encroach upon his forehead, a headache began a vicious tattoo at his temples, and somehow he felt like he'd missed a step going down the stairs. He had a sudden recollection of bringing home an A+ spelling paper, which his dad received with utter disdain because it was not as important as shotgun marksmanship. There was something terrifyingly similar about Bobby's disapproval: disappoint where Sam had expected praise.
"Isn't that a good thing?" he asked, still with a slight tone of lightheartedness, but his self-assurance was mitigated by confusion.
Bobby shrugged and leaned back in his chair, "That depends."
"On…?"
"Sam," Bobby was definitively frowning, "why exactly are you in such a rush?"
"Is that a trick question?" he almost laughed with incredulity, his eyes widened, but quickly narrowed in consternation when Bobby did not share the joke.
Bobby simply shrugged.
Sam felt something like impatience rising along with his hackles, "Bobby, this work is important. There's years of untapped history, resources we've only dreamed about, it's incredible." The archives that were unearthed in the library alone (never mind the crates and boxes waiting the attic or basement) were a scholarly wet dream. The knowledge contained here could save lives, could seriously change things, could help people, and Bobby expected him to what? Just leave it to rot for another century?
Bobby frowned more deeply and shook his head, as if Sam were entirely missing his point, "Son, I ain't sayin' that this isn't important work," he reassured gruffly, "God knows, I wanna get my hands on this stuff much as you do…but, Sam, you're acting like you're preparing for judgment day."
He met Sam's eyes with his own, wide, far too understanding gaze, "You may have noticed that crisis has been averted."
Bobby's words were gentle, but Sam still felt frozen in place for a moment, the sensation of falling, an impression of fire, ice, howling wind, all-consuming blackness and blinding light. He shook himself out of his daze and back into the present where Bobby's sympathetic stare was waiting.
"Yeah, I'd noticed," he's not sure whether his voice sounds defeated, exhausted, or resigned. It certainly lacks the sarcasm that Sam had expected to rise to his defense.
Bobby nodded shortly, "Good."
Sam felt suddenly drained, "Bobby, what exactly are you getting at?"
"I'm just wonderin' why you're shutting yourself up like a monk…seems an awful lot like you're doin' penance."
"Penance?"
"Son, you hole yourself up here for days at a time—"
"No, I don't," Sam negated vehemently.
Bobby's brows almost hit the rim of his trucker's cap.
"I go out." Fuck Dean and Cas for this. You spend a night or two working in the library and suddenly you have a 'problem' and need to be ratted on. What is this Kindergarten?
"Uhuh," Bobby's mouth pursed, "How many people you know in this town—how many connections you made?"
Sam opened his mouth and closed it, sharply.
"You're tired, you look like you ain't seen the light of day in about a month."
Exaggeration, he thought, but he began to doubt himself. When was the last time he had slept in his own bed? When was the last time he'd actually gone out to do anything besides buy groceries? When was the last time he'd had an actual conversation with someone to whom he was not related?
"You didn't have a problem givin' up your room, cause you ain't livin' in there, Sam," there was something pained in Bobby's eyes, "I didn't raise you boys to be this stupid."
A knife twisted painfully in Sam's gut at those words. Some ache heretofore unknown or unexamined suddenly rose to the surface and it burned him all the way through, as powerful as hellfire and more debilitating for its element of surprise.
"Bobby—" he tried to interrupt with no notion of what to say, but the older man cut him off efficiently with a brusque wave of his hand.
He adjusted his hat and continued, "I didn't raise you period," he sighed, "your daddy was a self-absorbed bastard, and he fucked you boys over more ways than I can count…I shoulda stepped in sooner, but I didn't think it was my place," his smile twisted bitterly, and Sam remembered a strong hand on his arm, a painful grip, dragging him to the car, shoving him in the backseat, Dean tense and worried on the other side, and Dad fuming, he remembered watching Bobby in the back window as they drove away, disappoint over a baseball game he would never see…
"Bobby," Sam tried gently, consolingly, but Bobby waved him off again.
"I accept my responsibility in all of it," he let out a deep breath, one he'd clearly been holding for years, "and I'm steppin in now, cause between the two birdbrains downstairs and you, I got my hands full."
Sam frowned, confused by the sudden transition from sorrowful to scolding, but reassured by the gruffness. Ornery Bobby was a familiar creature, and Sam had always been more comfortable with the brusque expression of affection it offered.
"I'm thinkin' you're hiding out up here because you're afraid."
"Of what?" As Bobby had pointed out, the apocalypse had been averted. All the monsters and mayhem (of a supernatural variety, anyway), and been locked away. There wasn't a whole hell of a lot to be afraid of in the post-apocalyptic world, and, in Sam's opinion, anything is a basically a joyride in comparison to long term Satanic possession and a few thousand years as an arch-angel chew toy.
Bobby shook his head, there was too much kindness there, and Sam braced himself for impact a second before Bobby's words hit him.
"Getting' somebody hurt."
Sam's jaw clenched so tightly that his entire face hurt. He could tell, suddenly, unequivocally, where this conversation was going and he did not, even for a moment, want to follow it down that road. That road was closed, no entry, restricted, dead end. It was taped off, sequestered, locked, key thrown out, buried. No one was allowed to speak of it, and Sam especially couldn't.
"Bobby—" he started, and he was amazed that he could force the words from between his teeth. He was startled by the strangely broken cadence of his voice as it tripped over the word.
"When Karen died, I turned into a grumpy reclusive bastard, who drank too much," Bobby shook his head ruefully, rubbed the back of his neck, "When your mama died, your daddy turned into a revenge seeking ass, who didn't give a fuck about anything but killing the bastard who done it—"
To the detriment of everyone who knew him, including his sons, he didn't have to say it…Bobby shared a look with Sam, who knew, all too well, the cost of his father's quest.
"—and I know that for me to tell you this, is a damn case of pot callin' kettle black, but, son, it'd be a damn shame if you followed in either one of our footsteps."
"You think," Sam had to clear his throat, confused, uncomfortable, wounded, "You think that this is about Jess."
It's been years, and it still hurts to say her name, to imagine for a second the contours of her face, the light of her smile or the tenderness of her skin, her laugh, her sass, her vivaciousness. He can't remember any of that without also remembering the way that it all went up in flames, the doom that waited for her the second they met, that her loss is his burden and his fault. It always will be.
"She wouldn't want you to shut yourself away, Sam."
Bobby would never know what the hell she wanted, Sam thought viciously, wrathfully, because she died long before he would have met her, and it was Sam's fault and how dare he—
"What happened to her wasn't your fault," Bobby continued, either unaware, or, judging by his countenance, all too aware, of Sam's internal dilemma, "the bastards that did that are dead and gone. You got a second chance—"
"She didn't," Sam spat, the words escaping him before he even realized they were there.
"And it's not fair," Bobby nodded, his tone heavy with loss, "But hiding up here isn't gonna change that. Sam, at the rate you're goin' you're gonna finish this is two years tops, and you're gonna wake up and you're gonna have to deal with this," he taps he chest, "whether you like it or not."
Sam simply stared.
"It's always better to fight on your own terms," Bobby noted, voice graveled and low, "and it'd be a damn shame if you didn't fight at all."
Sam nodded curtly, refusing to meet the older man's stare.
"Think about it," Bobby concluded.
Sam had spent the rest of the afternoon in something of a stupefied silence. Thoughts, memories, regrets, chased themselves in endless circles through his brain. He'd showed Bobby the archives that he'd cataloged and those that he hadn't even looked at yet. They'd talked about more mundane subjects. Sam didn't even have the heart to ask if and when Bobby was going to give Dean a talking to, he couldn't even imagine, and he was surprised and doubly pained to realize that Dean's had apparently not been as severe or destabilizing as his own. How pride doth come before a fall, he thought—his mental voice was Satan's and the thoughts began anew.
He had followed Bobby's advice, he had 'thought about it' endlessly, annoyingly, frustratingly, constantly, but he had not come up with anything reassuring or stabilizing.
It feels, suddenly surreal to be unburdening all of these thoughts and feelings to Cas. The story empties out of him; once he begins he can't stop. Cas listens patiently, brow furrowed in concentration throughout Sam's recounting and, when he finishes his tale, leans forward with his face in his hands, and a frustrated groan, Cas reaches out a hand and gently lays it upon Sam's elbow.
The gesture of physical comfort, the demonstrativeness, however slight, is so unexpected that Sam almost jumps clear out of his skin.
"Thank you," the former angel offers solemnly, "for sharing your story."
"Ah, thanks for listening."
"I appreciate the gesture of trust," Cas continues, validation is apparently important to him, which makes sense, given that his most recent forays into humanity have revolved around participation in support groups, "you demonstrated in unburdening your woes."
Sam snorts despite Cas' complete sincerity, "Any time."
"So this is why you have been so distraught?" Cas continues, head tilted to the side, regarding Sam with all of his considerable attention, "because Bobby mentioned Jessica and accused you of 'hiding'."
Sam runs his hand through his hair restlessly, "Do you think I'm hiding?" he asks and he hates how much he sounds like an insecure child, seeking reassurance from a parent. He hates, retrospectively, how much he's been acting like a angst-ridden teenager more generally.
Cas sighs deeply, "I think that if you are, it is not a function of willful seclusion," he shrugs, "much of what we do, as humans, is not necessarily a function of logic or election," he looks suddenly far away, contemplative, sad, and Sam wonders what exactly he's thinking of. He sees Cas look at Dean sometimes, wistfully, longingly, just as often he sees Cas visibly flinch when he is touched, he supposes that Cas' longing for closeness and his self-defense mechanisms constantly vying against one another must be painful and frustrating.
"Perhaps, as Bobby suggests, you are 'hiding' up here, but that does not negate the fact that you are doing important work, as you said," he pauses for a moment, thinking, "nor does your decision to remain up here, consciously or unconsciously, working as you do, make you a 'coward' of any kind."
Sam shakes his head, wondering how Cas even picked up on that particular fear, touched that he had.
"But I do agree with Bobby—"
Sam's head snaps up and he meets Cas' piercing gaze, head on, waiting.
"I think it would be a shame for you to hide away up here—you have so much to offer the world, Sam, you are a good person—"
Sam laughs scathingly; he hears Lucifer's echoing chortle.
Cas looks unendurably sad as he shakes his head at Sam's doubt, "—you deserve good things. And it would be better for you to choose when to engage with the world, rather than have the world thrust upon you," his contorts into a half smile that is self-deprecating at best, "the latter can be overwhelming and painful."
"Yeah, I, yeah…thanks, Cas."
"You're welcome, Sam."
They spend the rest of the afternoon working together in the library and Sam feels, well, not exactly great, but definitely better; less like he's about to jump out of his skin. By the time that Dean gets home, he's actually translated two chapters, and he leaves the library (voluntarily) to help with dinner for the first time in weeks. Dean raises his eyebrows questioningly when Sam trundles down the stairs, and he shoots a look laced with meaning at Cas, who smiles smugly, but he doesn't say anything. He just rolls up his sleeves, pops a piece of cucumber into his grinning mouth, and tells Sam to chop the carrots.
Sam had forgotten over the past few weeks what it was to relax—not that he's had a lot of experiences with that sensation more generally—he had forgotten, somehow, so caught up in his own obsessive thoughts, discomfort, self-flagellation, and worry, how awesome it was to joke with Dean and trade esoteric knowledge with Cas and fool around in the kitchen. He wonders, as he eats, if this is what his dad's whole life had been: a series of missed moments, so consumed by his own fears and his own quest and his own refusal to face reality that he had missed out on the most important parts of life…of living. It's a chilling, terrifying thought. He had once again been set on that path, and he's suddenly thankful to Bobby and Cas for derailing him; he takes a deep breath and a gulp of water.
He looks at his family sitting around him. He hadn't realized how much he missed Dean's easy smile (back in place now that Sam has returned to the land of the living) and twinkling eyes, his ridiculous humor, and his caring nature. He'd missed Cas' kindness, his strength, his seriousness; he'd missed the way that Cas makes them tea after dinner, or the way Dean contorts his face and moans over dessert (Sam maintains that this show is actually really gross, and he would rather gouge out his own eyes than admit that he had missed his brother being an immature idiot); he'd missed movie nights, and quiet reading on the front porch, and star gazing. He'd missed the new sense of serenity and meaning that this house has brought into their lives.
When he goes up to bed that night, he takes stock of his room. Bobby had been right, Sam had avoided settling in. He'd done so much to convince Dean to stay, but, more and more, he's coming to realize that, though he was completely right, he'd also been projecting. Home, as a concept, as an entity, is foreign to Sam. The haven, the home, that he had crafted with Jess was beautiful, but it was short lived, painful, and the agony of it is still raw. His fear of creating a home is just as real as Dean's, just as complete, just as paralyzing, but, as with many things between the brothers, expressed and experienced differently. Sam had been so dead set on being the rational one, the self-aware one, the one keeping everything together, because it had distracted him from the ways in which he was rebelling and even falling apart himself.
He takes a deep breath and flops on this bed. He needs some pictures in here. Maybe some new ones, on his desk. He smiles slightly, throws an arm over his face. It's nice to lie down in his room, to sprawl out his large frame on a comfortable surface, instead of curling up in an arm chair or waking up hunched over a desk.
Cas, he reflects, had been right: Bobby has the uncanny ability to point out things that you yourself are loathe to see; and the moment of reflection is discomfiting and disorienting, but, sometimes, it's maybe what you need.
Sam, upon reflection, doesn't really want to be the Emily Dickenson of the, but he's not quite ready to dive headfirst into society picnics either.
His limbs feel heavy and he turns on his side, face half pressed into his pillow. Pillows, he thinks languorously, are nice…Dean was right about the memory foam. He hears someone, Cas he thinks, close his door. Running water…his brother brushing his teeth. He likes having his family close by, safe. He snuggles deeper, half-asleep, into his blankets.
His last conscious thought before dozing is that he'll take some books to translate into town tomorrow: something innocuous, easily hidden, it'll be nice to get out…baby steps…
I would like to apologize PROFUSELY for how long it took to write and post this chapter. It was an incredibly long and difficult semester fraught with all types of personal and professional stressors (that took up nearly all of my available 'free time'). THANK YOU, so incredibly much, all of you, for supporting and encouraging me through that, and thank you, especially, for continuing to stick with this story despite my long hiatus. It's good to be back in writing mode. I would *never* abandon this story, and I should hopefully be on a much more regular posting schedule now that things have settled in the real world.
I would love to hear what you think of this most recent chapter!
Much love, look for an update in about two weeks.
xo