A Lesson Learned None Too Late
When Sam got home, his weariness made his bones feel like aluminum cans. His blood was soda in him, shaking and bubbling with the sadness of drunken Dean, still sobbing against his shoulder.
He led him into his man cave and laid him down in front of the TV. He pulled his shoes and socks off, hands unintentionally caressing Dean's feet. A shadow drew his attention and made him realize the fond way he was making over his brother. As if he was a vague and broken child and not the demon slayer with a belt full of legions. Sam looked up, stunned.
Castiel. He and Sam didn't have much time to bond alone. Sam swallowed when he saw the look on his friend's face. This was going to be one of those rare alone moments where the angel got something off his chest.
Sam smiled. He nodded to Dean.
"He'll be sleeping for a while."
Cas crept closer and looked down at Dean with wide, crying eyes.
"I never thought it possible."
"What?" Sam shifted, following Cas' gaze.
"That any human soul was capable of such selfless love, or grief. I am old, Sam. Far older than I can convey to your human understanding. I've seen so many ages of human life. Witnessed so many humans in Heaven, sometimes on Earth, and yes many times in Hell. And I would swear on my life, I thought you were shallow creatures." Cas was crying now. Something that surprised Sam deeply.
"But it was as if God had saved the best for last." Cas knelt beside Dean, lips trembling. He closed his eyes, as the tears rolled into his palm. Sam wondered if he should do something, but he figured he should let the ancient being express himself in his own way.
"I had never hoped to meet any human that loved so infinitely. And then, I pulled Dean Winchester from Hell. It was an experience to shake all religion loose. The surge of righteous understanding that shot straight up my arm, and went to my head with all my years of studied loftiness. The man's soul was simply too pure for the place, for it was too pure for even Heaven. Too pure to be dead. And it was honestly only bleached so pure because of how deeply he loved you. You, who were, at the time, understood to be an Abomination. A Cosmic joke I find no amusement in now..." Cas stood up and looked at Sam, the tears pouring down his face.
"I always kept my safe distance from you...But I've seen the splinters of your soul trying to mesh with all the shattered pieces of him. Every inch of his innermost thoughts slashed to ribbons by you! For the love of him, and to Hell with all the world, you burned. And I let you burn, Sam. I let you burn and I never asked forgiveness…"Cas bowed his head. Sam understood then.
"You...This is about all those years ago when we had that falling out, isn't it?" Sam swallowed. Cas looked back down at Dean and laid a fond hand atop his head, shaking his own head with grave remorse.
Cas turned away from Dean then and rushed to Sam and embraced him fiercely. Sam froze and then he allowed it. Cas bowed his head to his shoulder and cried for a long, long time. Sam held him, understanding. Cas had become every bit the brother to him that Dean was. He needed to allow him to have this.
"I should never have let you burn, Sam. I should have found a way to save you both from your fate that saved the world. I should never have gone to war with Raphael. It should never have been up to Death to finally raise you from the torment your journal and Jack's dreams describe…"Cas nuzzled Sam's shoulder. Sam drew a deep breath, brought near tears himself.
"Cas...Listen, buddy, I forgave you for all that a long time ago." Sam nodded. Cas leaned back and collared Sam.
"Tell me, boy? Does that make it alright?" Cas's voice came out as a hoarse metallic hiccup. Sam bit his lip.
"Does it make breaking your wall, sentencing you to death by hallucination alright? Sam!" Cas swallowed a sudden gasp that made it look like he'd pass out. Sam was crying then, softly.
"Hey...I had debts I had to pay back too, right? Things I did that..." Sam nodded.
"Oh, you mean Lilith and the demon blood? No, Sam...That's my fault too."
"How?"
"I was the one who let you out of the panic room the night you ended the demoness. I was the one who allowed you to be led astray by Ruby instead of stopping you from using the demon blood myself. Because I had the power. Sam, power is responsibility and I failed you…"Cas clutched at Sam's collar crying pitifully not wanting to fall down.
Sam was speechless. Cas gulped in more air and let out a shaky, almost girl-child pitched sob.
"And how could I? How could I have been so caught up in angelic duty, in honor that I ignored the mission to protect the one gift God gave Creation that was too much?! How could I when I have never in all my long, long life loved anything or anyone so truly or deeply as I have you and your brother?" Cas caressed Sam's face. Sam swallowed.
"Shh, stop. Please, stop." Sam shook his head as Cas doubled over himself. Sam pressed his hand to Cas' neck. But Cas was not able to stop. He was shaking and wiping his hands over his face. Sam swallowed and pulled Cas over to a settee Dean had set up in the corner. He sat down on it with Cas still in his arms.
"There are two things that we can't do for each other, Sam. I cannot ask you for forgiveness about all those things. And you can't ask me to stop. Don't tell my heart not to break into a million little pieces after everything that you went through. That we put him through…"Cas finally lifted his head and looked over at Dean.
"You know, though, you can make it alright again. You can. Just don't cry anymore. Okay? It's okay. Because you maybe won't ask, but I did forgive you, Cas." Sam swallowed. And Cas smiled.
"Mm, but see, it isn't only grief. I realized how much that I love-"Cas balled his hand into a fist and pressed it to his mouth. Sam understood and nodded.
"Both of you...Too much. And I can't stop. It would be like trying to shove all the blood back into your heart when it comes pouring out of a wound. And if you can't understand that now, after all that you've done for us...For him...I don't know how we can ever be even remotely intact again. Much less whole. Oh, Sam, if you only knew how deep the love in your brother's blood runs. It's like-Imagine if the sun tried to eat itself, to burn itself up to give the darkness light. That's his heart for you...He'd literally do anything to take the memory of that pain away from you and onto himself. And that's why it only hurts me more that I had some part to play in all of it." Cas was chattering, but his voice was falling away into silence. After a while, Sam had no more energy left to try and argue the point with him. Instead, he let him cry against his chest. And he laid back against the settee, hand on Cas' back and he let him cry.
About three hours later, Cas was too weak to cry anymore. And Dean was stirring to wakefulness.
Sam had dozed off. He woke up when he felt Dean tugging at Cas' hand. He kept his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep so he wouldn't have to confront anymore of their pain for just a little while. Perhaps it was selfish but it was too much…
"Hey...You've about bleached his shirt, man. I mean it's drenched. What gives?" Dean pulled Cas up from Sam's chest and onto his knees with him on the floor.
"I-I...Oh God...He brought you home after you...I found you last night when you…"Cas tried to explain.
"You know what's in that miserable little diary of his too, you mean?" Dean swallowed and tried to laugh.
"Dean, I'm sorry….I'm so so sorry."
"For what?"
"Well, it's my-"
"If you say "fault" so help me I will kick your ass." Dean gave Cas a soft shake. Cas stared at Dean stunned. Sam's eyes leaked open watching them without their knowledge.
"Don't you blame yourself. He did what he had to do and no one can take that away from him. That kid. Goes down as a legend every time the sun does. And so do we because of the love and the pain and the royal crazy that made us. Cas, you made us a family again. You did." Dean smiled and started wiping Cas' tear-soaked face with his sleeves.
"Get up and come in the kitchen with me. I need hangover stuff and you-I'm giving you a beer. You don't want a beer, fine, you'll get a beer." Dean smiled. He gave Cas a side hug and in the same motion pulled him to his feet.
Sam was still pretending to sleep like a child might when Dean unbuttoned his tear-soaked shirt and pulled it off of him. He felt Dean wad the shirt up and toss it on the table and then he felt him pull his arms into and zip up one of his own hoodies that had been left down here a few days ago.
He would have said something normally. He'd protest being treated like a baby, but Dean needed to take care of people or he went nuts. And after all that had been dredged up, Sam was the person he needed most in all the world to take care of. So Sam allowed it and allowed himself to take a moment to appreciate it. Like he would when he was little and got sick and Dean did the same thing as this.
"Sleep it off, little brother." Dean's hand ghosted over Sam's face, pushing his hair away from his eyes. Sam smiled, listening to Dean and Cas bicker as they headed toward the kitchen.
Sam laid in the dark in the warmth of the hoodie that Dean had dressed him in and cried. Softly because he was too washed out to cry with any greater fervor. He cried from sadness and the same overpowering realization that Cas had. He cried because he'd just now realized how much he loved his family as he heard them talking in the hallway.
"I mean, that kid better start communicating better or I'm going to make him take a polygraph every freakin' day. It will be on the dinner menu. Steak with a side of polygraph." Dean's flustered planning.
"Well, maybe we only need to be better at listening. Do you need my help? You seem to be walking oddly. You did fall quite hard last night. Do you hurt anywhere?" Cas' more patient, wizened voice. The eldest brother of the three.
"No, I'll be good. I told you, you will have a beer. I don't want to drink myself away by myself, okay? If there's gonna be tears there's gonna be some dang beers. Git yerself in here." The sound of Dean physically hauling Cas down the hallway by his arm and coat. The compliant coat-swishing as Cas went along with it even though he had primordial strength and could flick Dean off like a fly if he'd meant to.
Sam smiled and the tears caught in his teeth. His hands came up and brushed them off his cheeks. He was healed by a lesson learned none too late, by something as mundane as his brothers' constant bickering. Just like falling in love, Sam Winchester the Tormented had fallen asleep.