70. If I'm Not Beyond Repair

“He didn’t tell me what.” 

The words sound like they’re coming from far away. They are quiet – distant – next to what’s happening inside of Sam’s head. He feels like he’s just pulled the pin on a grenade. Like he’s holding it close to his chest, hand clamped around it so hard that it’s shaking. 

Castiel doesn’t answer him. His eyes are wide. Horrified. He takes a step away, backwards, as if he, too, has spotted the pin falling to the ground. 

“Castiel,” Sam enunciates carefully. Far too calm for what he’s feeling. “What do you mean.” 

It’s not a question. It’s not a question, because he thinks he already knows. 

The panic on the other man’s face increases exponentially. “I – I didn’t know he hadn’t told you,” he stutters out, hands rising to his chest in a gesture that’s probably supposed to look placating. “Believe me, Sam, I didn’t –” 

“What. Didn’t. He. Tell. Me.” 

Each word comes ringing out like a shot. He grits his teeth. Tastes the metallic tang of the gunpowder and lead on his tongue.  

Castiel’s face is pale. “I shouldn’t have said anything,” he stutters, mostly to himself. “Shit. Shit, I–”

“What was Crowley going to do?” Sam demands, moving forward again – and this time, Castiel doesn’t match the movement. He just stares at Sam, torn. Sam feels the last of his patience disappear with a snap. “Castiel, goddamnit, just tell me–” 

“He was making a statement,” Castiel blurts. “John had let one of his bounties go. A child, from what Dean told me – and Crowley found out, and he – he cornered your father. Threatened to… threatened to take –”

He cuts himself off. Inhales, shakily. 

Sam feels those words wash over him. They mean nothing, even though he knows they should. He stares at Castiel, that grenade trembling in his hand. Muscles growing weaker the harder and longer he holds on. 

He feels something click, and knows there’s no going back. 

“He wanted an eye for an eye,” he whispers. “Didn’t he.” 

Castiel swallows. Doesn’t answer – but he doesn’t need to. Sam knows the truth. He remembers the man that Crowley was. Remembers how Dean hadn’t let Sam anywhere near him, how he’d spat his name, how their father always owed him something. 

“Crowley was going to hold me hostage,” Sam says softly. He feels the truth of it ring hollow in his chest. “For insurance. He told Dad he was going to take me, and Dad – he was going to let him. He had him cornered, ‘cause I was gone, and Dad didn’t even know where I was, and...” 

The other alpha looks him in the eye, his wide-eyed fear fading slowly into sadness. Pity, too, probably for the shit father that they both had, for the hand they were dealt as kids that they didn’t deserve. There’s grief there. Grief for Dean. 

Maybe for Sam, too.  

“Dean must have overheard,” Sam continues. He can easily imagine it – Dean listening in from somewhere John wouldn’t spot him. His face going pale when he realized what Crowley was threatening, his big-brother, self-sacrificial bullshit kicking into full gear. “Dean heard him, and he–” 

And then something explodes in his chest. 

“No. No.” The words rip out of him, shrapnel from a wound. “No, he – he didn’t. Tell me he didn’t – tell me this wasn’t for me, Castiel, fuck–” 

“Sam,” the alpha begins, his voice aching and gentle, too gentle, far too kind for Sam and what he’s earned. Shit, the man is scared, is standing at the ready like he’s prepared for Sam to attack him, and still he’s being kind. 

“No,” Sam chokes out. He says more – he knows he does. Meaningless words, denial that’s futile. He stands there, ears ringing with the blow, his arms tense and useless at his sides, his fire burning with nowhere to go. “He can’t have. He – I’m not worth that, he can’t have–”

“Sam,” Castiel says again, but this time it’s like a hand on a shoulder, like a comforting hug, and Sam can’t believe he was ever scared of this man. Can’t believe he thought that he would hurt anyone. Because he’s standing there, hands raised to placating height, eyes full of sympathy, ready to talk him down, to help him, even though Castiel knows that it’s his fault. He knows that it’s Sam’s fault that Dean–  

He feels helplessness well up inside of him so fast he chokes on it. 

Sam takes a step toward the house. Just one – he’s not sure where he’s even going, what he intends to do. But, just as fast, Castiel moves in front of him; decisive, a wall of protective force. It clicks, a half second later – the man thinks that Sam’s headed for Dean. To do or say God knows what. 

The realization makes Sam sick. 

“I,” he starts, and then stops. Feels himself shudder, rage and frustration at the injustice of it all wracking through him like aftershocks. “I need –  I – ” 

Castiel doesn’t speak. Doesn’t say anything, or do anything, other than to stand between Dean and Sam like he needs to be that kind of shield. And maybe he does. Sam can’t even be mad at the man for his assumption – hasn’t Sam fucked up often enough? Taken out his anger or his fear on the exact person he shouldn’t, at the exact wrong time?

He doesn’t want to think about how Dean would have reacted, had Sam torn into his room. Shaken him awake, demanded an explanation, demanded for Dean to tell Sam he’s wrong, that he didn’t give up everything just for him. 

He hates himself. Hates himself for the small part that still wants to do just that. 

“I. I need to make a phone call.” 

Castiel’s face goes slack with surprise. Looking suddenly wrongfooted, he furrows his brow. “Excuse me?” 

“I…” Sam trails off. He feels almost dizzy with the aftershocks. His voice is faint. “I need to call my fucking therapist.” 

Blinking, absolutely taken aback, Castiel doesn’t say anything at all. And, again, Sam can’t blame him. The shock on his face would be funny if it wasn’t an indication of just how badly Sam has screwed up things like this thus far.

He doesn’t want to fuck up again. 

His hand feels too big, too clumsy, when he fumbles his phone out of his pocket. His feet feel wrong and strange when he steps away. Like he’s walking underwater. But he pushes through, shakily dials the number, only distantly aware of Castiel’s eyes on him as he goes.

The phone starts ringing just as he’s rounding the corner to the garage, stacks of metallic corpses forming a barrier between him and the rest of the world. He’s sinking to the ground before he even knows what he’s doing, the dirt rocky and hard beneath him, the cold press of rusted metal at his back. He’s glad for it. 

“Samuel?” Missouri’s voice is thick with sleep and confusion when she picks up. “What in the world are you doing, calling me at this hour?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. Feels his throat grow thick with something between rage and grief. Her voice is a balm on burn, but he realizes how ridiculous he’s being. How insane. “Sorry.” 

Her soft southern voice sharpens with concern immediately , because of course it does. Even when he called to update her on Dean in the first place – that they’d found him – he’d been fairly composed. Had held it together enough to pass as mostly sane. But he can feel that mask shaking and cracking, rubble after the bomb blast. 

“Are you breathing, boy?” She demands more than asks. Sam sucks in a breath and feels his vision clear a little – he feels something like a sob try to crowd out with the exhale. “There you go. Again, with me this time. I’m gonna count.” 

She does, and he does his best to follow along, to force his lungs to get with the program. Each gasp hurts, like his body is trying to rebel, trying to shut down and keep him from feeling the weight of Castiel’s words, of his own sudden and awful understanding. 

“You still with me, honey?” 

He blinks. Realizes he has no idea how much time has passed. His voice, when he speaks, is rough like he’s been screaming and raging, like he didn’t contain the blast after all. “Yeah,” he chokes out. “I’m. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” 

“Yes you did,” she disagrees pleasantly. It’s strange – she should be angry, should be frustrated, but she isn’t. She’s just factual. Kind in a way that Sam, back in the day, had struggled to understand – and still sometimes does. “And it’s alright. I told you that you could, remember?” Sam nods, mute, because she had. Had insisted that he do so, actually, after he’d told her about Dean. “I had an inkling that somethin’ like this was coming. And, no, I’m not goin’ anywhere, so don’t you even try it.” 

He snaps his mouth shut, his automatic insistence that she go back to sleep dying in his throat. Missouri always manages to make him feel so small. Not like someone who is lesser, not like someone who is below her. But like a child. Like someone who doesn’t have to carry everything himself. Someone who is seen. 

“Okay,” he whispers, and it’s like dropping white hot shrapnel from shredded palms. 

She sits with him for a while longer, just breathing. She’s patient like that, he’s learned – over the years, he’s never once managed to make her snap at him to hurry it along. When Bobby had first insisted he go, Sam had been nothing but a surly, shitty teenager. Convinced that he didn’t need to talk to some stranger about his problems, convinced that she’d never understand what he was feeling, that she’d try to convince him that he should let the ghost of his brother go. 

He’d sat in her office, gangly and uncoordinated and too damn tall for fourteen, uncomfortable in his skin and making that crystal clear for the world to see with every move he made. Arms crossed, mouth sealed shut, like relaxing might mean that all the awful shit inside of him would come bursting out. Afraid that opening his mouth would mean she’d see just how damaged and fucked up he still was, years after Dean had left him behind. He’d been prepared to fight. 

But she’d just waited him out. Had sat in her chair with a slight smile on her face, hands folded in front of her. Hadn’t responded at all to his first snapped, goading insult – nor his second or third. 

By the end of that appointment, he’d been so furious that he’d been convinced he’d never go back. By the end of the month, she’d slowly pried him open, and he’d left each session feeling scraped raw in a way that hurt too much to be anything but good. 

She’s always understood the importance of letting him come to her; always let him be the one to break the silence – and that’s no different now. 

“He did it for me,” he finally whispers. “Missouri. He – he was protecting me.” 

Familiar as she is with the gritty details of Sam’s childhood, Missouri doesn’t have to ask for clarification. Doesn’t need to ask what, exactly, might have happened to Sam if Dean hadn’t been there. She just draws in a slow, careful breath. Blows it out just as carefully.

“We’ve always said,” she reminds him, her voice lighter than it has any right to be, “that it was likely he did it for you, Sam. That he was trying to care for you in the only way he knew how, at that age.”

Sam feels tears press out of his eyes. Streak down his face. He lets them fall. “Yeah, but. But not like this. Not because he was taking my place, not ‘cause it was me or him.” 

He can almost see her mouth curling; the tiny frown that she tends to wear when they’re discussing John. “Something your father got himself into, I’m guessing.” 

Sam swallows. “Yeah.” 

“Samuel,” she starts, her tone settling comfortably into the no-nonsense quality that he’s come to rely on to tether him back to the earth. “This doesn’t change anything.” 

He protests immediately. “But–” 

“No,” she interrupts, blunt. “You couldn’t have controlled that situation any more than you could have controlled any other. You know that you couldn’t have.” 

Sam swallows. He should know that, with how often she’s repeated it. With how often he’s heard it from everyone else he cares about, and who cares about him. 

But he also knows the truth. 

Knows that it was his moment of selfishness – of childish stubbornness, even when he knew Dean would probably suffer for it – that caused this avalanche to happen in the first place.  

“Yeah,” he whispers anyway, because he doesn’t want to disappoint her, too. 

By the time Sam returns, Castiel has worked himself nearly into a frenzy. 

He’s furious at himself for assuming. For once again sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, for failing to understand the nuances of a family that actually cares for one another. What, exactly, did he think that bringing this up with Sam would accomplish? Why in God’s name did he think that Sam would have already known?

Who would have told him? Not John, certainly – from what he’s learned about the man, he’s as narcissistic as they come. He wouldn’t have admitted a failure like that to his own child. Bobby – Bobby likely doesn’t know either, and even if he’d suspected, Castiel sees no reason for him to have put that burden on Sam. And he already knows that Dean hasn’t told him.

He’s an idiot. He’s an idiot, and he’s furious with himself, and he doesn’t even want to think about telling Dean what he’s done by opening his mouth when he should have kept it shut. 

When Sam appears back around the corner, Castiel is pacing, orbiting the fire like a hawk dive-bombing empty grass. He’d relit it, had stoked it in a sort of numb attempt to keep himself busy, to do something – anything – with his hands. To keep the guilt from choking him. And now, it means he can clearly see the expression on Sam’s face. 

The younger alpha looks as haggard as Castiel feels. He slowly sits down in front of the fire, hunching down over his knees. Small. 

“Sorry,” the man says quietly, after a long moment of silence and crackling flames. His voice is hoarse, lacking the humor he’d had just an hour ago. “I probably seem like a basket case.” 

Castiel feels tension leaking out of him already. He’d half expected Sam to return twice as furious as he’d already been, intent on charging upstairs to demand answers from Dean. He’s not sure if it’s better that Sam looks like a wrung out rag instead, but he’s relieved nonetheless. He will not have to, once again, get between the Winchesters. 

“On the contrary,” Castiel says, realizing he’s probably waited too long before speaking by the way Sam’s mouth has twisted, by the way his shoulders have hunched even further. He takes a seat across the fire, dropping his hands into his lap. “I’m thinking about how I probably should have called in my own help.” 

He tries to smile, and fails miserably. Shrugs, helpless. “It… it was the right thing to do. Wise.” 

Sam’s shoulders relax, ever so slightly. He chews his lip. The fight looks like it’s been shaken right out of him. 

“I realize,” Castiel starts tentatively. “I realize that you will probably… want to discuss this with Dean. But…” 

“Not now,” Sam agrees, without him even having to say it, and Castiel feels a relieved breath escape him. “Not… I mean. Shit, he’s sleeping. He needs the rest, I know he does. And I…” 

He runs a hand through his hair. Looks down at it, slowly flexing his fingers. Fist, open palm. Fist, open palm. 

“I’m not really. In the right headspace to talk to him, I don’t think. Not in a way that won’t…” Sam hesitates, and then rips the words off like a bandaid, grimacing at the sting. “Scare him.” 

Castiel lets out another shaky breath. “No,” he agrees. “Probably not. I’m… I’m a bit wary of returning upstairs myself, in the state I’m in.” 

Sam studies him, exhausted and confused. “Why?”

Grimacing, Castiel looks away. “Alpha anger… well. That particular scent has accompanied a lot of trauma for him, as I’m sure you can imagine. And I,” he says slowly, locking eyes with Sam and willing him to understand, “am angry.” 

The younger alpha doesn’t look surprised, exactly – more cautious. Almost curious. “About what?”

Castiel licks his lips. Feels that fury flicker to life inside of him again. He’s been trying to calm down, has been trying to smother the flame that’s sparking in the grass. But one thought of John Winchester is enough to reignite it. 

“If your father was standing here in front of me,” he starts, and then can’t stop, even though he definitely should, “I would happily kill him.” 

The fire crackles between them. Crickets chirp in the background. The wind kicks up, sends a shower of sparks up that reflect off of both of their faces. Haggard. 

“I’d help you bury the bastard,” Sam admits quietly. He’s angry too. Castiel can hear it. But his rage has been hollowed out until it’s fragile, a shadow of what it might have been. He can’t decide if that’s better or worse. 

They sit together in their impotent fury, the injustice settling on their shoulders like a physical weight. And Castiel can tell that they are both trying, for Dean, to let it go. It takes longer than he would like. But, eventually, he feels like can breathe around it. Like he can push it far enough away that it won’t hurt either of them.

 “Sam?” 

The young man looks up at him, his eyes glazed. He’s a million miles away. “I… we should probably sleep.” 

Sam lets out a dry approximation of a chuckle. “Yeah,” he mutters, kicking over a stray bit of tinder. “I don’t think I’m gonna get much of that tonight, honestly.” 

If there’s anything Castiel can sympathize with, it’s that. “I know,” he acknowledges softly. “But we should try anyway.” 

Sam nods, the movement wooden. Castiel gets up. Steps forward slowly, placing the wide metal lid over the rusting fire pit. 

The darkness is sudden. Complete.

When they creak upstairs, the silence between them is, too. Sam disappears into his room without a word, the door shutting softly behind him, and Castiel is left alone in the hall. He slowly pushes open his own door, already nervous about what he will find. 

But Dean, miraculously, is still sleeping peacefully. 

Castiel feels himself breathe a little easier at the sight. The omega is still curled around his pillow, now facing away from the wall. Castiel moves quietly, careful not to do anything that might startle him awake. He peels his fear and anger soaked clothing off of himself and drops his towel over it in the corner, dresses in something fresh and clean. He slides under the covers with patience that probably borders on insanity – but Dean doesn’t once stir. Cas allows that to feel like a victory. 

He lays with his head resting on the cool pillow, his arm nestled underneath. Stares at the man in front of him – at the scattering of new freckles over his nose, the dark curl of his eyelashes, the way his lips are parted, ever so slightly. 

He feels love, so white hot it borders on the rage he’s been trying to trap and smother for hours. He lets go, lets it wash through him. Lets himself feel the heat of it, the righteousness of it. 

Dean’s eyes flicker open. 

Castiel’s breath catches in his chest, but there’s no fear in the omega’s eyes. No wariness. His face stays smooth and untroubled, his gaze gently unfocused. And then he smiles, slow and small and soft, and Castiel feels that love in his chest grow so his ribs crack. 

Dean sleepily shuffles forward. Hums, tucks himself against Castiel’s skin, presses his forehead to the hollow of Castiel’s throat.

Folds his hands between them, curled together like a prayer. 

Dean feels really good when he wakes up – right up until he makes the mistake of moving. 

Or, rather, when he tries to move. He hisses before he’s even opened his eyes, his muscles sharply protesting the idea of doing anything more strenuous than breathing. 

A moment later, he feels the bed shift next to him. Cas doesn’t ask, and Dean can only let the silence linger for so long before he has to break it. 

“M’back hurts,” he mumbles as a belated explanation, face still buried in his pillow. 

Cas doesn’t sound groggy at all – Dean’s got a hunch he’s been awake for a while, whatever ungodly time in the morning it may be. “That’s not entirely surprising, unfortunately. It will get better as you move and warm up your muscles.” 

Dean grunts. That particular plan doesn’t exactly sound appealing. 

It occurs to him, later than it should, that this situation should probably be scaring him. Face down on a bed, in pain, an alpha not two inches away. He’s pleased that it isn’t scaring him, and he thinks Cas probably is, too – he doubts the significance of it has escaped his attention. 

Still. Can’t hurt to give the alpha something else to fixate on. Something to fix. 

“Don’t wanna,” he says, muffled, and he can feel Cas shift into caretaker mode. It makes him smile, face hidden by the pillow, when he hears the alpha get up and start rummaging through something or another. 

“I’m setting something on your back,” Cas murmurs, and that’s all the warning Dean gets before there’s a strip of warmth across his lower spine. It’s nice – he can already feel the angry muscles unknotting, the tension fading. 

“Thanks,” he breathes. He still hasn’t turned to look at Cas – mostly because he’s afraid turning his head is going to hurt like a bitch, and he doesn’t want to squeak like a mouse and get Cas really worrying. “Where’d you get that?”

“Bobby provided it.” He’s fidgeting with it, and Dean can hear a few clicks. Probably him adjusting the heat. “He said it would help with the soreness.”

“Feel like an old man,” Dean mutters, but he’s not gonna complain too much. It feels undeniably good to be thought of. Feels good to have Cas fussing over him like he is. It might have made him feel strange, before – being the alpha’s center of attention. Taking up that much space in anyone’s head. He’s still not sure he deserves it, but he’s man enough to admit he likes it. Even if it’s sometimes overwhelming. 

“Did you – were you massaging my shoulders last night?” he asks, squinting into the fabric of his pillow. He has a vague memory of it – Cas’s warm hands on his sore muscles – but he’d been half asleep at that point, and he’s not sure if he made it up. 

“Yes,” Cas answers, predictably sheepish. Dean can’t help the smile, at that. At Cas being shy. “It seemed like it was helping.” 

“It was,” Dean agrees. He finally turns – wincing when the movement does, in fact, twinge his back. Cas is looking down at him, his brows furrowed together, his head tilted to the side. “Can you do it again?”

The alpha blinks. Gives Dean a small, hesitant smile. The circles under his eyes, Dean can’t help but notice, are dark and pronounced. “Of course. Your shoulders?”

Dean closes his eyes. Buries his face back into his pillow to hide the stupid blush that’s sprung out of nowhere. “Yeah. Whatever – whatever you think. Wherever.” 

Cas hums. He shifts on the bed, angling himself so that he and Dean are facing the same direction. Dean wonders, briefly, what it would be like to have Cas straddle him, to have his weight holding Dean down. 

The idea makes his pulse quicken, and not pleasantly. He shies away from the thought like a hot pan. 

Cas’s hand on his shoulder makes him jump, much as he should have been expecting it, and that makes his back hiss out all kinds of complaints. He makes a noise, he knows – something cut off the instant it’s out, but still high and tight and mortifying. 

Cas, thank god, doesn’t yank his hand back. He just leaves it there – sure and heavy. Warm. “I apologize for startling you.” 

The words, so stiff and so formal and so Cas, are enough to make Dean huff out a laugh that’s more a release of tension than anything else. “Sorry. My head went somewhere else.” 

“Somewhere pleasant, I hope,” Cas says gently, sounding like he already knows it wasn’t. He still hasn’t moved. “Would it help if I narrated where I planned on touching you?” 

Dean swallows. “... Maybe?” The idea feels immediately embarrassing. “Could you… could you just talk?”

So I remember it’s you, he doesn’t say. So I don’t go somewhere else again. 

“I can talk,” Cas agrees, and he does – launching straight into some rambling story about one of the first times he’d really tried to cook Balthazar an actual meal. He smooths his hand across Dean’s shoulder, digging in the heel of his palm ever so gently. Dean holds back a groan, and then a laugh, as Cas describes how he’d nearly burned the kitchen to the ground because of some eggrolls – how Bal had had great fun in redesigning the space afterwards, picking out everything from the oven to the backsplash tile. 

“I can’t believe you were that bad of a cook,” Dean says, barely holding back another laugh, as Cas adds his other hand, digging into the tension in his shoulders with just the right level of strength in his palms. Dean successfully doesn’t think about the many, many other times he’s been face down with an alpha above him. Successfully doesn’t think about how Cas is avoiding the worst of his scars, even through his t-shirt, because he’s seen Dean shirtless enough times to remember exactly where they are. 

“I was quite miserable, as a general rule,” Cas confirms, not sounding all that broken up about it. “Luckily, Bal is a patient teacher. As is Jody. I’m now very competent at the basics.” 

Dean lets out a stuttering sigh as Cas kneads down his spine, putting gentle pressure on the knots in his lower back after moving the heating pad up to his shoulders instead. “Definitely the best food I’ve ever tasted,” he comments, hoping his words aren’t slurring. God, but this feels good. 

Cas doesn’t say what they’re probably both thinking – that Dean’s probably not the best judge of what’s good, considering that some small part of him is still working off the shock of getting consistent meals. Instead, he hums, digging his thumbs into the tightest spots in Dean’s muscles like he knows exactly where it hurts the most. “I could certainly stand to learn some more complicated dishes.” 

“Do you know how to make pie, at least?” Dean asks hopefully. When Cas hesitates, he finds the will to push himself up to his elbows. To turn his head back far enough that he can meet the alpha’s eye. It doesn’t hurt nearly as much this time. “Oh, come on.” 

“Pastries,” he says delicately, “are somewhat… outside of my comfort zone.” 

Dean plops back to the bed. Feels a, frankly, silly amount of determination bloom inside of his chest. “I’m teaching you,” he declares. “Soon as we get home, I’m teaching you.” 

He can hear the smile in the alpha’s words. “I’d like that.” 

“Are you more of a blueberry kind of guy? Pecan? Pumpkin?”

“I don’t believe I’m qualified to say,” Cas answers, clearly amused. 

“You tellin’ me you ain’t had pie, Cas?” 

“None that stands out in my memory.” 

“Oh my God,” Dean mutters to himself, horrified. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Educate me,” Cas suggests, leaning down to put a little more pressure on a stubborn knot, “I hope.”

Dean laughs. He lets Cas fuss over him a little more – lets himself space out while Cas rambles about a time he and Bal got stuck in a canoe, or something – before pushing himself upright. His back, while still sore, feels loose and warm, and he feels like leaning his body against Cas and inhaling the rain and honey scent of him. So he does.

“Thanks, Cas,” he mumbles. He should probably be over feeling shy about nosing into Cas’s neck, all things considered, but he still finds himself blushing when Cas reaches up and brushes a hand through his hair. 

“Thank you for asking,” Cas counters, like the insufferable, earnest bastard that he is. 

They get dressed facing away from each other, and Dean only fumbles a little with his clothes. Cas is mercifully silent when he drops his boot not once, but twice. He still feels a little uncoordinated. 

“Jesus,” he huffs, bending down to tie up the laces. “You’d think someone came at me with a bat.” 

Cas doesn’t reply, and when he looks up, the alpha’s expression is drawn. It’s not the best choice of words, he realizes – they both know that Dean’s plenty familiar with what pain like that actually feels like. 

“You pushed yourself,” the alpha says after a moment. His eyes drift over to the little bottle of painkillers that is still sitting on the nightstand, but he doesn’t say anything – and Dean’s glad. He’d given in last night because he’d been too tired to protest, but he doesn’t want to take any more this morning. 

“Yeah,” Dean grumbles. “Guess so. I should probably take it easy today.” Cas doesn’t answer – he looks a little distracted. More tired than he had yesterday. “Cas?”

The alpha looks back at him, blinking. “Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “What?”

“You okay?” Dean asks, frowning. “You don’t really look like you slept much.” 

Suddenly a little shifty, Cas looks away. Makes a production out of pulling his shoes on, opting for a pair of boots that look like things he’s never worn in his life, rather than his usual loafers. Transparently and obviously avoiding the question, which gets Dean’s alarm bells ringing in no time flat. 

“Cas,” he repeats, a little more pointed. “Did you sleep at all?”

Something flickers over the alpha’s face, gone as quickly as it had come. “I slept,” he says, and while it doesn’t sound like a lie it does sound deliberately short. Dean frowns all the harder. But Cas, suddenly flighty, doesn’t give him much of a chance to push. He’s up and heading toward the stairs before Dean has the chance.

He can only follow, worry growing like a weed. 

Despite the somber mood, the ride to Ellen’s for breakfast starts off pleasant. Bobby is driving this time, smiling behind the wheel of the Impala. Dean’s in the back, leaning bodily against Cas, Sam’s in the passenger seat, and the sun is just beginning to peek over the horizon. 

“Been a long time since I’ve driven her,” Bobby says, his mustache bristling as he pats the wheel fondly. “Old girl still runs pretty well, all things considered.” 

Dean tries to catch Sam’s eye in the rearview – mostly to rib him – but his brother is staring out the window, off in space. He looks tired, too. “Yeah,” Dean says instead, leaning back in his seat. “I wanna do a tune up before we go home, though.” 

Bobby glances up, catching his eye, and Dean realizes it’s the first time he’s mentioned that. Going home. His uncle doesn’t look upset, thank God. Just looks… considering.

“I’d be happy to give you a hand,” he says, dropping his eyes back to the road. “Probably shouldn’t wait till I see you next.” 

Dean worries at his lip. Feels nerves flick through him, all of a sudden – but, of course, they don’t last long. Cas doesn’t let them. “We have plenty of guest rooms,” he says, soothing Dean’s worry without even trying. “And, of course, you are welcome any time.” 

Bobby nods, making a noise that, to Dean’s trained ear, sounds approving. He reaches over and squeezes Cas’s hand gratefully.

“That offer goes for you as well, Sam,” Cas adds. “So we’re clear.” 

Sam still doesn’t look back. When he speaks, his words are a little too quiet for comfort. “You don’t need to worry about that. I plan on moving out there,” he says, as if it’s nothing. “So.” 

Dean feels something sharp in his throat. “You – you do?”

Finally, Sam meets his eyes. He looks exhausted. Dean doesn’t remember him looking like that when he’d gone to bed last night. “You didn’t think you were gonna get rid of me, did you?” Sam asks, half joking and half, decidedly, not.

Dean swallows. Honestly, he hadn’t thought about it much at all, hadn’t had the presence of mind to. He’s not used to having a future to worry about. But Sam is, clearly – he looks so sure of himself. Bobby, too; he’s nodding like he’s known all along that Sam would decide to do this. To uproot his whole life for Dean, and Dean alone.

“You don’t have to do that for me, Sam,” he says softly, and he’d wonder if Sam could even hear him over the roar of the Impala if not for the way he whips his head back and glares. Taken aback, Dean’s left feeling like he’s missed something important. 

“I’ll do whatever I want for you,” Sam says stiffly. “You don’t get to decide what you’re worth to me.” 

“I – yeah,” Dean fumbles, more than a little dumbfounded. “Sure, Sam. Sorry.” 

Sam’s eyes search Dean’s for a moment, looking for something that Dean doesn’t know how to give him. It seems like he’s getting ready to say something – but then he doesn’t. Mostly because of Cas. 

“Sam,” the alpha says softly, and that’s all it takes. His brother tears his eyes away from Dean, looks at Cas instead, and the intensity in his eyes snuffs out. He doesn’t say another word – just turns back around, crossing his arms over his chest. 

They ride the rest of the way in silence, nothing but the quiet hum of the radio to fill the space that’s suddenly stretched out between them. 

By the time they pull into Ellen’s drive, Dean is ready to slam the eject button to escape the awkwardness, the feeling that something is getting ready to blow. As it is, Sam doesn’t wait around for them – he’s out of the car and on his way up to the house before the car is even in park. Bobby watches him go with a troubled expression on his face, but Cas doesn’t even give him a second glance. 

Inside, Ellen has already whipped up enough food to feed an army – bacon and pancakes and orange juice that looks freshly squeezed. Enthusiastic, Dean grabs a plate. Piles on his food, enduring Jo’s pot-shots about how much coffee he’s drinking with a grin. 

Despite their attempts at keeping the atmosphere light, however, Sam doesn’t seem to get the memo. He’s staring down at the eggs Ellen shoved into his hands, his expression distant, his fist curled around his fork like a weapon. He doesn’t say a word, and Dean can feel the tension in the room creeping higher and higher as everyone notices. 

“Sam,” Dean tries, hoping he sounds lighthearted. “You remember that phase you went through, way back when, when you wouldn’t eat eggs?”

Sam’s eyes focus on his for a brief second before they dart away. “No,” he mutters, and maybe Dean should have let it go – but he’s nothing if not determined. 

“Well, I do. I guess you’d read this book in class – some Dr. Seuss thing , I think – and you were convinced that every egg you saw was green on the inside. I had to lie,” he recalls, laughing a little, “and tell you that scrambled eggs were yellow mashed potatoes. For, like, a solid year.” 

He can see Ellen smiling to herself out of the corner of his eye, can sense a joke poised on the tip of Jo’s tongue. But Sam doesn’t even crack a smile. His jaw ticks. He opens his mouth like he’s gonna say something, finally – but, again, Cas cuts him off. 

“Sam,” he says again, and this time there’s a clear warning in his voice. A warning for what, Dean doesn’t know – he can’t figure out if he pissed Sam off, somehow, or if Cas did, or what. 

His brother’s expression twists, frustration clear, and he narrows his eyes at Cas like he’s about to fight, opens his mouth with something dismissive or defensive ready to shoot out like an arrow, and the worry that’s been curled up in Dean’s stomach all morning is boiling over, and – 

He’s had enough. 

“You know what?” he snaps, pushing himself away from the counter. “If you two want to posture, again, I’m not gonna stop you. But I’m also not gonna stick around and try to play peacemaker.”

He’s angry, he recognizes distantly. Angry. He just – he wants a peaceful morning, wants to be with his family and with Cas, the people he loves most in the world, without it being complicated. Without having to hold his breath. 

Maybe he only starts shaking because his body knows his anger is dangerous, or maybe it’s just the anger itself. Either way, he’s trembling, and he hates it, and he needs to get out of here. 

“I’m going with Jo,” he declares, his voice shaking too. He can see the apology already forming on Cas’s face. And he finds, somehow, that he doesn’t want to hear it. “Up to the Roadhouse for the day. And you two can figure out your shit your damn selves.” 

“Dean,” Sam starts, the beginnings of a lecture loud and clear in his voice – he looks offended, almost, like Dean’s the one raining on his parade, like he’s being surly and hard to read, and Dean doesn’t want to hear it.  

Dean fixes him with a glare. And, somehow, it works – Sam falls silent. “Don’t start,” he snaps anyway. “I thought you two were over this.” 

He doesn’t give either of them a chance to protest before he’s slapped the screen door shut behind him. 

Jo, as it turns out, is absolutely thrilled to give him a ride to the Roadhouse. 

He regrets it about four seconds in.  

He knows she’s getting a kick out of it, him clinging to her like a damsel in distress, his voice snapping up in pitch like a broken violin string when she takes off like a bat outta hell. Dean likes going fast – always has – but he likes going fast in a car. Four walls and a roof over his head, wheel in his hands, ultimate control. Seat belts. With Jo, he feels seconds away from skittering off the side of the road into a ditch, and he’s not a fan.

Miraculously, they get there in one piece. Dean stumbles off the bike and peels off his helmet with transparent relief, glaring at Jo as she laughs at him. His damn back hurts. 

The building looks different from what he remembers, that’s for sure. The last time he’d been here, it had been fairly dilapidated – a dive bar in every sense of the word. Now, it’s softened around the edges. Spic and span, more like a homey diner than a place that serves cheap beer and peanuts. 

The only cars in the lot are Cassie and Max’s trucks, and Dean lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Not exactly rush hour, huh?”

Jo, finger-brushing her hair now that it’s out of her helmet, rolls her eyes at him. “It’s only lunch and dinner on weekdays. We open at eleven.” 

Dean nods. He’s nervous, suddenly, and he’s not sure why – it’s only a quarter past nine. He has time to gear himself up, and he’s not exactly plannin’ on socializing anyway. He’s mostly going to be helping out in the back, from what he can tell. 

He follows Jo through the doors, looking around with wide eyes. The inside is familiar and alien all at once – he remembers some of the art on the wall, but not those tables; the chairs, but not the booth for a host near the door, or the laminated menus. And the bar… 

The bar’s gone. Entirely. Where there was once beer on tap, there’s a damn soda machine – and the rest of the alcohol’s been replaced with griddles and grills and what looks like something that might, with some coaxing, make a milkshake. 

Dean looks at Jo with eyebrows that must be nearly off his face. “Where’s the whiskey?”

Jo scoffs. “Ain’t that kind of joint anymore, Dean,” she says, tone mostly light despite the gravity of what she’s saying. “Not the kind of customers we want to attract.” 

Dean blinks. Swallows back some emotion he doesn’t understand. “Because the omegas work here?”

Jo glances at him, stripping off her gloves and stuffing them in her jacket pocket before tying up her hair. “Sorta. They mostly do back of house stuff, though,” she says, furrowing her brow. “We’ve got other employees – not that it really gets that busy most days. A lot of the time, Mom and I can handle it with just one or two other folks.” 

Dean nods. Makes sense, honestly; it’s a pretty small place, and a pretty small town at that. 

Cassie chooses then to appear out of the back. Her hair’s also pulled back from her face, a headband holding it in place, and she’s wearing an apron. She lights up when she spots them, her arms snug around a tub of clean cups. “You’re back!” 

“Told you I would be,” Dean says gruffly, though he can’t help but smile. He tries to look over her shoulder as the door swings closed, but he doesn’t see anyone behind her. “Where’s the kid?”

“Max?” she asks, setting down the tub and stacking the cups next to the soda machine. “Oh, he’s in the back. Rolling silverware.” 

Dean nods. “Mind if I borrow him for a sec? I wanna get that truck fixed first thing.” Before he’s too tired to do anything else, he means – though he isn’t gonna say that. He thinks they both get it, anyway. He’s limping more than he’d like, and his shoulders are killing him, and he doesn’t think he’s doing a great job of hiding it at all. 

Cassie’s smile softens. “Yeah,” she says, sharing a look with Jo. “Go ahead.” 

Max, as it turns out, is camped out at a little table in the very back of the kitchen. He’s crouched oddly in his seat, in a stance Dean finds too familiar for comfort – like he thinks the chair is gonna bite him. Or, honestly, like he thinks someone might kick it out from under him. 

“Hey, kid,” he greets, and Max starts. It’s pretty clear he’d been off in another world, but it only takes him a moment to relax when he realizes it’s Dean. “Ready to get that truck fixed?”

The expression on the kid’s face isn’t quite a smile, but it’s close enough for horseshoes, so Dean jots it down as a victory. “Come on,” he says, jerking his head over his shoulder. 

Max follows him back out to the parking lot silently, his eyes mostly trained on the ground. Dean wonders if that’s how he looks a lot of the time, too – hunched shoulders, tail tucked between his legs. He thinks the answer is probably yes. 

He pops open the hood of the truck, Max watching him carefully from the sidelines, and then retrieves and lays out everything on the hood of the Impala. “Stripped these parts off of a clunker in Bobby’s yard,” he explains. “They oughta work fine.” 

Max nods. He doesn’t say much – no surprise there – but he does watch avidly as Dean strips and replaces the first terminal. It’s a little harder than he remembers, but he supposes he has a good excuse for being as rusty as the parts are. All in all, it doesn’t take long. 

“Alright,” he declares, reaching forward and flicking his handiwork. “Now it’s your turn.” 

Eyes widening with alarm, Max’s gaze flicks back and forth between Dean and the remaining terminal rapidly. He shakes his head. 

“Aw, come on,” Dean coaxes, holding the correct wrench out to him. “You can do it – you just watched me. I know you can, and I’ll be here to help anyway.” 

Hesitantly – almost like he’s sure it’s a trick – Max takes the wrench. He holds it limply in his hand for a moment. “I can’t,” he whispers finally. The words sound pained. “I’ll mess it up.” 

Dean shrugs. “So what if you do? I’ll fix it. Hell, you could break the damn thing off and it’d still be fixable.” He smiles when Max looks at him suspiciously, still not convinced. “Scout’s honor.” 

The kid snorts. “Don’t look like much of a scout to me,” he mutters, but it seems good natured. 

“No?” Dean jokes, grinning. “What, are you callin’ me old?”

A shy smile flickers to life on the kid’s face. “Older than I am,” he teases softly. 

“Hmph,” Dean allows, unimpressed. “Low bar.” 

Max huffs at that, though he doesn’t disagree. And, shit – Dean doesn't know for sure, of course, but the kid can’t be much more than eighteen. He’s looking down at the terminal like it’s gonna rear up and spit venom at him. 

“Max,” Dean says gently, nodding at the wrench in his hand. “I promise. Nothing bad’s gonna happen.” 

The kid looks at him wearily – more jaded wisdom in his eyes than anyone his age should have to carry. “Heard that one before.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean says, puffing his chest up. “Not from me. And hey, I’ll tell you what – you fuck it up, and I’ll just tell ‘em it was me. Ellen’s got a soft spot for me, you know.” 

Max’s eyes crinkle into a smile. “Yeah,” he says softly, finally leaning forward. “I know.” 

It takes a little more encouragement and coaxing, but, eventually, Max gets the second terminal pried off and replaced, and Dean feels the satisfaction rolling off of him in waves. He doesn’t look like he knows what to do with his pride – he ducks his head, blushing furiously, when Dean brags on him to Jo and Cassie, and he disappears into the back for what is probably a much needed break from all of them. 

Dean feels proud, too. He likes teaching people. Likes seeing that moment when something clicks together in another person’s eyes. It’s been a long time since he’s taught anyone anything. 

He doesn’t count those softly spoken lessons, passed through the bars of his cage or the grate on the wall, on how to breathe through pain and tears. Doesn’t count the murmured tips he’d given like rotten gifts to the kids he’d sometimes find himself shipped with; doesn’t count whispered advice on how to think about anything but gnawing hunger, on how to stop feeling like the collar was gonna choke you, on how to get through another day another hour another minute.  

Dean hadn’t often had the chance to talk to other slaves, but when he had, he’d done his best to help. To make the burden a little easier to bear. He much prefers these sorts of lessons. Ones he can give in the daylight. Ones he can be proud of. 

The hours pass quickly – quicker than Dean even notices – and before long, customers are starting to trickle into the Roadhouse. Betas and omegas, no alphas in sight, but Dean still gets antsy in record time. Wide eyed and probably looking as spooked as he feels, he doesn’t last long camped out in his spot at the bar; he exchanges a look with Jo, who jerks her head toward the back. Dean can’t even find it within himself to be ashamed of the way he scurries through the doors to get away from the noise. 

He helps where he’s needed – with the dishes, with chopping up vegetables or bagging up the trash, with mixing up more and more and more sweet tea. He has to sit often, has to lean back and pop out the kinks in his spine and his neck if he hunches over too long, and at some point Ellen drops by and all but orders him to sit down and work on folding up flyers and rolling silverware instead of anything more labor intensive. He doesn’t protest much, thinking of Cas’s worried face and Sam’s badly hidden pity.

The guilt for how he’d stormed out doesn’t take long to catch up with him, but he ignores it until Ellen has scolded him into a break and plopped a plate full of food in front of him. His phone, jammed into his back pocket, isn’t even turned on. 

He powers it on now. Watches as messages from Cas flash across the screen. The first one is an apology; the rest are updates on what they’re doing, inquiries on how Dean is feeling, a couple of pictures of the junk they’ve been hauling out of the field. Whatever the tension had been about this morning, he and Sam seem to be getting along fine now – a picture of his brother with wire cutters, his tongue sticking out one side of his mouth as he concentrates on mending a gap in the barbed wire, makes Dean laugh out loud. 

Before he thinks too hard about it and chickens out, he hits the call button. It rings only once. 

“Dean?”

He smiles. Cas sounds a little winded, and a little surprised. Dean can hear a mower going in the background. “Who else? Caller ID’s still a thing, right?”

“Yes,” Cas answers distractedly. The noise fades – he’s probably stepped away, into the barn or something. “Are you alright?”

“Peachy keen,” he surmises, mouthing Cas at Jo when she glances in and raises an eyebrow at him. She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling as she carts out a tray full of food. “Is Ellen working your hands to the bone?”

“Perhaps to the ligaments,” he says dryly. There’s a pause, and then his voice softens, “I’m… sorry for this morning. I could have handled that better.” 

Dean takes a breath. That he expected the apology doesn’t make it any less meaningful. Cas hadn’t even really done anything, anyway –Dean had just lost his temper. 

He can do that now. 

“I’m sorry too,” he says softly, and he finds that he means it. He knows how Cas can worry – knows his head has probably been nothing but Dean Dean Dean all damn day. 

“If it’s any consolation,” Cas offers after a moment, “Sam and I are not… actually at odds, whatever it might have seemed this morning.”

“It is,” Dean says, because it’s true. It’s a relief – something that lets him take a full breath for the first time in a while. “I think you two would get along great if you could stop growling at each other. You’re both a couple of nerds.” 

Cas’s smile is clear in his voice. “I think you’re right,” he agrees. “We… we had a bit of a difficult conversation, after you went to sleep last night,” he hedges. “And it’s... It’s made us both tense.” 

Dean frowns. “About?”

“Um–” 

“Dean, can you come grab this pot for me? I’m too damn short.” 

Dean glances up, distracted by Cassie’s plea. “You can tell me later,” he says quickly. “I gotta go. See you soon?”

“Of course,” Cas says, his voice tender in a way that never fails to make Dean’s heart flutter. He sounds relieved. “The field is just about clear, and Ellen has informed us that we’ll be eating dinner together.” 

“Sounds good,” Dean says, smiling. “Bye, Cas.” 

“Goodbye, Dean.” 

Distracting himself isn’t as easy as Sam had hoped it would be. 

Being at Ellen’s helps. Using his hands, working up a good sweat. Mindlessly following her directions, using his muscles and his strength without having to think too hard about it. He’d hoped it would be enough to untangle the thoughts in his head. 

It isn’t. Clearly it isn’t for Castiel, either – even after he’d spoken to Dean, he’d had that same worried look on his face. Probably not looking forward to the moment he’d have to fess up and tell Dean what they’d spoken of. 

“I won’t lie to him, if he asks,” the man had said, raising his chin defiantly when Sam had asked what he planned on handling it. “It’s his right to know.” 

Sam hadn’t exactly been able to argue, but he’s been dreading it all the same. 

Dinner at Ellen’s had gone a damn sight better than breakfast, but it’d still been a little stilted. Sam had tried to act normal, to keep his thoughts firmly in the present and not let himself spiral again, but he had been able to tell Dean was seeing right through him. The guilt of that – of knowing he was making Dean tense, worried – just piled on to what he was already feeling. 

They’d driven home afterward, exhausted and quiet. Bobby hadn’t said a word, and that had set Sam’s mind spinning – his uncle is perceptive, and that he hadn’t mentioned the tension in the air… And then, watching Dean and Castiel go up to bed, Castiel’s guilt loud and clear and Dean’s suspicion arrow-sharp, knowing it was only a matter of time before he found out…

It’s not exactly a surprise that Sam can’t sleep, all in all. 

When he finally gives up on trying and wanders out to the garage, the light is already on. Bobby, as Sam suspected he would be, is burning the midnight oil. He’s halfway under a jacked up truck, fiddling with something or another, and he doesn’t even look up to see who it is when Sam pushes open the door. 

For a while, Sam lets the silence sit between them. Leans up against the desk, watches as the lamp throws his shadow up on the unfinished walls. They never did get around to insulating the place. 

It’s a good ten minutes or so before Bobby rolls himself out from under the truck, wiping his hands on the rag in his back pocket. He ambles over to the chair next to Sam, tosses his wrench down on a table nearby. Lowers himself down with a wince, wiping at his face with his shirt. 

“You gonna nut up and ask me, Sam, or are we gonna keep playing the quiet game?”

He presses his lips together. “Did Castiel talk to you?”

“Yep.” He pulls off his glasses and wipes those off too. “He’s worried about you and Dean both. ‘Bout made my head spin – he was talkin’ a mile a minute while I was fixin’ the mower.” 

Sam angles his chin up. Meets Bobby’s tired eyes with his own – defiant. And Bobby stares back; well aware, already, of what Sam’s going to ask. 

“Did you know?” 

Bobby lets out a long, low sigh. And he doesn’t say no. 

He doesn’t say no. And Sam doesn’t know how to handle that. 

His uncle heaves himself up off of his office chair again, grimacing and sore from the work he’s done today. Shellshocked, Sam can say nothing, feeling like he’s just swallowed a flashbang. 

He watches as his uncle squats down and fiddles with the fireproof safe under his desk, as he pushes the door open with a protesting squeak. It’s pretty clear that it hasn’t been touched in a long time. Inside, Sam can just make out stacks of papers – what look like legal documents. The deed to this place, probably. Their birth certificates, social security cards. And, from the back, in a creased envelope that has yellowed with age... 

Bobby drops himself back into his chair. Tosses the thing on the desk in front of him, and pushes it toward Sam, a frown etching the lines in his face so deeply that shadows catch them and turn them into canyons. 

Sam stares down at the envelope. He doesn’t want to open it. 

“Your daddy,” Bobby starts, his mouth curling with distaste around the words, “left that with me.”

Sam’s mouth is dry. “When?”

Sighing, his uncle rubs a tired hand across his face. “Not long after he tried to come get you that first time. A month, maybe. You were at school.” He scoffs; tired disgust. “At least he had the good sense not to come around you that time. Lucky for him.” 

Tentatively, Sam reaches out. Sets his fingertips against the envelope. 

He thinks back to the afternoon that he’d heard the Impala roar into the drive – the day he’d thought that John would take him away. The painful confusion and relief he’d felt when Bobby had defended him, had stuck a gun in his dad’s face. All for Sam. 

He remembers Bobby’s words, acidic and sharp. You won’t lose him, too. 

Sorry excuse for a father. 

Sam swallows. He hadn’t known that John had come back again so soon. He’d shown up here and there over the years, less and less – sometimes pleading, sometimes ordering Sam to come with him. Guilt tripping and snapping and snarling. Sam had made it his mission not to even speak to him, and he hadn’t. 

“And he told you then?” he asks, shaking away the stomach turning memories of John. “What happened?” 

“He did,” Bobby confirms. “Mind you, it was a little meandering. He was plastered. Rambling, not makin’ a whole lotta sense. But I got the gist. What happened with Crowley – what Dean did.” 

He pauses for a moment, his voice catching a little in his chest. “He pushed that,” he finishes, nodding down at the envelope, “into my hand. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.” 

Sam takes a breath. Unfolds the fragile paper. 

The check inside is old. Creased in a crisp trifold – how John always used to fold his money. There’s a black thumb print on the back. A corner torn off. But it’s still perfectly legible. Crowley’s crawling, snakelike script, spelling out Dean’s sacrifice in perfect penmanship. 

Dated and signed. Neat and tidy. 

Soulless. 

He feels nausea slink through him. The number he’s looking at is big, even with the chunk Crowley must have taken out of it to level off John’s debt, even with whatever he’d grabbed for himself on top of it. A lot of money, sitting untouched in a safe for years and years. 

He wants to burn it.

“He didn’t cash it,” he hears himself say numbly, and he’s not sure why it doesn’t surprise him more. 

Sam has spent a very long time hating John Winchester. Hating everything he stands for and everything he’s done to both of his children. But Sam also knows his father. Knows that a deal like this – selling his son to the devil – isn’t something he’d have wanted or approved of. Knows that, no matter how desperate or strapped for cash he might have been, his pride and his twisted moral righteousness never would have let him use Dean’s blood money for anything at all. 

“No,” Bobby confirms, his tired words echoing the same thing that Sam feels. “He didn’t.” 

Throat thick, Sam stuffs the awful thing back into the envelope. Shoves it away from him, as if that will hurt less, somehow; pencils scatter and clatter to the ground as he does. He hates it. Hates the whole damn thing. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Bobby sighs. He leans back, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Tell you what, exactly?” 

“Why didn’t you tell me about Dean? About – about why he did it?” Sam asks, fury twisting his words faster than he can stop them. He feels it, building back up inside of him, fire and explosive pressure with no outlet. The frustration and impotent rage he’d felt last night hasn’t dissipated, he’s found – it’s only been stored. Held back, held down, just waiting for the right moment. 

He wants to find and strangle John Winchester, wants to hunt down Crowley and skin him. But he can’t do either of those things any time soon, and he doesn’t know how much longer he can hold back this superheated shrapnel. No matter how much it will hurt when it explodes. 

“I mean, fuck, Bobby,” he spits, gritting his teeth, his fists clenching at his sides. “You’re telling me – you’re telling me that all this time, you knew, and you just let me think–” 

“Think what?” Bobby interrupts, cutting him off with a severe sharpness in his voice. “Think he did it just for fun? What, you spent all these years really believing he signed himself away because he wanted to, that he’d abandon you for no good reason?”

Sam feels like he’s been punched in the chest. 

He can’t even argue. Can’t even pretend that he isn’t choking on those disloyal thoughts right now. 

True, he’d never thought that Dean had run away on a whim. He’d known the choice hadn’t been frivolous, that Dean had done it for them. He’d just… he’d figured it’d been in a round-about, indirect way. Maybe he’d needed to pull John out of debt so the man could keep putting a roof over their head. Maybe he’d wanted to give his dad the funds to send Sam to school. Dean had always been self-sacrificial like that – never seeing himself as enough. Always trying to do more. 

Sam’s spent years feeling sick over it – almost hating Dean over it. Over the idea that money would ever replace Sam losing his brother. 

Now, he knows better. Now, he knows that the only reason Dean was ever gonna leave him was if he thought he had no other choice. Sam has spent so long doubting that it’s making him nauseous with guilt to think about it. Dean did it for him, to save him from a similar fate. Or worse. 

Sam, he realizes, isn’t angry at anyone else. He’s angry with himself. 

Furious at himself for his lack of faith. His doubt. His awful assumption that Dean was anything less than the hero that he always has been. 

“You should have told me,” he insists, almost pleading, choking on the words. “You should have told me back then, and I – I wouldn’t have…” 

His uncle is studying him when Sam looks up, his mouth a thin, sad line. He looks so tired. He is tired – a volunteer father to a sorry excuse of a son like Sam, who deserves so much less than the love he’s been given. 

“What good would it have done?” Bobby asks quietly. “How would you have crawled out from under that weight, Sam? I was – I was trying to put you back together, kid,” he says, the words so desperate his voice cracks. “And knowing that – that woulda just broke you all over again.” 

Sam feels grief swell in him at the truth in those words. Feels anger and frustration leech away, replaced by sorrow. By the gouged out, hollow injustice of it all. 

He can’t even tell Bobby that he’s wrong. Because Sam knows himself. He knows it would have killed him; the revelation that he was the ultimate reason his brother was gone. 

He knows, because it’s killing him even now. 

“Sam.” Bobby’s voice is harsh, but not cruel. “Don’t you dare go down that path.”

“But I–” 

“Dean made his choice,” he reminds him, cutting him off, “and it didn’t have a thing to do with you. Not like that. Wasn’t anything you could have helped or changed.” 

“But if I hadn’t begged him to let me go to that stupid camp in the first place–” 

“And if he hadn’t let you go, none of it would have happened at all,” Bobby interrupts, glaring a hole right through him. “Right?”

Sam freezes for a moment, indignation turning him red hot in a split second. “Bobby, this is not his fault–” 

“Of course it ain’t!” Bobby explodes, throwing up his hands. Sam falls silent, his eyes wide. “Of course not! It was your fool daddy’s fault, it was Crowley’s fault, it was the whole fucked up country’s fault. Dean was just a punk kid – and so were you! Blamin’ yourself for what happened won’t get you anywhere!” 

He takes a breath. Then another. Sam spares a moment to be grateful that they are out in the shop, far away from listening ears. He doesn’t want to know what it would be like for Dean to wake up to this.

When Bobby speaks again, his voice is quieter. Calmer. He’s looking down at the table, speaking almost to himself, his words gruff and tired but sure to their core. 

“Guilt… it’s not supposed to cripple you. It ain’t meant to. Guilt is supposed to be temporary – it’s supposed to kick your ass into gear so you do something about it. If you let it sit on you, let it stagnate and overstay its welcome… it’ll just hold you back. Drag you down, and everyone else with you.” He frowns down at his hands. Flexes them, balling them into fists and then letting them relax, placing them palm down on the table. “Take it from me.” 

Sam swallows. Feels his heart clench in his chest. 

“It’s not your fault, either,” he says quietly. He sees the words hit Bobby like physical blows. Sees him flinch away from them as though they’re painful as punches. “I know you. And I know you think it is.” 

Bobby laughs, the sound painful. “Yeah,” he agrees, wry. “I didn’t sign anything. I ain’t the monster that made a living selling kids. But I played my part all the same.” He rubs a hand across his eyes. Starts to speak again, and then doesn’t – visibly lets it go. 

Sam admires that, he thinks. The ability to let it go. 

“We all have regrets, son,” Bobby says softly. “But if you spend all your time in the past, tryin’ to change things that won’t be changed, all you’re gonna do is miss out on what you have now.” 

Sam reaches out on instinct. Drops his hand over his uncle’s, squeezing tightly. “I don’t want to do that,” he admits, the words coming out a little broken. “Miss out. I got him back – and I want to do right by him.” 

Bobby nods, sniffing a little. Squeezes his hand right back. “So do I. So we can’t get caught up in the what-ifs and the maybes, kid.” 

“I know,” Sam says quietly. “I know.” 

Dean’s already waiting for him by the time he makes it back to the house. 

He’s sitting on the swing, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his gaze distant and fixed on the starry sky. He looks peaceful, Sam thinks. At ease. And, for once, when he spots Sam he doesn’t lose that easy set to his shoulders, doesn’t tense up. He just scoots over, leaving room for Sam beside him. 

Sam sits. For a while, only the creak of the chain holding up the swing and the sway of the grass and weeds break the silence. 

“Cas told you,” Sam finally says, swallowing. “Didn’t he.” 

“Took about four seconds,” Dean confirms, not looking at him. “Fessed up like a guilty kid with a baseball and a broken window.” 

Sam huffs out a laugh. Presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, rubbing out the prickly feeling there. “He’s kinda shit at keeping secrets.” 

“I like that about him,” Dean says simply, and, yeah. Sam guesses that’s not exactly something bad, in Dean’s book. “Man can’t lie to save his own life.” 

Sam snorts. Glances at Dean out of the corner of his eye. “He… he didn’t know, you know. Didn’t spill anything on purpose. He thought I already knew.” 

Dean’s quiet for a long moment. “Sam,” he says, sighing, “I thought you already knew.” 

Sam blinks. Turns to look at Dean properly. His older brother looks exhausted – likely because of him, for the most part, and Sam hates that. Hates that he can’t even be mad at himself without it affecting Dean too. “You did?”

“I mean,” he says, laughing a little. “Yeah. I guess it just – it didn’t even occur to me. I never thought Dad would lie about that.” 

He takes a breath. There is anger on his face, briefly, but it doesn’t last long. It’s replaced with the same weary acceptance Dean’s always sported when dealing with their dad – the kind Sam had never been able to grasp. “Guess that shows how much I know about him.” 

Sam moves his knee to the side until it bumps Dean’s. His brother presses back. “He shouldn’t have,” he says quietly. “Lied, I mean.” 

Dean shrugs. “The man wasn’t real great at admitting when he fucked up, if I remember right.” 

His smile is wry, but Sam feels his mouth curl to match it. “No,” he agrees. “Think he would rather have put a bullet in his knee than cop to that.” 

Dean smirks, glancing at him. “You pissed at me?”

The words are simple, but Sam sees right through them. He can see the way Dean’s gripping the blanket around his shoulders. Can hear the way his voice shakes, just a little. The answer to that question means a lot more to him than he’ll ever admit. 

“I was,” Sam admits, and he sees Dean flinch. “Was. For a long time. As a kid. I missed you, Dean,” he says, feeling the words fall to pieces like charcoal in his mouth. “I missed you so fucking much. I didn’t understand why you left.” 

Dean’s mouth is pressed into a thin line. He looks… he looks ashamed. “Well,” he says quietly. “Now you do. Still pissed?”

Sam shakes his head. Bites his lip, straining as hard as he can not to let his voice break. “I stopped being mad at you a long time ago.” 

Dean takes that in. His shoulders slump ever so slightly, his relief palpable. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, and his voice does break then. 

Dean’s expression is fragile when he turns to look at Sam, like he’s barely holding himself together, too. Sam wonders what it must be like, on Dean’s end. To sacrifice your everything, and wonder if the very reason hates you for it. 

“I haven’t even said thank you,” Sam chokes out, the confession like acid in an open wound, and then Dean’s pulling him in for a hug. He’s crying, crying hard, and he doesn’t even care. He doesn’t care, because Dean’s here, and he can wrap his arms around his brother, just like he used to. 

And Dean can hug him right back.