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Before Purgatory, there's a moment where Sam thinks maybe they'll get through this and things will get better for all of them. It's the same night they burn Bobby's flask, the night before they're going to hit Sucrocorp. He's waiting on the front steps of Rufus's cabin when Dean comes back with the Impala. Dean seemed more or less okay before he left—or at least, as okay as he could be—but Sam waited up anyway, not wanting to miss this.
He doesn't share Dean's unhealthy obsession with the car, but he has to admit, she shines like a million bucks, gleaming sleek and black under the light of the stars. When Dean and Cas get out, Cas looks calm, like his old self, and Dean's grinning at Sam like a weight's been lifted off him. Sam feels his own heart lighten in response. He stands up as Dean comes toward him. They don't even say anything, not really, but Dean's eyes never leave his. It's then that Sam feels a spark of real hope he can't explain. He knows their chances of coming out of this thing alive aren't good, but it's something in the way Dean looks at him, like there's nothing in this world or any other that stands a chance against them.
After Purgatory, none of them are quite the same.
* * *
Sam figures humans are supposed to change. They're supposed to bear scars: both those you see, and those you can't. Sam wears most of his on his ragged psyche and abused soul, while Dean's body is laid over with a tapestry of physical damage he hasn't let Castiel erase; together, the Winchesters are a living, breathing map of all the unbelievable crap that's happened to them in their lives, and there's not much left of either of them that's survived without some kind of damage to show for it.
Angels, though, he's pretty sure, are supposed to be constant. They're supposed to exist in a world where God's Word is there to guide them, where Heaven is safe, and the natural order makes sense. Angels aren't meant to feel emotion, not the way that humans do. They aren't meant to lose faith, and in their despair, break the world open and become gods themselves. Most of all, they aren't meant to be alone.
If anyone understands what it's like to live with having done the unforgivable, what it's like to be all alone in the world, it's Sam. For Cas, it has to be even worse. Because of him, all his brothers and sisters are dead. He can never go home, and the only friends he has left are a vivid reminder of everything he's lost, every mistake he's made. Now, thanks to Sam, he's denied even that comfort. If Sam makes an extra effort to be nice to Cas because of that, if he pretends he's fine when he's not because he hopes by pretending he can make it true, well, sue him.
A week ago, Dean lost his patience and flat out told Cas to leave them alone for a while. But where else is he supposed to go?
It's harder for Dean, Sam knows. Since Purgatory, Dean and Cas are friends again, but Sam can tell that they're still working out what that means. Dean would still lay down his life for Cas if he had to. Clean slate, he said once, and Sam knows he meant it. Dean doesn't hold on to his anger these days. But there's a reason he wears his scars willingly, and though Sam's never asked him about it, he thinks he can guess. Dean's not that hard to read, if you know him. It makes sense, in Dean's view of the world, that if Cas can't fix Sam, then he damn well won't fix Dean.
Sam gets it. If Cas had done this to Dean, broken Dean the way he broke Sam, Sam doesn't think he could forget it, either. But the thing is, Sam was already broken, long before Cas came along. And he's okay. He's not fine, not normal by any means, but most days, he gets by. Cas couldn't fix him, but whatever pressure valve he released in Sam's head was enough for Sam to get a handle on it again long enough to do what had to be done.
Losing Dean again almost killed him, not to mention what it cost him to get Dean back. But none of that's Cas's fault, not really, and if Cas hadn't saved him in the hospital all those months ago, Sam would be dead and odds are Dean would be, too. The fallout could have been worse. So what if Sam's a walking train wreck? So what if he'll never have a normal relationship with anyone again? As long as he can keep going, as long as he still has Dean's back, it's good enough for him.
"He means well," Sam tells Cas one night when Cas shows up with pizza, looking like a stray who's half afraid someone will throw a shoe at him. Sam lets him in—doesn't have the heart not to. "He knows you just want to help."
It's not the whole truth, but this is a crappy situation and even though he knows none of this is his fault, Sam can't help feeling like it's up to him to fix it.
"Of course," Cas agrees.
They sit across the room from one another, Sam leaning against the counter in the kitchenette, Cas on the far bed. Luckily, for once, Dean's out. He said he was going for a drive, and Sam believes him; Dean hasn't touched anything stronger than beer since he got back.
Sam forces himself to eat another bite of pizza, even though it's Dean's favorite, not his. It tastes like nothing, his mouth too dry to chew it easily, but he does it anyway and tries to think of something to say that will make this easier.
Cas watches Sam, seeing too much. At last he shakes his head and stands up. "I shouldn't have come," he says. "If he knew I was here alone with you, he would be angry."
Sam can't help the way he tenses up when Cas moves. He tries to keep it from showing, but Cas isn't stupid.
"Are you—" Sam coughs to clear his throat. "What've you been up to?"
"I should go."
"Cas, wait." Sam forces himself to sit still and keep his hands still at his sides, his posture neutral and open. It's not just Cas that sets his nerves on edge these days—everything seems to—but it's worse when there's a chance Cas might touch him. "You don't have to."
At Cas's look, Sam's face heats. Cas doesn't come any closer, just moves a step toward the laptop on the table. "Do you know what you're hunting?" he asks, examining the screen as if nothing happened.
Sam's grateful for the change of subject. "Best guess is a night-mare. Four deaths so far, and near as we can tell, they were all alone and asleep when it happened. No evidence that anything broke in, and two of the victims were taking over the counter sleep meds."
Cas nods, but says nothing. Sam knows he won't interfere as long as he isn't needed, but he also knows Cas will watch out for them. It's not like Dean can actually prevent Cas from coming with them, no matter how much John Winchester he channels. And it's not like they aren't grateful to have their own personal guardian angel.
Feeling more awkward than usual, Sam says, "It's not your fault, Cas. Dean knows that. It's just—"
Cas turns to face him. "You don't have to explain. I understand."
It makes Sam feel even worse. "I'm getting a handle on it," he says. "I've been doing better."
"That's good to hear."
They look at each other across the safe distance between them for a long, awkward moment. Cas is right, Sam thinks. If Dean comes back and finds Cas here, he's gonna be pissed, and things are gonna get said that will hurt all of them—Dean most of all. "Maybe you should—" he begins.
"Yes, of course. Take care, Sam," Cas says. "Be well."
A moment later, he's gone, and Sam's alone. He releases a long, unsteady breath and closes his eyes. It's only then that he realizes he's bathed in a cold sweat, his heart rate double what it should be. He wasn't lying; he has been doing better. But apparently, it's a two steps forward, one back kind of thing.
* * *
Sam's had four panic attacks since June, one of which got so bad Dean had to put him down for the count. That was the last time Castiel tried to touch him.
The irony is, Sam's as steady on a hunt as he ever was. Put a gun or a knife in his hand, give him an incantation to work, and he's reliable enough. It's only the rest of the time that his nerves are shot.
That whole year after Cas tore down the wall, he managed to keep it together. Dean was so lost in his own depression and anger and despair that for a while, it was all he could do to make it through the day. Pretending normal was easier then. If Sam was jumpy, if he avoided physical contact and startled at just about everything, at least he kept it locked down tight enough that Dean didn't question it. They'd had bigger problems to deal with.
Then Sam let Lucifer in, and Cas came back, and he lost Dean—all within the space of a couple of weeks. After that, things went fairly literally to Hell.
In the grand scheme of things, what happened to him in the hospital was nothing. All the little torments Sam's tortured mind dreamed up, the electroshock, being strapped down—Sam's survived worse. But then Cas reached into his mind and tore through all his carefully built layers to slice open the infected trauma there, and Sam thinks maybe that was the final straw.
Sam's never been the touchy-feely type, but there was a time in his life when he didn't think twice about touching other people—about letting them touch him. He never even realized how much he and Dean touched each other. If you'd asked him a few years ago, he'd say it wasn't their style. But you live in the same room, sit in a car with the same person every day of your life, and there's a certain level of casual intimacy that goes with that. Affectionate punches on the arm, smacks to the head, casual pats on the shoulder or the weight of Dean's hand at his back; not that long ago, these were part of his everyday existence. Now, even Dean's touch is hard for him to take, and if you'd asked him even a few months ago whether things would ever get that bad, he would have said no way.
Sam's under no illusions. The life he's led might have raised his pain threshold, but he's not indestructible. His life, his self, has never been his own, not really, and the last few years he's been violated in every way a person can be—more times than he wants to count. Lucifer took his turn, both in the Cage and after, but he wasn't the only one.
So, maybe it makes sense that after everything, this is the price Sam's paying for the damage he carries. A year of never knowing what was real, of waking nightmares wearing Dean's face, made it impossible for him to trust anyone or anything. What happened in the hospital, and after, made it worse. But even Sam can't explain why the memory that scars the deepest, that scares him the most and wakes him up choking on his own terror, is Castiel touching his temple—the irresistible, inexorable power that pulled down that wall in the first place and let the nightmares and the pain and all the rest of it come pouring in.
Maybe it comes down to faith. After a lifetime of believing, of wanting to believe, maybe it was the one betrayal he couldn't bear.
It's for Sam's sake that Dean keeps Cas at arm's length, and it's up to Sam to figure out how to fix it. Cas might have broken the wall, but it wasn't Cas who did this to Sam, not really, and the last thing he wants is for Dean to have to give up the one friend he has left. He saw the way Dean looked when Cas agreed to stand with them against the Leviathans. And whatever happened between them in Purgatory, Cas helped keep Dean alive until Sam could get them out. Sam figures that wipes the slate if nothing else does.
Now, if he could only get that through to his knee-jerk panic response.
* * *
"Hey," Sam says, when Dean comes back. He raises his chin toward the pizza box, still mostly untouched on the table. "There's food if you want it. Sausage, extra onions."
Dean's face lights up at that. "Knew there was a reason I kept you around." He opens the box and frowns. "Not hungry?"
Sam shrugs. "Maybe later. Listen to this."
While Dean eats, Sam launches into an account of the town's history of unexplained nocturnal deaths. He offers up his theory that the mare has been active for almost two hundred and fifty years, ever since a handful of German families arrived and settled there, and Dean looks interested.
"If you're right, that's a hell of a lot of juice." Mares feed off the bad dreams of the people they prey on. Dean's banished one before, but they're not common these days, and Sam doubts there are many around that are this old. "Could be pretty powerful, then."
"Seems likely."
Dean chews and swallows, tosses the remains of his crust into the trash, then wipes his mouth. "We gotta figure out who's next."
"Got any ideas?"
Dean does, and as usual, he's thought through aspects of the case Sam hasn't even touched on yet. This is where they shine. Sam's always drawn to the lore, the puzzle of figuring out what makes the monsters tick and how to stop them, whereas Dean's instincts lean more toward patterns and people, toward anticipating the way monsters think. To an outsider, or a more methodical hunter, what might seem like blind luck often comes down to this: the give and take when they work a problem between them and the speed with which their guesses shape up to certainty when they're in sync.
They stay up working it through a while longer, until they have the bones of a plan and a pretty good idea of how they'll spend the next twenty-four hours. It's only when they wind down at last that Dean gives him a close look and says, "You doin' okay?"
Sam closes himself down as best he can between one breath and the next. "Yeah, fine, why?"
As soon as it's out, Sam wishes he hadn't asked such an open-ended question. Dean's brow lowers. "Sam."
In another lifetime, that look and that tone would have set off all Sam's rebellious and self-protective instincts. He still hates it when Dean gets like this, but since Dean got back, Sam's ability to keep anything from him has been severely compromised. Dean's instincts in general are frankly terrifying, these days; his instincts where Sam is concerned have always bordered on infallible anyway. It's not like Sam has much hope of deflecting him.
Sam sighs, and leans back, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. "Cas was here," he confesses. Might as well come clean; Dean would have guessed in a minute anyway. "And before you ask, nothing happened. I'm fine." He meets Dean's eyes, and dares, "He brought the pizza."
Dean's face undergoes a series of expressions too brief to read. He settles on something neutral, but his exasperation with them both shines through. "Awesome. Of course he did." Dean gets up and starts to pace, his eyes moving around the room like Cas is still hiding in a corner somewhere, ready to jump out at them. "He have a reason, or he just taking years off my life?"
Sam hesitates. "He's lonely, Dean. He doesn't have anybody else. And nothing happened, all right?"
"This time," Dean says, turning to look at him. "That don't mean he should be showing up out of the blue, especially when I'm not around. Did he use the door, at least?"
The silvery web of scars on Dean's neck and the side of his jaw catch the light, a silent accusation. Sam gets up, stretching the kinks out of his back and moving away. "Yeah," he says. "Look, can we just drop it?" He's tired of thinking about his problems, tired of Dean having to deal with them. He wants Dean to have something good in his life that isn't about protecting somebody else. Most of all, he wants to be in control of his own mind and body again, to make it through one day like a normal person.
"Hey," Dean says. When Sam looks at him at last, Dean's expression is pained. "It ain't your fault, Sam. None of this is your fault."
Sam swallows, emotion getting the better of him the way it often does these days. Of course, Dean wishes the same things Sam does. "I know that," he says. And he does. It's just that he wishes he could get past this. They've earned that. Cas has, and Dean has, and Sam hates that Dean's still the one who always has to sacrifice everything.
The selfish part of Sam, on the other hand, is forever grateful that Dean has chosen to stick by him through all this. Even when things were at their worst, Dean refused to let him go.
There's a long, awkward moment where he can tell Dean wants to say something else—something that will probably embarrass the hell out of them both. Sam heads it off at the pass with a tilt of his head and a deep, long-suffering sigh. "So, now that you've had your chick flick moment..."
Dean's eyeroll is epic. "Oh, for— Shut up."
"You sure? I kinda like that overprotective thing you got goin' on." Sam fights a sudden grin. "It's a good look on you."
"Bite me."
Sam shrugs. "Just saying."
"Yeah, well—don't."
It's as close to normal as they get these days. It's also the truth, so Sam stands by it. He counts it as no small miracle that Dean still has it in him to care about Sam, or anyone, the way he does.
In point of fact, Sam counts Dean as a miracle in more ways than he has words for, but if he ever said that out loud, his brother would probably end him. So, as he has for most of his life, he keeps that to himself.
* * *
"Sam. Sammy, come on, stay with me. Okay? You gotta hang on for me, man."
"Dean." Sam swims up through a dark haze of confusion, struggling to see what's going on. Dean's voice sounds stretched thin, riding the edge of panic, which tells Sam all he needs to know about which one of them's in trouble.
"Hey," Dean says, in that everything's fine, we're okay tone that Sam knows means they're more or less fucked. "Hey, you with me?"
Sam means to say yes, but Dean's hauling him onto a bed at the moment, his shoulder braced under Sam's. When Dean sets him down, it knocks the breath out of him and the shock of something wrong registers deep in his gut. Sam chokes and tastes blood. As if the taste triggers the rest of his senses, he's suddenly aware that he's in a great deal of pain. It feels distant, though, a great red wave trembling at the edge of his awareness. If he looks at it, it might swallow him up, but as long as he doesn't—
Dean leans against him then and puts pressure on his stomach, and Sam can't help the cry of agony that escapes him. He tries to say don't, tries to beg Dean to stop, but all that comes out is a broken-off moan.
"I'm sorry, man. M'sorry. Aw, Christ, goddammit." Sam loses the plot for a while. The pain is all-consuming, his hand slick with blood where he's clutching at Dean's wrist, and he wishes desperately to pass out.
"Cas," Dean says then, and his relief is palpable. "Thank God. Can you help him?"
Despite the pain, Sam blinks, struggling to clear his vision. Castiel is there, leaning over him, and as his face swims into focus, Sam becomes aware that he's close, that he's reaching out for Sam and there's nothing Sam can do to stop it. Revulsion blooms in his chest, flooding him with a wave of cold fear. He stiffens up, struggles to make himself as small as he can.
Dean swears, low and desperate. "Quit it, man, come on. I gotcha. I gotcha."
Dean tries to hold him still, but for a second all Sam can register is that something's got a hold of him, something's holding him down. Panic spikes hard. A sound escapes him, pure terror, and for long seconds he can't think. All he can do is fight it, but he's weak now, helpless under that grip, and fighting makes that wrong thing in his gut and chest spasm with blinding agony. Blackness closes in and he chokes again, harder this time. He knows he needs help, but he can't do this. He can't.
"Easy, hey. Hey! Goddammit, hold still, Sammy."
"No, don't—!" he gets out before he can stop himself. Then he shuts up and squeezes his eyes shut because begging never helps. It only makes things worse. Please, don't, please, tries to escape from between his clenched teeth. He starts to fight in earnest.
"Fuck, he's gonna bleed out. We're running out of time, Cas."
"Sam, listen to me." It's Castiel's voice, low and insistent. Sam makes a sound of blind terror, every instinct he has telling him he can't, he can't let Cas touch him, but Dean won't let him go. They're both on him, holding him down, and he thrashes desperately to no avail. A sob breaks free of Sam's throat. "I'm not going to hurt you," Cas insists. "Please, stop fighting."
"Do it now," Dean orders. "I got him. For fuck's sake, Cas, just do it."
Dean sounds miserable, his voice wrecked. Sam doesn't understand how his brother can do this to him—but then he knows. This isn't Dean. It can't be. The cold certainty clenches sick and familiar in his stomach.
Castiel touches him then, the dry skin of his palm sliding up under Sam's shirt, so intimate that Sam's panic spikes through his whole body, hollowing him out and leaving him panting in blind agony. This is every nightmare he's ever known—all his worst fears made real.
Cas's hand on his chest feels like it's reaching inside him. Sam is distantly aware of the wet, sticky heat of his shirt, the iron-like vise of hands pinning him down.
Darkness wells over him, and he gives into it with a sob of relief.
* * *
When he wakes, it's sudden. His heart is racing, his limbs heavy with the paralysis of nightmare fright, not yet responsive to his brain. It's so close to how he felt when the mare sat on his chest, for a moment the panic threatens to grab hold of him again.
There's nobody near him this time, though—nobody touching him. Sam holds himself perfectly still, deafened by the rough pounding of his heart, until he manages to breathe through the first moment of terror. It's dark in the room. A narrow finger of moonlight lies across the floor and the foot of the bed—enough light for him to see his brother's shape in the chair. Castiel is nowhere around.
As if attuned to Sam's sudden change in breathing, between one second and the next, Dean wakes.
It's unsettling, the way Dean does that these days. He doesn't move a muscle. There's no change in his posture to betray he's awake, and he doesn't even open his eyes at first, but Sam knows. He's seen Dean wake up this way every day since Sam got him back.
"Hey," Sam says, even though his own heart is still beating too fast. Only then does Dean open his eyes. They catch the faint light, and Sam knows Dean is looking at him though he can't really see his face. For long seconds, the two of them breathe carefully in the dark.
Then, "Hey," Dean says, his voice rough.
He doesn't move, though Sam knows he has to be stiff from sleeping in the chair. Once, he would have gotten up and stretched, maybe come over to check how Sam was doing. It's been a while since they were that easy with each other, though, and Dean only watches him. "You okay?" he asks, gruff.
Sam clears his throat. His pulse is slowing, now, his panic fading. "Yeah. Think so." He hesitates. "Cas?"
"Gone."
Sam nods. Cas must have fixed him up; he remembers that much. The thought makes the hair stand up on his arms, but he pushes it away as best he can. "The mare?" he says.
"Gone, too."
Sam nods again. He takes a deep breath, and rubs his hands through his hair. He's bare-chested, he realizes. One of them—Dean, he hopes—stripped his bloody clothes off him and cleaned him up. Someone pulled the sheet up over him, and he's grateful for that.
There's a pause. Then Dean says, "You don't remember, do you?"
"Remember what?"
"You did it to yourself. The mare had a hold of you. Thing had its claws in you, and it made you pull your own knife. Just like when Bobby—" He cuts himself off. "It happened so fast. Before I knew it, you were halfway to carving out your own insides, and there was nothing I could do to stop it."
Sam can't really see him in the gloom, but he can hear how shaken Dean is. He imagines what that must have been like. Imagines how he would have felt if it was Dean.
"I'm sorry."
They fall quiet.
"This has gotta stop, Sam," Dean says at last, and it sounds so final, cold dread blooms in Sam's stomach.
"What?" he asks, before he can think better of it.
"You know what. Us pretending you're okay when you're not. You almost died. And I don't know if Cas woulda—" Dean swallows; Sam can hear his throat click. "He was almost too late as it is. And you can't tell me this woulda happened at all if you'd been at a hundred percent."
Sam's face heats. It's the first time Dean's said something like that to him in a long time, and it hurts. But Dean's right. Sam had time to stop the mare, and there was a time he would have—but once it was on him, its foul, hot breath in his face and the weight of it on his stomach, its belly pressing heavy against his and its claws digging into his skin, he'd panicked.
"What do you want me to say?" Sam asks. "Let's quit? Let's settle down and live some kind of normal life?" His heart is racing. Maybe a part of him wants that, but a bigger part is scared to death of the idea. And all of him is sure that there's no way in hell Dean will stay with him, then. I'd blow my brains out, Dean said once long ago. And look what happened the last time Sam tried to push him into it.
Dean says nothing. It confirms all of Sam's fears, and a wave of misery starts deep in his stomach. He should, he thinks. He should let Dean go. It's not fair, that Dean keeps choosing him.
"Maybe," Dean says then, and Sam's heart kicks, hard. "I don't know, man. If that's what it takes. But I do know, we gotta do something. I'm not doing that again. The whole, bleeding out, heart slowing down, blood all over the damn place—it's not happening. I know you want to pretend everything's fine, but I've had enough."
"Dean—" Sam sits up. He doesn't know what to say, how to fix this. He's scared, not knowing where they go from here. But he's also relieved. Everything's been so hard for such a long time, the thought of doing something to try and change it takes his breath and makes him feel like crying. It catches him by surprise, and he fights the urge back with mortified desperation. "Neither of us is okay," he manages, struggling for something like his normal voice. "We know that. What else is new, right?"
"Yeah." Dean's on his feet. He comes close—closer than he has in months—and for once, Sam doesn't flinch. "But that don't mean we can't try and fix what we can."
Sam doesn't quite know how it happens. Dean's hands don't leave his sides; that much he knows. But somehow, Sam's fingers become tangled in Dean's T-shirt, his fist resting against Dean's stomach and his head bowed against Dean's side. He can still smell Dean's fear on him, and his own blood.
After a long moment, Dean's hand comes up to rest tentatively against the back of his neck.
It's not an embrace; not exactly. But it's as close as they've come in two years, and Sam knows that if he reached out, Dean's arms would come up around him, same as always.
That thought is enough to make the tears well up beyond any stopping them. Sam cries, silent and fierce, for what feels like a long time.
When he finally winds down, Dean sighs, long-suffering. "You done yet?" His voice is gruff, but he doesn't pull away.
Sam finally lets him go, and wipes his face. "Yeah. You?"
Dean makes a sound of derision. "Cute." He stands there for a second—maybe waiting to see whether Sam's gonna start bawling again. Finally, he moves away and starts stripping off his clothes, heading toward the bathroom. "I smell like the kind of day we've had. Think you can stay out of trouble till I get back?"
"Think I can handle it." Sam clears his throat. His brother's at the door when Sam says, "Dean." Dean turns back. "Thank you."
Dean gives him a pained expression. "You're killin' me right now, you know that?"
Sam raises his hands in surrender. "Sorry, my bad. Go take your extremely manly, emotionally stunted shower."
"Damn straight."
Sam watches the door close. His head aches from crying, but his body is light with a feeling he barely recognizes. The last time he hoped things might get better, the universe laughed in his face, and kicked him in the jewels for good measure.
Hope can kill you. Sam knows that better than anyone, but he can't help it. Dean has that effect on him.