Supernatural: Burn so brightly: Chapter 3/8

[judin]

Title: Burn so brightly
Author: Judin
Rating: R (various reasons)
Genre: Angst, romance, age-regression.
Pairing/Characters: Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby, and several surprises.
Spoilers: S1-S6. Goes AU post-S6.
Warnings: Some violence.
Chapter specific summary: You and Dean of all people have to be able to forgive him.

Author's notes: Thank you so much to everyone who has left a review! You're awesome!

Once again all honour goes to my betas for making my crap readable.

Check out Nenja's adorable illustrations! She's going to draw something for every chapter.

Chapter 1.
Chapter 2a and 2b.

Sam and Bobby sat in silence until they could no longer hear Dean moving upstairs. Eventually there was only the sound of their breathing left. Sam closed his eyes and listened to it.

“Well?” Bobby said. He had fixed shrewd eyes on Sam and looked expectant. “You’ve been sitting on something all night, something you didn’t want your brother to hear. Gonna tell me what it is?”

Sam nodded. “It’s not that I want to keep it from Dean-”

“Great,” Bobby cut in. “Because he was right; there’s been enough secret-keeping.”

“I know.” Sam folded his hands in front of him. “And I’ll tell him, but there are parts he should hear and parts he probably shouldn’t, you know?”

“I see.” Bobby made himself comfortable in his chair. “Well, out with it. I’m all curious now.”

It was easy for Sam to cast his mind back to last night. The sky over the golf course had been the same black as the one now draped like a veil over Bobby’s house, and now, like then, Sam’s head was crowded with thoughts that made the silence seem loud.

“I lied when I said Gabriel wasn’t forthcoming. He was, just not to Dean.”

He filled Bobby in on how he had ended up keeping watch on the green that night, full of questions and simmering rage.

“The first hour and a half was uneventful, but then all of a sudden, I wasn’t alone in the car anymore ...”

“Didn’t take you for a golf enthusiast, Sammy.”

Sam started so badly that he almost hit his head on the ceiling.

“Gabriel?”

The archangel’s eyes shone with mirth in the moonlight, but there was something subdued about him, like he was more angel and less trickster than he had been the last time they saw him. He had one leg crossed over the other and sat more or less sideways on the seat.

“Good to see you, kid. You’ve gotten taller.”

Sam caught his breath, and once the surprise faded, irritation rose to the surface. “What do you want?” he asked angrily.

Gabriel smiled beguilingly. “You’re really pissy. Did Dean borrow your mascara again?”

Sam got out of the car. He didn’t think he could actually escape Gabriel, but he needed room to move and the opportunity to turn his back on the angel if he needed to.

But when Gabriel appeared next to him a moment later, there was nothing left of his teasing mood. “Don’t send him back,” he said quietly.

It was, Sam knew, the sincere tone and his own readiness to respond to it that made him explode. He didn’t want to be calmed or charmed or reasoned with, and this was the one time Gabriel chose to be serious.

“I am so fucking sick of you people dumping your messes on us! You can go to Hell and take Cas with you! Why can’t God take responsibility? Why does he have to be such a fucking disappointment?”

“I’m not asking this of you because God told me to, or even for my own sake,” Gabriel said sternly. “This is for Castiel. You think you can’t stand the sight of him right now, imagine how his siblings feel. He took God’s name, Sam! Do you have any idea what that means upstairs? We’re all on clean-up duty down here, no exceptions, no lunch breaks, no bonuses, and once we’re done, Heaven’s next, because our house looks like someone dropped a bomb on it, and you and I both know it’s Michael and Raphael’s fault, but my brothers and sisters don’t get that, because in the end those two were loyalists and that’s all that matters. They are much more inclined to blame Cas, who is in this mess because of you!”

“Not me,” Sam growled. “Dean. I just happened to come in the same package. He does everything for Dean.”

“Fuck that!” Gabriel returned fiercely. “So maybe he looks out for you because you’re Dean’s little brother. He still risked his life to get you out of Lucifer’s box.”

“And then he all but put me back in to keep Dean out of the way of his Purgatory-scheme!”

Gabriel held up his hands like he needed to stem the tide of Sam’s fury. “Hey, I’m not saying he’s blameless-”

“Good! So what are you still doing here?” It gave Sam an intense sense of power to know that he was forcing Gabriel back.

“What happened to forgiveness?” Gabriel’s brows were sloping over soft, pleading eyes. “When Dad told me to take Cas to you, I was so relieved. He needed to be with you, with flawed human beings. Only you could understand him. Angels don’t know what it means to make mistakes because we don’t have free will. Among my brothers and sisters, Castiel is a freak, no different than a demon! But you and Dean of all people have to be able to forgive him!”

“HE HURT US MORE THAN HE HURT YOU!” Sam yelled. “So he killed a bunch of angels; big deal! It’s not like death means much to you! You have no idea what he put me through, or how he betrayed Dean! We are the last people he should be with right now!”

Gabriel’s shoulders fell. He turned away and looked up at the sky. “I don’t get it,” he mumbled, and not to Sam. He reminded Sam sharply of Castiel then, physically addressing his father. Perhaps it was a side effect of prolonged life in a vessel. “They’re his family. If there is no redemption, why didn’t you just let him go?”

Sam’s anger was displaced by a sudden, unexplained chill. “What?”

Gabriel turned back uncertainly. “Look, I promise I will tell you guys everything, but not right now. I’ve already been away too long.”

“You can’t just leave after saying something like that!”

Gabriel sighed and looked around restlessly. Then, with sudden, frustrated determination, the archangel knelt down in front of Sam Winchester.

“Fine! Now I’m asking for me. Please take care of my little brother.”

Sam backed away. “Man, get up. Seriously, you’re freaking me out.”

“Not until you promise,” Gabriel said loudly. He looked like he wanted to cross his arms protectively over his chest. “He can’t go home! I thought he had a second home with you, but if I was wrong, at least don’t turn him out. For now.”

“Alright, alright! He can stay.” Sam shoved his hands into his pockets. “For now.”

“Thank you.” Gabriel rose to his feet and was gone in the same instant.

Sam waited for Bobby’s reaction, but the old man remained silent for a while after Sam had finished his story.

“Well,” the old man said finally. “That shed some light on your choice. I admit I was more surprised that you would go along with this than your brother.”

“I’m pretty sure Heaven was thinking the same,” Sam replied. “They knew they could trust Cas to win Dean over on his own, but not me.”

“But Gabriel got to you.”

Sam rolled his shoulders and looked around. He was struggling with a mounting feeling of old guilt that made it hard to look Bobby in the eyes. “Twice in my life I’ve had to redeem myself after doing some pretty horrible stuff. I know what it’s like to need forgiveness without being able to ask for it. So yeah, he got to me.”

“Twice?” Bobby waited until Sam would look at him again. “You can't be blamed for what you did while you were soulless. You know that.”

Sam didn’t reply. If he agreed it would only ring hollow, and Bobby would pursue the topic, which Sam just couldn’t take right now.

“I have another reason,” he said to steer the subject back on course. “Why I agreed to let Cas stay.”

“Oh?”

“Dean ... he lost Lisa, he’ll never risk another woman like that. We’re all he’s got now. His only family. If he can have Cas back ... I’m willing to put up with pretty much anything if Dean can have his friend again.”

“You think he and Cas could make something? After everything?”

Sam rubbed his eyes tiredly. It was time for bed. “I think Castiel loves Dean. I think no one has ever been to Dean what Cas is to him.”

“They’re in deep, I’ll say that for them.” Bobby grabbed his near-empty beer bottle and lifted it in a salute. “Here’s to our luck, then. May it hold just a little longer.” He drained the bottle and rose from his chair. “Lord knows Dean deserves some happiness.”

And Castiel? What did he deserve?

“Bedtime?” Sam asked.

“Yep. I’m exhausted.”

Sam smiled. “Me too.”

Bobby picked up the empty bottles and moved them to the kitchen, while Sam spread a sheet over the sofa and threw his pillow and duvet on top of it.

“Hey, Bobby?” he said as the old hunter moved past him to the stairs. “Thanks for letting us stay.”

“Course I’m letting you stay,” Bobby replied immediately. “I’ll just kick you out when you start getting on my nerves.” He cleared his throat, seemingly a little embarrassed. “Truth is, you’re not the only ones rolling over for Heaven. I could have told Chuck to go fuck himself, but I didn’t.”

“No one tells God to go fuck himself. Least of all to his face.”

“In other terms, then. Point is, I didn’t exactly put up a fight. When I woke up this morning, every measure we took to angel proof this place was gone, and it’s not that I’m not grateful that the outside of my house in now squeaky clean, but again, I could have protested. Presumptuous bastards.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

They said goodnight. Sam changed into his sleeping-wear before going upstairs to brush his teeth.

The couch was a little too short for Sam and not overly comfortable, but when his head hit the pillow a little later, he fell asleep almost immediately.

He awoke to pale sunlight falling through the living room windows. He blinked sleepily, while the light dissolved the last, confused images of his dream. It had not been a nightmare though, and Sam found himself sending a quiet, slightly embarrassed thought of thanks to (his much verbally abused) God, whom he held responsible for the recent absence of those dreams. The memories of Hell were still with him, but they no longer flashed like fire and knives through his mind when he least expected them to. They had a faded, almost muted quality to them, and even if it meant that Chuck had tampered with him somehow, Sam couldn’t feel anything other than grateful. And hey, Chuck had totally owed him anyway.

Sam was usually an early riser, but it didn’t feel like this was his normal get-up time. So why was he awake? He looked around, and through the open sliding doors to the kitchen he caught sight of Castiel at the table. The angel was looking back at him, wide-eyed as if he, through some sound or motion, had woken Sam up and was aware of it. He was on his knees on a chair, elbows on the table, sketch pad in front of him and black crayon in his hand.

Sam let the moment stretch on, taking time to examine his own feelings and testing the balance between his decision to move forward and the desire to linger and satisfy old wounds. There was a lot of anger in him, but Sam had spent most of his life suppressing anger, at his father, at his brother, and at the dark forces that had shaped his life. He had said he would go along with Dean on this, letting Castiel stay, and he intended to do his part to keep their interaction civil until the time came when something could be said about the betrayals and the crimes.

“G’morning.” He lifted his hand in a short greeting. “What time is it?”

Castiel made no reply. Oh well.

Sam pushed the duvet off and heaved himself into a sitting position, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Then he rose and stretched.

Castiel returned to his drawing. The soft scratch of crayon on paper was the only sound in the house; Dean and Bobby must still be asleep. Sam went to relieve himself and wash for the day. When he returned he wandered into the kitchen, pulled a glass from a cupboard and a carton of orange juice from the fridge, leaned against the kitchen counter and drank slowly while contemplating the little artist at work.

Castiel was still in his clingy cotton pyjamas, and his hair was mussed from the pillow, but he looked as awake and alert as ever.

“What are you drawing?” Sam asked.

He wouldn’t have known that he had startled Cas if not for the way his wings jerked. After a moment’s hesitation, the angel turned the sketch pad towards Sam, who stepped up to the table to see.

He was looking at the roughly sketched outline of a building with a tall, pointed tower and a cross on top. “A church?”

Castiel nodded. Sam supposed it was natural enough. Little girls drew princesses, little boys drew monster trucks and apparently little angels drew churches.

“It’s good.”

The compliment didn’t seem to have any effect. In fact, the way Castiel looked at him made Sam feel like he had missed the point somehow. Cas pulled the pad back and resumed working on it, and Sam went to a drawer to find bread to make toast.

“You hungry? Want me to make you anything? Toast, cereal, pancakes?”

Castiel shook his head without looking up again, so Sam left him alone. He ate breakfast at the table in silence, cleared away the dishes, put away his bedding and got dressed, and still Castiel was drawing. He had started on another piece of paper, but the motive was the same as before.

The morning was well underway now and Bobby would probably be up soon. Sam looked forward to that, because Castiel’s shoulders had been tense ever since Sam woke up. The angel was ready to run, and Sam was getting tired just looking at him. Cas knew that things weren’t okay, but what could Sam do about that? That was what this stand-still was all about, wasn’t it; them being unable to make things okay?

The living room was cluttered with all kinds of old knick-knacks, but mostly with books. They were stacked on the floor, crammed into bookshelves and scattered on the desk. Sam looked around, itching to start straightening things, and figured he might as well make himself useful while he was here. It wasn’t like they were paying rent. Bobby might not like it at first: old dogs and new habits and all that, but if he didn’t appreciate it when he saw the final results, Sam could always just mess everything up again.

He emptied the bookshelves first. Then he began to separate spell books and lore books from the fictions, leaving everything in separate piles on the floor. The work-related things would go back on the shelves, organised alphabetically by author. If there wasn’t room for everything down here, Bobby could at least take his few novels upstairs to his bedroom.

Bobby came down fully dressed a little while later. Sam was sitting cross-legged on the floor, fretting over some books that had no author. Bobby looked into the living room and grumbled, “Are you messing up my system, boy?”

“I’m making you a better one,” Sam shot back and abandoned the unhelpful books in a pile he had mentally labelled “pending”.

Bobby grumbled some more under his breath, but let it be and swung into the kitchen.

Sam heard him greeting Cas, and was surprised when Castiel made a sound in return, a sort of wordless hello from the back of his throat. Apparently, Cas was willing to try with everyone except Sam. Sam rolled his shoulders, frustration adding to the tension in them.

Why should I work for this if you’re not going to?

He sighed discontentedly and went back to the books.

Meanwhile, Bobby had pulled eggs and butter from the fridge, spices from a cupboard and a frying pan from underneath the stove. Sam overheard him addressing Castiel. “How about you run upstairs and wake Dean? Tell him breakfast will be ready in five. He can help you put your clothes on and we’ll eat when you come back down.”

Castiel nodded, jumped from his chair and ran upstairs, drawings forgotten.

Bobby picked up the sketch pad and flipped through it idly. “He must have been awake for some time,” he said to Sam. “There are five churches in here.” He quickly checked the rest of the pad. “And nothing else.”

Sam shrugged. “He’s still an angel. Just because he sleeps now doesn’t mean he needs as much of it as we do.”

Bobby made scrambled eggs and toast, Sam set the table, and eventually their resident sleepy-head was led down the stairs by his angel, who had him by the hand. Cas had his shoes on now, and wore khaki pants and a yellow t-shirt with a couple of cartoony bumblebees flying by on the chest.

“That smells good, Bobby,” Dean said as he pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. “I’m starving.”

“You’re always starving,” Sam joked and grabbed a chair next to his brother.

Castiel was looking around, probably for his sketch pad, which had been cleared away, but Dean distracted him by patting the empty chair on his other side. “Come on, sit. This is a family breakfast and that means everybody sits at the table until it’s over.”

Sam wasn’t sure whether Bobby deliberately made some extra noise when putting the now empty frying pan into the sink, or if he was startled. Castiel was startled, no question, and looked at Dean with saucer-eyes. Dean, in a moment of great emotional bravery, for him, held those eyes until Castiel slowly climbed up on the chair.

The angel’s chin just reached the tabletop. “Give me a minute,” Sam said, rose and headed into the living room to find a book the angel could sit on.

“Here we go,” he said as he returned, big book in hand.

Castiel scrambled off the chair and Sam put the book down on it. Bobby came to the table then with a plate topped with scrambled eggs, and after putting it down he lifted Cas up and sat him down on top of the book.

Dean leaned sideways and read the title on the spine. “Good on you, Bobby. Not many people can boast that their copy of The Annotated Dante has been the butt-rest of an angel.”

Breakfast went by quickly. Sam discovered that he was actually really hungry, despite having eaten not two hours earlier. Between the four of them the food was devoured. Castiel tasted everything, but didn’t eat very much.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Dean asked between two mouthfuls.

The angel shrugged.

“Do you remember when we met Famine? Do you feel anything like what you did back then?”

Castiel shook his head.

“So why do you eat?”

Cas screwed his face up thoughtfully. Then he shrugged again. “Nummy?” he said as if that might not simply be the answer to the whole riddle. Sam wondered if it wasn’t actually the answer to the meaning of life.

Bobby did the dishes afterwards and roped Dean into drying them, while Sam went back to the books. Castiel helped by carrying The Annotated Dante from the kitchen to the living room. The weight of it didn’t seem to bother him at all, though he had to struggle to wrap his arms around it.

“Put it over there,” Sam said and pointed to the biggest pile of books. Castiel obeyed. Sam had his back to that pile and so lost sight of him, but when he looked over his shoulder a couple of minutes later, the angel had opened the book and was sitting cross-legged on the floor, seemingly reading in it. He looked a little bored. The image of a be-winged toddler bent over a book that size and age was like something out of a putto painting.

“Can you read that?” Sam asked incredulously.

Castiel nodded.

“That’s why you didn’t want The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Because it was too easy?” This was interesting. “Have you read The Divine Comedy before?” He asked, turning around so he wouldn’t have to strain his neck.

The angel looked up with an offended expression.

Sam quickly raised his hands, palms defensively outwards. “Sorry, sorry, of course you have. Probably required reading at the Heavenly Academy.”

This earned him a lifted eyebrow and for a moment it was almost like talking to grown-up Cas again. Sam half expected a deadpan “There is no Heavenly Academy”, but of course it didn’t come.

And then Sam got an idea. He was going to reach out. If he took the first step, at least no one could accuse him of not making an effort to be nice to Castiel, and if the angel didn’t want it to amount to anything, then at least Sam had done his part. He was going to broaden the angel’s literary horizon, but with what? The lore books surrounding them both wouldn’t contain anything Cas didn’t know from before, and the novels would probably be incomprehensible or meaningless to him without knowledge of the social and literary conventions the genre employed ... Struck with sudden inspiration, Sam stood up and went to the pile of fictions that he had placed on Bobby’s desk. He looked through it until he found a dusty tome of respectable size. The cover was colourfully illustrated, though faded by age, and the title was in golden ink with twirling letters.

Sam returned to Castiel and handed him the book. “You haven’t read this before, I’ll bet. H. C. Andersen’s fairytales.”

Castiel studied the book sceptically. Then he looked up at Sam as if asking for an explanation.

“It’s children’s stories,” Sam said helpfully. “They’re tragic and full of deep moral lessons. You’ll love them.”

The angel’s expression said that he very much doubted that he would, but he nodded a serious “thank you” and climbed up on the couch with the book, opening it at the beginning. The cover illustration was the same as the one on the title page of the first story, “The Ugly Duckling”. The book had sprung to mind now because when Sam had found it earlier that morning, the cover had made him think of Cas. Not that Cas was an ugly duckling, he was an adorable duckling, but the story did have that element of fish-out-of-water, and trying to find one’s place in the world, and having potential for larger things than one had ever dared to dream of. Also, there were feathers. Plenty to relate to, in other words.

And it didn’t take long before Castiel’s obedient application became slack-jawed immersion. Sam silently congratulated himself on a choice well made.

Not long after, Bobby released Dean from kitchen duty, and Dean appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “If anybody needs me, I’ll be out back. I’ve been neglecting my baby, but that ends today.”

“Sure thing,” Sam replied, barely looking up. Castiel was considerably more affected by the announcement; as Dean crossed the room for the hallway and the back door, the angel looked from the book to Dean and back again several times. When the door slammed shut behind the elder Winchester, Cas shut the book, jumped down from the couch and ran after him, disappearing around the corner with H. C. Andersen’s fairytales still clutched in his arms. Sam heard him opening the back door and shuffling quickly outside before closing it again.

“Where’s he going?” Bobby asked, coming into the living room.

Sam struggled to keep his face impassive as he said casually, “Oh, you know what ducklings are like, Bobby; once they’ve imprinted, they’ll follow their mommy everywhere.”

It was well into the afternoon when Sam took a break from his project. He stretched until his back popped in a satisfying way, and then he went outside to see what everyone else was up to. Bobby had gone into town a while ago, but had said he’d be back in time to make dinner.

It was sunny today, bordering on too-hot out of the shade, but there was a mass of clouds on the horizon that promised a greyer evening to come.

Sam saw Dean’s lower half sticking out from under the hood of the Impala.

He stopped some little way off to observe the peaceful scene. Castiel had found a blue truck from the back of which he could easily keep an eye on Dean, and looked up every now and then in between his reading. He was lying on his stomach with the book open in front of him. Was that Dean’s shirt he was lying on?

As Sam watched, Dean pulled himself out of the engine. There were patches of sweat on his t-shirt, and his face shone with it, but he was grinning.

“It’ll take time,” he said to Castiel, rubbing the back of his hand across his forehead and leaving a smear of dirt. “But she’ll be as good as new. She just needs is a little love and attention.”

Her and all of us, Sam thought, before stepping out from where he stood hidden.

“Hey guys.”

“Hey, Sammy,” Dean greeted him. “You all done nerding?”

“No,” Sam replied. “But I felt like some sun.”

The rest of the afternoon was whiled away in the salvage yard. Dean quickly began to order Sam around in familiar fashion, asking him to fetch this or that out of Bobby’s bottomless toolbox. It didn’t take long before it turned into another lesson in car mechanics, and though Sam was by far not as clueless as he had once been, he didn’t mind. He and Dean hadn’t been so easy with each other since ... he couldn’t remember when. In the end Castiel had stopped reading and was just watching them, so the teacher dragged him over and got himself a second pupil. They taught the angel the names of all the different parts of the car’s engine, and he repeated them all with great determination and muddled pronunciation.

They completely missed Bobby’s return from town, and were surprised when he was suddenly at the back door, calling them in to dinner.

The boys washed quickly, even Castiel, who had become dusty if not sweaty, and then they ambled into the kitchen to take their places at the table.

The radio was on, playing music, and before Bobby turned it off, Sam caught a couple of lines in Alanis Morissette’s unmistakable voice.

“Day one, day one, start over again. Step one, step one -”

He looked heavenward and raised an eyebrow. Having fun? he thought, but if anyone up there was watching them, he didn’t reply.

After dinner, Sam finished his project. Proud of himself, he called Dean and Castiel away from the Lego set they had spread out underneath the kitchen table, and Bobby down from upstairs, where he was vacuuming, so that they could praise him.

“Well? What do you think?”

Bobby grumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. “I had a system,” he said sullenly.

“No, you didn’t,” Sam replied.

Dean laughed. “Admit it, Bobby; you’ve been planning to clean this mess up since Sam was Castiel’s age.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up.” Bobby sighed and let his hands drop. “Thank you, Sam. I owe you one.”

Evening came. Dean was lying on the couch, dozing, and Castiel was sitting on Dean’s legs, reading his book of fairytales. Sam was busy with his laptop on Bobby’s desk, and Bobby was on one of the many phones in the kitchen, helping out a hunter.

Eventually, Dean yawned and casually plucked the book from Castiel’s slack grip. Castiel made a sound of protest and lunged for it, but Dean stretched his arms back and let the book fall on the table in the corner, out of reach. Cas began to crawl up Dean’s body to get close enough for another grab, but before he got there, Dean wrapped his arms around him.

“Haha, now you’re trapped.”

Castiel managed to squirm and somehow look dignified and unimpressed at the same time, but strangely, he didn’t teleport to freedom. Instead he got a truly diabolical look in his eyes before suddenly digging his little fingers into Dean’s stomach, making Dean scream like a girl.

“No tickling! That is not kosher!”

They were so easy with each other. Sam couldn’t understand it. It had been like this all day, Castiel running after Dean, and Dean not only tolerating it, but happily involving Castiel in everything he did, and even joining Cas in his play. It wasn’t fair. Had Dean forgotten already?

Sam felt abandoned, and he knew it was ridiculous. Just last night he had been telling Bobby about how he hoped that Dean and Castiel would reconcile, and now seeing them on that road made his stomach twist unpleasantly. He was jealous.

Dean had turned the tables and was tickling Castiel into submission. The angel’s laughter sounded oddly otherworldly, almost like he was laughing with two voices at once, except unlike that time at the mall, the sound was harmonious and not discordant.

Sam shook off the soothing effect of the sound and stared determinedly at his laptop.

Eventually, Dean let up. “Clock says it’s bed time for angels,” he said in a low voice, and rose from the couch, lifting Castiel with him. Castiel rubbed his face against Dean’s shoulder and murmured something that sounded like agreement.

“Say goodnight to Sammy?”

Castiel lifted his head a little. “Good night,” he said in the tone of someone who was unfamiliar with the custom, and Sam was struck by the ramifications of Dean’s affection; he could make everything right between all of them.

“Goodnight,” he said, and knew his voice was short and unkind.

If Dean noticed, he gave no indication. He opened the sliding doors to the kitchen long enough to say, “Cas is saying goodnight, Bobby.”

“Good night, Bobby!” Castiel said loudly, and they got a few mild swear words in return. Apparently the hunt wasn’t going very well. Dean just rolled his eyes.

They left, and Sam tried to focus on his laptop again, but he couldn’t keep it up. His frustration mounted until he chose to shut the lid and just sit there, allowing free reign to the bad feeling in his stomach.

When Dean came back downstairs a little later, he seemed distracted. He stopped in the doorway with eyes that seemed to see through the floorboards, and brows lowered in doubt.

“You know ... sometimes he looks at me like I’m ...” He swallowed and seemed to wake up suddenly, lifting his head and glancing quickly and almost fearfully at Sam. Obviously embarrassed by his own near-confession, he scrubbed his hand through his hair and said with forced laughter, “He’s a weird little nerd angel, right?”

Sam closed his eyes and tried to clamp down on what he was feeling, but it bubbled up and came out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“Is this it? You’re not even going to put up a token resistance?”

Now that he had said it he might as well follow through, but it was hard to glare at Dean, hard to sit still and harder to move.

Dean looked surprised and somewhat lost.

“What?”

“We didn’t sleep for a month, Dean. We didn’t eat. Most of the time I didn’t know what was real and what was my mind playing tricks on me.” Anger gave him the strength to stand up. “And it was his fault, Dean! His fault!”

Dean’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “What are you bringing this up for? I thought we agreed we had to sit tight for now.”

Sam leaned forward, his palms flat on the surface of the desk. “Yeah, but you’re not, are you? You’re acting as if we’re an episode of Full House! How can it be so easy for you? How can you just forget what he did to us?”

“I haven’t forgotten!”

In the aftermath of the outburst, they could only stare at each other. Dean’s hands were fists by his sides, Sam couldn’t look at him anymore, but let his head fall forward to stare at his own white knuckles on the table.

There was no sound from the kitchen, meaning Bobby had probably hung up and was listening.

“What do you want from me, Sammy?” Dean asked, his voice a little higher than normal. He put his hands on his hips restlessly only to take them down again immediately. “Why, when we finally catch a break, get some room to breathe, can’t we take advantage of that? I can’t go on hating, I just can’t.”

“And I don’t want to!” Sam yelled at the tabletop. “So what am I supposed to do? Just accept what we had to go through? That we were lied to, betrayed, used? Accept that I have to live with hallucinations of my loved ones stripping the skin from my body and carving me open, without any kind of retribution?”

He regretted his words as soon as he saw the look on Dean’s face.

“Dean ...”

Dean took a step back. Sam reached out a hand.

“Dean, it wasn’t real. I always knew that wasn’t real.”

“You know ...” Bobby was leaning on the doorway to the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest. “I hate to be the bearer of unpopular opinions, but that wall wouldn’t have lasted. Not the way you were fainting all over the place.” Sam and Dean both opened their mouths, but were effectively stopped when Bobby held up a hand. “I know, I know, that doesn’t help. I’m just saying. Cas might have opened the door to those memories, but he didn’t put them in your head, Sam. He went to Hell to get you away from those memories. That’s more than anyone expected of him.”

“Yes, thank you Castiel, for thinking Dean needed me!” Sam said.

Dean’s looked incredulously at Sam. “What?”

Sam realised he had entered territory he didn’t want to be in and quickly turned back to Bobby. “So you don’t think he left my soul in the cage on purpose?”

“Of course he didn’t.” Bobby shook his head. “Even if it did make you more useful to Crowley. The Cas we knew wouldn’t do that. Not to mention that he’s a terrible liar; he was genuinely surprised to find your soul wasn’t where it should have been, I’m sure of it.”

“Doesn’t make it okay.”

Sam looked at Dean, surprised by those quiet words.

Dean’s face was all resignation. “I know it doesn’t.” He gave Sam a pleading look. “I haven’t forgotten or forgiven anything.”

“You’re forgiving him more every day,” Sam said, but there was no strength behind his accusation.

Dean closed his eyes. “... It’s going to kill me, Sammy.”

“What is?” He needed a straight answer. For years Dean had claimed he was too tired to go on; since before he went to Hell for the first time, he had claimed exhaustion. This time Sam knew he was telling the truth, because it was an exhaustion they shared, and it was bone deep, but it wasn’t enough. It didn’t satisfy him. “What is, Dean?”

“The way he looks at me!” Dean took a step forward like he would have liked to grab Sam and shake him, only the desk stood between them. He seemed to be choking on his words. “You don’t know ...”

“I know,” Sam said simply. “I know.”

Dean fell back. “But you don’t know how it feels.” He looked up at the ceiling. “God, I hope he’s asleep.”

There was no way to continue this conversation. Bobby was looking between them like he knew the brothers had to sort this out for themselves. He was such a pillar of support for them both, but sometimes they just couldn’t lean on him.

And Sam felt guilty. Wasn’t he being selfish, demanding that Dean take his side against the only friend Dean had ever had? A friend who was offering Dean everything. Could Sam really stand in the way when Dean had enough to struggle with within himself?

They had to clear the air somehow, had to press forward before they sunk irrevocably beneath the mire of their own emotions.

Sam cleared his throat. “How’s the hunt going, Bobby?”

Bobby pressed his lips together and rolled his eyes. “It isn’t. I almost wish I could send you two out there. Cas might have wiped out half of the monsters in the United States, but only after Crowley spooked them into doubling their numbers, so the way I figure it, Cas’ effort left us back at square one. And after the Apocalypse we’re a few hunters short.”

“You sound like you just got off the phone with an idiot,” Dean said.

Bobby sighed. “A first class moron, though he’s a nice guy. He’s tracking a djinn, which you just shouldn’t do alone.”

They had, Sam mused, an amazing ability to pretend like the elephant hadn’t just walked through the room, to go on as if they had only been discussing tomorrow’s grocery list.

“I wouldn’t mind a good hunt,” Dean said, crossing the room and sinking heavily down on the sofa. “Hours on the road, eating diner food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sleeping in skeevy motels ... It’s the good life.”

Sam allowed the joke to tug once at the corner of his mouth, more to seem helpful than because he felt it. He sank slowly down on his chair again.

“And then of course there’s the running for our lives, fighting for our lives and begging for our lives, all so we can gank one, maybe two monsters a week for no pay and rare thanks.” Dean sniffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “I take it back. I’d rather babysit.”

They went to bed soon after. It was better to lie awake in separate rooms than to sit around catatonically in the heavy silence. Sam spent the time before they separated inwardly urging himself to say something, to apologise, to make Dean stop avoiding his eyes, but he couldn’t, because he had meant the things he had said, even though he wanted so, so badly to forgive and forget. He knew from previous experiences that forgiveness was the only way to overcome and move on, even when it seemed impossible, but he wasn’t ready. Heaven had made its move too soon.

Sam’s dreams that night were full of horses and gun smoke, but everything was burning hot to the touch. He walked and walked through empty towns and down roads that wound through arid plains, but nowhere did he find water. He pursued spots of illusive shade to ward against the flames licking at his skin, but always the shadow turned into wings and flew away before he could reach it. And they were looking for him; he knew they were coming closer, and when they found him they would strip the flesh from his bones and laugh as he danced and clattered.

He awoke with a moan, of frustration as much as of fear. Were the nightmares back, then? Or was this a natural one, just his mind trying to deal with last night’s emotions? The duvet was twisted around his feet and he was covered in sweat. Sam groaned and kicked the covers away so he could sit up, but froze when he heard, faintly, a sharp intake of breath to his right.

Castiel was hiding in the doorway, peeking into the room through the crack between door and frame.

How long had he been there?

They just looked at each other for a moment.

I don’t want to be alone, Sam thought. Dean and Bobby will leave me behind if I don’t do something.

“You’re up early again,” Sam said, voice rough with sleep.

Castiel didn’t move. Maybe he hadn’t found his sketch pad. On the other hand there were still Lego blocks all over the kitchen floor; he could have played with them. No, he had probably watched Sam for a while. Had he heard them last night?

“Come here,” Sam said, beckoning.

The angel gave himself a restless little shake before slowly obeying. He left the door open behind him and came reluctantly to stand in front of Sam and look at his toes.

“Your book is on the desk, if that’s what you were looking for.”

Castiel immediately ran over to the desk and stood up on tiptoe to retrieve his precious book.

Of course.

Sam rose and bent over the bag he kept at the foot of the “bed”, rummaging around for clothes, and when he straightened up again, Castiel stood expectantly beside the desk with the book in his arms. He didn’t look like he intended to leave. Sam figured he wanted the couch, so he yanked the duvet and sheet off it, letting them pile on the floor, before grabbing a towel from his bag. “I’ll go get dressed,” he said and headed for the bathroom upstairs to take a shower. He didn’t notice Castiel’s surprise at his words, or see the way he screwed his face up in determination before going to sit on the couch, the book remaining unopened in his arms.

Half an hour later, Sam came back downstairs. He intended to sit in the kitchen until the rest of the household woke up, but had to go by the living room to put away the t-shirt and boxers he had slept in. He froze in surprise in the doorway because Castiel was sitting on the couch with the book unopened, clearly waiting for him.

“Sam?” the angel said.

“Y-yes, Cas?” Sam replied, a little shell-shocked at hearing his own name.

“Read?” Castiel asked.

Sometimes, when your expectations are radically defied, it takes a while for the mind to catch up. “You want me to read to you?” Sam asked.

“U-huh.”

“Um ...” He had a quick, intense struggle with himself, but no matter how much he wanted to escape, he couldn’t ignore the fact that Cas was finally, finally, reaching out. He took a deep breath.

For Dean, if nothing else.

“Okay. Sure.” He sat down on the couch while Castiel found his place in the book. Sam felt dizzy. He looked down at the angel and his chest ached, but he had known it would hurt: moving forward always hurt. What had opened was a path, and he had to be strong enough to go down it.

Castiel handed the book over. The next fairy tale was “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

The two of them were sitting quite far apart, so Sam patted the space next to him. “Wanna sit here with me? There are pictures ... and stuff.”

Castiel nodded very decisively, like he too had made up his mind to be brave about this, and shuffled closer.

Sam wasn’t sure what to do with his arms, and opted for simply keeping them at his sides with both hands on the book.

“So yesterday you read …” he leafed his way back to the index to see. ““The Ugly Duckling”, “The Tinderbox” and “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”?”

Castiel nodded.

“Did you like them?” Sam asked, even though it had been clear by Castiel’s constant reading that he had, very much.

The angel nodded enthusiastically.

“Great! Okay. This is a funny one. Have you heard it before?”

No, he had not.

“Alright ... I’ve never read to anyone before, so ... this might be a little awkward.” Sam smiled nervously. He was surprised when Castiel placed a small, comforting hand on his arm and looked very earnestly supportive. Oh yeah, this wasn’t going to be weird at all. “Okay,” Sam said quickly. “Here we go. Many years ago, there was an Emperor, who was so excessively fond of new clothes, that he spent all his money in dress …”

It took a little while before Sam found a comfortable tone, but once he did the tale flowed smoothly. Castiel sat very straight-backed and proper next to him at first, but as the tale unfolded he came to lean against Sam’s arm. The stupidity of the Emperor, his ministers and finally the entire city seemed to greatly provoke him. Whenever they praised the dishonest weavers for their nonexistent work he would huff and shake his head, and when the Emperor paraded naked through the streets of the city, Castiel executed a perfect face-palm, making Sam laugh despite himself.

“Yeah, they’re pretty stupid.”

It wasn’t a very long story, and as the last sentence died in the air, so did the comfortable space they had shared for the duration of the tale. Sam turned the page a little desperately to see what came next. It was “The Nightingale”, one Sam hadn’t read before, but the title page illustration showed the titular bird along with an oriental king lying sick in his bed.

“More?” asked Castiel.

Sam looked down at him. “You want another one?” he asked, trying not to sound too relieved.

Vigorous nodding, but Sam noticed him tucking his feet under him like they were cold.

“This story looks longer, so we’d better get comfortable,” Sam said. He put the book into his lap and grabbed the duvet he had discarded on the floor, spreading it over Castiel. As he tucked it in behind the angel, his hands happened by brush by a wing, causing a little shiver to go through Cas. Sam stopped immediately and searched the toddler’s face for any signs of fear or pain, but he looked unaffected, eagerly studying the title page of the new story. Sam figured he could ask Dean about it later; the older Winchester should know how Cas felt about having his wings touched, being the one to help him in and out of his clothes.

The sun had risen by now, and came through the windows behind them, haloing Castiel’s dark curls in white. Sam opened the book again, but it took him a moment to focus on the words. A mist of white light seemed to have settled before his eyes. He shook his head and blinked until it passed.

This second story was much more melancholy and therefore emotionally taxing, though it had a happy ending. By the end of it, Sam was tired, his head heavy and eyes sore.

“We’ll save the rest for later, okay? I think I need to sleep some more.” He was unspeakably relieved to have a genuine and natural reason to cut their playtime short. He really was too tired.

Castiel’s eyes widened and he scrambled quickly off the couch, pulling the duvet back and holding it up, apparently ready to tuck in Sam in turn. Sam lay down obediently, and Castiel managed, with a little help, to drag the duvet over him.

“Will you be okay until Bobby wakes up?” Sam mumbled, eyes longing to close.

Castiel nodded. For a moment he simply stood there, giving Sam a long, inscrutable stare, but he looked somehow satisfied, like he had accomplished some goal. Sam closed his eyes, so he only heard the little feet that padded away to the kitchen.

They had taken the first step, Sam realised. That would make Dean happy.

This time, Sam slept deeply, and his dreams were not threatening.

Several hours later the same day, the whole family was in the kitchen. Dean was scratching his head and seemed a little speechless. He was flanked by Sam and Bobby, and all three were staring down at the little artist-turned-architect under the kitchen table.

“It’s a … nice sculpture, Cas,” Bobby said slowly.

Castiel shrugged and picked up some more Lego blocks. He had used almost all of them.

“Does this seem obsessive to you guys?” Sam asked in an undertone.

Dean sighed and knelt down. “Cas, is there any particular reason for the running church motif?”

Castiel pointed at his own head.

Dean raised an eyebrow and shook his head that he didn’t understand. Castiel’s brows lowered and he twisted his lips thoughtfully. Then he tried again. He folded his hands and placed his head on them to simulate sleep and then he pointed at the Lego church, the spire of which almost touched the underside of the table.

Dean rose. “Is it normal for angels to dream about churches?”

“I didn’t know angels dreamt,” Sam replied.

“I didn’t know angels slept,” Bobby added.

“You hear that, Cas? Stop being weird!” Dean said. Castiel lifted his chin and stubbornly ignored him.

Bobby sighed. “I’ll start breakfast. You two help him move that, or we’re just gonna break it.”

The church was a really advanced piece of Lego building. It was yellow, with a red door and an arched doorway. The sides tapered off into a single spire with a cross on top. There were even windows along the sides. Cas had used pretty much the entire stock of blocks for it, but it wasn’t complete; it ended in a hole in the back. Nonetheless, it was more detailed and complete than the drawings of yesterday had been.

They moved it carefully to a corner in the living room, where it remained untouched for the rest of the day. Castiel seemed to have lost interest after breakfast, much preferring to trail after Dean into the salvage yard again.

When Sam went to fetch them at dinner time he found Dean asleep on the back of the blue truck and Castiel sitting quietly next to him, looking just like the guardian angel he had so firmly denied himself to be when the Winchesters first met him. He looked up when he heard Sam approach and gave him a big smile as if to say Look at Dean, isn’t he wonderful?.

Sam couldn’t get Dean alone to talk to him, but apparently Castiel had told Dean about this morning, and last night lingered only in some awkward looks over the passing of mashed potatoes and peas. Dean’s eyes were asking Sam if he was okay. Sam didn’t know what to answer.

But I think I’m a little better.

After dinner, Dean went to take a shower, so Castiel settled himself in a corner of the couch with his book. Sam received a phone call and left the room to take it, and when he returned, the angel was gone.

“Where’s Cas?”

Bobby was brushing up on his djinn-lore for the hunter he had talked to last night. “Out back,” he replied without looking up from the tome he was browsing. “He brought the book with him. I guess the story got too exciting.”

Sam’s brow wrinkled. “How do you mean?”

Bobby looked away for a moment as he if he too needed to consider his own comment. “He was ... kind of shaking. Looked really invested. I got the impression that he wanted to be alone with the ending.” He shrugged at Sam. “He’ll be in the blue truck, no doubt. It seems to have become a favourite spot.”

Castiel did not come back inside, and his mysterious absence made Dean, once he came back from the shower, unable to settle down, but he seemed equally unwilling to actually go looking for the angel without some sort of reason. Sam found himself sincerely wishing it was not due to last night. Dean flipped idly through the handful of channels on the TV, eventually found a show and let it run, but every now and then he would crane his neck to look out of the window, even though the blue truck wasn’t visible from there. Sam and Bobby kept their mouths shut and pretended not to notice.

But inevitably, bedtime arrived. At the earliest possible moment, Dean stretched, yawned and turned off the TV. He rubbed his hands on his thighs and rose from the couch. “It’s getting late. Better go get the tot.”

Sam managed not to roll his eyes until Dean’s back was turned. Once the backdoor slammed, both Sam and Bobby sighed.

Bobby shook his head. “I’m not sure whether it’s pathetic or adorable.”

A couple of minutes later Dean came back inside with Castiel cradled against his chest. Sam expected there to be a round of goodnights before they went upstairs, but Dean didn’t stop at all. Sam only got a quick look at his face, but what he saw worried him. Dean looked serious and troubled, and Castiel lay limply in his arms with his face turned into Dean’s neck. Even the angel’s wings hung boneless and still.

“What was that about?” Bobby asked quietly.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t know. Should we go see?”

Bobby’s eyes narrowed. “Nah. Dean’ll fill us in when he comes downstairs.”

But Dean took his sweet time, and eventually Sam couldn’t contain his curiosity anymore. He scaled the stairs as quietly as he could. As he neared the door to the guest room, he could hear Dean’s voice. He stopped, and realised with surprise that his big brother was singing. It sounded like a lullaby.

Sam swallowed. He raised a hand to knock, but thought better of it almost immediately and snuck back downstairs; he was rewarded for his restraint, because Dean came down not long after.

“What’s up with Cas?” Sam asked as soon as Dean was in the doorway.

Dean shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. I found him in the truck, just ... sitting there. He wouldn’t even look at me when I put him to bed.”

“Maybe it was a sad story?” Bobby suggested.

At Dean’s questioning glance, Sam explained. “Cas took the book outside.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it there,” Dean said dismissively. He looked down at his hands helplessly. “I couldn’t make him tell me what was wrong.”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam said. “He’ll probably be ready to tell you in the morning.”

Dean gave him a willing half-smile and a nod.

They turned on the TV and found a channel showing The Magnificent Seven, a western classic, but even cowboys and Indians couldn’t cheer Dean up, and he went early to bed again.

Sam woke the next morning with a burning question. Where was the book? Dean hadn’t seen it, so what had Cas done with it? For Cas to leave it outside all night wasn’t consistent with the way he had kept it close to him almost obsessively for two days.

Still a little sleep addled, Sam got quickly out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and his shoes, and went outside to look. It didn’t take him long. A few metres beyond the blue truck he found it, or what was left of it.

The back of the book was blackened and crumbling. Sam stood for a long moment simply looking at it. Cas must have used his angel mojo to set the book on fire. But why? Sam knelt down and turned the pages until he found the index, looking for the title of the story Castiel would have been reading last night. A quick check confirmed that the title corresponded to the most badly charred part of the book.

Only when he came back inside did Sam realise the second strange thing going on this morning: Castiel was apparently still in bed. He was not in the kitchen, his sketch pad was untouched, and it was almost two hours beyond his, and by consequence also Sam’s, now usual wake-up time.

Sam pulled out his laptop at Bobby’s desk and googled the title he had found. Within the first ten items he found the full text of the fairy tale, and settled down to read it. Before he was halfway through he thought he knew what had happened.

So after breakfast he pulled Bobby aside and asked if he didn’t need another trip into town. Bobby caught on quickly, and within an hour he and Sam were on the road, speeding towards town in Bobby’s car. Dean had remained behind with a morose and unresponsive Castiel.

“Well?” Bobby wondered. “You said we needed to talk. So which fairy tale is it that makes angels depressed?”

“Not “angels”, Bobby: Dean’s angel,” Sam replied, folding his hands in his lap. “He was reading “The Little Mermaid”.”

Bobby’s bushy eyebrows disappeared under his cap. “Are you kidding me?”

Sam bit his lip on an understanding grin. “Yeah, I know, but it is actually counted among H. C. Andersen’s tragedies, and for good reason. Do you know the story, by the way?” He looked sidewise at the older hunter.

“I know the broad strokes, I suppose,” Bobby said, shrugging.

“Like the part where the mermaid saves a human prince from drowning in a storm?” Sam said meaningfully.

“Um, yeah.” Bobby turned away from the road for a moment to raise an eyebrow at Sam. “That supposed to mean something to me?”

Sam spoke slowly and with emphasis. “A non-human creature saves a human male by raising him from the deep. Or perdition, if you want to be beaten over the head with it.”

Bobby's eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.” But then his brow wrinkled. “So Cas can identify with the mermaid. What’s so upsetting about that? It’s a fairy tale. Happily ever after and all that.”

“I told you, this is one of the tragedies,” Sam said. “But we’ll get to that, there’s more first. See, after saving the prince, the mermaid sells her voice to become human so that she can be with him. All the mermaids have these really gorgeous singing voices, but the heroine’s is really special. She basically sacrifices her most precious gift to be with the man she loves, and in the process she is forever divided from her family.”

Bobby sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Sacrificing your grace to be with your human, booted from Heaven for your trouble. Strike two for Cas identifying with the mermaid. What comes next?”

“Well, she becomes human and is found by the prince, who takes a liking to her and adopts her as a sort of pet. And she does everything to please him, even though he never sees her the way she needs him to.”

“You’re just phrasing this to make it sound as near-to as possible!”

“Maybe.” Sam shrugged. “But I think Cas picked up on the parallels. It’s probably why he left before the dramatic conclusion; he was emotionally invested.”

The car sped past field, forest and a few clusters of houses. They were almost alone on the road.

Sam continued quietly. “The prince happens to be of marrying age, and his parents have selected a princess for him, but he himself would rather marry the girl he thinks saved him from the storm. Only problem is that she lives in a temple and is apparently going to be a nun or something, so he can’t have her. But when they travel to the neighbouring kingdom to meet the prince’s intended, she turns out to be the girl from the temple, and so everybody wins.”

“Except the mermaid.”

“And since this isn’t the uncomplicated world of Disney, the temple-girl is beautiful and sweet and absolutely perfect, not a drag-queen sea-witch in disguise.” At Bobby’s questioning expression, Sam waved his hand dismissively. “That’s the Disney movie. Anyway, the marriage is scheduled, and the mermaid’s contract says that if the prince marries someone other than her, she will die the morning after the ceremony.”

“She dies!?”

Sam nodded. “She is given a way out if she is willing to kill the prince, but she throws herself into the sea instead, choosing death. After publication, Andersen added a happy ending of sorts where the mermaid is given an immortal soul and there is some moralising about good children helping mermaids go to Heaven or whatever, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a story about futile love.”

Bobby was silent for a while. “I doubt he had much hope to begin with, but this probably didn’t help. Interesting though, how his memories ain’t the only things he got to keep. Toddler or no, he’s still in love with Dean.”

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “The worst part is that the prince actually does love the mermaid. He takes her everywhere, kisses her and even confesses love for her, but he never even contemplates actually marrying her. He doesn’t see that the love he feels is romantic love, because he thinks of the mermaid as a child.”

Bobby thumped his head back against the headrest with a groan. “And Dean fails to make the connection because Castiel took a male vessel, and is now a toddler.”

“In both cases the beloved object is perceived in a non-sexual form and so the loving subject doesn’t make the connection from platonic to romantic love,” Sam finished.

Bobby drew a deep, slow breath. “I have a headache,” he said and closed his eyes for a moment, but when he opened them again they were narrowed. “Do we tell Dean?” He looked at Sam. “He seemed to be on the right track last night; maybe we could give him a leg-up over that final hurdle.”

“Oh, I want to, I’ve wanted to forever.” Sam laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll say: Hey Dean, our toddler angel is in love with you, so would you please get over your thirty-two years - oh wait, forty years in Hell, make that seventy-two years - of deep-seated homophobia and insecurity, as well as all the issues arising from said angel’s recent betrayal, and just propose to him already?” He turned his head to the side and gave Bobby a flat look. “That would totally work.” He straightened up and shook his head. “You know what Dean would do if we just up and told him how to handle this.”

“The damn opposite,” Bobby replied. “I knew that. Forget I said anything.”

“Even if, against all odds, my idiot big brother managed to stumble on the right course of action and he and Cas lived happily ever after, he would always resent himself for needing to be told the truth, and he would resent us for telling him.”

“Yeah,” Bobby agreed quietly. “But it’s a bitch to be unable to help them in any way.”

“Oh, there might be something we can do to help,” Sam assured him. “In fact, I asked you to take me out for a reason. It all depends on what we find downtown.”