[Fic] The Cruelest Lies
Title: The Cruelest Lies
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam, Dean, Castiel
Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 3,800
Spoilers: Up to 06x16, "And Then There Were None."
Summary: After Sam's seizure, Cas shows up at the bar where Dean's drinking himself stupid and demands his attention and immediate return. Dean, of course, panics.
Note: Sequel to The Long Dark (AO3). // On LJ
__________________________
The cruelest lies are often told in silence. - Adlai Stevenson
Distractions are Dean's specialty.
When life kicks him in the nads and he just needs some time to cool off, he likes to divert his attention to more pleasant things.
This one is named Rebecca, and she has brown eyes and curly brown hair and a smattering of freckles under a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. She's got the down-home charm and just enough I'm not a virgin that Dean is all over it. She also seems to be sweet, and she hasn't slapped him yet, so that's something.
His eyes stray over, down her clean, clear skin and to the swell of breasts that peek out the top of this salmon pink number cute enough to make her girly and tight enough to let Dean know that she knows exactly what she has and is confident in it.
He likes that kind of woman. He'll have sex with her.
He will... if he can get it up. Dean has a high tolerance for alcohol, but he knows that with as much as he's tossed down the hatch, performance might be an issue.
That's when he hears it. Somehow, the telltale rustle reaches his ears above the grainy music coming in over the speakers and the drone of about thirty other voices. Call it a hunter's instincts. Perhaps he's just gotten too used to Cas coming and going, but there's always this shift in the atmosphere when the angel arrives and leaves.
"Dean."
He doesn't flinch as a strong hand clamps down on his shoulder.
Dean tosses back the rest of the whiskey left in his glass and relishes the burn. "Cas," he says.
The angel stares at him for a long moment, a heavy and unreadable expression in his eyes.
Cas stares so steadily and for so long that Rebecca makes this choked off noise and throws Dean a panicked smile. "Uh," she blurts.
"Cas!" Dean reaches out to put an arm around her warm shoulders. "This is Rebecca. She lives a few towns over and is visiting Sioux Falls to see her aunt, which is awesome for me. Rebecca, this is Cas, my retarded angel. Friend. My retarded friend."
Cas frowns. "I have no developmental disabilities, and you are intoxicated."
"Rebecca's nice," Dean adds. She really is. Cas might be determined to be a virgin, but Dean won't let him-won't.... Actually.
"Cas, no. Rebecca's really nice. You'd love her. Siddown, let's talk!"
Rebecca's wriggling out from under his arm, and he lets go.
"You know, I'm sorry. I don't want to be a bother..." she mumbles as she slides away, heading to the opposite corner and turning back several times as if to make sure he's not gonna stalk her back. It's a shame. She was a really sweet girl, kind and smart and pretty, but it's probably good, anyway. Now he doesn't have to worry about performance issues.
"You scared her away," he mutters, leveling what he thinks is an angry gaze at Cas.
The angel's frown only deepens.
Cas reaches out, presses his fingers to Dean's forehead, and the pleasant haze of intoxication zaps out of Dean before he can blink, leaving him painfully aware of everything. (The ache in his body, the bruises from scuffling with the people possessed by Eve's ass-ugly worm-things, and the heaviness in the hand that electrocuted Bobby. He looks to his empty glass with a scowl and then turns to Cas.
"Dude! You killed my buzz. Give it back."
"I'm almost intoxicated just cleaning that from your blood. Dean, I'm not here to talk."
"Then what the hell are you here for? You ruined what was promising to be a fantastic night. Seriously. Give me my buzz back."
"I heard about your argument with your brother."
Suddenly it hits Dean. His lips curl into a cold smirk. "Please don't tell me Sam prayed you down here to yell at me, because that's just fucking rich."
"No. I... he did call out for me, but he didn't call me. He... I am not sure how much I should disclose."
"I see what you meant about being drunk." Dean flicks a gesture at the bartender, who comes and refills his glass. He knocks it back before Cas can complain, and then turns back to the Angel. "He was an ass. I mean, I shouldn't have hit him, but sometimes he just won't let up, you know?"
"I need you to come back to Bobby's."
"Hell no."
"Dean."
Cas’s grave tone makes Dean lift his eyes from the glass and give Cas a close once-over. "What's up?" A shiver rolls through him as he mentally flips through the kind of things that could have brought Cas here with that voice and that severe, unreadable expression. "Bobby? Is it Bobby? He was fine last I saw him-"
"Bobby is fine. He is recovering."
"Then what?"
"I cannot say. I do not want to betray confidences."
"Sounding like a therapist here, Cas."
"That's irrelevant. We must return."
Dean has about a second to react when he notices Cas's hand reaching out and realizes that the angel plans to zap him home. He opens his mouth to yell a curse or a complaint, draws his shoulders back to scramble away before Cas can grab him-but then Cas's hand closes around his wrist and he feels like he just got tossed in a dryer on high heat and then hung out to dry upside down.
In the next moment, he's elsewhere. He’s standing on a floor with a different sort of give and texture to it, his mouth is open, and he cries out, "Cas, Baby's still here!" before he can stop himself.
But he is no longer at the bar. He's home, and he feels vaguely dizzy from the teleportation or whatever the hell angels do, and Baby is back at the bar with all those uncultured heathens. He will bring down all the wrath of Hell upon anyone who so much as scratches her. At least Dean has the keys.
"Sorry," Cas offers, steadying Dean when he tips a little. "It was the most expedient way."
"And why the hell did we need to be expedient?”
Cas's hand claps over Dean's mouth, and he's about to push the angel away when his eyes move around the room and see the disarray-a sheaf of papers has fallen off the bookshelf and the table is knocked a few inches away from the position it's been in since Dean can remember (as evidenced by the disturbance in the dust that's spent the last few months or years settling around everything), and there's a folded-up rag stained faint brown-red with water and what looks to be blood.
Instantly he's on guard.
“Where is it?” he asks.
“What?”
“Whatever did that.”
“Shh. Your brother is sleeping.” Cas gestures at the couch.
“Slept through whatever did that?” Dean takes a few steps to the side to get a clear look at the couch, and all the air goes out of him on a muttered curse.
“Fuck. Sammy.”
In a second, he's at his brother's side.
When they were little, they sparred. They both took some punches. This isn't just-got-punched-in-the-face Sam. This is something else.
He looks exhausted, eyes sunken and bruised, and there's blood on his lips and in the corners of the mouth, flecks of it still lingering in places down his chin (Cas later tells him that he tried to wash most of it way). He looks pale as death, near-transparent and dwarfed by a big, rough blanket.
“What happened?” Dean demands, spinning on Cas, ready to unleash hell on whoever hurt his brother.
Cas pauses. Dean loves the guy, but sometimes he just wants to shake him.
“What happened?” he repeats. “What did you do?”
“I did nothing.” Cas brightend. “Apparently, that was the correct course of action to take. It was already happening when I arrived.”
“What was?”
“Well… I sensed his distress and came here to find Sam... panicking.”
“Cas, I have about this much patience-“
“He was upset about your fight,” Cas begins.
“I swear...” Dean bites his lip as he holds a hand under Sam's nose to feel his breaths, then checks his temperature and pulse before running his hands over Sam to look for apparent injuries. “Cas, if you don't-”
“I am explaining, Dean Winchester. Listen.” A pause, a meaningful stare, and he continues. “He was upset, and began to say strange things. I believed he was delusional at the time. He asked me about a strange smell. He was trembling badly.”
“I will hit you if you don't jump to the punchline.”
“I think something that happened before you left may have inflicted damage on Sam's wall. He had a seizure. It lasted approximately five minutes. He was unconscious for a while afterward and largely unresponsive for nearly an hour when he awoke. His motor functions are still suffering; I don't know if he realizes that.”
Cas's words settle in Dean's belly like poison. While he was hitting on Rebecca and touching her soft hair, Sam was here having convulsions and remembering his time in the Cage. That's just fucking awesome.
He trembles as he checks for breath again, forcing out curses under his breath until he feels the warmth of a slow exhale on his fingers.
“And?”
“He did not lose his bowels.”
Dean spins to face the impassive angel. “The fuck, Cas?”
“I apologize. Please disregard that. He is… fine.”
“He doesn’t look fine.”
“He was speaking in full sentences before he went to sleep. With how close he came to losing himself, I believe that is as much as we can ask for. Had the episode continued for much longer, I cannot guarantee that his mind-and the wall protecting it-would not have been irreparably damaged.”
“Damn it, Sammy…” Dean kneels beside the couch, taking up the cold, bloodied rag and finishing what Cas started, dabbing dried blood from Sam’s mouth and sweeping up dark flecks of it from Sam’s jaw and neck. He’s breathing a little too fast for sleep, but he’s obviously not conscious, and worry uncoils like a beast in Dean’s gut and flexes her razor claws all through him.
“You sure it’s… the wall? I mean, it couldn’t be something else?”
“Death told you it was dangerous, Dean. I told you. It should come as no surprise.”
“But you’re sure?”
“I am. I… I didn’t mean to violate his privacy, but while he was…” Cas clears his throat. “I had to move him. The Internet suggested that I move him onto his side to keep his airway open, and he was…projecting his memories very strongly. He was most certainly recalling the Cage.” He glances over at Sam, and there’s both pain and what looks to be pride on his face, and Dean can’t help the feeling of that’s my brother that courses through him. “He’s strong,” Cas adds.
Dean knows that. Of course he does.
Dean can’t ask what Cas saw in Sam’s mind, isn’t sure he wants to know. Adrenaline burns through him, but there’s nothing to run from. He crushes down the feeling of panic and anger and grits his teeth, focuses on what’s here. Sam is here. The floor underneath him is cold. Dean breathes.
“How… how long?”
“I believe I told you.”
“Then tell me again!”
“The seizure lasted over five minutes… I did not call for help because he cannot be treated with human medicine. He was unconscious for a short while afterward, then altered for approximately an hour.”
After the first time this happened, Sam had said that three minutes felt like a week. Did the part where he was unconscious count? He could have been “back there” for months, even years, for all Dean knows. He can’t help the shudder that rolls through him. Hell only visits Dean in his dreams, and that’s bad enough.
“Damn it!” Pain lances through Dean’s arm as his hand collides with the sharp edge of the squat, wooden table.
Cas is suddenly beside Dean. “Please. He’s sleeping. Don’t… it would be better, I think, if you didn’t get angry.”
“I’m not mad at him, Cas. I’m… I can’t even…”
“Be that as it may, we can’t tell what caused the seizure. Better not to frighten him.”
Dean nods, gaze remaining on Sam. It feels like looking away would be a betrayal. “Yeah. Ghandi-vibes. Got it.” After a while, his knees start to dig into the rough wood floor, joints aching and feet going numb. Silently, Cas appears behind him with a chair and helps Dean into it, moving the table aside so that Dean can be right beside his little brother.
Dean doesn’t fall asleep, but he wishes he could.
-oOo-
Sam wakes with a groan, starting to sit up before he whimpers and falls back.
When he notices Dean, the blood all leaves his face and Dean is up and away and feeling like shit and he’s sorry, okay? He’s sorry.
He didn’t hit Sam that hard, not hard enough to get that face from him.
“Sammy,” he whispers.
A little bit of the fear goes.
Dean isn’t quite sure why, but that’s a good thing. He draws closer. “You okay, Sammy?”
“Remember that time I mouthed off to Dad and he had me run the path to school and back until dinnertime?”
Dean winces, tensing. School had been a little over a mile away from the abandoned house they were squatting in at the time, and Sam had run it for about three hours. “That bad?”
Sam makes a noise that Dean takes for agreement. “Didn’t regret it, though.”
Dean sits back down on the chair. Sam smacks his lips and winces, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. My mouth tastes awful.”
Dean looks around for water and finds a huge mug of it. Cas must have put it there while Dean was spacing out.
Dean picks up the cup, and Sam doesn’t try too hard to take it from him, which is evidence enough of how tired Sam is. Sam swishes the water around in his mouth, cleaning his teeth of gummy, partially-coagulated blood, and then spits in an empty beer can Dean scrounges up from one corner of the room. After that, he takes a long gulp of the water.
Dean watches Sam settle back down onto the pillows. “Wanna tell me what happened?”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“Cas told me you were fucking with your wall again. Sam, we’ve talked about this-” He goes to frustration without thinking. There’s only so much worry a body can take before it comes out as something else, and frustration is a better alternative than anger.
Sam laughs, hollow and quiet. “He used your face, I think,” he says.
“Cas did? I’m not following…”
“Lucifer.”
Dean thinks that Sam should shake when he speaks that name, but it’s Dean who flinches on hearing it. “Sam, you don’t have to…”
“You asked what happened,” Sam says, eyes half-lidded but still pissy and accusing, just enough that Dean knows it’s going to be all right. “I really don’t remember much. The longer I was awake after I woke up, the more it faded. But, uh… before I passed out, I remembered a little. It was tame stuff, just torture.”
Torture. Tame stuff.
Dean swallows.
Sam looks off to one side. “He liked to wear your face and, uh, do things. So I guess… I guess I just got…. I mean. I-” Sam tries to sit up again and growls through the pain until he’s upright.
“What?” But Dean knows it. He just needs to hear it. “Tell me, Sam.”
“When you got angry-I mean, Dean, it wasn’t you. I was angry, too, and this stuff, it’s par for the course for us. I don’t know. Probably I was stressed from Bobby. And all… all of it.”
Dean shakes his head and leans back. He needs to walk, clear his head. Before the thought can fully form, Sam lashes out as if to grab him, but his hand swings wide and when it finally lands on Dean’s bicep, the grip is too weak. Sam’s face says everything.
“I mean it, Dean. I don’t need you all to put on the kiddie gloves. I’m dealing with this, and…” Suddenly his eyes narrow. “Why’d you come back here?”
Dean's eyes must flick to the door Cas left from, because Sam looks like he’s about to throttle someone. “Cas,” he says. “Damn it, Cas. Just go do your thing, Dean. I’m fine. A little achy.”
“Yeah, because your grip here-” He wiggles the arm Sam’s still holding “Is just the picture of health and life. Get back to me when you can crush eggshells without overexerting yourself.”
Sam scowls.
“You hungry?” Dean’s famished. Without all the whiskey to fill up his belly, he realizes just how long it’s been since he’s eaten.
“Not right now,” Sam says, and Dean reads between the lines.
“Okay.”
Dean isn’t that hungry. He can wait. He shifts a little in his chair.
“Dean.”
He looks up. “Hmm?”
“Get some food. You’re looking at me like I’m edible, and it’s a bit scary.”
“I’m fine, Sammy.”
The fire is back in his eyes, and Sam’s eyebrows draw together with the old hopeless anger. “Get some food, Dean.”
“I told you-”
“Go! Jesus, Dean, I don’t need you to sit here and watch me. You’re creeping me out, okay? I have a headache and if your stomach growls any louder, my skull might split.”
“I’m-”
“Fine. You said that. You know what you tell me about lying, Dean? You know how you get so pissed when I keep secrets from you? You ever stopped to wonder where I got that from? How the hell can you-” His voice breaks and he coughs, reaching out for the cup, but Dean gets to it before him and holds it to his lips. Sam’s just about seething, but he snags the cup from Dean, taking a few gulps and then dropping the mug back on the table. It stays upright, just barely. A few drops of water splash onto the old wood of the table, staining it darker. His voice is softer when he speaks, rough and overused. “How can you expect me to tell you everything when you hide so much from me?”
“Sammy, I’m the big brother. I’m strong as an ox. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I do, though. I need to, and you won’t let me. You really have no idea how that even feels, do you? To give and give and give and hope for a return, any little truth. But you never trust me, Dean. You never-”
Sam’s face is getting paler the longer he talks, color high on his cheeks, and his breaths are speeding up in choppy stops and starts like his lungs are forgetting how to breathe.
Dean scrambles upright, sitting on the corner of the couch, lifting Sam properly upright-up off the pillows he’s supporting himself with-and rubbing a big hand over Sam’s warm back. “Okay. I gotcha, Sammy. Just breathe. Calm down, and we can talk about this, okay?”
For the next few minutes, he rubs slow, counterclockwise circles over Sam’s back, waiting for his breaths to even out. Just when they’re starting to get slow and even again, Sam’s breath hitches and comes out a little wet, and Dean moves back to the chair.
What he sees sets him back and makes him feel worse than he felt when he saw the blood on Sam’s face when he came back. Sam’s eyes are red and filling with tears, lips pressed into a tight line.
It’s been too long since he’s seen his little brother cry, and somehow it’s always his fault.
It’s Sam who apologizes, though. “Shit, Dean, I’m sorry. I don’t… I’ve been kinda wonky since I woke up.”
“No,” Dean whispers. “It’s fine. You were getting Hell reruns just a few hours ago. I mean, I’d feel out of sorts, too.”
Sam shrugs, one shoulder slower than the other, either for effect or because it hurts or for other reasons Dean can’t understand and he’s worried. He’s the big brother and he has a right to be, because this is his job.
Look, Sam. I’m sorry. I can’t undo years of-a whole lifetime, Sam-of watching out for you.”
Sam shakes his head, inhaling a broken breath, and then scrubs at his cheeks and eyes. “I’m not asking you to.”
“Then…”
“I’m just asking you to let me in. Tell me the truth sometimes. Start small; you can stop lying about whose socks those are you keep leaving in the bathroom after you take a shower. Those aren’t mine.”
“Hey, it’s not like you could tell, we got the same cheap six-pack-”
“Dean.”
“Hm?”
“All of mine have holes in the big toes. Those are definitely yours.”
“Oh.”
“Just stop lying to me. Let me carry some of the burden, and-”
“Sammy, let up on the-”
“If you say a word about chick flicks, I will punch you, Dean.”
Dean shrugs. Worth a try. It used to shut Sam up.
“Just... promise me. Please, Dean?”
Dean looks long and hard into his little brother’s eyes, the naked hope there. He swallows, forces a smile. “Hey, Sammy. You know what? You’re right. I’m starving. I’m gonna go whip up some grub.”
Sam’s eyes follow him all the way out until dean turns the corner. He hears his brother settle back down on the couch, hears a ragged breath and a sniffle. He can imagine Sam throwing the blanket over his head without needing to see it.
Dean will make food and put some aside for Sam, and then he’ll go back and try to apologize. Maybe Sam will sleep and forget this, and maybe he’ll notice that Dean didn’t lie this time.
He just didn’t answer.
Dean lies, sure. He’s done it to protect Sam and to protect himself and to hold together things that should have fallen to pieces a long time ago. Sometimes the lies are all that hold him together.
He doesn’t like to make promises he can’t keep, though.
He’s made and broken enough of those already.
He ignores Sam’s quiet hitches of breath from the living room and Cas’s unreadable expression as Dean passes him in the hall. Before Dean gets to the kitchen, he hears the rustling of feathers and feels the quality of the air change, and he knows without seeing that Cas is gone.
He pads into the kitchen and puts some water on the stove, and he tells himself that things will be better when Sam wakes up.
_____
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sam, Dean, Castiel
Pairing: Gen
Word Count: 3,800
Spoilers: Up to 06x16, "And Then There Were None."
Summary: After Sam's seizure, Cas shows up at the bar where Dean's drinking himself stupid and demands his attention and immediate return. Dean, of course, panics.
Note: Sequel to The Long Dark (AO3). // On LJ
__________________________
The cruelest lies are often told in silence. - Adlai Stevenson
Distractions are Dean's specialty.
When life kicks him in the nads and he just needs some time to cool off, he likes to divert his attention to more pleasant things.
This one is named Rebecca, and she has brown eyes and curly brown hair and a smattering of freckles under a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. She's got the down-home charm and just enough I'm not a virgin that Dean is all over it. She also seems to be sweet, and she hasn't slapped him yet, so that's something.
His eyes stray over, down her clean, clear skin and to the swell of breasts that peek out the top of this salmon pink number cute enough to make her girly and tight enough to let Dean know that she knows exactly what she has and is confident in it.
He likes that kind of woman. He'll have sex with her.
He will... if he can get it up. Dean has a high tolerance for alcohol, but he knows that with as much as he's tossed down the hatch, performance might be an issue.
That's when he hears it. Somehow, the telltale rustle reaches his ears above the grainy music coming in over the speakers and the drone of about thirty other voices. Call it a hunter's instincts. Perhaps he's just gotten too used to Cas coming and going, but there's always this shift in the atmosphere when the angel arrives and leaves.
"Dean."
He doesn't flinch as a strong hand clamps down on his shoulder.
Dean tosses back the rest of the whiskey left in his glass and relishes the burn. "Cas," he says.
The angel stares at him for a long moment, a heavy and unreadable expression in his eyes.
Cas stares so steadily and for so long that Rebecca makes this choked off noise and throws Dean a panicked smile. "Uh," she blurts.
"Cas!" Dean reaches out to put an arm around her warm shoulders. "This is Rebecca. She lives a few towns over and is visiting Sioux Falls to see her aunt, which is awesome for me. Rebecca, this is Cas, my retarded angel. Friend. My retarded friend."
Cas frowns. "I have no developmental disabilities, and you are intoxicated."
"Rebecca's nice," Dean adds. She really is. Cas might be determined to be a virgin, but Dean won't let him-won't.... Actually.
"Cas, no. Rebecca's really nice. You'd love her. Siddown, let's talk!"
Rebecca's wriggling out from under his arm, and he lets go.
"You know, I'm sorry. I don't want to be a bother..." she mumbles as she slides away, heading to the opposite corner and turning back several times as if to make sure he's not gonna stalk her back. It's a shame. She was a really sweet girl, kind and smart and pretty, but it's probably good, anyway. Now he doesn't have to worry about performance issues.
"You scared her away," he mutters, leveling what he thinks is an angry gaze at Cas.
The angel's frown only deepens.
Cas reaches out, presses his fingers to Dean's forehead, and the pleasant haze of intoxication zaps out of Dean before he can blink, leaving him painfully aware of everything. (The ache in his body, the bruises from scuffling with the people possessed by Eve's ass-ugly worm-things, and the heaviness in the hand that electrocuted Bobby. He looks to his empty glass with a scowl and then turns to Cas.
"Dude! You killed my buzz. Give it back."
"I'm almost intoxicated just cleaning that from your blood. Dean, I'm not here to talk."
"Then what the hell are you here for? You ruined what was promising to be a fantastic night. Seriously. Give me my buzz back."
"I heard about your argument with your brother."
Suddenly it hits Dean. His lips curl into a cold smirk. "Please don't tell me Sam prayed you down here to yell at me, because that's just fucking rich."
"No. I... he did call out for me, but he didn't call me. He... I am not sure how much I should disclose."
"I see what you meant about being drunk." Dean flicks a gesture at the bartender, who comes and refills his glass. He knocks it back before Cas can complain, and then turns back to the Angel. "He was an ass. I mean, I shouldn't have hit him, but sometimes he just won't let up, you know?"
"I need you to come back to Bobby's."
"Hell no."
"Dean."
Cas’s grave tone makes Dean lift his eyes from the glass and give Cas a close once-over. "What's up?" A shiver rolls through him as he mentally flips through the kind of things that could have brought Cas here with that voice and that severe, unreadable expression. "Bobby? Is it Bobby? He was fine last I saw him-"
"Bobby is fine. He is recovering."
"Then what?"
"I cannot say. I do not want to betray confidences."
"Sounding like a therapist here, Cas."
"That's irrelevant. We must return."
Dean has about a second to react when he notices Cas's hand reaching out and realizes that the angel plans to zap him home. He opens his mouth to yell a curse or a complaint, draws his shoulders back to scramble away before Cas can grab him-but then Cas's hand closes around his wrist and he feels like he just got tossed in a dryer on high heat and then hung out to dry upside down.
In the next moment, he's elsewhere. He’s standing on a floor with a different sort of give and texture to it, his mouth is open, and he cries out, "Cas, Baby's still here!" before he can stop himself.
But he is no longer at the bar. He's home, and he feels vaguely dizzy from the teleportation or whatever the hell angels do, and Baby is back at the bar with all those uncultured heathens. He will bring down all the wrath of Hell upon anyone who so much as scratches her. At least Dean has the keys.
"Sorry," Cas offers, steadying Dean when he tips a little. "It was the most expedient way."
"And why the hell did we need to be expedient?”
Cas's hand claps over Dean's mouth, and he's about to push the angel away when his eyes move around the room and see the disarray-a sheaf of papers has fallen off the bookshelf and the table is knocked a few inches away from the position it's been in since Dean can remember (as evidenced by the disturbance in the dust that's spent the last few months or years settling around everything), and there's a folded-up rag stained faint brown-red with water and what looks to be blood.
Instantly he's on guard.
“Where is it?” he asks.
“What?”
“Whatever did that.”
“Shh. Your brother is sleeping.” Cas gestures at the couch.
“Slept through whatever did that?” Dean takes a few steps to the side to get a clear look at the couch, and all the air goes out of him on a muttered curse.
“Fuck. Sammy.”
In a second, he's at his brother's side.
When they were little, they sparred. They both took some punches. This isn't just-got-punched-in-the-face Sam. This is something else.
He looks exhausted, eyes sunken and bruised, and there's blood on his lips and in the corners of the mouth, flecks of it still lingering in places down his chin (Cas later tells him that he tried to wash most of it way). He looks pale as death, near-transparent and dwarfed by a big, rough blanket.
“What happened?” Dean demands, spinning on Cas, ready to unleash hell on whoever hurt his brother.
Cas pauses. Dean loves the guy, but sometimes he just wants to shake him.
“What happened?” he repeats. “What did you do?”
“I did nothing.” Cas brightend. “Apparently, that was the correct course of action to take. It was already happening when I arrived.”
“What was?”
“Well… I sensed his distress and came here to find Sam... panicking.”
“Cas, I have about this much patience-“
“He was upset about your fight,” Cas begins.
“I swear...” Dean bites his lip as he holds a hand under Sam's nose to feel his breaths, then checks his temperature and pulse before running his hands over Sam to look for apparent injuries. “Cas, if you don't-”
“I am explaining, Dean Winchester. Listen.” A pause, a meaningful stare, and he continues. “He was upset, and began to say strange things. I believed he was delusional at the time. He asked me about a strange smell. He was trembling badly.”
“I will hit you if you don't jump to the punchline.”
“I think something that happened before you left may have inflicted damage on Sam's wall. He had a seizure. It lasted approximately five minutes. He was unconscious for a while afterward and largely unresponsive for nearly an hour when he awoke. His motor functions are still suffering; I don't know if he realizes that.”
Cas's words settle in Dean's belly like poison. While he was hitting on Rebecca and touching her soft hair, Sam was here having convulsions and remembering his time in the Cage. That's just fucking awesome.
He trembles as he checks for breath again, forcing out curses under his breath until he feels the warmth of a slow exhale on his fingers.
“And?”
“He did not lose his bowels.”
Dean spins to face the impassive angel. “The fuck, Cas?”
“I apologize. Please disregard that. He is… fine.”
“He doesn’t look fine.”
“He was speaking in full sentences before he went to sleep. With how close he came to losing himself, I believe that is as much as we can ask for. Had the episode continued for much longer, I cannot guarantee that his mind-and the wall protecting it-would not have been irreparably damaged.”
“Damn it, Sammy…” Dean kneels beside the couch, taking up the cold, bloodied rag and finishing what Cas started, dabbing dried blood from Sam’s mouth and sweeping up dark flecks of it from Sam’s jaw and neck. He’s breathing a little too fast for sleep, but he’s obviously not conscious, and worry uncoils like a beast in Dean’s gut and flexes her razor claws all through him.
“You sure it’s… the wall? I mean, it couldn’t be something else?”
“Death told you it was dangerous, Dean. I told you. It should come as no surprise.”
“But you’re sure?”
“I am. I… I didn’t mean to violate his privacy, but while he was…” Cas clears his throat. “I had to move him. The Internet suggested that I move him onto his side to keep his airway open, and he was…projecting his memories very strongly. He was most certainly recalling the Cage.” He glances over at Sam, and there’s both pain and what looks to be pride on his face, and Dean can’t help the feeling of that’s my brother that courses through him. “He’s strong,” Cas adds.
Dean knows that. Of course he does.
Dean can’t ask what Cas saw in Sam’s mind, isn’t sure he wants to know. Adrenaline burns through him, but there’s nothing to run from. He crushes down the feeling of panic and anger and grits his teeth, focuses on what’s here. Sam is here. The floor underneath him is cold. Dean breathes.
“How… how long?”
“I believe I told you.”
“Then tell me again!”
“The seizure lasted over five minutes… I did not call for help because he cannot be treated with human medicine. He was unconscious for a short while afterward, then altered for approximately an hour.”
After the first time this happened, Sam had said that three minutes felt like a week. Did the part where he was unconscious count? He could have been “back there” for months, even years, for all Dean knows. He can’t help the shudder that rolls through him. Hell only visits Dean in his dreams, and that’s bad enough.
“Damn it!” Pain lances through Dean’s arm as his hand collides with the sharp edge of the squat, wooden table.
Cas is suddenly beside Dean. “Please. He’s sleeping. Don’t… it would be better, I think, if you didn’t get angry.”
“I’m not mad at him, Cas. I’m… I can’t even…”
“Be that as it may, we can’t tell what caused the seizure. Better not to frighten him.”
Dean nods, gaze remaining on Sam. It feels like looking away would be a betrayal. “Yeah. Ghandi-vibes. Got it.” After a while, his knees start to dig into the rough wood floor, joints aching and feet going numb. Silently, Cas appears behind him with a chair and helps Dean into it, moving the table aside so that Dean can be right beside his little brother.
Dean doesn’t fall asleep, but he wishes he could.
-oOo-
Sam wakes with a groan, starting to sit up before he whimpers and falls back.
When he notices Dean, the blood all leaves his face and Dean is up and away and feeling like shit and he’s sorry, okay? He’s sorry.
He didn’t hit Sam that hard, not hard enough to get that face from him.
“Sammy,” he whispers.
A little bit of the fear goes.
Dean isn’t quite sure why, but that’s a good thing. He draws closer. “You okay, Sammy?”
“Remember that time I mouthed off to Dad and he had me run the path to school and back until dinnertime?”
Dean winces, tensing. School had been a little over a mile away from the abandoned house they were squatting in at the time, and Sam had run it for about three hours. “That bad?”
Sam makes a noise that Dean takes for agreement. “Didn’t regret it, though.”
Dean sits back down on the chair. Sam smacks his lips and winces, frowning. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. My mouth tastes awful.”
Dean looks around for water and finds a huge mug of it. Cas must have put it there while Dean was spacing out.
Dean picks up the cup, and Sam doesn’t try too hard to take it from him, which is evidence enough of how tired Sam is. Sam swishes the water around in his mouth, cleaning his teeth of gummy, partially-coagulated blood, and then spits in an empty beer can Dean scrounges up from one corner of the room. After that, he takes a long gulp of the water.
Dean watches Sam settle back down onto the pillows. “Wanna tell me what happened?”
Sam doesn’t say anything.
“Cas told me you were fucking with your wall again. Sam, we’ve talked about this-” He goes to frustration without thinking. There’s only so much worry a body can take before it comes out as something else, and frustration is a better alternative than anger.
Sam laughs, hollow and quiet. “He used your face, I think,” he says.
“Cas did? I’m not following…”
“Lucifer.”
Dean thinks that Sam should shake when he speaks that name, but it’s Dean who flinches on hearing it. “Sam, you don’t have to…”
“You asked what happened,” Sam says, eyes half-lidded but still pissy and accusing, just enough that Dean knows it’s going to be all right. “I really don’t remember much. The longer I was awake after I woke up, the more it faded. But, uh… before I passed out, I remembered a little. It was tame stuff, just torture.”
Torture. Tame stuff.
Dean swallows.
Sam looks off to one side. “He liked to wear your face and, uh, do things. So I guess… I guess I just got…. I mean. I-” Sam tries to sit up again and growls through the pain until he’s upright.
“What?” But Dean knows it. He just needs to hear it. “Tell me, Sam.”
“When you got angry-I mean, Dean, it wasn’t you. I was angry, too, and this stuff, it’s par for the course for us. I don’t know. Probably I was stressed from Bobby. And all… all of it.”
Dean shakes his head and leans back. He needs to walk, clear his head. Before the thought can fully form, Sam lashes out as if to grab him, but his hand swings wide and when it finally lands on Dean’s bicep, the grip is too weak. Sam’s face says everything.
“I mean it, Dean. I don’t need you all to put on the kiddie gloves. I’m dealing with this, and…” Suddenly his eyes narrow. “Why’d you come back here?”
Dean's eyes must flick to the door Cas left from, because Sam looks like he’s about to throttle someone. “Cas,” he says. “Damn it, Cas. Just go do your thing, Dean. I’m fine. A little achy.”
“Yeah, because your grip here-” He wiggles the arm Sam’s still holding “Is just the picture of health and life. Get back to me when you can crush eggshells without overexerting yourself.”
Sam scowls.
“You hungry?” Dean’s famished. Without all the whiskey to fill up his belly, he realizes just how long it’s been since he’s eaten.
“Not right now,” Sam says, and Dean reads between the lines.
“Okay.”
Dean isn’t that hungry. He can wait. He shifts a little in his chair.
“Dean.”
He looks up. “Hmm?”
“Get some food. You’re looking at me like I’m edible, and it’s a bit scary.”
“I’m fine, Sammy.”
The fire is back in his eyes, and Sam’s eyebrows draw together with the old hopeless anger. “Get some food, Dean.”
“I told you-”
“Go! Jesus, Dean, I don’t need you to sit here and watch me. You’re creeping me out, okay? I have a headache and if your stomach growls any louder, my skull might split.”
“I’m-”
“Fine. You said that. You know what you tell me about lying, Dean? You know how you get so pissed when I keep secrets from you? You ever stopped to wonder where I got that from? How the hell can you-” His voice breaks and he coughs, reaching out for the cup, but Dean gets to it before him and holds it to his lips. Sam’s just about seething, but he snags the cup from Dean, taking a few gulps and then dropping the mug back on the table. It stays upright, just barely. A few drops of water splash onto the old wood of the table, staining it darker. His voice is softer when he speaks, rough and overused. “How can you expect me to tell you everything when you hide so much from me?”
“Sammy, I’m the big brother. I’m strong as an ox. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I do, though. I need to, and you won’t let me. You really have no idea how that even feels, do you? To give and give and give and hope for a return, any little truth. But you never trust me, Dean. You never-”
Sam’s face is getting paler the longer he talks, color high on his cheeks, and his breaths are speeding up in choppy stops and starts like his lungs are forgetting how to breathe.
Dean scrambles upright, sitting on the corner of the couch, lifting Sam properly upright-up off the pillows he’s supporting himself with-and rubbing a big hand over Sam’s warm back. “Okay. I gotcha, Sammy. Just breathe. Calm down, and we can talk about this, okay?”
For the next few minutes, he rubs slow, counterclockwise circles over Sam’s back, waiting for his breaths to even out. Just when they’re starting to get slow and even again, Sam’s breath hitches and comes out a little wet, and Dean moves back to the chair.
What he sees sets him back and makes him feel worse than he felt when he saw the blood on Sam’s face when he came back. Sam’s eyes are red and filling with tears, lips pressed into a tight line.
It’s been too long since he’s seen his little brother cry, and somehow it’s always his fault.
It’s Sam who apologizes, though. “Shit, Dean, I’m sorry. I don’t… I’ve been kinda wonky since I woke up.”
“No,” Dean whispers. “It’s fine. You were getting Hell reruns just a few hours ago. I mean, I’d feel out of sorts, too.”
Sam shrugs, one shoulder slower than the other, either for effect or because it hurts or for other reasons Dean can’t understand and he’s worried. He’s the big brother and he has a right to be, because this is his job.
Look, Sam. I’m sorry. I can’t undo years of-a whole lifetime, Sam-of watching out for you.”
Sam shakes his head, inhaling a broken breath, and then scrubs at his cheeks and eyes. “I’m not asking you to.”
“Then…”
“I’m just asking you to let me in. Tell me the truth sometimes. Start small; you can stop lying about whose socks those are you keep leaving in the bathroom after you take a shower. Those aren’t mine.”
“Hey, it’s not like you could tell, we got the same cheap six-pack-”
“Dean.”
“Hm?”
“All of mine have holes in the big toes. Those are definitely yours.”
“Oh.”
“Just stop lying to me. Let me carry some of the burden, and-”
“Sammy, let up on the-”
“If you say a word about chick flicks, I will punch you, Dean.”
Dean shrugs. Worth a try. It used to shut Sam up.
“Just... promise me. Please, Dean?”
Dean looks long and hard into his little brother’s eyes, the naked hope there. He swallows, forces a smile. “Hey, Sammy. You know what? You’re right. I’m starving. I’m gonna go whip up some grub.”
Sam’s eyes follow him all the way out until dean turns the corner. He hears his brother settle back down on the couch, hears a ragged breath and a sniffle. He can imagine Sam throwing the blanket over his head without needing to see it.
Dean will make food and put some aside for Sam, and then he’ll go back and try to apologize. Maybe Sam will sleep and forget this, and maybe he’ll notice that Dean didn’t lie this time.
He just didn’t answer.
Dean lies, sure. He’s done it to protect Sam and to protect himself and to hold together things that should have fallen to pieces a long time ago. Sometimes the lies are all that hold him together.
He doesn’t like to make promises he can’t keep, though.
He’s made and broken enough of those already.
He ignores Sam’s quiet hitches of breath from the living room and Cas’s unreadable expression as Dean passes him in the hall. Before Dean gets to the kitchen, he hears the rustling of feathers and feels the quality of the air change, and he knows without seeing that Cas is gone.
He pads into the kitchen and puts some water on the stove, and he tells himself that things will be better when Sam wakes up.
_____