Follow Sam Into the Dark
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Title: Follow Sam Into the Dark
Summary: You didn't really think Sammyverse "Dark Side Of The Moon" would play out like canon, did you?
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 5.
Wordcount: 5,958
Author's Note: Playing around with POV again! I subscribe to the theory that Zachariah completely fucked with Sam's memories and that their heavens were designed to make them fight. So...here is a fix it. Title is, of course, from the Death Cab song.
1.
The first memory is Dean's. Dean doesn't know that Castiel is here, so he waits .
Dean probably believes that he's dreaming. Castiel watches him appear with his car, watches him slowly rouse himself, and he finds that he's immensely curious for what will happen next.
He perches on the top of the car and does not allow Dean to see him.
He did not expect to be startled by Sam, and yet he is, though he assumed, naturally, that Dean and Sam would appear in each other's heavens. He's known since he first met them-Dean watching over Sam, Sam very asthmatic and breathless and nonetheless so, so protective, ready to jump in front of his brother at a moment's notice. (Castiel has a feeling Dean does not realize how on-edge Sam is, how prepared he always is for an onslaught. Castiel suspects it has less to do with his illness and more with the people he has lost. He suspects Dean does not need to know.)
But this Sam isn't one with which Castiel is familiar. He's a few years younger, definitely, and slimmer, hair shorter and boyishly unkempt. He has a beer bottle and his head is tipped back towards the sky.
It is far from Castiel's place to think it, but he's rather beautiful.
The thing is, Castiel likes humans.
**
Dean adapts quickly to this version of his brother. “Hey, dream-Sam,” he says, sliding up next to him and opening his own beer.
This memory of Sam will play itself out regardless of Dean's contribution, or lack thereof, to reconstructing the scene, so it isn't a surprise when he directs his words away from Dean, clearly talking to an invisible version of his brother that existed in another time.
“It was also sophomore year, but later,” Sam says. “A few weeks before we did spring break together. Jess and I had been together for four months. Had this really hideous asthma attack at her place. Don't know why. Just one of those things. Couldn't explain to her how bad it was. Embarrassing and horrible.”
This seems odd for a pleasant memory, but these heavenly scenes often do. Castiel knows by now. Castiel knows that there is a lot to each human that he doesn't see. And with no one moreso than the Winchesters. (Once bonded, he's heard. Once destined to die at the same time. Dean broke that, but not as cleanly as he thinks.)
(He fully expects that Dean will encounter the real Sam tonight.)
(He is terrified that he is wrong.)
(He has other matters to attend to, but he doesn't know how to tear himself away.)
(This is a problem.)
Dean says, “Fuck, I remember this. I'm what, twenty-seven? Shit, shit, I remember this. I stood up to Dad. You dragged me the fuck away.”
Dean climbs up onto the hood of the car, unknowingly next to Castiel. Castiel sees him smile a bit. He's going to replay the memory.
He remembers, and that in itself is proof of something.
“What happened?” Dean says to Sam.
Sam tells the story of Jess taking him to the hospital, and Dean says, “She loved you,” and Castiel sees feelings stand up and stretch inside Sam, sees a fluttering of light.
Castiel has possibly never seen Sam hopeful before.
Dean mouths Sam's next words along with him: “I do loving you the way you do breathing. It's my constant, Dean.”
Dean clambers off the hood and wraps Sam in a hug to which the memory of Sam does not respond.
Dean doesn't seem shaken. He follows Sam onto the hood of the car and they drink beer and watch the stars. Dean keeps smiling at him.
Castiel has seen Dean smile before, but it's been a long time.
2.
Dean is shaken, now, from the noise of the gunshots, from remembering his death, from Sam disappearing suddenly.
It is Castiel's time to speak. “Dean.”
Dean whirls around and lets out a breath. “Cas. What the fuck's going on?”
Cas's voice is gentle. “I think you know, Dean.”
He watches Dean's eyes widen and shut. “Fuck. I'm dead. I'm fucking dead?”
“Essentially. Given your present situation, I doubt it will be for long. After all, they have work-”
“--yeah, work for me, I know, okay?”
Castiel wonders if Dean has even realized that he's replaced the 'we' with 'they.' Probably not. T
“Where the hell is this?” Dean says.
“Heaven.”
“What the fuck am I doing in Heaven?”
“I told you. There are spots for you here.”
“Spots. Yes. Fuck. Where's Sam?”
Castiel has been dreading that question for the past several minutes.
“He...should be here. Not just as a memory. The real Sam. I thought he would be here by now.”
“What? What the fuck does that mean?”
“See if you can find him. Everything's fine as long as you can find him.”
“No shit, finding Sam has been my ongoing damn job since he rolled under the fucking motel bed when he was a two-year-old with a fever. Fuck this kid. He should find me for once. Shit. Where the hell is he?” Dean runs his hand over his mouth. “Fuck this kid.”
“It's all right.”
“Is he dead?”
Castiel nods a little.
“He's dead and alone.”
“Yes.”
“Are you not getting how not okay this is?”
“Get in your car, Dean. Drive. You will find him.
“Okay.” Dean breathes out. “Okay. What about you?”
“I need to find Joshua,” Castiel says, instead of saying I will follow you.
I will not leave you in the dark.
Nevertheless, he does not go.
**
Dean's road leads to a hospital.
Castiel, sadly, should not be surprised. (Should probably not be grateful. This is probably a good place to find Sam.)
He follows Dean inside, invisible again, while Dean shakes his keys and looks around the waiting room. It is largely empty, not an accurate representation of the hospitals Castiel has seen. This is a memory, and whether it's Dean's or Sam's, he probably didn't retain much of a picture of the medical personel and the other patients. They were not important.
But then they both hear Sam's raspy voice in a room down the hall, and Dean looks almost as relieved as Castiel feels.
They share a heaven.
This will do nicely.
**
Dean stands by the doorway and very obviously tries not to laugh while they watch all twenty-six years of Sam sitting cross-legged like a child on the hospital bed, playing a game called Candy Land with a boy Castiel can only assume, by the look on Dean's face, by the ease with which Sam plays with him, is a very young Dean.
Dean steps outside the room, barely, and whispers, “Cas, you there?”
Castiel reveals himself. “Yes.”
“Jesus, what about Joshua?”
“I have already looked,” Castiel lies. “While you were on your way here.”
“Oh. Nothing?”
“Not yet. I came to check on you. What are you doing?”
“Giving him a minute. This is too fucking adorable and I just...” he points to a card on the night stand. “That's a Get Well Soon card from Bobby. Sammy's seven. He just almost fucking died of pneumonia.”
“That doesn't sound like a happy memory.”
“Clearly you don't know my kid,” Dean says, but he doesn't sound convinced either. He clears his throat and steps back into the room and says, “What the hell, Sam?”
Sam startles, looks at Dean, shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. “This dream keeps getting weirder. Hey, Cas.”
“Hello.”
Sam says, “Look, Dean, it's baby you.
“Hi, baby me. This isn't a dream. We're dead.”
“What?”
“Think hard.”
Sam looks up, like he always does, like the answer is written on the ceiling. Or like he is consulting the heavens, which is amusing considering his present location (and a little horrible when you consider what use the heavens have been for him lately. Castiel wants that hopeful Sam drinking beer and watching the stars to come back so acutely that it hurts him. Likely not as much as it hurts Sam.)
Sam says. “Oh. Shit.”
“Pretty much,” Dean says.
“Fuck. So...”
“This is Heaven.”
“How the fuck did I get into Heaven?”
“I don't know, I guess you're awesome. I just know I was supposed to find you. Cas said...he said everything would be okay if I found you.”
Cas nods. “Everything's okay.”
“Oh. Okay.” Sam turns back to Dean. “Want to play Candy Land?”
“So, okay, what the hell, Sam, why is this is your Heaven?”
“How the fuck should I know? I just appeared here.” He looks across the board at fake-Dean. “But yeah, I don't know. It's not so bad. I was getting better, yeah? And you and Dad were loving me up all the time.” Sam breathes out and looks around. “He's not here.”
“Probably down in the cafeteria or something. He was around at this point. He got you those balloons, remember?”
Sam nods, says, “Yeah,” softly.
Castiel says, “You shouldn't linger.”
Dean looks at him. “What?”
“Would you like Zachariah to find you?”
“Uh, no, that doesn't sound good.”
“Then we should keep moving.”
“Don't you have shit to do?”
“Yes, but I-”
And then everything is shaking, and there is light, and Castiel touches his boys and pulls them away.
**
3.
They land in the back of a car. Castiel is between them, until Dean growls “Move,” and crawls awkwardly underneath Castiel to squish in next to Sam. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Where the fuck are we?”
Dean is a little frightened. It's understandable.
“Taxi,” Sam says, frowning a little. “When did we ever...”
“I don't know.”
So Castiel starts to talk to them about the importance of finding God, and how he really should go, but they're not listening and then Sam's expression changes and he cranes his head out the window.
“You recognize anything?” Dean says.
“Yeah, this is Palo Alto.”
“Yeah?”
“I'm trying to figure out where exactly. We're not headed towards school or the airport or the hospital, so there go my three landmarks.”
“No, wait, I recognize this.” Dean looks at a motel sign up ahead. “I stayed at this motel once.”
Sam freezes.
“Hey,” Dean says. “What's wrong?”
Sam breathes out. Silently. “I know what memory this is.” He is wheezing slightly. Dean drums his fingers on his shoulder.
The car slows to a stop in the parking lot, and the cab driver says, “That's eighteen-fifty. You gonna be all right, kid?”
Sam doesn't look all right. He has his head tipped back and he squeezes his eyes shut for just a second.
Castiel says, “Sam?”
Dean says, “I thought you said these were fucking good memories, he's freaking out.”
“They are...”
Sam is gulping down breaths.
“Sam.” Dean says. “Talk to me.”
“It's just we're about to-” Sam says, and then Sam's door opens and Sam's up with no hesitation, out of the car and wrapping himself around someone Castiel doesn't recognize.
Dean makes a small noise next to him and says, “Dad.”
Oh.
Dean scrambles out of the car and tries to talk to John Winchester, but this isn't his memory and he can't get his father to interact. But he shakes it off quickly and watches Sam hug John and says, “When the fuck is this?” quietly, to Castiel.
“I don't know.”
“I don't remember them ever...in Palo Alto?”
Sam is crying. He is shaking and holding on to his father and whispering things Castiel cannot hear, and when his father lets him go to go pay the cab driver, Dean goes to him and wipes his cheeks, hard. “Okay. You're okay. You okay?”
Sam gives this weak laugh. “Jesus. Oh my God.”
Dean watches John lean into the window and talk quietly to the cab driver. He's asking if Sam was okay on the ride over.
Dean says, “Sammy...”
“Uh, I told you I had this reaction sophomore year, right? Because of my roommates? It was...” He breathes out. “Dad was here. Just...coincidence. He followed me from the hospital...remember? You called and wouldn't let me drop out of school?”
“Shit. Yeah.”
“I was just going to crawl here and hide,” Sam says. “And he found me. He just...he pulled me out of the car. He just...he was just there.”
John comes and collects Sam and helps him inside. Dean hangs back and says, more to himself than to Castiel, “He never talks about missing Dad.”
“Perhaps he knows you don't want to.”
Dean tugs Castiel along and they follow Sam and his father into the motel room. Sam is still crying, and John says, “What's wrong?” in a voice that implies that past-Sam was as well.
Sam was ready for this.
He watches John and says, “I miss you so hard and so fucking constant that it's grinding down my bones, and I love you so much and I'm so sorry and I want to go back and change everything and I want you to be different and I want you to try to understand me and I want to tell you about all the ways I fucked up and I want you to mess up my hair and make everything better and I want to not be so angry all the time and I miss you, Dad. We miss you so much. Thank you for saving him.”
John tells Sam he's sorry he's sick and rubs his back in slow circles, and Sam keeps whispering, “Dean, we should go, we have to go, Cas, don't we have to go?”
Dean says, “Just...let him rub your back. Just be here. Wait. Just everything wait, okay?” He looks at Castiel desperately.
Castiel nods a little, then he flies away to visit the heavenly version of the roadhouse and tell Ash that he will need to rescue him after this. It isn't safe for them to linger anywhere.
But Castiel has work to do, and his charge needs to watch his brother get well.
**
4.
When he next catches up with the Winchesters, they are walking the road and talking about Ash (they are throwing around the term soul mate) and Dean startles when Cas appears next to him.
“Hello, Dean.”
“Hey. Thanks for the roadhouse thing.”
“Of course.”
“Any luck with God?” He eyes the amulet around Cas's neck. “Want that.”
“Easy, tiger,” Sam says, which elicits another growl from Dean.
Dean says, “If it's heaven, why can't the kid here breathe?”
“I don't know,” Castiel says, honestly.
“I don't mind. Hey.” Sam touches Dean's arm to stop him. “Are you okay? We didn't get to...”
“I'm fine.”
“I'm sorry. Seeing Dad like that. Him not seeing you. Must have fucking sucked.”
Dean shakes his head slowly, back and forth, and then says, “Jesus, I just. Sam. How did you...”
“Hmm?”
“Where the fuck did you come from, Sammy? Jesus. Dad and I were perceptive as rocks and you're all saying shit out loud and asking me if I'm okay and acknowledging things like you have no idea how uncomfortable this makes me.”
Sam grins and ducks his head. “I stopped breathing if you didn't touch me and reassure me and...you know? Attention-whore.”
“Yeah, you're the kid that wheezing built.”
“Mmm.”
“You realize this means I'm good at talking to you and no one the fuck else?”
“You talk to Cas.”
Dean looks at Castiel and raises an eyebrow.
Castiel says, “You have, on occasion, talked to me.”
“Well,” Dean says. “All right then.”
Sam says, “And just...by the way, you helped raise me, you know?”
“What? Brand new information.”
Sam laughs. “I mean that it wasn't just asthma.”
“Yeah, I was around. Just made the asthma do most of the work.”
“Lazy.” Sam gives Dean a rough kiss on top of the head.
“Stupid humongous caribou for a brother,” Dean grumbles.
**
The light comes to them after that, and they run and Castiel touches their foreheads and then they are inside a house that Castiel and Sam, he can tell, do not recognize.
Dean does.
“Sam,” he says. “Deep breath, okay?”
“I'm okay...”
“No, I mean, just take a deep breath.”
“What?”
And there is a woman leaning against the doorway, telling Dean to come down for lunch.
Castiel does not need to be told who this is.
She is looking right at Dean, like he is the only thing in the world.
(Castiel suspects this is why Dean reaches for Sam's hand and squeezes it so, so tightly.)
**
Mary Winchester serves invisible Dean a sandwich, but real Dean is standing up next to the chair with his hand on Sam's back saying, “Okay, look, she always wore that necklace. I don't think I ever told you about that. I forgot all about it.”
Sam's hand finds Castiel and wraps itself around the amulet. Dean catches his eye and nods that Castiel should let him. Castiel does.
This is the closest Sam has. He understands.
“She loved that dress,” Dean says. “She'd wear it one day and then wash it overnight so she could wear it again right after. Dad used to make fun of her. Sammy, look look look.” He points to a vacuum cleaner in the corner. “You must be born. They used the vacuum cleaner to make you shut up when you were crying. You liked the noise. Look, baby monitor on the counter. She's listening to make sure you're okay.”
“Fuck.”
“God. Mom. Fuck.”
“I...” Sam hasn't looked at Dean since they came down. Sam is one thing and one thing only.
Dean says, “She loves you, Sammy.”
“Fuck. Um. Fuck. Can I touch her?”
“I don't know. Try.”
Dean has already touched her, but when Sam reaches out, his hand goes right through her. He flinches and wraps an arm around his waist.
Sam is stricken and paralyzed in the way Castiel had expected the boys to be when they first saw angels.
Sam Winchester is not easily shaken, but this has been a rough day.
“Come on.” Dean pulls out a chair and eases Sam into it while Mary goes into the kitchen. “You're fine.”
“I'm breathing, you know?” And he is, quite well. “You don't have to baby me.”
Dean looks at him.
“Is that what this is?” Dean says.
“What?”
“Why both your favorite memories so far are you being sick.”
He shrugs. “I was sick a lot.”
“You were also well a lot. So how come Heaven-you wants to be sick over and over?”
Another shrug, this one deeper and faker. “I don't know. The attention whore thing, blah blah blah, it was when you guys loved me the most.”
Castiel has seen this look on Dean's face once before, when Zachariah snapped Sam's arm.
“It's when we told you, because it's when we worried you were going to fucking die on us,” Dean says.
“Come on. We both know there's something shiny and exciting about the frail little sick kid. You liked me more when I was cuddly and warm and desperate. I'm not mad or anything.”
“Oh, okay, so I'll be mad all on my own. Awesome.”
Sam glances towards the kitchen. “What? Dean.”
“Listen to me, you little shit. You owe me fucking bucket-tons of honesty for what I'm about to say to you, okay? Okay?”
“Jesus. Okay.”
“You're barely wheezing, and my dead goddamn mom is a room away, and right now, right the fuck now, I love you more than anything else out there. All right? Jesus, why do you make me say this shit?”
Sam stares up at Dean and then says, “Go be with Mom.”
“What?”
“I'll be here. I'll be fine. Go be with her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Jesus, Dean, I can live off of that for days.”
**
5.
Sam and Castiel sit at the table and watch Dean in the kitchen.
"He's happy," Sam says, quietly.
"Yes."
"He's never fucking happy anymore. I can't make him happy."
"You're too sick lately," Castiel says, which he realizes, a moment too late, is likely insensitive, but Sam only nods thoughtfully. Sam doesn't react to things the way most humans do. A line like that, whether directed at Dean or at Sam, would make Dean rage, growl, punch something.
Sam simply agrees.
"It's not your fault," Castiel tries.
Sam laughs a little. "I know. Lucifer likes squeezing my lungs." He pauses. "He's not here, though."
"No."
Sam breathes in and out, slowly, with just the hint of a whistle. "This is how it used to be."
"You should have good memories of being healthy, Sam."
"It's not that simple."
"You deserve them."
"It's not like that." He shoves his hand in his hair. "Dean told me once that I'm the only one who hates my asthma. That it isn't something about me that he doesn't like. It's not, like, a downside to being with me."
"Perhaps."
"Cas, it's...it's fucking amazing to be accepted like thatl. I can't even describe it. I mean, I can't stand one single part of me."
Castiel does not know what to say.
Sam breathes out, hard, just as Dean comes out of the kitchen with a jar of jelly in his hand. "There's fucking peanut butter on that sandwich."
"Yeah, I know."
"You okay?"
"It's not real. Memory-peanut butter. About as much risk to me as memory-pneumonia."
"Yeah..."
"And it's not like it jumped up and bit me." Sam runs his hand through it as easily as he did his mother. "Ooooh, ghost sandwich."
"Go wash your fucking hands."
"Yeah, yeah." He stands up, a little shaky, and Dean frowns.
"We're leaving."
"Yeah?" Sam says.
Dean glances back toward the kitchen and bites his lip.
"Yeah."
**
"He's barely holding it together," Dean whispers to Cas as they walk, a few steps behind Sam, back down the road.
"Really?"
"Yeah. How come heaven is fucking breaking him?"
"It's a good breaking."
"What the hell does that even mean?" Dean's frown deepens. "I just...fuck, with this life? We're dropping back down to earth God knows when and he needs to be strong and focused and powerful. And now he's getting all ripped to shreds and broken down and and fucking..."
"Nostalgic."
"Yeah."
"Weak."
"I guess."
"Human."
"Whatever. I don't like it."
"If it's any consolation, I doubt Lucifer does either.”
Dean shuts up.
**
There's another beam of light tracking them, and Castiel grabs their hands and pulls them. They land in a small, immaculate kitchen, unmatched, odd mugs hanging from hooks by the sink, two coats hanging on the tree, an overflowing bookshelf, a bike helmet slung over the back of a chair, two pairs of sneakers, by the door, one enormous and one small, dirty, and well-loved. An inhaler on the coffee table. It's the middle of the night and all the lights are on.
Dean and Sam don't take a minute to look at any of this. Sam is immediately leaning against the kitchen counter, shaking, barely keeping himself upright, and Dean is there, a hand on his back, whispering "shh shh shhs."
Sam is barely holding it together.
"In your room, huh?" Dean says, gently, rubbing circles over Sam's spine. "Are we talking something dirty? Am I going to be watching you fuck her?"
Sam forces a laugh. "I don't know. I don't know, I can't do this. Why are the lights on?"
“You can do this.”
“I...”
And then there's a voice from the bedroom, a female voice, light, soothing.
"Sam, baby, don't cry."
Sam makes this noise in the back of his throat the second she begins to speak, and then he crumples at the waist and wheezes hard and disobeys.
**
"I don't understand," Castiel whispers to Dean, who's rubbing circles on Sam's back and soothing him softly. "Shouldn't he want to see Jessica?"
Dean glances at Sam, then gives his shoulder a squeeze and takes a few steps away from Sam.
"You've got to believe this, okay?" Dean whispers to Cas. "No one has ever loved anyone the way Sam still loves Jess."
"But--"
"No."
It's the same 'no' he uses to refuse Michael.
"No one," Dean says.
**
They coax Sam into his bedroom, and once he's there, Sam grips the door frame and looks everywhere but at the blonde girl on the bed who's petting the air and murmuring things they can't hear.
"Sam, Sammy," Dean says. "You're okay. Fuck. Just try to enjoy it, buddy?"
Sam plays with a tube of her mascara on the dresser. "I..." he says again.
Dean breathes out, then he says, "Hey. Sam," in a voice Castiel has never heard from him. He sounds like the man from the cab.
Sam's head jerks up.
"Go be with her."
Sam swallows and nods, but when he looks at her, he breaks in half, holds himself up on the bookshelf, sobs and wheezes pouring out of him like water. “I can't I can't I can't I'll have to leave again I...”
"It's okay, Sam," Jessica says, leaning on the shoulder of a Sam that isn't here. "You're going to be okay. Dean's coming. We love you so much."
Sam straightens and rubs his hand over his mouth. "The ear infections."
"Oh. Fuck."
Sam gives a shaky, but so real, smile. "You came and took care of me. You told me you were going to stay forever."
"And it was the most pain I've ever, ever seen you in..."
“And I was this crying brat and she loved me...”
Sam gives his head a small shake and then lowers himself to the bed next to Jessica. He is bigger than he was then, he must be, but he fits perfectly into her hands somehow.
"Jesus," he whispers.
"It's okay, Sammer,” Jess says.
That would mean 'more Sam,' Castiel is pretty sure, and that is, he thinks, painfully appropriate (he is not bigger, not really).
Jessica brushes hair off his forehead and presses her lips into his cheek. Sam whimpers and closes his eyes.
She pulls back just a little. "Does that hurt?"
"No." Sam grabs her hand. "No, that's perfect."
She guides his head, so gently, to her shoulder, just the temple resting on her, petting his hair carefully so as to avoid his ear.
"My poor sick boy," she whispers.
Sam nods and buries his face in her arm.
"What'd you do to deserve this, huh?"
"You have no idea." Sam's voice breaks. "You have no fucking idea the horrible things I've done.”
She rubs his back. "I'll make you feel better."
"You can rub my chest." Sam presses his face into her neck. "I don't mind."
**
They need to go, but when Castiel suggested it, Dean looked at him like he'd been the one to shoot them, so he is keeping his mouth shut.
Sam, meanwhile, is talking, mumbling his life story, telling her about hunting and John and Lucifer and Ruby and demon blood and Azazel and Dean's hell and wheezing and diner food. Telling her about brushing his teeth with Dean at the mirror, staying up late laughing and quoting movies, carving knives into himself for sigils, a hundred days in Broward County. He tells her about the ring that is hidden “in the back of that drawer, Jess, it's right the fuck there right in front of you and now it's in the corner of the Impala with my real ID and my real life.”
And the whole time she strokes his hair and comforts him and lets him cry, and isn't until Sam looks at Castiel with big red eyes and says, "Where is she, Cas? Why isn't she here?" that he's crying too hard for this memory of Jess to fix.
**
She lays him down and gives him soft kisses, and Dean nods to Castiel that it's time for them to give Sam some privacy. They stand outside the door and Castiel, at least, tries not to listen to Sam's wheezy little moans.
Dean leans against the wall and closes his eyes.
"You know you're his soul mate," Cas says.
"Sam has a big fucking soul. He gets two."
"I don't know that--"
"Cas. You're really not getting this."
"Then explain it to me."
"I can't. I don't know how the fuck to explain because anything I can say is going to sound like I'm trying to rationalize it, and I fucking cannot rationalize this, okay? I've tried. I've spent God you have no idea how the fuck many nights lying awake trying to figure out how a universe--a universe that apparently has a heaven and has a god and has fucking angels--could ever possibly do that to my fucking kid and to Jess, okay, to Jess, because she was not some tool to get my brother back into hunting and Jesus fuck that that's the memory of her. She was just this girl, okay, this girl with too much hair and those dirty as fuck sneakers and that fucking smile and my brother's heart squeezed like...squeezed like fucking Lucifer is squeezing his lungs, okay? She had him. She had her hands on his heart and her hand cupped to his fucking cheek and her hand on his back and Sam would have let her fucking hand on her chest if that was what she needed, okay, she was all the fuck over Sam and he was all the fuck over her, and I can't make you understand it because I don't understand because nothing this the fuck bad, nothing as bad as Jess dying, nothing has ever been as horrible and been as fucking hard for anyone , and I don't even give a shit if you think I'm lying, I really fucking don't, because the loves of our goddamn life are in that room right now and you're telling me that we have to rip our Sammy away and kick him back to earth and let the devil play Russian roulette with his oxygen a little more? You want to tell me that is fucking real life, and I'm supposed to use its fucking logic to decide whether or not it's okay that my little brother is one day going to spend an eternity reliving the hideous fucking illness where his brother lied to him and told him he could be happy because God forbid, literal God forbid that ever be the truth of his life, unless Lucifer rides his ass down to Hell instead? Do you want me to try to organize that in a way that makes sense and explain why my glowing, wheezy little thing smiling at me across tables for twenty-five years is being used as a fucking chew toy, or do you want to save us both a lot of time and tell me why the fuck Jess isn't here?"
"Do those speeches ever work on anyone anymore?"
"No."
**
“We have to go,” Cas says, maybe ten minutes later.
Dean holds himself up on the kitchen counter. “Fuck off.”
“We have to go, Dean.”
“Fuck. Off.”
“If Zachariah-” Cas starts, but then the door to the apartment clicks open and Cas thinks that Zachariah has decided that is a more dramatic way to enter, thinks that it's all open, but then in walks a younger, cleaner version of Dean with a plastic bag and worried eyes.
Jess comes through the bedroom door and wraps herself around this memory of Dean, and Dean makes a noise in the back of his throat.
In the bedroom, Sam is panicking. “Jess? Jess?”
“She's out here, Sammy, come here.”
Sam is up and into the hallway, and the memory of Dean barrels towards him, ready for a hug, but Dean stands up, the real Dean, and Sam leaves memory-Dean hugging an invisible Sam and launches himself into his real brother's arms.
Dean hugs him with all his fucking might. “God, you were so sick. I was so worried. Fuck, I'm so worried about you.”
Sam pulls back just enough to paw uselessly at Dean's chest, and Dean says, “My necklace Cas give me my fucking necklace,” and Castiel does not consider disobeying, and Dean tugs it over his head and Sam hangs on for dear life.
Castiel waits until Sam's arms are back around Dean's neck to touch their foreheads and take them both away.
**
6.
They come out on a road by a field, next to their car, and Sam leans over the hood and coughs, shoulders shaking. But he isn't crying anymore.
Dean keeps some distance. "Sammy. You okay?"
"I'm just so tired."
"I know. Shit."
Sam straightens up but then leans against the side of the car, shoulder against Cas's. "I'm so fucking tired. Whose memory is this?"
"Don't know," Dean says, and then they all hear the trunk close.
There's a small, messy-haired boy with a crate.
Sam gets a faint smile. "All yours, buddy. Have fun."
Dean squeezes Sam's shoulder and turns towards the kid. "Hey, Sammy."
"Come on!" The memory of Sam runs towards the field.
Dean looks back at the real Sam. "Is it--"
"Go. Have fun. I'm fine here."
"Yeah?"
"I'll watch from here." He climbs onto the car. "Cas? Go with Dean?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Sam leans over his knees and smiles more with his eyes than his mouth. "You guys have fun. I just need to catch my breath, I guess."
"Yell if you need me," Dean says.
"Yeah. Go."
Dean starts with a jog and breaks into a run, and Castiel follows. He doesn't believe he's ever run before.
He thinks he likes it.
He watches Dean and this memory of his little brother light fireworks that shoot up between trees, watches this young, hopeful version of Sam dance in the sparks and wrap himself around Dean's waist. Castiel watches Dean and almost, almost lose himself in his memory.
But twice he turns around and looks at the real Sam.
The first time, Sam is smiling at them, soft and sad, his eyes on the younger version of himself.
The second time, he is not alone.
She jogs up, panting, hands on her knees.
They grip each other's hair and fist each other's clothes.
"Dean," Castiel says, and Dean turns around and whispers, "Oh my God," and Sam pulls Jess into his arms and buries his face in her hair.
He is laughing.
**
Fuck fate, Castiel decides.
He will be a little hopeful for his boys.
--
1. Dean's first memory: The Unbearable Samness of Sam
2. Sam's first memory: referenced in What Sammy Said
3. Sam's second memory: Sammy Left the Water Running
4. Dean's second memory: (canon)
5. Sam's third memory: We Sing Our Sam to Sleep
6. Dean's third memory: (canon)
Title: Follow Sam Into the Dark
Summary: You didn't really think Sammyverse "Dark Side Of The Moon" would play out like canon, did you?
Warnings/Spoilers: Through Season 5.
Wordcount: 5,958
Author's Note: Playing around with POV again! I subscribe to the theory that Zachariah completely fucked with Sam's memories and that their heavens were designed to make them fight. So...here is a fix it. Title is, of course, from the Death Cab song.
1.
The first memory is Dean's. Dean doesn't know that Castiel is here, so he waits .
Dean probably believes that he's dreaming. Castiel watches him appear with his car, watches him slowly rouse himself, and he finds that he's immensely curious for what will happen next.
He perches on the top of the car and does not allow Dean to see him.
He did not expect to be startled by Sam, and yet he is, though he assumed, naturally, that Dean and Sam would appear in each other's heavens. He's known since he first met them-Dean watching over Sam, Sam very asthmatic and breathless and nonetheless so, so protective, ready to jump in front of his brother at a moment's notice. (Castiel has a feeling Dean does not realize how on-edge Sam is, how prepared he always is for an onslaught. Castiel suspects it has less to do with his illness and more with the people he has lost. He suspects Dean does not need to know.)
But this Sam isn't one with which Castiel is familiar. He's a few years younger, definitely, and slimmer, hair shorter and boyishly unkempt. He has a beer bottle and his head is tipped back towards the sky.
It is far from Castiel's place to think it, but he's rather beautiful.
The thing is, Castiel likes humans.
**
Dean adapts quickly to this version of his brother. “Hey, dream-Sam,” he says, sliding up next to him and opening his own beer.
This memory of Sam will play itself out regardless of Dean's contribution, or lack thereof, to reconstructing the scene, so it isn't a surprise when he directs his words away from Dean, clearly talking to an invisible version of his brother that existed in another time.
“It was also sophomore year, but later,” Sam says. “A few weeks before we did spring break together. Jess and I had been together for four months. Had this really hideous asthma attack at her place. Don't know why. Just one of those things. Couldn't explain to her how bad it was. Embarrassing and horrible.”
This seems odd for a pleasant memory, but these heavenly scenes often do. Castiel knows by now. Castiel knows that there is a lot to each human that he doesn't see. And with no one moreso than the Winchesters. (Once bonded, he's heard. Once destined to die at the same time. Dean broke that, but not as cleanly as he thinks.)
(He fully expects that Dean will encounter the real Sam tonight.)
(He is terrified that he is wrong.)
(He has other matters to attend to, but he doesn't know how to tear himself away.)
(This is a problem.)
Dean says, “Fuck, I remember this. I'm what, twenty-seven? Shit, shit, I remember this. I stood up to Dad. You dragged me the fuck away.”
Dean climbs up onto the hood of the car, unknowingly next to Castiel. Castiel sees him smile a bit. He's going to replay the memory.
He remembers, and that in itself is proof of something.
“What happened?” Dean says to Sam.
Sam tells the story of Jess taking him to the hospital, and Dean says, “She loved you,” and Castiel sees feelings stand up and stretch inside Sam, sees a fluttering of light.
Castiel has possibly never seen Sam hopeful before.
Dean mouths Sam's next words along with him: “I do loving you the way you do breathing. It's my constant, Dean.”
Dean clambers off the hood and wraps Sam in a hug to which the memory of Sam does not respond.
Dean doesn't seem shaken. He follows Sam onto the hood of the car and they drink beer and watch the stars. Dean keeps smiling at him.
Castiel has seen Dean smile before, but it's been a long time.
2.
Dean is shaken, now, from the noise of the gunshots, from remembering his death, from Sam disappearing suddenly.
It is Castiel's time to speak. “Dean.”
Dean whirls around and lets out a breath. “Cas. What the fuck's going on?”
Cas's voice is gentle. “I think you know, Dean.”
He watches Dean's eyes widen and shut. “Fuck. I'm dead. I'm fucking dead?”
“Essentially. Given your present situation, I doubt it will be for long. After all, they have work-”
“--yeah, work for me, I know, okay?”
Castiel wonders if Dean has even realized that he's replaced the 'we' with 'they.' Probably not. T
“Where the hell is this?” Dean says.
“Heaven.”
“What the fuck am I doing in Heaven?”
“I told you. There are spots for you here.”
“Spots. Yes. Fuck. Where's Sam?”
Castiel has been dreading that question for the past several minutes.
“He...should be here. Not just as a memory. The real Sam. I thought he would be here by now.”
“What? What the fuck does that mean?”
“See if you can find him. Everything's fine as long as you can find him.”
“No shit, finding Sam has been my ongoing damn job since he rolled under the fucking motel bed when he was a two-year-old with a fever. Fuck this kid. He should find me for once. Shit. Where the hell is he?” Dean runs his hand over his mouth. “Fuck this kid.”
“It's all right.”
“Is he dead?”
Castiel nods a little.
“He's dead and alone.”
“Yes.”
“Are you not getting how not okay this is?”
“Get in your car, Dean. Drive. You will find him.
“Okay.” Dean breathes out. “Okay. What about you?”
“I need to find Joshua,” Castiel says, instead of saying I will follow you.
I will not leave you in the dark.
Nevertheless, he does not go.
**
Dean's road leads to a hospital.
Castiel, sadly, should not be surprised. (Should probably not be grateful. This is probably a good place to find Sam.)
He follows Dean inside, invisible again, while Dean shakes his keys and looks around the waiting room. It is largely empty, not an accurate representation of the hospitals Castiel has seen. This is a memory, and whether it's Dean's or Sam's, he probably didn't retain much of a picture of the medical personel and the other patients. They were not important.
But then they both hear Sam's raspy voice in a room down the hall, and Dean looks almost as relieved as Castiel feels.
They share a heaven.
This will do nicely.
**
Dean stands by the doorway and very obviously tries not to laugh while they watch all twenty-six years of Sam sitting cross-legged like a child on the hospital bed, playing a game called Candy Land with a boy Castiel can only assume, by the look on Dean's face, by the ease with which Sam plays with him, is a very young Dean.
Dean steps outside the room, barely, and whispers, “Cas, you there?”
Castiel reveals himself. “Yes.”
“Jesus, what about Joshua?”
“I have already looked,” Castiel lies. “While you were on your way here.”
“Oh. Nothing?”
“Not yet. I came to check on you. What are you doing?”
“Giving him a minute. This is too fucking adorable and I just...” he points to a card on the night stand. “That's a Get Well Soon card from Bobby. Sammy's seven. He just almost fucking died of pneumonia.”
“That doesn't sound like a happy memory.”
“Clearly you don't know my kid,” Dean says, but he doesn't sound convinced either. He clears his throat and steps back into the room and says, “What the hell, Sam?”
Sam startles, looks at Dean, shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. “This dream keeps getting weirder. Hey, Cas.”
“Hello.”
Sam says, “Look, Dean, it's baby you.
“Hi, baby me. This isn't a dream. We're dead.”
“What?”
“Think hard.”
Sam looks up, like he always does, like the answer is written on the ceiling. Or like he is consulting the heavens, which is amusing considering his present location (and a little horrible when you consider what use the heavens have been for him lately. Castiel wants that hopeful Sam drinking beer and watching the stars to come back so acutely that it hurts him. Likely not as much as it hurts Sam.)
Sam says. “Oh. Shit.”
“Pretty much,” Dean says.
“Fuck. So...”
“This is Heaven.”
“How the fuck did I get into Heaven?”
“I don't know, I guess you're awesome. I just know I was supposed to find you. Cas said...he said everything would be okay if I found you.”
Cas nods. “Everything's okay.”
“Oh. Okay.” Sam turns back to Dean. “Want to play Candy Land?”
“So, okay, what the hell, Sam, why is this is your Heaven?”
“How the fuck should I know? I just appeared here.” He looks across the board at fake-Dean. “But yeah, I don't know. It's not so bad. I was getting better, yeah? And you and Dad were loving me up all the time.” Sam breathes out and looks around. “He's not here.”
“Probably down in the cafeteria or something. He was around at this point. He got you those balloons, remember?”
Sam nods, says, “Yeah,” softly.
Castiel says, “You shouldn't linger.”
Dean looks at him. “What?”
“Would you like Zachariah to find you?”
“Uh, no, that doesn't sound good.”
“Then we should keep moving.”
“Don't you have shit to do?”
“Yes, but I-”
And then everything is shaking, and there is light, and Castiel touches his boys and pulls them away.
**
3.
They land in the back of a car. Castiel is between them, until Dean growls “Move,” and crawls awkwardly underneath Castiel to squish in next to Sam. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Where the fuck are we?”
Dean is a little frightened. It's understandable.
“Taxi,” Sam says, frowning a little. “When did we ever...”
“I don't know.”
So Castiel starts to talk to them about the importance of finding God, and how he really should go, but they're not listening and then Sam's expression changes and he cranes his head out the window.
“You recognize anything?” Dean says.
“Yeah, this is Palo Alto.”
“Yeah?”
“I'm trying to figure out where exactly. We're not headed towards school or the airport or the hospital, so there go my three landmarks.”
“No, wait, I recognize this.” Dean looks at a motel sign up ahead. “I stayed at this motel once.”
Sam freezes.
“Hey,” Dean says. “What's wrong?”
Sam breathes out. Silently. “I know what memory this is.” He is wheezing slightly. Dean drums his fingers on his shoulder.
The car slows to a stop in the parking lot, and the cab driver says, “That's eighteen-fifty. You gonna be all right, kid?”
Sam doesn't look all right. He has his head tipped back and he squeezes his eyes shut for just a second.
Castiel says, “Sam?”
Dean says, “I thought you said these were fucking good memories, he's freaking out.”
“They are...”
Sam is gulping down breaths.
“Sam.” Dean says. “Talk to me.”
“It's just we're about to-” Sam says, and then Sam's door opens and Sam's up with no hesitation, out of the car and wrapping himself around someone Castiel doesn't recognize.
Dean makes a small noise next to him and says, “Dad.”
Oh.
Dean scrambles out of the car and tries to talk to John Winchester, but this isn't his memory and he can't get his father to interact. But he shakes it off quickly and watches Sam hug John and says, “When the fuck is this?” quietly, to Castiel.
“I don't know.”
“I don't remember them ever...in Palo Alto?”
Sam is crying. He is shaking and holding on to his father and whispering things Castiel cannot hear, and when his father lets him go to go pay the cab driver, Dean goes to him and wipes his cheeks, hard. “Okay. You're okay. You okay?”
Sam gives this weak laugh. “Jesus. Oh my God.”
Dean watches John lean into the window and talk quietly to the cab driver. He's asking if Sam was okay on the ride over.
Dean says, “Sammy...”
“Uh, I told you I had this reaction sophomore year, right? Because of my roommates? It was...” He breathes out. “Dad was here. Just...coincidence. He followed me from the hospital...remember? You called and wouldn't let me drop out of school?”
“Shit. Yeah.”
“I was just going to crawl here and hide,” Sam says. “And he found me. He just...he pulled me out of the car. He just...he was just there.”
John comes and collects Sam and helps him inside. Dean hangs back and says, more to himself than to Castiel, “He never talks about missing Dad.”
“Perhaps he knows you don't want to.”
Dean tugs Castiel along and they follow Sam and his father into the motel room. Sam is still crying, and John says, “What's wrong?” in a voice that implies that past-Sam was as well.
Sam was ready for this.
He watches John and says, “I miss you so hard and so fucking constant that it's grinding down my bones, and I love you so much and I'm so sorry and I want to go back and change everything and I want you to be different and I want you to try to understand me and I want to tell you about all the ways I fucked up and I want you to mess up my hair and make everything better and I want to not be so angry all the time and I miss you, Dad. We miss you so much. Thank you for saving him.”
John tells Sam he's sorry he's sick and rubs his back in slow circles, and Sam keeps whispering, “Dean, we should go, we have to go, Cas, don't we have to go?”
Dean says, “Just...let him rub your back. Just be here. Wait. Just everything wait, okay?” He looks at Castiel desperately.
Castiel nods a little, then he flies away to visit the heavenly version of the roadhouse and tell Ash that he will need to rescue him after this. It isn't safe for them to linger anywhere.
But Castiel has work to do, and his charge needs to watch his brother get well.
**
4.
When he next catches up with the Winchesters, they are walking the road and talking about Ash (they are throwing around the term soul mate) and Dean startles when Cas appears next to him.
“Hello, Dean.”
“Hey. Thanks for the roadhouse thing.”
“Of course.”
“Any luck with God?” He eyes the amulet around Cas's neck. “Want that.”
“Easy, tiger,” Sam says, which elicits another growl from Dean.
Dean says, “If it's heaven, why can't the kid here breathe?”
“I don't know,” Castiel says, honestly.
“I don't mind. Hey.” Sam touches Dean's arm to stop him. “Are you okay? We didn't get to...”
“I'm fine.”
“I'm sorry. Seeing Dad like that. Him not seeing you. Must have fucking sucked.”
Dean shakes his head slowly, back and forth, and then says, “Jesus, I just. Sam. How did you...”
“Hmm?”
“Where the fuck did you come from, Sammy? Jesus. Dad and I were perceptive as rocks and you're all saying shit out loud and asking me if I'm okay and acknowledging things like you have no idea how uncomfortable this makes me.”
Sam grins and ducks his head. “I stopped breathing if you didn't touch me and reassure me and...you know? Attention-whore.”
“Yeah, you're the kid that wheezing built.”
“Mmm.”
“You realize this means I'm good at talking to you and no one the fuck else?”
“You talk to Cas.”
Dean looks at Castiel and raises an eyebrow.
Castiel says, “You have, on occasion, talked to me.”
“Well,” Dean says. “All right then.”
Sam says, “And just...by the way, you helped raise me, you know?”
“What? Brand new information.”
Sam laughs. “I mean that it wasn't just asthma.”
“Yeah, I was around. Just made the asthma do most of the work.”
“Lazy.” Sam gives Dean a rough kiss on top of the head.
“Stupid humongous caribou for a brother,” Dean grumbles.
**
The light comes to them after that, and they run and Castiel touches their foreheads and then they are inside a house that Castiel and Sam, he can tell, do not recognize.
Dean does.
“Sam,” he says. “Deep breath, okay?”
“I'm okay...”
“No, I mean, just take a deep breath.”
“What?”
And there is a woman leaning against the doorway, telling Dean to come down for lunch.
Castiel does not need to be told who this is.
She is looking right at Dean, like he is the only thing in the world.
(Castiel suspects this is why Dean reaches for Sam's hand and squeezes it so, so tightly.)
**
Mary Winchester serves invisible Dean a sandwich, but real Dean is standing up next to the chair with his hand on Sam's back saying, “Okay, look, she always wore that necklace. I don't think I ever told you about that. I forgot all about it.”
Sam's hand finds Castiel and wraps itself around the amulet. Dean catches his eye and nods that Castiel should let him. Castiel does.
This is the closest Sam has. He understands.
“She loved that dress,” Dean says. “She'd wear it one day and then wash it overnight so she could wear it again right after. Dad used to make fun of her. Sammy, look look look.” He points to a vacuum cleaner in the corner. “You must be born. They used the vacuum cleaner to make you shut up when you were crying. You liked the noise. Look, baby monitor on the counter. She's listening to make sure you're okay.”
“Fuck.”
“God. Mom. Fuck.”
“I...” Sam hasn't looked at Dean since they came down. Sam is one thing and one thing only.
Dean says, “She loves you, Sammy.”
“Fuck. Um. Fuck. Can I touch her?”
“I don't know. Try.”
Dean has already touched her, but when Sam reaches out, his hand goes right through her. He flinches and wraps an arm around his waist.
Sam is stricken and paralyzed in the way Castiel had expected the boys to be when they first saw angels.
Sam Winchester is not easily shaken, but this has been a rough day.
“Come on.” Dean pulls out a chair and eases Sam into it while Mary goes into the kitchen. “You're fine.”
“I'm breathing, you know?” And he is, quite well. “You don't have to baby me.”
Dean looks at him.
“Is that what this is?” Dean says.
“What?”
“Why both your favorite memories so far are you being sick.”
He shrugs. “I was sick a lot.”
“You were also well a lot. So how come Heaven-you wants to be sick over and over?”
Another shrug, this one deeper and faker. “I don't know. The attention whore thing, blah blah blah, it was when you guys loved me the most.”
Castiel has seen this look on Dean's face once before, when Zachariah snapped Sam's arm.
“It's when we told you, because it's when we worried you were going to fucking die on us,” Dean says.
“Come on. We both know there's something shiny and exciting about the frail little sick kid. You liked me more when I was cuddly and warm and desperate. I'm not mad or anything.”
“Oh, okay, so I'll be mad all on my own. Awesome.”
Sam glances towards the kitchen. “What? Dean.”
“Listen to me, you little shit. You owe me fucking bucket-tons of honesty for what I'm about to say to you, okay? Okay?”
“Jesus. Okay.”
“You're barely wheezing, and my dead goddamn mom is a room away, and right now, right the fuck now, I love you more than anything else out there. All right? Jesus, why do you make me say this shit?”
Sam stares up at Dean and then says, “Go be with Mom.”
“What?”
“I'll be here. I'll be fine. Go be with her.”
“Are you sure?”
“Jesus, Dean, I can live off of that for days.”
**
5.
Sam and Castiel sit at the table and watch Dean in the kitchen.
"He's happy," Sam says, quietly.
"Yes."
"He's never fucking happy anymore. I can't make him happy."
"You're too sick lately," Castiel says, which he realizes, a moment too late, is likely insensitive, but Sam only nods thoughtfully. Sam doesn't react to things the way most humans do. A line like that, whether directed at Dean or at Sam, would make Dean rage, growl, punch something.
Sam simply agrees.
"It's not your fault," Castiel tries.
Sam laughs a little. "I know. Lucifer likes squeezing my lungs." He pauses. "He's not here, though."
"No."
Sam breathes in and out, slowly, with just the hint of a whistle. "This is how it used to be."
"You should have good memories of being healthy, Sam."
"It's not that simple."
"You deserve them."
"It's not like that." He shoves his hand in his hair. "Dean told me once that I'm the only one who hates my asthma. That it isn't something about me that he doesn't like. It's not, like, a downside to being with me."
"Perhaps."
"Cas, it's...it's fucking amazing to be accepted like thatl. I can't even describe it. I mean, I can't stand one single part of me."
Castiel does not know what to say.
Sam breathes out, hard, just as Dean comes out of the kitchen with a jar of jelly in his hand. "There's fucking peanut butter on that sandwich."
"Yeah, I know."
"You okay?"
"It's not real. Memory-peanut butter. About as much risk to me as memory-pneumonia."
"Yeah..."
"And it's not like it jumped up and bit me." Sam runs his hand through it as easily as he did his mother. "Ooooh, ghost sandwich."
"Go wash your fucking hands."
"Yeah, yeah." He stands up, a little shaky, and Dean frowns.
"We're leaving."
"Yeah?" Sam says.
Dean glances back toward the kitchen and bites his lip.
"Yeah."
**
"He's barely holding it together," Dean whispers to Cas as they walk, a few steps behind Sam, back down the road.
"Really?"
"Yeah. How come heaven is fucking breaking him?"
"It's a good breaking."
"What the hell does that even mean?" Dean's frown deepens. "I just...fuck, with this life? We're dropping back down to earth God knows when and he needs to be strong and focused and powerful. And now he's getting all ripped to shreds and broken down and and fucking..."
"Nostalgic."
"Yeah."
"Weak."
"I guess."
"Human."
"Whatever. I don't like it."
"If it's any consolation, I doubt Lucifer does either.”
Dean shuts up.
**
There's another beam of light tracking them, and Castiel grabs their hands and pulls them. They land in a small, immaculate kitchen, unmatched, odd mugs hanging from hooks by the sink, two coats hanging on the tree, an overflowing bookshelf, a bike helmet slung over the back of a chair, two pairs of sneakers, by the door, one enormous and one small, dirty, and well-loved. An inhaler on the coffee table. It's the middle of the night and all the lights are on.
Dean and Sam don't take a minute to look at any of this. Sam is immediately leaning against the kitchen counter, shaking, barely keeping himself upright, and Dean is there, a hand on his back, whispering "shh shh shhs."
Sam is barely holding it together.
"In your room, huh?" Dean says, gently, rubbing circles over Sam's spine. "Are we talking something dirty? Am I going to be watching you fuck her?"
Sam forces a laugh. "I don't know. I don't know, I can't do this. Why are the lights on?"
“You can do this.”
“I...”
And then there's a voice from the bedroom, a female voice, light, soothing.
"Sam, baby, don't cry."
Sam makes this noise in the back of his throat the second she begins to speak, and then he crumples at the waist and wheezes hard and disobeys.
**
"I don't understand," Castiel whispers to Dean, who's rubbing circles on Sam's back and soothing him softly. "Shouldn't he want to see Jessica?"
Dean glances at Sam, then gives his shoulder a squeeze and takes a few steps away from Sam.
"You've got to believe this, okay?" Dean whispers to Cas. "No one has ever loved anyone the way Sam still loves Jess."
"But--"
"No."
It's the same 'no' he uses to refuse Michael.
"No one," Dean says.
**
They coax Sam into his bedroom, and once he's there, Sam grips the door frame and looks everywhere but at the blonde girl on the bed who's petting the air and murmuring things they can't hear.
"Sam, Sammy," Dean says. "You're okay. Fuck. Just try to enjoy it, buddy?"
Sam plays with a tube of her mascara on the dresser. "I..." he says again.
Dean breathes out, then he says, "Hey. Sam," in a voice Castiel has never heard from him. He sounds like the man from the cab.
Sam's head jerks up.
"Go be with her."
Sam swallows and nods, but when he looks at her, he breaks in half, holds himself up on the bookshelf, sobs and wheezes pouring out of him like water. “I can't I can't I can't I'll have to leave again I...”
"It's okay, Sam," Jessica says, leaning on the shoulder of a Sam that isn't here. "You're going to be okay. Dean's coming. We love you so much."
Sam straightens and rubs his hand over his mouth. "The ear infections."
"Oh. Fuck."
Sam gives a shaky, but so real, smile. "You came and took care of me. You told me you were going to stay forever."
"And it was the most pain I've ever, ever seen you in..."
“And I was this crying brat and she loved me...”
Sam gives his head a small shake and then lowers himself to the bed next to Jessica. He is bigger than he was then, he must be, but he fits perfectly into her hands somehow.
"Jesus," he whispers.
"It's okay, Sammer,” Jess says.
That would mean 'more Sam,' Castiel is pretty sure, and that is, he thinks, painfully appropriate (he is not bigger, not really).
Jessica brushes hair off his forehead and presses her lips into his cheek. Sam whimpers and closes his eyes.
She pulls back just a little. "Does that hurt?"
"No." Sam grabs her hand. "No, that's perfect."
She guides his head, so gently, to her shoulder, just the temple resting on her, petting his hair carefully so as to avoid his ear.
"My poor sick boy," she whispers.
Sam nods and buries his face in her arm.
"What'd you do to deserve this, huh?"
"You have no idea." Sam's voice breaks. "You have no fucking idea the horrible things I've done.”
She rubs his back. "I'll make you feel better."
"You can rub my chest." Sam presses his face into her neck. "I don't mind."
**
They need to go, but when Castiel suggested it, Dean looked at him like he'd been the one to shoot them, so he is keeping his mouth shut.
Sam, meanwhile, is talking, mumbling his life story, telling her about hunting and John and Lucifer and Ruby and demon blood and Azazel and Dean's hell and wheezing and diner food. Telling her about brushing his teeth with Dean at the mirror, staying up late laughing and quoting movies, carving knives into himself for sigils, a hundred days in Broward County. He tells her about the ring that is hidden “in the back of that drawer, Jess, it's right the fuck there right in front of you and now it's in the corner of the Impala with my real ID and my real life.”
And the whole time she strokes his hair and comforts him and lets him cry, and isn't until Sam looks at Castiel with big red eyes and says, "Where is she, Cas? Why isn't she here?" that he's crying too hard for this memory of Jess to fix.
**
She lays him down and gives him soft kisses, and Dean nods to Castiel that it's time for them to give Sam some privacy. They stand outside the door and Castiel, at least, tries not to listen to Sam's wheezy little moans.
Dean leans against the wall and closes his eyes.
"You know you're his soul mate," Cas says.
"Sam has a big fucking soul. He gets two."
"I don't know that--"
"Cas. You're really not getting this."
"Then explain it to me."
"I can't. I don't know how the fuck to explain because anything I can say is going to sound like I'm trying to rationalize it, and I fucking cannot rationalize this, okay? I've tried. I've spent God you have no idea how the fuck many nights lying awake trying to figure out how a universe--a universe that apparently has a heaven and has a god and has fucking angels--could ever possibly do that to my fucking kid and to Jess, okay, to Jess, because she was not some tool to get my brother back into hunting and Jesus fuck that that's the memory of her. She was just this girl, okay, this girl with too much hair and those dirty as fuck sneakers and that fucking smile and my brother's heart squeezed like...squeezed like fucking Lucifer is squeezing his lungs, okay? She had him. She had her hands on his heart and her hand cupped to his fucking cheek and her hand on his back and Sam would have let her fucking hand on her chest if that was what she needed, okay, she was all the fuck over Sam and he was all the fuck over her, and I can't make you understand it because I don't understand because nothing this the fuck bad, nothing as bad as Jess dying, nothing has ever been as horrible and been as fucking hard for anyone , and I don't even give a shit if you think I'm lying, I really fucking don't, because the loves of our goddamn life are in that room right now and you're telling me that we have to rip our Sammy away and kick him back to earth and let the devil play Russian roulette with his oxygen a little more? You want to tell me that is fucking real life, and I'm supposed to use its fucking logic to decide whether or not it's okay that my little brother is one day going to spend an eternity reliving the hideous fucking illness where his brother lied to him and told him he could be happy because God forbid, literal God forbid that ever be the truth of his life, unless Lucifer rides his ass down to Hell instead? Do you want me to try to organize that in a way that makes sense and explain why my glowing, wheezy little thing smiling at me across tables for twenty-five years is being used as a fucking chew toy, or do you want to save us both a lot of time and tell me why the fuck Jess isn't here?"
"Do those speeches ever work on anyone anymore?"
"No."
**
“We have to go,” Cas says, maybe ten minutes later.
Dean holds himself up on the kitchen counter. “Fuck off.”
“We have to go, Dean.”
“Fuck. Off.”
“If Zachariah-” Cas starts, but then the door to the apartment clicks open and Cas thinks that Zachariah has decided that is a more dramatic way to enter, thinks that it's all open, but then in walks a younger, cleaner version of Dean with a plastic bag and worried eyes.
Jess comes through the bedroom door and wraps herself around this memory of Dean, and Dean makes a noise in the back of his throat.
In the bedroom, Sam is panicking. “Jess? Jess?”
“She's out here, Sammy, come here.”
Sam is up and into the hallway, and the memory of Dean barrels towards him, ready for a hug, but Dean stands up, the real Dean, and Sam leaves memory-Dean hugging an invisible Sam and launches himself into his real brother's arms.
Dean hugs him with all his fucking might. “God, you were so sick. I was so worried. Fuck, I'm so worried about you.”
Sam pulls back just enough to paw uselessly at Dean's chest, and Dean says, “My necklace Cas give me my fucking necklace,” and Castiel does not consider disobeying, and Dean tugs it over his head and Sam hangs on for dear life.
Castiel waits until Sam's arms are back around Dean's neck to touch their foreheads and take them both away.
**
6.
They come out on a road by a field, next to their car, and Sam leans over the hood and coughs, shoulders shaking. But he isn't crying anymore.
Dean keeps some distance. "Sammy. You okay?"
"I'm just so tired."
"I know. Shit."
Sam straightens up but then leans against the side of the car, shoulder against Cas's. "I'm so fucking tired. Whose memory is this?"
"Don't know," Dean says, and then they all hear the trunk close.
There's a small, messy-haired boy with a crate.
Sam gets a faint smile. "All yours, buddy. Have fun."
Dean squeezes Sam's shoulder and turns towards the kid. "Hey, Sammy."
"Come on!" The memory of Sam runs towards the field.
Dean looks back at the real Sam. "Is it--"
"Go. Have fun. I'm fine here."
"Yeah?"
"I'll watch from here." He climbs onto the car. "Cas? Go with Dean?"
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah." Sam leans over his knees and smiles more with his eyes than his mouth. "You guys have fun. I just need to catch my breath, I guess."
"Yell if you need me," Dean says.
"Yeah. Go."
Dean starts with a jog and breaks into a run, and Castiel follows. He doesn't believe he's ever run before.
He thinks he likes it.
He watches Dean and this memory of his little brother light fireworks that shoot up between trees, watches this young, hopeful version of Sam dance in the sparks and wrap himself around Dean's waist. Castiel watches Dean and almost, almost lose himself in his memory.
But twice he turns around and looks at the real Sam.
The first time, Sam is smiling at them, soft and sad, his eyes on the younger version of himself.
The second time, he is not alone.
She jogs up, panting, hands on her knees.
They grip each other's hair and fist each other's clothes.
"Dean," Castiel says, and Dean turns around and whispers, "Oh my God," and Sam pulls Jess into his arms and buries his face in her hair.
He is laughing.
**
Fuck fate, Castiel decides.
He will be a little hopeful for his boys.
--
1. Dean's first memory: The Unbearable Samness of Sam
2. Sam's first memory: referenced in What Sammy Said
3. Sam's second memory: Sammy Left the Water Running
4. Dean's second memory: (canon)
5. Sam's third memory: We Sing Our Sam to Sleep
6. Dean's third memory: (canon)