Just Sam
Title: Just Sam
Author familybizness
Summary: Castiel was never supposed to care about Sam Winchester
Word Count: 1884
Author's Note: Before Sam and Cas made it Facebook Official, Cas used to sit with Sam when Dean was out of the house. This is the story of one such occasion.
No one’s ever asked whether Castiel has time for these things. The truth is, he really doesn’t. Heaven is a mess without Michael, and there’s a faction (and they’ve got a good point) that feels Castiel ought to take control. The argument that Dean is his charge isn’t worth very much these days. No one ever ordered Castiel to follow Dean around for the rest of his life. The order was to raise him from hell, and Castiel’s done that now. Saved him from the cage.
Left Sam behind.
It’s not clear whether they’ve forgiven him for leaving Sam. What is clear is that the time spent locked away with Castiel’s two most volatile brothers has ruined him. Sam cries for hours at a time now, passes days where he speaks nothing but Enochian (and not even clear Enochian, random words and phrases, and then there were those three days where he screamed blood! nonstop until Dean went into the hall and sobbed). What is clear is that Castiel is expected to do this now. To be here, to sit with Sam, while Dean goes to work and to the store and, on this occasion, to track down a hunter who apparently heard a rumor about Sam and decided to shoot him in the back.
The bullet’s still lodged in Sam’s shoulder, and he’s gasping a little (and that’s bad for his asthma, Castiel knows, it’s making him cough intermittently, and that’s making it harder for him to recover his breath), but he’s not letting anyone touch him, which means Dean couldn’t remove the bullet and also means Castiel can’t heal him.
He’s calm, though, and lucid. He’s been clearheaded for a week now, the longest stretch he’s had since he’s been back, and Dean’s been relaxed and almost cheerful. Look at him, Cas, he says when he thinks Sam isn’t listening (Sam’s always listening), he’s starting to deal with it. He’s getting better. My sweet little brother.
Dean doesn’t see Sam’s dreams.
Now Castiel sits in a chair beside Sam’s bed and nudges his fingertips against Sam’s, because Sam wants and doesn’t want touch and this is how they negotiate that. “You need to let us take care of your shoulder,” he says.
“Don’t want to.”
“Dean’s going to find the man who did this, Sam.”
Sam nods jerkily. “Hate that.”
“Why?”
“Dean wants to retire…be done…” Sam breathes in, and it’s shuddery and painful. Castiel pushes a little more firmly against his fingertips. “He wants a home and a family. Not this shit.”
It’s funny sometimes - funny meaning surprising, meaning tragic, not meaning amusing - how little they see of each other’s true selves. There’s no one who knows Dean better than Sam, and yet sometimes he gets it completely wrong. “You don’t want those things, Sam?”
“I want…”
“What?” Castiel risks twisting a finger around one of Sam’s, linking them, and Sam doesn’t pull away.
“I want to fight back.”
“You and Dean aren’t so different, Sam.”
There’s a pulse of anger from Sam, so strong that Castiel nearly forgets to keep himself calm. Just in time, he draws a breath and lets it wash over him, rage and pain. “You don’t understand, Cas, I want…I want to fucking kill someone. I sit under Dean’s arm and let him hold me and kiss my forehead and tell me I’m such a sweet kid and I’m making him so proud and the whole time I’m so fucking angry I just want to…” he breaks off, shoulders heaving up and down, gaspy and flinching and breath screaming out of his lungs.
Castiel holds the inhaler to Sam’s lips with his free hand, gives him a puff of medicated air, and Sam holds his breath and nods and nods, frantic, pulling hard against Castiel’s finger.
“I’m not…sweet,” he gasps. “Cas, he thinks…but I’m not…I’m not…”
“Sam, calm down.”
“I’m bad, I’m…”
“You’re not. Breathe. It’s okay to be angry. You’ve been hurt.” This feels true, and he hopes he’s not lying to Sam. “Do you know who? Do you know who you want to kill?”
Sam takes a deep breath. “I want to open the cage,” he says, voice low, and Castiel thinks of Dean staring out the window, edgy and silent, before thunderstorms. “I want to open the cage and let them out and - and fucking destroy them. You’ve seen my fucking dreams? I want to hold them down and do every single bit of it to them, and taste them between my fucking teeth, and I’d laugh.”
Castiel knows what his brothers did to Sam. He’s seen the dreams. “It’s a lot to carry, Sam.”
Sam nods heavily. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Cry about my nightmares and shake in the corners and let Dean try to fix me because he thinks I’m still that same sweet little kid he gets to protect?”
“Sam…”
“I’m not that kid, Cas. I’m not. I’m the guy sitting here with a fucking bullet in my shoulder to keep me from going out and ripping the man who shot me apart.”
He’s cold. “Is that why you won’t let us take care of it?”
“That’s…one reason.”
“What else?”
Sam detaches his hand slowly from Castiel’s, wraps his arms around his waist and hunches over. “Because I’m a fucking cliché and I don’t want to be touched.”
Castiel knows what his brothers did to Sam.
He aches with it.
He wants very much to touch Sam - to rub his back when he can’t breathe, to wrap his arms around him when he cries, god, to heal the bullet wound in his shoulder - and feels acutely the loss, the theft, of these things that ought to be easy.
Is this Sam’s anger or his own?
“God damn it!” Sam shouts, startling him. “I don’t want any of this shit in my head!” A breath tears through him like it’s being pulled across a wire. It sounds so painful. “God damn it, god damn it!”
“Sam.” These are the times he calls for Dean, when Dean’s within reach. “Breathe.”
“Fuck you!”
He doesn’t mean that. Castiel moves to steady him, reaches across him for the inhaler -
It’s not painful, not really, but it’s definitely forceful, because the next thing he’s aware of is sitting on the floor looking up at a horrified Sam. “Oh Cas. Oh my god. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? Shit. Shit. I’m sorry. Fuck.”
Castiel lifts a hand to his jaw. No damage. “I’m fine, Sam.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s okay.” And something clicks into place in his head. “It’s okay, Sam.”
“What?”
“You can. If it’ll help.”
“I can…what? Hit you? I’m not going to hit you, Cas.”
“You need it, Sam. You’re angry. You’re holding too much. Let some of it go. I can take it. You won’t hurt me.”
“Will you hit back?”
“Of course not.”
“Then no.”
“You want me to hit you?”
“I want to have a fucking fight, Cas!”
Sam waits and wheezes and shakes with the pain in his shoulder and the rage at everything that’s been done to him pours off him and surrounds Castiel, floods the room.
He wants a fight.
Castiel says, “Let me get that bullet out of your shoulder.”
Sam leans away from him. “Fuck you.”
“Let me see it, Sam.” He places a hand deliberately in the center of Sam’s back, eases him forward.”
Sam jerks. “Get off!”
“I can fix it.”
“I don’t need to be fixed!”
“You’re hurt, Sam.”
“You can’t fix it!”
“Just let me. You’re falling apart. Let me help you.”
“You can’t!” Sam pulls away, backs into a corner. “They’re still down there, they’re still fucking alive!”
“Sam, if you’ll let me get my hands on your shoulder, I can heal it. You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want to feel better! It wasn’t my fault!” He’s nearly panicking now, gasping, his head turned so far to the side that his face is pressed against the wall. “It’s another fucking thing that somebody did to me and another fucking mess for Dean to clean up and how the fuck many more before he bails?”
Castiel closes his eyes and gathers himself. “How can you doubt Dean, after everything he’s done for you?”
“Because he wasn’t there!” Sam launches himself from the wall, screaming and spitting, and now the blows are finally coming, furious and even painful, and he’s attacking with both arms in spite of the bullet wound in his shoulder. “I was in hell and he wasn’t there and who the fuck’s fault is that, Cas?!” He scratches and pulls and claws at Castiel, pinning him to the mattress.
“Sam.”
“I just want it to be over! I just want to end it!”
“I know.”
“I…”
“Sam. I know.”
“I just…”
“It’s too much.” He lifts a hand slowly, cautiously, rests it on Sam’s shoulder. Soothing. Healing.
Suddenly he has an armful of Sam, sobbing ungracefully into his chest, and without waiting for permission he wraps his arms around Sam and presses him close. A moment ago Sam was enormous, overpowering, and now he’s a child. These humans.
“Cas,” Sam heaves in a breath, one he has to work for, and Castiel holds the inhaler to his lips and rubs his back through a hit. “How can Dean think I’m okay?”
“The same reason people believe in anything,” Castiel says. “He wants it to be true.”
“God, I hit you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I hit you and you were trying to help me…”
“I provoked you, Sam.”
“Cas, I want to hurt people. What kind of person am I?”
There are things Dean does when Sam’s panicking, touches he uses to soothe his brother. Castiel’s seen them, but he hasn’t studied them. He doesn’t know. He rests one hand in the middle of Sam’s back and pushes the other into his hair at the base of his scalp, improvising, and takes heart from the way Sam’s muscles relax against him. “You’re not bad. You’re so good. So gentle.”
“I’m horrible. If Dean knew how…how dark I am…”
“You have so much pain, Sam. You just need to let it out. It’s okay.”
“He doesn’t understand all these fucking things I am.”
Castiel strokes Sam’s hair. “You’re a lot of things.”
“I am a lot of fucking things and I hate them all.”
“Some of it’s not very pretty,” Castiel says, and Sam flinches a little. “Some of it’s kind of miraculous, Sam. And it’s all you. All the hurt and the anger and wanting to make your brother proud…everything you’ve ever been is all still there.”
Sam looks up at him. His eyes are wet. “Really?”
There’s no excuse for the way he follows these humans around. There’s no way to justify abandoning his post again and again when they call. Castiel was never even supposed to like Sam.
They are the strangest, most complicated, most difficult thing that has ever happened in a hundred thousand years.
“You’re not anything else,” Castiel says, arms (eyes, heart) full of human. “You’re just Sam.”
Author familybizness
Summary: Castiel was never supposed to care about Sam Winchester
Word Count: 1884
Author's Note: Before Sam and Cas made it Facebook Official, Cas used to sit with Sam when Dean was out of the house. This is the story of one such occasion.
No one’s ever asked whether Castiel has time for these things. The truth is, he really doesn’t. Heaven is a mess without Michael, and there’s a faction (and they’ve got a good point) that feels Castiel ought to take control. The argument that Dean is his charge isn’t worth very much these days. No one ever ordered Castiel to follow Dean around for the rest of his life. The order was to raise him from hell, and Castiel’s done that now. Saved him from the cage.
Left Sam behind.
It’s not clear whether they’ve forgiven him for leaving Sam. What is clear is that the time spent locked away with Castiel’s two most volatile brothers has ruined him. Sam cries for hours at a time now, passes days where he speaks nothing but Enochian (and not even clear Enochian, random words and phrases, and then there were those three days where he screamed blood! nonstop until Dean went into the hall and sobbed). What is clear is that Castiel is expected to do this now. To be here, to sit with Sam, while Dean goes to work and to the store and, on this occasion, to track down a hunter who apparently heard a rumor about Sam and decided to shoot him in the back.
The bullet’s still lodged in Sam’s shoulder, and he’s gasping a little (and that’s bad for his asthma, Castiel knows, it’s making him cough intermittently, and that’s making it harder for him to recover his breath), but he’s not letting anyone touch him, which means Dean couldn’t remove the bullet and also means Castiel can’t heal him.
He’s calm, though, and lucid. He’s been clearheaded for a week now, the longest stretch he’s had since he’s been back, and Dean’s been relaxed and almost cheerful. Look at him, Cas, he says when he thinks Sam isn’t listening (Sam’s always listening), he’s starting to deal with it. He’s getting better. My sweet little brother.
Dean doesn’t see Sam’s dreams.
Now Castiel sits in a chair beside Sam’s bed and nudges his fingertips against Sam’s, because Sam wants and doesn’t want touch and this is how they negotiate that. “You need to let us take care of your shoulder,” he says.
“Don’t want to.”
“Dean’s going to find the man who did this, Sam.”
Sam nods jerkily. “Hate that.”
“Why?”
“Dean wants to retire…be done…” Sam breathes in, and it’s shuddery and painful. Castiel pushes a little more firmly against his fingertips. “He wants a home and a family. Not this shit.”
It’s funny sometimes - funny meaning surprising, meaning tragic, not meaning amusing - how little they see of each other’s true selves. There’s no one who knows Dean better than Sam, and yet sometimes he gets it completely wrong. “You don’t want those things, Sam?”
“I want…”
“What?” Castiel risks twisting a finger around one of Sam’s, linking them, and Sam doesn’t pull away.
“I want to fight back.”
“You and Dean aren’t so different, Sam.”
There’s a pulse of anger from Sam, so strong that Castiel nearly forgets to keep himself calm. Just in time, he draws a breath and lets it wash over him, rage and pain. “You don’t understand, Cas, I want…I want to fucking kill someone. I sit under Dean’s arm and let him hold me and kiss my forehead and tell me I’m such a sweet kid and I’m making him so proud and the whole time I’m so fucking angry I just want to…” he breaks off, shoulders heaving up and down, gaspy and flinching and breath screaming out of his lungs.
Castiel holds the inhaler to Sam’s lips with his free hand, gives him a puff of medicated air, and Sam holds his breath and nods and nods, frantic, pulling hard against Castiel’s finger.
“I’m not…sweet,” he gasps. “Cas, he thinks…but I’m not…I’m not…”
“Sam, calm down.”
“I’m bad, I’m…”
“You’re not. Breathe. It’s okay to be angry. You’ve been hurt.” This feels true, and he hopes he’s not lying to Sam. “Do you know who? Do you know who you want to kill?”
Sam takes a deep breath. “I want to open the cage,” he says, voice low, and Castiel thinks of Dean staring out the window, edgy and silent, before thunderstorms. “I want to open the cage and let them out and - and fucking destroy them. You’ve seen my fucking dreams? I want to hold them down and do every single bit of it to them, and taste them between my fucking teeth, and I’d laugh.”
Castiel knows what his brothers did to Sam. He’s seen the dreams. “It’s a lot to carry, Sam.”
Sam nods heavily. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this? Cry about my nightmares and shake in the corners and let Dean try to fix me because he thinks I’m still that same sweet little kid he gets to protect?”
“Sam…”
“I’m not that kid, Cas. I’m not. I’m the guy sitting here with a fucking bullet in my shoulder to keep me from going out and ripping the man who shot me apart.”
He’s cold. “Is that why you won’t let us take care of it?”
“That’s…one reason.”
“What else?”
Sam detaches his hand slowly from Castiel’s, wraps his arms around his waist and hunches over. “Because I’m a fucking cliché and I don’t want to be touched.”
Castiel knows what his brothers did to Sam.
He aches with it.
He wants very much to touch Sam - to rub his back when he can’t breathe, to wrap his arms around him when he cries, god, to heal the bullet wound in his shoulder - and feels acutely the loss, the theft, of these things that ought to be easy.
Is this Sam’s anger or his own?
“God damn it!” Sam shouts, startling him. “I don’t want any of this shit in my head!” A breath tears through him like it’s being pulled across a wire. It sounds so painful. “God damn it, god damn it!”
“Sam.” These are the times he calls for Dean, when Dean’s within reach. “Breathe.”
“Fuck you!”
He doesn’t mean that. Castiel moves to steady him, reaches across him for the inhaler -
It’s not painful, not really, but it’s definitely forceful, because the next thing he’s aware of is sitting on the floor looking up at a horrified Sam. “Oh Cas. Oh my god. I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? Shit. Shit. I’m sorry. Fuck.”
Castiel lifts a hand to his jaw. No damage. “I’m fine, Sam.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s okay.” And something clicks into place in his head. “It’s okay, Sam.”
“What?”
“You can. If it’ll help.”
“I can…what? Hit you? I’m not going to hit you, Cas.”
“You need it, Sam. You’re angry. You’re holding too much. Let some of it go. I can take it. You won’t hurt me.”
“Will you hit back?”
“Of course not.”
“Then no.”
“You want me to hit you?”
“I want to have a fucking fight, Cas!”
Sam waits and wheezes and shakes with the pain in his shoulder and the rage at everything that’s been done to him pours off him and surrounds Castiel, floods the room.
He wants a fight.
Castiel says, “Let me get that bullet out of your shoulder.”
Sam leans away from him. “Fuck you.”
“Let me see it, Sam.” He places a hand deliberately in the center of Sam’s back, eases him forward.”
Sam jerks. “Get off!”
“I can fix it.”
“I don’t need to be fixed!”
“You’re hurt, Sam.”
“You can’t fix it!”
“Just let me. You’re falling apart. Let me help you.”
“You can’t!” Sam pulls away, backs into a corner. “They’re still down there, they’re still fucking alive!”
“Sam, if you’ll let me get my hands on your shoulder, I can heal it. You’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want to feel better! It wasn’t my fault!” He’s nearly panicking now, gasping, his head turned so far to the side that his face is pressed against the wall. “It’s another fucking thing that somebody did to me and another fucking mess for Dean to clean up and how the fuck many more before he bails?”
Castiel closes his eyes and gathers himself. “How can you doubt Dean, after everything he’s done for you?”
“Because he wasn’t there!” Sam launches himself from the wall, screaming and spitting, and now the blows are finally coming, furious and even painful, and he’s attacking with both arms in spite of the bullet wound in his shoulder. “I was in hell and he wasn’t there and who the fuck’s fault is that, Cas?!” He scratches and pulls and claws at Castiel, pinning him to the mattress.
“Sam.”
“I just want it to be over! I just want to end it!”
“I know.”
“I…”
“Sam. I know.”
“I just…”
“It’s too much.” He lifts a hand slowly, cautiously, rests it on Sam’s shoulder. Soothing. Healing.
Suddenly he has an armful of Sam, sobbing ungracefully into his chest, and without waiting for permission he wraps his arms around Sam and presses him close. A moment ago Sam was enormous, overpowering, and now he’s a child. These humans.
“Cas,” Sam heaves in a breath, one he has to work for, and Castiel holds the inhaler to his lips and rubs his back through a hit. “How can Dean think I’m okay?”
“The same reason people believe in anything,” Castiel says. “He wants it to be true.”
“God, I hit you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I hit you and you were trying to help me…”
“I provoked you, Sam.”
“Cas, I want to hurt people. What kind of person am I?”
There are things Dean does when Sam’s panicking, touches he uses to soothe his brother. Castiel’s seen them, but he hasn’t studied them. He doesn’t know. He rests one hand in the middle of Sam’s back and pushes the other into his hair at the base of his scalp, improvising, and takes heart from the way Sam’s muscles relax against him. “You’re not bad. You’re so good. So gentle.”
“I’m horrible. If Dean knew how…how dark I am…”
“You have so much pain, Sam. You just need to let it out. It’s okay.”
“He doesn’t understand all these fucking things I am.”
Castiel strokes Sam’s hair. “You’re a lot of things.”
“I am a lot of fucking things and I hate them all.”
“Some of it’s not very pretty,” Castiel says, and Sam flinches a little. “Some of it’s kind of miraculous, Sam. And it’s all you. All the hurt and the anger and wanting to make your brother proud…everything you’ve ever been is all still there.”
Sam looks up at him. His eyes are wet. “Really?”
There’s no excuse for the way he follows these humans around. There’s no way to justify abandoning his post again and again when they call. Castiel was never even supposed to like Sam.
They are the strangest, most complicated, most difficult thing that has ever happened in a hundred thousand years.
“You’re not anything else,” Castiel says, arms (eyes, heart) full of human. “You’re just Sam.”