When I Return
Title: When I Return
Author familybizness
Summary: Love is complicated, and so are humans. Castiel is making his own choices for the first time in a hundred thousand years. Sometimes he messes it up.
Word Count: 7463
Rating: R
Warnings: Naughty words, mentions of torture
Author's Note: This is after Sam's heart transplant.
After three months - months spent sleeping on a straw mat in a room with a dozen men every night and working in a hot kitchen by day, months spent staring at stars with cold stone under his back, months spent falling asleep to the bark of seals - one look at Sam’s face is almost enough to undo him.
Because these were months spent waking up alone, tear-streaked and breaking on sobs, reaching out for Sam, and now he’s here. He's inches away, bare feet sinking into the cold turned earth of the garden they made together
“Merry Christmas,” Sam says, and smiles. That smile. "Come inside, it's freezing."
Castiel breathes and feels a smile stretch his own face. Sam. his is home. Everything’s going to be okay. “Merry Christmas to you, Sam.”
Inside, the kitchen’s empty, but full of life, as if it was emptied in a great hurry. Everything’s so familiar - the empty cartons of egg substitute in the garbage, the green plate with the chip in it where Dean dropped it, Kylie’s koala cup.
Castiel’s chair, the one he and Sam carved Enochian sigils into one day when the Cage just needed to be laughed at a little, is pushed into a corner away from the table.
“Are you hungry?” Sam follows his gaze. “There’s plenty of food.”
“No, I -“ this isn’t the conversation they need to have. “I’m all right, Sam.” It’s the first time he’s lied to Sam. He’s getting off to a bad start
But Sam brought him inside, Sam is offering him food, and there’s forgiveness in that. Castiel can be absolved of his sins. He clings to that lifeline. “How are you? Are you okay?”
A shadow crosses Sam’s face. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
When Sam is fine, he laughs, he rolls his eyes, he smiles and plays with Castiel’s hair. He says aw, I’m fine, Cas.
He says “I’m glad you’re here,” and Castiel was prepared for Sam to be angry, to hate him, but not for this uncertainty. “Do you need something? Is that why you’re here?”
“Of course not. Sam…”
“It’s okay, Cas, if that’s…whatever you need.”
“I need to be with you.” It just comes pouring out. He can’t stop it. “I want to be here. However you'll have me, Sam. I want to be a part of this. This family. Please.”
Sam rubs a hand across his face. “Okay, I…thanks for telling me.”
Castiel regards his feet. “You’re welcome.” It seems inadequate to the point of being inappropriate. He left Sam You're welcome?
He left Sam.
But Sam will take him back. Sam loves him. Sam invited him into the house and offered him food.
Sam says, “We missed you.”
“I missed you every minute,” Castiel breathes, and steps toward him, but Sam steps back and holds up a hand, and there’s a whine in his breathing that makes Castiel’s heart twist.
Asthma.
It’s a respiratory disorder, and Castiel understands it now, after a year with Sam. He knows how it works and what it does, and he knows what constitutes an emergency, and this noise Sam’s making isn’t anything to be too worried about.
It’s just that it sounds a little like crying
Sam crying is enough to undo him.
“Where’s your inhaler?” Castiel asks, gently, arms itching to reach out for Sam.
“I have it. Go - go downstairs, Cas, okay?”
“What?”
Sam looks away. “I’d be more comfortable doing this on my own.”
That’s not a sentence Sam has ever said about his asthma. Possibly not about anything. Sam loves to be cared for. Sam loves when Castiel cares for him.
He did three months ago.
“Please go,” Sam says, and turns away.
“Sam…” He shouldn't be alone.
“Cas."
"Sam, promise me you aren’t putting yourself at risk because you’re uncomfortable with me.”
Sam turns on him, suddenly. “I don’t have to promise you anything, Cas! You promised you wouldn’t leave me!”
It drills into his brain, down his spine, roots him where he stands.
You promised you wouldn’t leave me.
***
Downstairs. He’s hit with a wave of leather and gun oil before he even steps off the last step, and a new scent as well. Sawdust. He and Dean were turning the basement into a wood shop three months ago. It looks like it’s been finished in his absence.
And there he is
There’s something about Dean that solidifies the feeling o home. am is air and clouds and a balloon in Castiel’s heart, but Dean is his anchor. Dean is stone
His back is to Castiel, hands busy in front of him, and he’s humming quietly as he works. He’s peaceful. He’s happy. He’s happy, and Castiel knows a moment of pride before he remembers that whatever Dean’s feeling right now has nothing to do with him.
“Hello, Dean.”
Dean’s whole body tenses. “You’re back.”
“Sam let me in.”
“We’re family,” Dean says. “That doesn’t change because you’re an asshole, Cas.”
“Sam’s wheezing,” Castiel says. This is more important than anything he himself is.
Dean slams his hand down on the table in front of him. “Don’t you tell me about my brother. Don’t.”
“You’re angry.” He expected this - Dean is so easily angered where Sam is involved - but seeing it is different. Dean’s angry with him. Oh.
“You hurt him.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t - “ Dean laughs a little. It’s harsh. “You must have known what that would do to him. He was sick, Cas, he was shaking off the goddamn bed with that fever, and you walked away.”
“I had that fever too, Dean.”
“So? We took care of you, dammit, don’t say we didn’t.”
“I’m not saying that.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
I’m saying you shouldn’t have had to.
He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t say anything. The workbench behind Dean is covered in wooden rods, sanded to a smooth finish, and Castiel’s fists clench involuntarily Bars.
“Cas?” Dean frowns, follows his stare. “What are you -?”
“Are you making a cage?”
“Jesus, Cas."
“Are you?”
“What makes you think you can just walk in here after three months and fucking question me? What do you care what I’m making?”
“I care about him, Dean. You know I do. You know do.”
Dean sighs. “I know.”
“I want -“
“Don’t tell me what you want. You fucked up. You take whatever he has left for you and you be damn grateful.”
“Yes,” Castiel whispers. “Yes.” This is what he deserves.
Dean picks up one of the bars behind him and runs a hand along its length. “It’s not for a cage.”
“Of course. I apologize.” This isn’t the apology he needs to make. In the shadow of his greater sins, it’s almost ridiculous to even acknowledge this one.
“It’s a crib,” Dean says.
“A what?”
The happiness in Dean swells, and a smile finds its way onto his face. “Christa’s pregnant.”
***
Christa’s all smiles at dinner, holding Dean’s hand, brushing the Winchesters away as they try to do everything for her. “Sit, Christa,” Sam barks playfully, pushing her into a chair. “We’ve got it. You relax. Cas, you want potatoes?”
He nods. “You look well, Christa.”
“Thank you.” She doesn’t look at him.
Sam looks back and forth between them, wrings his hands a little and wheezes
Three months ago, Castiel used to catch Sam’s hand in his own and rub his thumb across Sam’s wrist. Now his hands form useless fists and he watches Sam take a seat at the opposite end of the table, out of reach
Kylie says, “Hi, Casti-EL,” like it’s an insult.
“Hello, Kylie.”
“You went away.”
“I did.” Saying it is atonement. It hurts and it’s what he deserves.
“You made my Sammy cry.”
MySam.
“Kylie,” Sam says, quietly.
“He did.”
Sam studies his plate. “I know, honey.”
“So.”
Sam pushes his potatoes around and doesn’t say anything.”
“Where did you go, even?"
“I went - well, I went a lot of places.” He swallows. “I bought a house in Alaska.”
“In Alaska?” There’s something fierce in Kylie’s voice. She never used to sound like this. “You went to Alaska?”
“I was thinking we’d all - Sam and I always talked about -“
Sam wheezes and grips at the ends of his hair. Castiel used to hold the ends of Sam’s hair while he did nebulizer treatments. Sam used to rest his head on Castiel’s shoulder. Now nobody is looking at him.
Dean clears his throat. “Kylie, let’s not talk about that right now, okay? Christmas dinner."
“He went to Alaska, Dean. Sammy cried and cried about -“
“Kylie, I said not now.” He puts some asparagus on her plate, and Kylie makes a noise like hmmph.
“Christa,” Sam says quietly, “You need to -" he breathes, hard " - eat lots of asparagus. Folic acid.”
She puts her fork down. “Honey, I know. It’s all right.”
“No, I…” he rubs at his chest. “I’m going to go lie down, I think. I’m sorry, Dean, everything looks really good, I -“
“Hey.” Dean’s up from the table, arms wrapped around his brother, and Castiel used to take his other side because Sam is big. He’s too big for Dean to carry alone.
Kylie slides out of her seat, pulls back and kicks him hard in the shin, and runs off in the direction of her room.
“Merry fucking Christmas,” Christa mutters, and pushes her plate away.
***
Dean’s voice is soft and low and carries through the structure of the house, so Castiel feels more than hears him soothing his brother.
Sam’s sobbing, punctuated by frantic wheezes, is loud and a full register higher than his speaking voice. That, Castiel hears.
Those painful breaths…he used to imitate the sounds while Sam slept, a hand on his own chest and a hand hovering over Sam’s, trying to duplicate what Sam was feeling, trying to understand. One night Sam caught him at it and made him jump up and down for a minute and then gave him a straw to breathe through. They held hands and Castiel sucked and sucked at the straw until he was dizzy and seeing spots, and then Sam took it away and hugged him and told him he didn’t have to do this.
They were happy without him. They were better without him. It was wrong to come back.
“Don’t you think about it,” Christa snaps.
He looks at her.
“You need to be patient with him, Cas. Don’t go leaving again. He’s doing well. He’s put on weight. He’s happy.”
“This is happy?”
“It’s an improvement.” She doesn’t elaborate.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m not the one you need to worry about.”
“Congratulations,” he says, quietly . “On the baby.”
“Babies. Twins.” She smiles a little, like Dean, like she can’t help smiling when she talks about this. “It’s a boy and a girl.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here…”
“Yeah. We’ve…we’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too.” He and Sam dreamed together sometimes, and after a nightmare Christa used to come in and wrap her arms around Sam and kiss his forehead and talk to him gently and pretend she didn’t notice Castiel clinging to the sleeve of her bathrobe. Dean would have mocked him for that. Christa always just let him hold on
“Just…be patient,” she says. “Give him time.”
“He doesn’t have to do anything. He doesn’t even have to talk to me.” Please, please talk to me.
Christa says, “We should set up a bed for you.”
“You don’t have to go to any trouble. I can sleep on the floor.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll pull the fold-out couch into the Dark Room.”
The Dark Room.
It’s where Sam goes when his hallucinations overwhelm him, when the memories are too intense, when lights are too bright and noises are too loud and he needs to escape.
The Dark Room is for the things Sam can’t handle.
Castiel nods. “All right. That sounds fine.”
***
Sam brings him a plate of waffles in the morning. Castiel’s not naïve enough to think it means anything. It’s not a peace offering. It’s just Sam being Sam. If Michael and Lucifer were here, Sam would probably bring them waffles. They’re topped with strawberries, though. Castiel’s favorite. That’s something.
There was a time he would have smiled, kissed Sam, slipped a strawberry between his lips and pulled him down onto the bed. Now he just takes the plate and whispers, “Thank you.”
Sam nods and stands with his back to the wall. He’s leaning on it, actually, hands clasped in front of him and shoulders hunched, and his eyes are unfocusing the way they do when he hasn’t gotten any sleep.
“Do you want to sit down?” Castiel asks.
He hesitates, shakes his head.
“Are you -?"
“Fine.”
He’s not. His hand is coming up and making gripping motions at the base of his sternum, like he’s trying to pull at his lungs, and then he doubles over on himself and coughs and coughs and Castiel feels it from the pit of his stomach all the way up through his head.
“Sam,” he whispers.
Sam waves his hand dismissively and breathes, hands braced on his knees, brings the fit to heel. “Fine, Cas.”
“I don’t think you are.”
“Just a bad night.” He coughs again, grabbing at the wall for support. Castiel jumps up, reaches for him, but Sam steps away.
“Sam. Let me help.”
“Don’t - need - help.”
“Sam.”
“Don’t touch."
“Lie down then.” Castiel steps away from the bed, clearing a path for Sam, and he doesn’t even argue. He drops onto the bed like he’s been deboned.
(Castiel kissed Sam’s fingers in this very room while he screamed about being deboned.)
He sits on the floor and is quiet, and Sam is quiet - which is to say, Sam doesn’t speak. He breathes like he’s punctured: slow, leaking, squeaking. He wraps his arms around his chest and squeezes as he exhales, which Castiel knows from experience has no effect. He doesn’t have enough energy, enough leverage, to force air out that way. “Can I do that for you?”
Sam shakes his head.
“Sam, I could help you.”
“Don’t want…” Sam takes a full breath, in and out, several seconds, during which Castiel is left to wonder. “You.”
The air leaves Castiel’s lungs so quickly it feels criminal.
“Sorry.”
“No. It’s okay, Sam.” Whatever he wants is fine. It’s fine.
“Just…”
“You don’t have to explain, Sam. I -“ There’s a heady feeling of relief. He’s about to say the words that have been clawing at him since he saw Sam’s face. “The way I feel about you hasn’t changed. Not for a moment.”
Sam’s quiet, watching him.
“You don’t have to respond. I just need you to know…I wasn’t in Alaska playing with seals and having a good time. I was trying to figure out how to function around…” what? Humanity? “…worry. Sadness. Without Dean and Christa having to hold my hand all the time. Without taking their attention away from…” you, you, Sam, always. “…where it needed to be.”
“Alaska,” Sam says.
“Yes.”
“Y’know what’s funny?”
There’s a set to Sam’s jaw. Whatever it is, it won’t be funny at all. “What?”
“I was in here. Crying. Fucking - crying all over Dean about how you and I were gonna go to Alaska.”
Oh, Sam.
“And you were there. Without me.”
“Sam, I was always coming back for you, I…”
“You broke my heart.” He curls into a cough, and one arm reaches up to tangle in his hair. (He used to tangle his fingers in Castiel’s hair.) “Why did you leave me, Cas? Why did you -“ he’s crying, suddenly, horrible wheezing sobs that prevent him from inhaling, and Castiel aches to hold him, but he can’t, Sam doesn’t want him anymore.
Sam pulls in enough air to gasp out one word - “Dean” - and Castiel stands. Dean. Maybe getting Dean is the only way left for him to help.
***
Get Deanbecomes a mantra.
It becomes a reflex.
Castiel’s always carried an inhaler and an EpiPen with him, ever since the day Sam sat with him and showed him how both were used (and laughed when he put the wrong end of the inhaler in his mouth). He carried them in Alaska. He carries them now. It feels wrong not to have them. But they never see daylight. He doesn’t reach for the inhaler now. He gets Dean.
When Sam loses his breath washing dishes and has to sit down.
When he hears a wracking cough coming from the shower and the harsh slam of a hand against porcelain.
When he passes Sam’s bedroom in the middle of the night - he’s going to get a drink of water, but if he’s honest with himself, he’s checking on Sam - and hears harsh, irregular shrieks and is, for a moment, unsure whether he’s hearing an asthma attack or a nightmare. He used to know this. It’s just hard to tell without the accompanying visuals of Sam’s hands, Sam’s chest, Sam’s face.
This is happening too often.
But he sets aside what he’s doing and gets Dean, or Christa, if Dean’s not available.
Dean paces and paces and grumbles, “I’m going to a meeting. Watch Sam."
“A meeting?”
Kylie glares at him and shakes her head, and he doesn’t pursue it.
Christa’s at work, so Castiel sits outside Sam’s door and listens to the harsh whistle of his breathing - every exhale sounds like he’s calling out for help - and touches the inhaler in his pocket.
“Sam?”
No answer.
“Sam, I have an inhaler…”
“Don’t….” He breathes in twice, recovering from just that word. “…need -“
“You can’t breathe.” Castiel feels the burn in his own lungs, the way Sam’s fever used to burn through his blood.
“Fine,” Sam wheezes out
“You can’t talk.”
“Fine” The emphasis on the word is too much, and he chokes and coughs and Castiel can’t handle not being in the room anymore. Sam’s curled up on the bed, contracting on himself like one giant lung.
“Let me fix up the nebulizer.” Castiel starts toward it.
“I’m - fine.”
“Stop wasting breath on telling me you’re fine, Sam!”
“Get…”
“Dean’s not here.”
Sam nods, inhales so hard. “Kylie.”
“Kylie?”
“Please…”
“Sam, let me help you.”
“Kylie.”
“Sam…”
“No.” He lapses into another coughing fit, hands clutching at the sleeves of his t-shirt.
Castiel goes in search of the five year old.
***
Christa finds him outside, sitting in the garden. He likes having his hands in the dirt. Sam used to call him Earth Angel nd sing a stupid song about it. Castiel used to kiss him to shut him up. It’s the same dirt.
“Sam’s okay,” she says, settling beside him.
He nods. “Thank you.”
“Are you all right?”
He looks away.
“I can’t help if you don’t talk to me, Cas.”
“I know what a bad flare looks like.”
She’s quiet.
“I just wish we could stop…pretending I don’t see it. I know he doesn’t want to talk to me. I understand that. I’m not trying to force anything. I just wish we could acknowledge that I know what’s going on. I could help him.”
“Cas…” Christa sighs. “The last time Sam saw you, he was sick. And then you left.”
“I’m not going to leave.”
“I know you’re not. He’s scared. He gets to be scared.”
“How long has he been flaring?” She shakes her head. “You won’t tell me anything?”
“It’s his body, Cas. He asked me not to. I’m not going to fucking tell him what to do with his body, and neither are you.”
“I’m not making demands on Sam, Christa. I’m trying to help him.”
“That is aking demands.” She scoops up a handful of dirt, rubs it between her fingers. “Do you understand how hard it is for him to let anyone n? Particularly when it comes to being sick.”
(Why are you sick? astiel asked Sam once, long ago, before anything, and Sam shut himself in the bathroom for an hour and Dean sent Castiel away.)
But Christa’s looking at him expectantly, unkindly, and talking to him like he doesn’t understand, and the truth is that Castiel has known Sam longer and loved him more fiercely than she has, and maybe he’s made mistakes (inarguably he’s made mistakes) but his devotion has never wavered. He doesn’t have to take this. “Stop it.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“You’re acting like you’re the only one who loves him. I didn’t show up here expecting anything. If Sam told me to leave right now, I wouldn’t argue. But you you and Dean - I expect you to have the capacity to realize that I sacrificed the only life I’d known for a hundred thousand years to join your family, and not to question whether or not I really want to be here based on a few months.”
“Cas - you fucked him up.”
He lowers his head. Yes, he did do that.
“If you try to dive into taking care of him right now, he’s going to pull away from you.”
“He couldn’t breathe. had an inhaler in my hand. hat would you have done?”
“I would have never left him! ”
Three months ago, when Sam’s fever was at its worst, Castiel hallucinated. It’s hard to remember now. What he remembers is the fever breaking, Dean holding a cup of water to his lips and looking as though he hadn’t slept in days, and Sam sobbing his brother’s name while Kylie petted his hair.
He was a drain on the family. He was a drain on Sam.
“You have no idea what you would have done in my position,” he says, quietly.
“You didn’t even tell me you were leaving.” Christa’s eyes are narrowed, but her voice cracks, just a little. “We were friends, as.”
She emphasizes friends, but Castiel hears were. “I should have told you. I’m sorry….”
“That’s not important.”
“Stop. Please. I should have told you.”
“I don’t care. That’s not important. Sam was fucking shattered. ou did that to him. I’m not acting like the only person who loves him. I’m acting like the person who fucking put him back together when you weren’t here. I’m acting like the person who knows him best right now.”
“I don’t want you telling me how to rebuild things with him. I don’t want your help with that.”
She pulls back a little. “Fine.”
“I’m serious.” He has to do this on his own, or it won’t be right.
“Oh, go to hell, Cas,” she sighs
“You really shouldn’t say that,” he says, quietly, and watches her walk away
***
Christa cries a lot. She cries on the way to work, on the way to the doctor’s office, coming home from work and the doctor’s office. She doesn’t really go anywhere else. Castiel stands with his back to the wall as Dean hustles her by, his arm around her shoulders, her hands gripped in his, Sam and Kylie chasing at their heels and talking over each other and offering tea and blankets.
They come home one day talking about a c-section, and Castiel has to look it up. He reads the explanation of the procedure from Sam’s laptop screen and remembers sitting in the circle of Sam’s arms while they looked up anaphylaxis together, remembers watching the soft movements of Sam’s throat and feeling the rise and fall of his chest. When he’s finished, he clears the browsing history the way Sam showed him.
Sam sits in his room and shivers the day they put Christa on bed rest, because Dean has brought cases of milk and yogurt into the house and he’s allergic and it’s scaring him. Castiel has lost his right to be angry on Sam’s behalf, lost his right to hold Sam while he cries, but on this occasion he gets to carry Christa’s new mini-fridge full of dairy up to her bedroom and plug it in for her.
“Thank you,” she says, and meets his eyes.
Dean twists a section of her hair around and around and doesn’t say anything.
Castiel goes back downstairs and into the Dark Room, presses his head to the wall and listens to the soft sounds of Sam’s and Kylie’s voices through the pine
“…guess I was hoping he’d be less…” that’s Sam.
“Weird?” Kylie interjects.
“I don’t know. Cold. No, he’s not cold…” Sam’s breathing quickens and is so much easier to hear than their voices. Does Kylie know how to set up the nebulizer? He can’t remember.
“Mean?”
“I don’t know. Whatever he was, he’s still - he hasn’t changed.”
“Do you still love him?”
It’s quiet for a long time. Castiel pushes his ear against the wood so hard it hurts.
“Yes,” Sam says finally. “But I don’t like it anymore.”
There’s a snuffling noise and a familiar weight on his foot. He reaches down. It’s Huck. Huck, his hedgehog, his surprise pet from Sam, and he remembers Sam placing the strange creature in his arms and lifting his camera, saying smile, Cas! e remembers it in slow motion, the feeling of the smile spreading from his lips into his chest.
He lifts Huck into his arms and smiles as hard as he can, and he finally cries.
***
Days become weeks.
Occasional bouts of panicked wheezing become a near constant battle for air, Sam curled up in his enormous pink blanket with the end hooded over his head. He crawls into bed with Christa and she pets his hair while Dean counts breaths and takes pulse ox measurements. Castiel lurks outside the door and writes the numbers on his fingers using Kylie’s red marker. Later, he sits in the Dark Room and draws a chart. All the lines are going the wrong direction.
Sam and Castiel become nothing.
It isn’t nothing, he tells himself over and over. He sees Sam every day. He has his charts. It’s more than he ever had in Alaska. Maybe it’s not possible to have Sam in the way he used to. Maybe this is what he can have and he should be grateful.
Castiel isn’t grateful.
If there are words for this feeling, he doesn’t know them.
Cautiously, he and Dean become friends again. They finish the crib for the new babies and Castiel carries it up to the nursery. They paint the walls lemon-yellow. Afterward, Dean offers Castiel a beer and tells him shyly that he’s given up drinking, and Castiel can’t resist wrapping his arms around his charge. Dean shoves him away, gruff but flushed with pride.
There’s a day Kylie comes to him with a handful of rubber bands and asks him to do her hair. He makes a mess of it and she kisses his cheek.
Sam lets him help make French Toast, but when he loses his breath halfway through, he swats Castiel’s hands away and it’s Christa who holds the inhaler to his lips and rubs between his shoulders while he sucks at the air like he’s underwater. He’s dipping his head in a familiar way - he wants a hand on the back of his neck - but she doesn’t see or doesn’t know and Castiel can’t reach for him and can’t speak and can’t look away. He turns the inhaler over and over in his hands. That night, he holds his graphs pressed to his chest and strokes his thumb across the paper in soothing circles and thinks he must be losing his mind.
Dean chooses the name Jude Campbell for his unborn son.
Sam and Christa decide to call the girl Emilia. Emmy.
“We’d like you to think of a middle name for her,” Christa says. “If you want to.” They all add this qualifier to everything now, as if they’re expecting to discover he secretly wants nothing to do with them at all
I fell for you.
“I’d love to,” he says, and thanks her, and Sam watches unknowably from the corner.
***
“This is called Cobra Pose,” Sam says, arching.
Castiel watches him from the couch and runs his fingers over the outline of the inhaler in his pocket. “Does it hurt?”
“It feels good.” Sam inhales, and Castiel listens to the stretch of his lungs, the beat of his strong new heart and watches his muscles move. He’s straining to hold the pose. Sam’s limitations are beautiful, lovable, perfect. Human
He stands, reaches his arms behind his back, bends forward and touches his forehead to his knees.
“How did you do that?”
Sam laughs and straightens up. “I’m flexible.”
“Can I try?” It’s this habit he has of asking for permission to do human things, to be one of them. They’ve never told him no. They laugh at him about it and say of course you can have juice, Cas, of course you can use the remote. ow Sam smiles indulgently and nods and for an instant their eyes meet and Castiel loses his breath. He clutches a pillow to his chest because his arms are empty and it hurts so much.
Then Sam’s hand is on his wrist. “Stand up.” He pulls Castiel into the middle of the room, guides his arms back, and pushes him forward gently. His hips bump Castiel’s and he doesn’t pull away, and it’s intimate and casual all at once and he and Sam are neither. Okay.
Sam’s hands on his arms.
Sam’s chest on his back.
Sam, Sam, Sam all around him, and Castiel can’t move and feels shaky and like crying because if Sam knew what he was thinking, surely, surely e’d go away, and there was a time Sam wrapped Castiel in arms and legs and held him so close.
He can’t complete the bend - his forehead doesn’t reach his knees - but he stays doubled over, trying, until he feels Sam move away. His chest burns with loss and something else.
“There’s an inhaler in my coat pocket,” he says, straightening up, not moving to get it because Sam won’t take it from him, because he doesn’t want to scare him off, because the rejection is too painful.
“I’m not wheezing,” Sam says.
“Yes you are.” It’s the barest hint of a wheeze, just the start of one, but it’s there, and so this is the perfect time for the inhaler.
Sam frowns and inhales experimentally. “You can hear that?”
“Of course."
“So…you’ve known I was flaring this whole time."
It’s not a question, but Castiel nods anyway.
Sam wheezes audibly and pushes a hand into his thigh.
“Sam…” Get the inhaler.
But Sam’s backing away, breathing rapidly, fingers knotting together and shaking his head, and then he’s gone, leaving Castiel to worry and wonder exactly what he did wrong.
***
“Cas, get in here.”
He’s lurking outside Sam’s door again, has been for about an hour, because Sam is making that noise that means he’s crying but can’t get the air to voice it. Dean’s with him, talking softly, and occasionally the sound of the nebulizer drowns them out, but it isn’t like Castiel can’t feel the ache in his own lungs.
He hurts when Sam hurts. It’s not a metaphor.
He follows Christa’s voice into her room. She’s propped up on pillows, hands resting on her belly where it’s starting to swell. “Jude’s kicking,” she says by way of explanation. Her voice is full of pride, as if she were the one who taught him to do that. She lets him rest his hand on her stomach and feel the beats.
She doesn’t speak, just keeps her hands over his and her eyes fixed on him. She doesn’t ask questions. He knows what she’s doing, and he’s going to fall for it anyway
“I don’t think Sam and I can be together."
It comes out like vomit, painful and scraping, and he turns away physically as if he can make that not be true by distancing himself from it.
She’s quiet for a long time.
“Maybe not,” she finally says.
His lungs are screaming, but it’s not like they weren’t in Alaska
His heart is broken, but it’s not like it was ever whole without Sam.
He swallows and swallows and wants his charts.
Sam doesn’t want him
Sam doesn’t want him and everything else in the world hurts too much.
Christa’s struggling to sit up and her voice is fading in and out, saying no, Cas, no, breathe, honey, come on, but Castiel can breathe just fine. It’s Sam who can’t breathe. Castiel is the lungs and Sam is the heart.
She rubs circles on his back. “Cas. He can feel it. Calm down so he can breathe.”
He feels the tightness in Sam’s lungs and squeezes his hands into fists. This is how the airways contract, am explained, two big hands curled around one of Castiel’s
“He doesn’t want me to love him.” Across the hall, the sound of the nebulizer starts up again.
“I know.” She wraps her arms around him. “I know.”
He’s shaking. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know.”
“Tell me what it was like when I left?” He shouldn’t be asking this. If he can’t figure it out, he doesn’t deserve to know. He doesn’t deserve Sam. He doesn’t deserve Sam.
“He was brave,” Christa says softly, her hand still moving over Castiel’s back. “He was brave for Dean, and Dean was brave for him. Kylie cried.”
“Kylie?”
“She thought you were dead.” Christa’s voice hitches. “She wouldn’t believe me when I promised her you weren’t.”
“God.”
“Sam would wake up in the night screaming and crying, and then he wouldn’t know why…” she swallows. “And then he’d remember, and he just…stopped.”
“Stopped screaming?”
“Stopped everything. I’d sit with him and I could hardly get him to talk. It was like when he first started working with me.”
My Sam, my Sam.
“He just curled up and lay there. Didn’t want to go to group. Didn’t do anything. Sometimes he’d say your name, all hesitant and shaky, like he was calling you, and when you didn’t answer he’d ball up tight with his arms around his head, and I couldn’t get him to talk for hours.”
Castiel chews on his lip as hard as he can. It hurts. It should hurt. Everything hurts. He’s floating up out of his body and he’s shaking so hard.
“And then this flare came on, and he - he didn’t tell us,” she says. “It was bad for days and he swallowed his breaths and he didn’t tell us. He just quietly gave up.”
“I did that to him,” Castiel whispers
***
Sam fights for air for three days
Castiel carves them into the wall in the dark room with his fingernail, digging and digging until his hand is full of splinters.
Dean runs back and forth between Sam’s room and Christa’s, sets up the nebulizer again and again, spends hours on the phone with doctors. On the third day he rubs a hand across his face and announces he’s going to a meeting for a few hours.
It’s a Thursday.
Castiel is probably the only one who notices.
Kylie and Christa are napping together when he brings a tray of food in to Sam, and god, Sam’s blue in the face, eyes desperately wide, fighting so hard.
Castiel feels his own lungs freeze in a way that has nothing to do with asthma
He pulls the Epi-Pen from his pocket, but he can’t do anything. Not without permission. “Let me, Sam.”
Sam grabs his wrist and nods hard.
***
Neither of them really wants to be alone after that, so Castiel sits on the end of Sam’s bed and plays with the blanket while Sam eats his soup
“I don’t know what to say,” Sam says, softly. All uncertain and gentle.
“I know what you mean.” None of the things Castiel wants to say (I love you constantly, loving you is who I am, ) would be appropriate anymore. “Maybe we just sit here. Maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
Sam runs his fingers through the soup, which is just something he does sometimes. It’s endearingly familiar. Castiel used to lick the soup off his fingers. Okay.
“Truth or dare,” Sam says.
“Truth.” Castiel always chooses truth. He likes Sam’s game, but he doesn’t like the idea of making each other do things.
“What was the coolest thing you did while you were gone?”
“Alaska was very cool.”
Sam laughs a little, like it’s okay to talk about Alaska. “What was your favorite hing?”
He thinks for a minute. “I learned to speak Urdu.”
“You did?”
“It felt…like being with you.”
“Say something in Urdu.”
“Main Sam ko dhuund raha hoon.”
“What did you say about me?”
“’I’m looking for Sam.’"
Sam looks slapped. “Did you say that?”
He whispered it to himself every night before he fell asleep. I’m lost. I’m looking for Sam. ldquo;Not…to anybody.” God, he knew this wouldn’t be appropriate. “Truth or dare.”
“Truth.” Sam never picks dare either
“Are you mad at me?”
“No.” The answer comes so quickly.
“What are we?”
“You don’t get two questions.”
Castiel waits.
“I don’t know.”
“Enemies?”
“No.”
“Friends?”
Sam hesitates. “Family."
“Family.” The thing is, family can be enemies. All it really means is that you’re tied together. “What would you do if I tried to hold your hand?”
Sam takes his hand. Castiel’s always loved Sam’s huge hands. “Truth or dare.”
“Truth.”
“Would you -“ he swallows. “Would you have stayed if I’d taken better care of you?”
“What?”
“You left because I was making you sick…”
“Sam, I left because I was getting in the way of people taking care of you. You never failed to take care of me.”
Sam closes his eyes and exhales, hard, shuddering, in that way that could be asthma or crying.
“I didn’t want to be a burden to Dean and Christa, but…it was different with us. You were amazing. You were so strong. You have more empathy in you than anyone I know.”
“R-really?" He's shaking. Maybe. Maybe that's Castiel. Someone is shaking.
“You never acted like the things I was feeling didn’t matter. You held me through so many fevers when you had the exact same fever. We were…equal, Sam.” The were qual. Then Castiel left. He’ll never live up to Sam again. It’s funny (it’s not funny at all) that this conversation is even being had in this direction. That Sam can even imagine he’s the one who failed.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Sam whispers.
Damn.
“Truth or dare.”
“Dare,” Sam says.
“Dare?”
"Dare."
“Sam…”
“Dare.”
“Kiss me.” The words shake out of him.
And Sam’s hand is on his cheek, Sam’s breath is warm on his face, Sam Sam Sam…
“Oh, Sam, I missed you so much.”
“Castiel.”
“So much.”
“Missed you - your ears, your smile…”
“That thing your eyes do when you’re happy and the way you shake just a little when you’re overwhelmed and the way you move my hands for me when I’m not sure what to do…”
Sam moves Castiel’s hands, one into his hair, one to his back.
“The way you snore when you’re sick.” Sam kisses his nose.
“You holding my hand when I’m sick.” Castiel grips his hand.
Sam pulls back.
He’s crying.
Oh, Sam.
***
That night, Castiel walks by Sam’s room and hears him crying, hears him saying to Dean, “He didn’t miss asthma.”
Castiel has so many feelings all the time, and they are never the correct ones
How is he supposed to miss omething that hurts Sam? Is that what love is?
How is he supposed to be omething that hurts Sam?
Sam cries that he misses Lucifer, and Castiel sits in the dark room and pulls out handfuls of his feathers and hates everything that he is.
***
This would all be fine - not ideal, not even good, but something Castiel could accept. He deserves it. He left Sam
And it’s not hard to understand, after the cage, after Castiel chose Dean to save and left Sam, why his leaving is something Sam just can’t tolerate. It’s not a matter of forgiveness. Sam’s trust was hard-won and delicate and Castiel was careless with it
Christa’s gentle with him now, says things like I know you’re sorry nd he does love you nd rests her hand on the back of his neck. Dean keeps the refrigerator stocked with orange soda and asks questions that aren’t how could you be so stupid. ylie dances for him. That’s a red-letter day.
Sam says good morning and passes him the potatoes and still won’t take an inhaler from him.
But it’s fine. It’s more than he deserves. He’s ready to accept it as the way things are now.
And then one day he comes home from the farmers’ market where Christa showed him the best onions, and Sam’s sitting at the table smiling too widely, and the air is thick with a scent Castiel knows too well, and Sam isn’t wheezing at all.
Sam says, “Hi, Cas!” and steps to him and leans him into a wall, kisses him all roughly, and he must be crazy to think Castiel doesn’t know ecause the taste is filling his mouth and it’s all he can do not to shove Sam away.
Instead, he extricates himself from Sam’s arms carefully. “Hello, Sam.”
Sam laughs. “Hey, come here. It’s okay.”
There is nothing okay about it. “Sam.”
Sam takes him by the wrist and pulls him close. Castiel holds him back with a hand braced against Sam’s chest, and Sam doesn’t react to that at all. If he hadn’t been sure before, that would have removed all doubt.
“Sam,” he says. “I can smell it.”
Sam goes rigid against him. “Smell what?”
“You know what.”
Sam leans against the wall and shakes and won’t look at him
“We need to call Dean.”
They call the auto shop and Sam cradles the phone to his ear and his voice wavers all over the place and breaks in half when he says the words demon blood, but he isn’t wheezing and he doesn’t sound like Sam.
He lets Castiel rub his back for the entire phone call.
***
Detox isn’t new to any of them, but it’s a special category of awful. By the time Dean gets home from work, Sam’s rocking back and forth and starting to shiver.
The fever’s climbing.
The first thing he does when Dean comes through the door, before I’m sorry, before Dark Room, before Christa, is look up at his brother and say, “Castiel’s sick, Dean.”
Castiel shakes his head. “I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not.” Dean’s gruff and practical. “You’re all flushed. You’re gonna keep going up as long as Sammy does and you know it. Go lie down with Christa.”
Sam wraps his arms around Dean and cries into his stomach. “He doesn’t want me if I’m sick, I was trying to be healthy, but he doesn’t want me now either, he doesn’t want me, Dean.”
Maybe Castiel is sick after all. “Sam, of course I want you - you did this because of me?”
“Get better for you,” Sam whispers. “So you’ll love me.”
Dean brackets Sam with his arms. “Cas, go.”
Upstairs, he shivers against Christa and feels the fever climb under his skin. It’s weird. This link between him and Sam, it’s weird. It’s destructive. Christa should be with Sam
She holds a cup to his lips. “Slow sips, honey.”
“Sam is the brightest star,” he tells her, desperately. Sam lights up the night. “Can I have an onion?”
She gives him a whole one because she is very smart - smarter than Sam, who went to college and is so smart - and he holds it to his chest. “I love him. Sam. Not the onion.”
She pets his hair. “I know, honey.”
“I love that stupid wheeze.”
“Yeah?”
“It means he’s with me and he’s breathing and those are my favorite things.”
“I know that’s not why you left, Cas.”
“Tell him.” Is he crying? “I always knew he was sick and I always loved him and - am I not supposed to want him to feel better? I wouldn’t - I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid…”
Christa cups his forehead and sticks a thermometer under his tongue and whimpers a little when she pulls it out.
“I love Sam.” This fever.
“I know, honey. Love’s really hard, huh.”
“Name your baby Jess,” he says, and soaks her shoulder with tears.
***
Some time goes by - he knows by the movement of shadows in the room, it’s later now, and then he opens his eyes and Sam’s there.
“I just want to be with you,” Castiel says. He’s so cold.
“I meant to help.” It’s going up, up, up.
“I just want -“ Castiel closes his eyes and shivers. Can’t stop shivering. Or is that Sam? “Main Sam ko dhuund raha hoon.”
“I was here.” Sam inhales, pants, wheezes, and it feels like a balloon because Castiel is touching him. When did that happen? “I was broken glass.”
“Fix you,” Castiel whispers. “Wheeze. Asthma. Sick.”
“I’m under it all,” Sam says. “I’m me under all that shit. I wish you could -“
“I can. I do. I love you Sam.”
“You left me”
Sam is the only thing in the world that isn’t too cold. Castiel presses closer. “I know.”
“Too sick.”
“Love you. If I only loved you healthy it - it would be a lie.”
Sam ducks his head and sobs a little.
Oh god, he thought it was a lie.
“I thought if I drank it - drank the blood, then you could love me.”
“That’s awful,” Castiel breathes.
Sam flinches. “I’ll go.”
He pulls back and the world freezes still and cold and Castiel thinks the bed might shake out from under him. “Sam, don’t go, I need you, please….I love you I love all the things you are, I left because I didn't like ME, I love every single thing about you and please don't change, Sam, you beautiful person, please please be this amazing human I fell in love with even if I can't have you…”
He can’t stop talking, his voice is just pouring out, but then Sam’s hands are on his back and against his wings (and when did they come out?) and he’s crying into Castiel’s chest and rocking back and forth and whispering, “love you, love you, love you.”
Castiel’s Sam is the strongest person in the world, and he cries when he hurts and he laughs when Castiel laughs, worries and wonders and holds Castiel until the fever breaks, leans on his shoulder and takes a breath from the inhaler right out of Castiel’s hand like Castiel is keeping him going.
“My Sam,” Castiel whispers.