FIC - No More Let Sins and Sorrows Grow
Title: No More Let Sins and Sorrows Grow
Pairing: Sam/Castiel
Rating: R for themes, no smut
W/C: ~3K
A/N: I’ve spent weeks writing Christmas fluff and schmoop, so I figured it was time for a bit of angst. Goes AU early season 7.
”Don’t step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish.”
I remember that like I remember everything. There are days when I think it’s a wonderful gift, and then days when I curse my memory to Hell, want to beg an absent Father to take away pieces of it. Not that I should want anything, ever, it’s ridiculous and only another bit of evidence to prove that I’ve fallen so far from what I was.
But then, without all of it, I wouldn’t have this.
If it weren’t for Raphael…my brother, the healer, so intent on turning to dust everything our Father had made…if it weren’t for Raphael, demanding that I follow him or die trying to challenge him…if it weren’t for Raphael, damaging me so badly, maybe -
Maybe.
Or maybe not. The distinct possibility remained that I wanted it, the power that resulted from shaking hands with a demon (oh not just any old demon, no, not for me, not for the powerful Castiel, not just a demon, the King of Hell) for a desperate attempt to win this senseless war, to defeat my brother, to fill the space I so arrogantly thought I could overtake since our Father had chosen not to show His face or intervene in any way. Someone had to be God, right? Right? So why not me? There wasn’t exactly a long line of beings fighting to sign up for the job. At the time, of course, I thought there was no reason it shouldn’t be me.
But that was then.
Now, here I am. Earthbound, human, truly made up of the vessel I’d taken years before, no grace or power left other than the grace or power that is granted any other human being.
My memory of waking is as sharp and clear as a digital photograph, the feeling of being held down to the Earth by that gravity thing, the recognition that my wings and my grace were absent, the sound of the men who had been, in other ways, my brothers for a time, a blink in the measure of my former existence.
**********
“Cas. Cas! Motherfuck- what the hell are we supposed to do with him like this?”
That’s Dean. Even with my eyes closed, I know it’s Dean, his voice and inflections stamped into me over the years.
“Maybe you oughta step back a minute, son. Let’s try to figure this out, give him some time to recover, it might take a while. No telling what’s got him in this state.”
Bobby Singer. He’d accepted me warily, but eventually had trusted me and seen me as part of the team, until he’d found out how I’d betrayed him and his surrogate sons. The tone of his voice suggests maybe he’s not as angry as I would have suspected him to be. As angry as he has every right to be.
“You’re both too fucking worked up to deal with this. Take a walk, I’ll watch him.”
I imagine the looks going around during the pause in conversation then.
“Seriously. We’ll be fine here. I’ll call you if he wakes up, or…anything. Just go make some coffee or something.”
Sam.
Sam, Sam, Sam, brushing off his real family to be alone with me. He probably knows I’m already awake.
The sound of boots scraping across the floor, the heavy metal door closing behind them (the panic room, then, that’s where I am), and then just the sound of him. The sound of Sam.
“Castiel, I know you can hear me. Open your eyes and look at me.”
I’m afraid. Why am I afraid? I’m God. No, wait. I was God. I’m not God now. That’s the reason why I’m afraid.
“Cas, I’m not fucking around, I got rid of Dean and Bobby, it’s just us now. Look at me, you stupid fucking child!”
Unable to deny him, I do as he says, in part. I open my eyes and stare straight at the ceiling, so terrified to see the look of hatred or sorrow or disappointment in Sam’s eyes.
“I said look at me, Castiel.”
So I look at him. I look at Sam, and I don’t see what I’m expecting. No anger, no resentment. I see concern, I feel his hands on my face, I recognize the look I’d grown accustomed to before all this, the expression of pure and true love we’d shared so many times in the past.
“It’s going to be all right, Cas. We’ll work this out, the same way we work everything out, always.”
My voice sounds strange, like it hasn’t been used for a long time, and there’s the pain again, it hurts to speak. But I have to.
“Sam. I’m sorry, I am so…so very sorry, for everything, for what I did, I don’t understand. Why have you kept me? Why did you not kill me when it would have been so easy to do?”
Sam sighs, touches me…puts his hands on me again, in a soothing way, after everything I’d done. It was more than I ever would have hoped for. The last time he touched me, it was to thrust a knife into my back.
“Tried to kill you when you couldn’t be killed”, Sam says, with that crooked little smile of his. “After that, when I saw you again, all I wanted was to save you. It’s what we all wanted.”
“Those are kind words, Sam, but certainly it’s not what you all wanted. Dean…”
“Dean doesn’t feel the way you think he feels, Castiel. I don’t know what happened after we saw you so weak and broken, you just disappeared. You only just landed here in Bobby’s front yard an hour ago. Do you…do you even know? Know what happened?”
Oh. Do I know what happened? Excellent question. I think…maybe I know. It’s there, in my mind, but I’m so limited now, so exhausted and in pain and confused and - what happened to being able to remember everything?
“I am not certain, but I think I will remember, I’m just so tired, Sam. So tired. I feel heavy. Would you allow me to rest, please? If you change your mind and decide to kill me after all, at least I would not know. And if you let me live, I will tell you, tell all of you, as soon as I can recall everything.”
“No one’s going to kill you, Cas. Rest. I’ll be here.”
There was no way to know how much time passed before I became aware of my surroundings again, but Sam, maddeningly true to his word, sits by my bed as I open my eyes. He’s fallen asleep, which can only mean one thing. He’s not afraid of me. Clearly, as I had suspected, I am no longer a threat.
And that’s good. That’s a good thing, I think, or maybe it’s not. They can change their minds, they can decide my betrayal is unforgivable. But being killed is possibly not such a terrible idea, compared to living and knowing I have broken every bond I have beyond repair. Where will I go if that happens? What will I do?
Then I realize, I know what happened, I know how I got here, and Sam wants to know, so I should tell him. I should tell them all.
“Sam.” My voice is a whisper, but it’s enough to open his eyes. I think he looks relieved, even hopeful. I know it can’t be, but I remember what he said before so maybe I’m wrong.
“You all right, Cas? What do you need?” And oh how some things just never do change, Sam asking what I need after everything…I feel something odd in my throat, and realize that there are tears in my eyes, falling down my face. I’ve seen it, I’ve tried to comfort those who have cried, but I’ve never done it. I’ve never known the feeling that caused tears to fall, and now I do. At least, I know one of the reasons.
Sam looks shocked, he’s never seen this, I’m trying to make it stop, but I can’t. Any number of profanities enter my mind, but do not cross my lips. I say, simply, “Water.”
“You want to talk now, Cas? We can go upstairs, get you some water, we can sit down and you can tell us what happened. Are you ready for that or do you need more time?”
“I am ready. I apologize for my emotional state. I do not completely understand what I am feeling. But I do want to tell you what happened, I want to tell Dean and Bobby. You can still kill me, if you wish, after I explain, but if that is the case, I’d rather that you be the one to do it.”
There is no way to describe my relief when I see Sam’s eye-roll and hear his exasperated sigh. Things I’d experienced many times but never felt until just now. And I’m probably wrong, there is certainly a way to describe it, I just have no idea what it is.
Sam pulls me up from the cot in the panic room, and I see that I’m dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. I have no idea what happened to my other clothes, but I find that it doesn’t really matter. We walk up the stairs together to find Dean and Bobby sitting at the kitchen table.
It does not escape anyone’s notice that Sam’s arm is around my waist when we enter the room, but it also doesn’t seem to surprise the other two men at all. “Cas remembers what happened. How he got here. He wants to tell us.”
I sit down across from Dean, looking up at him hesitantly. I see no malice in his eyes, but there is a hint of suspicion, not nearly as much as what I see when I look at Bobby. So they’re not in the same frame of mind as Sam is, but that’s not surprising considering our history. I think they know, or they suspect, that my relationship with Sam before…before all of this…was more than a friendship, not that we’d ever told anyone. It was a secret, only for the two of us, but we’d been found out, or Sam had announced it at some point when I was not present. Either way, there is no hesitation as he reaches across the table to rest his hand on mine after he’d fetched me a glass of water. “Go ahead, Cas. Tell us what happened.”
And so I tell them everything I know.
**********
Once it became clear that my vessel could not contain the souls, and that most of the actions I’d taken had fallen fall short of their intended goals, causing suffering and pain instead of peace and enlightenment, I gave up. With no way to undo the damage, I’d summoned Death and commanded him to take me.
Asking a favor from Death is not a pleasant experience. Not even if it’s something he’d do. Like, kill someone. He is Death, after all. I did not expect him to reject my request outright.
“It is not the natural order, Castiel. I will not take you now.”
“I am God. You have said your duties would include the reaping of God. I am now telling you to do that very thing.”
“You are most certainly not God, Castiel”, he replied, waving his hand as if I were insignificant. “God is still out there, the fact that you were unable to find Him and decided to liken yourself unto Him does not mean that He is gone, or that you are Him.”
Anger flared in my vessel, the souls inside still so restless, unrelenting, confirming my convictions. “How dare you? I am not Castiel, I am God, and you will do as I say! This world needs no God, my attempts to improve it have borne that out. Now take me to wherever I belong, for I certainly do not belong here.”
“Quite. You do not belong here. You are not God, and no matter how many souls you’ve taken, you still do not have one of your own. I will, however, be happy to return those to where they belong and give you one that is yours.”
Confusion set in at that point, I was not surprised that Death had the power to take the Purgatory souls back to where they came from, but angels do not have souls, they have grace. If Death was giving me a soul…
He moved before could complete the thought and everything faded, I saw nothing, and felt only the sensation of being pulled downward. Of falling.
**********
My glass of water is empty. It’s replaced by a glass of amber liquid I assume is alcohol. Looking down as I finished my story, I taste it. Bourbon. It burns my throat but after a moment, I find myself wanting more.
Bobby’s the first to speak. “So, angels don’t have souls. But instead of taking you off to some great beyond or whatever, Death gave you a soul? And threw you off the proverbial cliff?”
“It would seem so. Where did you find me? If you don’t mind me asking.” I feel I have no right to information, no right to answers, no right to anything.
“Twenty yards from the porch. Naked and in a ten-foot-deep crater. Almost didn’t recognize you without the trenchcoat.” Dean. Still trying to make a joke. “Bobby and I didn’t really know what to do, but Sam…well, I guess Sam wasn’t so unfamiliar with you being, uh, you know…not having any clothes on. He jumped down and scooped you right up, carried you into the house.”
I have no idea what to say now. I take another drink, try to imagine what it must have been like for Sam to get me into some clothes. Maybe that was when he told them then, or maybe they just figured it out. I know I can’t ask.
“All right,” Sam says, and my eyes snap up to his immediately. “So if you have a soul now, that means you’re…what? Not an angel?”
I already know, I know that I’m human, but I’m afraid to say it. Logically, it does not make sense for me to fear telling the truth to my friends (friends? I am still not sure), but when I was an angel, I must have been afraid, otherwise I would not have deceived them as I did. Deceit was no longer available to me now, as I was completely at their mercy, and did not deserve to have an advantage.
“Human, Sam. I am human. A man, like the three of you are. Death granted my request for destruction. He just twisted it. I am no longer an angel. The souls I took from Purgatory are back where they belong, and any grace I once possessed is gone. Jimmy’s soul is still in Heaven. The one I have now is simply a gift. Or a curse. I don’t know.”
With a determination I am surprised to realize I still have, I continued when no one else spoke. “I am like you now, and am as vulnerable as any of you have ever been. The emotion I have experienced from your generous allowance of my explanation is difficult to describe.” I know the tears are falling again. It is another complicated feeling that I cannot name. “Please know I am aware I have no right to ask anything from you, but if you wish to rid yourselves of me, do it quickly, and in whatever manner you wish.”
The complete silence around me is so unfamiliar that I risk a glance up from my glass.
Bobby is clutching his own glass of bourbon, uncertainly in his eyes. Dean is looking anywhere but at me, but his eyes are glassy with his own tears, unshed. Sam is still touching my hand, but his eyes are cast toward his brother and his surrogate father, defiant, a look I have seen so very many times. “You will not be turned away, Castiel. Not by me.”
Bobby and Dean don’t seem to have anything but the table to look at. “Sam”, Dean starts, “there’s no way for us to know, for sure. After everything that happened…you know I never wanted him dead, Bobby never wanted him dead, if there was an alternative. We wanted to save him. We tried. Cas, we tried. But you…”
“I wasn’t myself. I know. I am not myself now. I mean, I am not - I am not what I was. I am something new. Something different. But I cannot expect that you, any of you, will trust me again. I cannot expect anything. The only thing I can do is wait for whatever decision you make, and accept it.”
“None of us want to kill you, Cas, but just taking you back into our family…that might take some time.” Bobby’s words sound almost regretful. But they are honest. I could not expect anything more.
Nothing could have surprised me as much as what I hear next, from Sam.
“Take all the time you need. Just give me the keys to a car. I’m leaving, and I’m taking Castiel with me. You know how to reach me if you want to. But we’re going, I don’t know where, just away. He’ll be safe with me, and I’ll be safe with him. When you make up your minds, let us know.”
I have no idea what to think about this. Sam is willing to leave his family for me. To be with me. He loves me, still. Dean and Bobby are unsure, they need to think it over, but Sam is steadfast, stubborn as he’s always been. He takes the keys to a pickup truck, hugs his brother and Bobby, and ushers us all outside.
Dean gives me that look I’ve grown accustomed to over the years, I know what it means even if he doesn’t. Bobby turns his back.
Sam tucks me into the passenger seat of the truck, buckles my seatbelt and drives away without looking back.
Pairing: Sam/Castiel
Rating: R for themes, no smut
W/C: ~3K
A/N: I’ve spent weeks writing Christmas fluff and schmoop, so I figured it was time for a bit of angst. Goes AU early season 7.
”Don’t step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish.”
I remember that like I remember everything. There are days when I think it’s a wonderful gift, and then days when I curse my memory to Hell, want to beg an absent Father to take away pieces of it. Not that I should want anything, ever, it’s ridiculous and only another bit of evidence to prove that I’ve fallen so far from what I was.
But then, without all of it, I wouldn’t have this.
If it weren’t for Raphael…my brother, the healer, so intent on turning to dust everything our Father had made…if it weren’t for Raphael, demanding that I follow him or die trying to challenge him…if it weren’t for Raphael, damaging me so badly, maybe -
Maybe.
Or maybe not. The distinct possibility remained that I wanted it, the power that resulted from shaking hands with a demon (oh not just any old demon, no, not for me, not for the powerful Castiel, not just a demon, the King of Hell) for a desperate attempt to win this senseless war, to defeat my brother, to fill the space I so arrogantly thought I could overtake since our Father had chosen not to show His face or intervene in any way. Someone had to be God, right? Right? So why not me? There wasn’t exactly a long line of beings fighting to sign up for the job. At the time, of course, I thought there was no reason it shouldn’t be me.
But that was then.
Now, here I am. Earthbound, human, truly made up of the vessel I’d taken years before, no grace or power left other than the grace or power that is granted any other human being.
My memory of waking is as sharp and clear as a digital photograph, the feeling of being held down to the Earth by that gravity thing, the recognition that my wings and my grace were absent, the sound of the men who had been, in other ways, my brothers for a time, a blink in the measure of my former existence.
**********
“Cas. Cas! Motherfuck- what the hell are we supposed to do with him like this?”
That’s Dean. Even with my eyes closed, I know it’s Dean, his voice and inflections stamped into me over the years.
“Maybe you oughta step back a minute, son. Let’s try to figure this out, give him some time to recover, it might take a while. No telling what’s got him in this state.”
Bobby Singer. He’d accepted me warily, but eventually had trusted me and seen me as part of the team, until he’d found out how I’d betrayed him and his surrogate sons. The tone of his voice suggests maybe he’s not as angry as I would have suspected him to be. As angry as he has every right to be.
“You’re both too fucking worked up to deal with this. Take a walk, I’ll watch him.”
I imagine the looks going around during the pause in conversation then.
“Seriously. We’ll be fine here. I’ll call you if he wakes up, or…anything. Just go make some coffee or something.”
Sam.
Sam, Sam, Sam, brushing off his real family to be alone with me. He probably knows I’m already awake.
The sound of boots scraping across the floor, the heavy metal door closing behind them (the panic room, then, that’s where I am), and then just the sound of him. The sound of Sam.
“Castiel, I know you can hear me. Open your eyes and look at me.”
I’m afraid. Why am I afraid? I’m God. No, wait. I was God. I’m not God now. That’s the reason why I’m afraid.
“Cas, I’m not fucking around, I got rid of Dean and Bobby, it’s just us now. Look at me, you stupid fucking child!”
Unable to deny him, I do as he says, in part. I open my eyes and stare straight at the ceiling, so terrified to see the look of hatred or sorrow or disappointment in Sam’s eyes.
“I said look at me, Castiel.”
So I look at him. I look at Sam, and I don’t see what I’m expecting. No anger, no resentment. I see concern, I feel his hands on my face, I recognize the look I’d grown accustomed to before all this, the expression of pure and true love we’d shared so many times in the past.
“It’s going to be all right, Cas. We’ll work this out, the same way we work everything out, always.”
My voice sounds strange, like it hasn’t been used for a long time, and there’s the pain again, it hurts to speak. But I have to.
“Sam. I’m sorry, I am so…so very sorry, for everything, for what I did, I don’t understand. Why have you kept me? Why did you not kill me when it would have been so easy to do?”
Sam sighs, touches me…puts his hands on me again, in a soothing way, after everything I’d done. It was more than I ever would have hoped for. The last time he touched me, it was to thrust a knife into my back.
“Tried to kill you when you couldn’t be killed”, Sam says, with that crooked little smile of his. “After that, when I saw you again, all I wanted was to save you. It’s what we all wanted.”
“Those are kind words, Sam, but certainly it’s not what you all wanted. Dean…”
“Dean doesn’t feel the way you think he feels, Castiel. I don’t know what happened after we saw you so weak and broken, you just disappeared. You only just landed here in Bobby’s front yard an hour ago. Do you…do you even know? Know what happened?”
Oh. Do I know what happened? Excellent question. I think…maybe I know. It’s there, in my mind, but I’m so limited now, so exhausted and in pain and confused and - what happened to being able to remember everything?
“I am not certain, but I think I will remember, I’m just so tired, Sam. So tired. I feel heavy. Would you allow me to rest, please? If you change your mind and decide to kill me after all, at least I would not know. And if you let me live, I will tell you, tell all of you, as soon as I can recall everything.”
“No one’s going to kill you, Cas. Rest. I’ll be here.”
There was no way to know how much time passed before I became aware of my surroundings again, but Sam, maddeningly true to his word, sits by my bed as I open my eyes. He’s fallen asleep, which can only mean one thing. He’s not afraid of me. Clearly, as I had suspected, I am no longer a threat.
And that’s good. That’s a good thing, I think, or maybe it’s not. They can change their minds, they can decide my betrayal is unforgivable. But being killed is possibly not such a terrible idea, compared to living and knowing I have broken every bond I have beyond repair. Where will I go if that happens? What will I do?
Then I realize, I know what happened, I know how I got here, and Sam wants to know, so I should tell him. I should tell them all.
“Sam.” My voice is a whisper, but it’s enough to open his eyes. I think he looks relieved, even hopeful. I know it can’t be, but I remember what he said before so maybe I’m wrong.
“You all right, Cas? What do you need?” And oh how some things just never do change, Sam asking what I need after everything…I feel something odd in my throat, and realize that there are tears in my eyes, falling down my face. I’ve seen it, I’ve tried to comfort those who have cried, but I’ve never done it. I’ve never known the feeling that caused tears to fall, and now I do. At least, I know one of the reasons.
Sam looks shocked, he’s never seen this, I’m trying to make it stop, but I can’t. Any number of profanities enter my mind, but do not cross my lips. I say, simply, “Water.”
“You want to talk now, Cas? We can go upstairs, get you some water, we can sit down and you can tell us what happened. Are you ready for that or do you need more time?”
“I am ready. I apologize for my emotional state. I do not completely understand what I am feeling. But I do want to tell you what happened, I want to tell Dean and Bobby. You can still kill me, if you wish, after I explain, but if that is the case, I’d rather that you be the one to do it.”
There is no way to describe my relief when I see Sam’s eye-roll and hear his exasperated sigh. Things I’d experienced many times but never felt until just now. And I’m probably wrong, there is certainly a way to describe it, I just have no idea what it is.
Sam pulls me up from the cot in the panic room, and I see that I’m dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt. I have no idea what happened to my other clothes, but I find that it doesn’t really matter. We walk up the stairs together to find Dean and Bobby sitting at the kitchen table.
It does not escape anyone’s notice that Sam’s arm is around my waist when we enter the room, but it also doesn’t seem to surprise the other two men at all. “Cas remembers what happened. How he got here. He wants to tell us.”
I sit down across from Dean, looking up at him hesitantly. I see no malice in his eyes, but there is a hint of suspicion, not nearly as much as what I see when I look at Bobby. So they’re not in the same frame of mind as Sam is, but that’s not surprising considering our history. I think they know, or they suspect, that my relationship with Sam before…before all of this…was more than a friendship, not that we’d ever told anyone. It was a secret, only for the two of us, but we’d been found out, or Sam had announced it at some point when I was not present. Either way, there is no hesitation as he reaches across the table to rest his hand on mine after he’d fetched me a glass of water. “Go ahead, Cas. Tell us what happened.”
And so I tell them everything I know.
**********
Once it became clear that my vessel could not contain the souls, and that most of the actions I’d taken had fallen fall short of their intended goals, causing suffering and pain instead of peace and enlightenment, I gave up. With no way to undo the damage, I’d summoned Death and commanded him to take me.
Asking a favor from Death is not a pleasant experience. Not even if it’s something he’d do. Like, kill someone. He is Death, after all. I did not expect him to reject my request outright.
“It is not the natural order, Castiel. I will not take you now.”
“I am God. You have said your duties would include the reaping of God. I am now telling you to do that very thing.”
“You are most certainly not God, Castiel”, he replied, waving his hand as if I were insignificant. “God is still out there, the fact that you were unable to find Him and decided to liken yourself unto Him does not mean that He is gone, or that you are Him.”
Anger flared in my vessel, the souls inside still so restless, unrelenting, confirming my convictions. “How dare you? I am not Castiel, I am God, and you will do as I say! This world needs no God, my attempts to improve it have borne that out. Now take me to wherever I belong, for I certainly do not belong here.”
“Quite. You do not belong here. You are not God, and no matter how many souls you’ve taken, you still do not have one of your own. I will, however, be happy to return those to where they belong and give you one that is yours.”
Confusion set in at that point, I was not surprised that Death had the power to take the Purgatory souls back to where they came from, but angels do not have souls, they have grace. If Death was giving me a soul…
He moved before could complete the thought and everything faded, I saw nothing, and felt only the sensation of being pulled downward. Of falling.
**********
My glass of water is empty. It’s replaced by a glass of amber liquid I assume is alcohol. Looking down as I finished my story, I taste it. Bourbon. It burns my throat but after a moment, I find myself wanting more.
Bobby’s the first to speak. “So, angels don’t have souls. But instead of taking you off to some great beyond or whatever, Death gave you a soul? And threw you off the proverbial cliff?”
“It would seem so. Where did you find me? If you don’t mind me asking.” I feel I have no right to information, no right to answers, no right to anything.
“Twenty yards from the porch. Naked and in a ten-foot-deep crater. Almost didn’t recognize you without the trenchcoat.” Dean. Still trying to make a joke. “Bobby and I didn’t really know what to do, but Sam…well, I guess Sam wasn’t so unfamiliar with you being, uh, you know…not having any clothes on. He jumped down and scooped you right up, carried you into the house.”
I have no idea what to say now. I take another drink, try to imagine what it must have been like for Sam to get me into some clothes. Maybe that was when he told them then, or maybe they just figured it out. I know I can’t ask.
“All right,” Sam says, and my eyes snap up to his immediately. “So if you have a soul now, that means you’re…what? Not an angel?”
I already know, I know that I’m human, but I’m afraid to say it. Logically, it does not make sense for me to fear telling the truth to my friends (friends? I am still not sure), but when I was an angel, I must have been afraid, otherwise I would not have deceived them as I did. Deceit was no longer available to me now, as I was completely at their mercy, and did not deserve to have an advantage.
“Human, Sam. I am human. A man, like the three of you are. Death granted my request for destruction. He just twisted it. I am no longer an angel. The souls I took from Purgatory are back where they belong, and any grace I once possessed is gone. Jimmy’s soul is still in Heaven. The one I have now is simply a gift. Or a curse. I don’t know.”
With a determination I am surprised to realize I still have, I continued when no one else spoke. “I am like you now, and am as vulnerable as any of you have ever been. The emotion I have experienced from your generous allowance of my explanation is difficult to describe.” I know the tears are falling again. It is another complicated feeling that I cannot name. “Please know I am aware I have no right to ask anything from you, but if you wish to rid yourselves of me, do it quickly, and in whatever manner you wish.”
The complete silence around me is so unfamiliar that I risk a glance up from my glass.
Bobby is clutching his own glass of bourbon, uncertainly in his eyes. Dean is looking anywhere but at me, but his eyes are glassy with his own tears, unshed. Sam is still touching my hand, but his eyes are cast toward his brother and his surrogate father, defiant, a look I have seen so very many times. “You will not be turned away, Castiel. Not by me.”
Bobby and Dean don’t seem to have anything but the table to look at. “Sam”, Dean starts, “there’s no way for us to know, for sure. After everything that happened…you know I never wanted him dead, Bobby never wanted him dead, if there was an alternative. We wanted to save him. We tried. Cas, we tried. But you…”
“I wasn’t myself. I know. I am not myself now. I mean, I am not - I am not what I was. I am something new. Something different. But I cannot expect that you, any of you, will trust me again. I cannot expect anything. The only thing I can do is wait for whatever decision you make, and accept it.”
“None of us want to kill you, Cas, but just taking you back into our family…that might take some time.” Bobby’s words sound almost regretful. But they are honest. I could not expect anything more.
Nothing could have surprised me as much as what I hear next, from Sam.
“Take all the time you need. Just give me the keys to a car. I’m leaving, and I’m taking Castiel with me. You know how to reach me if you want to. But we’re going, I don’t know where, just away. He’ll be safe with me, and I’ll be safe with him. When you make up your minds, let us know.”
I have no idea what to think about this. Sam is willing to leave his family for me. To be with me. He loves me, still. Dean and Bobby are unsure, they need to think it over, but Sam is steadfast, stubborn as he’s always been. He takes the keys to a pickup truck, hugs his brother and Bobby, and ushers us all outside.
Dean gives me that look I’ve grown accustomed to over the years, I know what it means even if he doesn’t. Bobby turns his back.
Sam tucks me into the passenger seat of the truck, buckles my seatbelt and drives away without looking back.