“Why don’t you tell him?” “Because where’s the...

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“Because where’s the happy ending there, huh?!” Dean bursts out with a rush of his arms, swung out to the side, as if tossing all hopes aside. “He’s an angel, Sam. He’s not even human. He’s not equipped to feel that way. Hell, I don’t even know if he can feel that way.”

Sam listens mournfully, and he knows that for Dean, love isn’t just about making a connection with someone. It’s about how many bones you’re willing to break, how many people you’re willing to kill, it’s about shattering bones and cracking skulls and bleeding red for someone; and it’s not easy, it’s demanding and destructive.

“Worst case scenario, he freaks out and never looks at me the same again,” Dean voices the fears that have been controlling him for years, the ones he could never put words to: this is Dean who knows what he wants, and who doesn’t care what people think about it, about him, but this is Dean who has one line he’s too afraid to cross because it means so much.

“And even if–” Dean huffs out a laugh, because the possibility is all but a joke, “even if he does feel the same, then what? He gets to watch me get old and die and leave him alone again? It’s not right.”

Sam’s stomach is twisted in a knot, and he can only imagine how Dean feels, what the heat and bile in tastes like for him, how much worse it must be. He wants to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, tell him he’s there, but he knows it won’t help.

“He’s not meant for this, Sam. Being down here on earth – being with us – has been nothing but bad for him. He’s hurting,” Dean stares at the floor, voice a low mumble, “he shouldn’t even be here.”

It’s only at that moment that Castiel touches down in the hallway outside Dean’s room, just in time to hear that shuddering, definitive last admission, and he flies quickly away.