Chapter Text
“Here, Castiel,” His father had said, “this’ll help. With your wings.”
And it had.
The ache in his back had left, the pull against his skin and the mild itch in his wings was gone. He still couldn’t roll his shoulders but it was okay.
And his mother, she sat him down in the med bay, holding his shoulders and smiling at him.
It was a different smile.
It wasn’t his smile.
It was the smile she used before she kicked people out or told them they weren’t pulling their weight.
“Take this, Castiel,” His mother said, holding out those same little pills. More than usual, though. Four.
But, his mother knew what was best for him.
So Castiel smiled a big, gummy smile, and took them.
They waited thirty minutes, and she sat beside him.
He told her about a boy who shared his lunch with him. She listened with pursed lips, and it seemed like her shoulders loosened and tightened at the same time.
He just kept talking, until he noticed her hand on his shoulder growing tighter, tighter, and he grew woozy.
“My head hurts.” He told her, and she nodded, smiling.
“I know. Here, lay down.” She told him, and he did.
Because she was his mother.
Why would she hurt him?
Why would she do anything bad to him, for him?
She loved him.
So he laid down on his stomach on the table, reaching back to shift his wings around to lay at a semi comfortable angle.
He wished that his wings were like Gabriel’s. Beautiful. And Gabriel could move his wings around, and they thought he’d even be able to fly with them some day.
Castiel would never be able to fly.
His mother pulled up leather straps, strapped him down to the table. Around his too-skinny waist and his little wrists.
His father came into the room.
The med team.
They all wore gloves, and his father had a wire in hand, with two wooden handles on each end.
And when rough hands landed on his wings, tugging them up, up, up, farther than they were supposed to go, he heard a sickening pop.
Sickening in that he literally gagged.
It was when he gagged that he heard his own voice, soft and small in that way that all 8 year olds were, but broken in the way that no little body should be.
He heard it screaming, sobbing at his family.
“Let me go,” he screamed, “I’ll be good, I’ll be better, please don’t!” He sobbed.
The wire wrapped around the dislocated flesh, and Castiel sobbed as the world around him disappeared.
When he woke up, the world was empty.
His back was lighter, looser.
It was disgusting.
And he curled up on his side, then, and he sobbed, his mouth gasping for air even though there seemed to be none in the room.
“Castiel!”
“Castiel!”
“Cas!”
“Cas!”