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"And God said 'love your enemy' and I obeyed him and loved myself."
―
Cas comes back from the Empty, and he’s fine, in a papier-mâché version of the word. He’s fine in that he’s there with them, alive, voice speaking their names, body wrapped in their arms, smiles being passed around like party entrées.
He’s fine. But he’s also not. There are a million little creases in him, none of them are large enough to pinpoint, to point a finger at, to diagnose. So Sam and Dean don’t say anything. Not even to each other. They exchange glances from time to time, wondering if the other has also noticed the way Cas holds himself differently; the way he lingers at the dinner table after the dishes are cleared; his hesitation before crossing any door’s thresh hold.
His silence.
Cas was never an effusive conversationalist, Dean reasons to himself, but his quietness was never as deliberate as it is now. Whenever Sam or Dean or Jack talk to him he’ll answer, but outside of that Cas doesn’t initiate any conversations, the way he used to with Sam about some translation particularity, or with Jack about his latest tv shows, or with Dean about how he needs to start eating healthier.
"Are you sure he’s okay,” Sam finally asks his brother one night while putting the dishes away.
“Yeah, he just needs time to adjust.” Dean throws the wet towel aside and dries his hands on his pants. “I mean, he’s basically back from a personalized angel-version of Hell. We needed a lot of time when we came from Hell, too.”
“True, but--” Sam reaches over to snag the errant towel “--it helped when we actually talked about what happened. When we didn’t, it just made things worse.”
“We did try--we both tried-- to talk to him when he first came back..”
“Maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about it then,” Sam persists. “Maybe he is now.“
“You’re welcome to try, Sammy, but I don’t think he’ll just open up to you like that. Not unless someone makes him.”
+
Later, when a witch forces Cas to reveal the truth, Sam has to admit Dean was right.
It’s nothing as outright as a spell or truth potion or possessing spirit. It starts off innocuous enough, or as innocuous as getting burned by the last blast of the witch’s exploding powers is. Cas jumped in front of Jack to take the brunt of the force, and the force of the blast left him unconscious and in the Bunker’s infirmary being tended to by all three of them. Jack worked to heal the blistering the burns on his face while Dean cut off the charred remains of his pants legs.
It’s when Sam is rolling up the coat sleeve to check for more burns that he sees it. “Dean?” he frowns, tracing his thumb over the white-ish blue lines seemingly seared under Cas' skin. "What is this, is it writing?"
Dean leans over to look. "It looks like numbers? That's a three for sure, and that--" he points to the last marking "is a four."
Jack crowds his head in catch a glimpse, too. “Let me--” he presses two fingers to the spot and the ghostly tendrils only brighten. Four numbers appear sharply against Cas' pallid skin. "It feels like his grace, but it's not a wound, it's like..." he wrinkles his nose. "A scar."
“She damaged his grace? I’ve never heard of witches being able to do that.” Sam is already on his feet, phone in hand. “I’m going to call Rowena and check some books. Make sure to tell me if anything happens when he wakes up.”
Dean stares at the digits seared onto his friend’s skin and feels sick with fury.
+
When Cas wakes up, however, he dismisses all their concerns and waves away the half-prepared spell that Sam is working on. “It’s not from the witch,” he sighs. In one fluid motion he rolls down his sleeve and swings his legs over the side of the bed like he’s ready to bolt.
“We don’t know that,” Sam reminds him. “This spell should reveal the intention of any cursed marking so we know what we’re dealing with.”
“Just sit still, Cas,” Dean holds out a hand. “We’re going to figure out what she did and get rid of it, okay?”
Cas sighs again, louder, irritably. “It’s not from her. It’s from the Empty.”
Sam pauses mid-snapping sticks of dried rhubarb. The roll of gauze falls out of Dean’s hand with a soft thunk.
“The Empty?” Sam repeats, incredulous.
“And you’ve had that all this time?” Dean makes a weak attempt to keep the anger out of his voice. “And you didn’t say anything?”
Jack reaches out again, gold sparks hanging off his fingertips like tinsel. “Maybe I can try to heal it again and see if--”
Cas recoils faster than they can blink and moves rapidly towards the door like he’s been chased by hounds. “I said it’s harmless. Don’t worry about it.”
+
All Sam and Dean and Jack do for the next week is worry about it.
They wisely don’t say anything else to Cas about it, but they keep researching and asking every supernatural ally in their contacts list for hints as to what it might be. “Why would the Empty--he didn’t have that the first time he came back from there,” Dean says one night while he and Sam are searching through a stack of books. They’ve set up base in his room, instead of the library where Cas might figure out what they’re doing. “Do you think it marked him or something? So it can pull him back?”
“But Jack said he made sure the Empty was asleep and their deal was done.” Sam looks up with a frown creasing his brow. “Do you really believe Cas that it’s harmless?”
Dean shrugs and motions for his brother to pass him another volume. “I don’t think anything a cosmic entity does is harmless. Besides, Cas always downplays whatever happens to him. It’s probably two or three times worse than what he says it is.”
+
It turns out that they’re not as good as being discreet as they think they are. Cas finds out that they haven’t let it go, the way he instructed them to, when Jack forgets to put away one of his translation sheets. Cas is mid-reprimanding them when, to add insult to injury, Rowena shows up at the Bunker for a house call that’s obviously on Sam’s request. While she’s there Cas doesn’t say anything while the queen of Hell is there; he keeps his lips straightened in a thin grimace as she inspects the area. Her attempts to remove it only highlight the numbers, the same as when Jack tried, and eventually she concedes defeat with a regretful sigh.
The moment after she leaves Cas turns on the three of them with more emotion than he’s ever had since returning. “I told you not to--I told you it wasn’t a problem!” he snaps. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
“We were trying to help you,” Jack says sincerely and Dean pipes up with, “Yeah, because you’re not telling us the truth, Cas.”
“What Dean means,” Sam adds, “is that something like that is never nothing. We weren’t trying to go behind your back, we just don’t want you to get hurt or taken--taken away from us again.”
“I know what it is,” Cas replies tersely. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.”
“Bullshit.” Dean folds his arms across his chest, challenging him.
“You never listen to me,” Cas says under his breath. His shoulders are hunched almost up to his ears, his hands clenched around the edge of the table. “Just let it go, please. I’m not lying, it is truly harmless.”
“But, Cas, we want to help you,” Jack repeats.
For some reason that tender sincerity of Jack’s is what finally sets Cas off. He jerks his head up, eyes flashing cold bitterness. “You really want to know? It’s the number of angels I’ve killed.”
The words fall through Sam’s stomach like bricks. He thinks his jaw is opening to speak but no sound comes out.
“No,” Jack says automatically, standing up. “That’s not true--you didn’t--”
“Cas,” Dean manages to whisper, and it means a hundred different things, all of them untranslatable.
“I did. You don’t know me, Jack.” He’s moving towards the boy, his eyes still hard with what Sam realizes isn’t bitterness, it’s hatred. For himself. “I got obsessed with power and thought I was God and slaughtered thousands of my brothers and sisters. I had a hand in the Great Fall where hundreds of angels died before they ever even reached the earth. Not to mention those who died in the faction war and chaos that I started. Angels are an endangered species now because of me. Jack…you were manipulated into making new ones because of what I’ve done.”
Jack shakes his head and stumbles a step back, away from Cas.
Cas deflates immediately, and the crestfallen expression on his face punches all the air out of Dean’s chest. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m not--I don’t know why your mother ever chose me.” With that he turns around and walks out of the room.
Jack turns around slowly to face Sam and Dean, eyes all wide and watery, and it just feels like another axe swing to Dean’s lungs. Thankfully Sam pulls himself together enough to go over and put an arm around the boy and guide him away, saying something about going to his room to talk more. Leaving Dean standing there still at the library table, trying not to think of those four digits.
Of course it’s all he can think of now. He had no idea that--I decimated heaven--if I see what heaven’s become, I might kill myself--okay, maybe he’d been given an inkling of what had happened during the time Cas had all those Purgatory souls. Okay, more than an inkling. A pretty decent splash of knowledge.
It still doesn’t add up, though. The number and the Empty. Dead angels and an endless expanse void of anything. Half of the puzzle pieces are blank, and he needs to talk to Cas to figure out the rest of the picture. The problem is he doesn’t want to talk to his friend, not right now when he’s more like to be rebuked than listened to. He also doesn’t know what to say; as someone who’s perfected the art of self-flagellation, he doesn’t know how to convince Cas that he shouldn’t stitch the sins of his past into himself like a second skin.
But somehow Dean finds himself going through the Bunker looking for Cas anyways. Eventually he locates the angel in the storage room. Cas is going through a box of dried herbs, sorting them into little piles according to type on a turned-over wooden crate. He doesn’t look up when Dean drags another crate over and sits down across from him.
“You’re still not telling us everything,” Dean begins. “What does that--” he gestures towards Cas' left arm, “have to do with the Empty?”
Cas’ hands keep moving, untangling the stiff branches and putting them on their respective piles. Dean suppress the urge to repeat the question and just watches him for a few minutes. “Wow, we ordered a lot of hyssop,” he comments.
“It’s very effective for purification rituals. It’s better than using a rosary to make holy water.” He drops another dried brown stem on the pile and then pauses. “You know that time passes differently in the Empty, right?”
Dean thinks of Hell and nods.
“By the time Jack got me out the Empty had finished…punishing me for waking it up. I think that was one of the reasons why it even agreed to Jack’s deal in the first place, it had already gotten out all it’s anger.” His fingers move to the spot on his left arm but he doesn’t actually touch it. “Jack doesn’t know this, of course.”
“Okay.” Dean tries to stay calm but his fingers curl into his palm anyways. “I still don’t understand. So it made you remember all the--” he swallows hard “--and then stuck the number on you?”
“I wasn’t remembering the deaths, Dean.” Cas is looking at him now, with the same expression he had when Dean trapped him in that circle of holy fire, when he got his memories back, when they talked about why he let Lucifer posses him. “I experienced their life and death. Every one of them.”
Dean feels his hand come up to his mouth, involuntarily. “You died--” he pushes the words out through his fingers, “--three thousand one hundred and ninety four times in there?”
Cas flicks his gaze off to the side.
“Fuck,” Dean grits out. He stands up noisily, kicking the crate against to distract himself from how close he is to crying. “Fuck.” His foot lands in the chest of the drawers and he kicks it again until the shelf starts to rattle. “Fuck!”
“Dean.” Cas sounds tired, but most of all, defeated. “It’s--don’t be mad. It’s over now.”
“No, no, it’s not, because you still--” Dean blinks hard. Three thousand one hundred and ninety four. Four digits stamped into skin, an eternal reminder. “You shouldn’t--you shouldn’t have to carry that with you, Cas.”
Cas stands up slowly, arms hanging at his side. “It’s not untrue. You know what I’ve done.”
Dean throws up his arms. “I don’t give a fuck, Cas! You don’t deserve that. You don’t, and I--fuck.” He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I let it take you. I let it take you and--”
“You didn’t let me,” Cas interrupts him. “It was my choice. I don’t regret it.”
“You didn’t choose this, Cas, you didn’t--you should have told us.” He crosses the room and reaches for Cas, pulling him into his arms. “I’m sorry,” Dean murmurs, fingers twisting in the back of the trench coat. “I’m so sorry.”
+
Sam doesn’t see Cas again until three in the morning when he gets up to make himself a cup of tea. He can’t sleep--not after retelling most of Cas’ past to a desperate and confused Jack, and then hearing the reality of what Cas experienced in the Empty from Dean. Cas had stayed away from them for the rest of day, not even making a brief appearance for a dinner that was even more awkwardly strained because of is lack of presence. In fact the air in the whole Bunker was stretched taunt with the knowledge of what had been said behind closed doors.
But now, in the middle of the night, the pressure feels less intense. Sam fumbles sleepily through the cupboard and pulled out a small box of peach tea, only to find it empty. Stifling a yawn he ambles to the back of the kitchen to rifle through the boxes of groceries there, only to see Cas sitting on the steps there, back hunched, arms folded on his knees.
“Sam,” he says gravely when the Winchester circles around to face him.
Sam backs up a few steps to sit next to Cas instead of in front of him. Sometimes it helps not to have that direct eye contact. “Cas,” he starts, voice still raspy from sleep. He clears his throat. “Cas, you know we’ve all made mista--”
“Do not even begin to compare your sins to mine,” Cas cuts in, biting. “The blood on my hands could drown yours seven times over.”
“It’s not a numbers game, Cas,” Sam says, and then winces because his arm is right next to Cas’ left arm where those numbers are etched into him. “And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t find a way to remove it. There are other spell books we haven’t looked through yet, and I’ll keep looking until we find one.”
“It’s fine, Sam. We have other more important things to do.”
A grin crosses his face. “Not really. We saved the world, remember?”
Sam wonders if Cas is so accustomed to his problems being relegated to the back of the line that he never even considers them worth mentioning. If there hadn’t been the incident with the witch Cas might’ve never told them, and the thought makes his stomach lurch. Aloud he says “we have time to try and fix this, and we will.”
Cas only replies with a shrug.
“You know that this doesn’t change anything, right?” Sam puts a hand on his shoulder, and even though Cas doesn’t move away his muscles tense under Sam’s palm like he wants to. “We still love you, this doesn’t change what we think of you. For any of us.”
“What about Jack?” The question is spoken softly and yet it punctures the air.
“Give him time to process it. It’s a lot to take in. You know, me and Dean, we’ve seen and done a lot throughout the years. Jack is still young, though, but he’s a good kid.”
“Yeah,” Cas mumbles, relaxing slightly into Sam’s touch. “Jack is good. He’s nothing like me.”
Sam stops, his fingers curling against Cas’ shoulder blade.
“If he’s, uh, worried about--can you tell him for me? Tell him he’ll never make the same mistakes I did. He’s so much better than that.”
“You’re not a bad person, Cas.” Sam drops his hand down and instead just scoots a little closer. “You sacrificed yourself to save Dean, to give us a chance to survive. You gave up everything, you went to Hell to save us. Again.” Tears catch in his throat and he has to take a deep breath to speak without shaking. “How could you be anything other than good?”
Cas finally lifts his head to face him. “You should get some sleep,” he says after a moment.
Sam pats his shoulder one more time before he stands up. He can tell that Cas doesn’t believe him, not completely, so he’ll just keep reminding him, as often as he needs to. “Cas,” he says, holding his gaze. “We love you just the same.”
This time Cas offers him a misty smile in return.
+
During the next few days the tension around the Bunker gradually decreases, but still doesn’t disappear. Mostly because Jack is still obviously avoiding Cas, who is avoiding everyone. Dean and Sam go out of their way to locate whatever storage room Cas has holed himself up to sort expired spell ingredients or dust scrolls, and drag him out to spend time with them; whether it be in the library talking calls for other hunters or making dinner when Sam announced an impromptu Taco Tuesday. Cas is still not speaking unless spoken to, but it’s a hush that resounds less haunted and more achingly sorrowful.
The afternoon of the third day post-branding-revelation Dean takes a turn to go talk to Jack, who’s barricaded himself in his room with the latest season of some sci-fi show. Dean emerges after only a few minutes with an exasperated shrug, muttering “teenagers” like it’s a swear word.
“He won’t talk to you, either, huh?” Sam says, looking up from the dictionary he’s comparing notes with.
“We get one of them talking, and the other goes dormant. Great.” Dean flops down into the armchair beside Sam. “We really never do get a break.” Glancing around to make sure the room is clear he lowers his voice slightly. “How’s Cas?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” Whenever Cas is around them Sam can sense the shame he’s Cas wrapped around himself, which is ridiculous to him considering that the angel has witnessed both Sam and his brother in their lowest, most vile moments. “What the Empty did to him--it’s not something he can just forget.”
“God, if I had to relive every person or monster that I’ve ever ganked, I--I would go insane.” Dean shakes his head. “Just the fact that he’s not is incredible.” He shakes his head again, slower this time. “He’s even more stubborn than you.”
“You mean more than you,” Sam shoots back cheekily.
Dean rolls his eyes and gets up. “Lemme have another crack at Jack, and then it’s your turn.”
+
This time Dean doesn’t even so much as get a word in. Jack has put his headphones on, blaring the volume at full blast.
+
That night Sam wakes up to the sound of screaming. Barefoot, hair clouding his bleary eyes, he goes rushing down the hall and bumps into Dean who has his gun drawn, pillow lines smeared against one cheek. They follow the sound to Jack’s door. Dean stuffs the gun away in the back of his pants and Sam rushes in to unravel the kid from the sheets he’s tangled in.
Dean slips past Sam and goes to the sink where he fills up a cup of water and hands it to Sam. Jack’s face is pulsing, red and pinched at every seam, but before he unleashes another throaty yell Sam splashes the cup in his face.
“W-What,” Jack gasps, blinking through the droplets.
“Sorry,” Sam grimaces, motioning for Dean to give him a towel. “You were having a nightmare.”
Jack’s eyes are still wide and he whips his head back and forth. “Where’s Ca--”
As if on cue Cas comes barreling into the room and reaches out to him. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
Jack grabs Cas’ arm and peels up his left sleeve. Sam notices how Cas tries not to flinch as the boy ghosts his fingers over the numbers there. “You’re here,” Jack exhales. “You’re here. Not…there.” His voice relaxes and his shoulders begin to uncurl.
Cas retracts his arm hesitantly. He sits down on the bed, not quite beside Jack, but still close enough in case he needs help. “Are you alright?”
Jack nods, dabbing at his face with the towel Dean gave him. He peers at them over the edge with a look of embarrassment. “Sorry to wake you all. I’m fine now.”
“No worries, kid.” Dean pats his knee as he walks towards the door. “Happens to the best of us.” He nods discreetly at Sam, raising an eyebrow towards Cas. Sam gets the message and follows him outside as well.
Cas moves to leave but Jack’s small utterance of “Cas” stops him. Dean and Sam’s footsteps fade down the hall, and then there’s nothing but the steadiness of Jack’s tentative breathing to fill the space between them.
Jack takes his time to dry his face with the towel. He rubs his cheek even though it’s already dry. He’s stalling, which is cowardly, he knows, but he doesn’t know how to begin to say what he needs to say.
“What were you dreaming about?” Cas says at length. “Sam says--I’ve been told it’s good to talk about it sometimes.”
“The Empty. You were there, and I couldn’t get you out.” He kneads the towel between his knuckles. He can’t see Cas clearly in the dim light of the room, but he can tell from the sound of his voice that he’s probably looking at him. “You just kept dying, thousands of times, and I couldn’t stop it.”
“You weren’t supposed to--” Cas cuts himself off with a sigh. “They shouldn’t have told you that.”
“They didn’t, I overheard. And I should know what happens to you, Cas. I’m left in the dark often enough.” He doesn’t mean it to sound as sharp as it does but it slices through the air like a throwing star.
Cas scratches at his pants leg. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I’ve done sooner. I guess I just didn’t want you to look at me differently, to hate me. But I understand if you--”
“Cas.” Jack lays down on his side, knees pulled to his chest. The top of his hair brushes up against Cas’ leg. “I could never hate you.”
Jack feels Cas gently place a hand on his head and it helps to calm his thundering heart. “I’m not--I understand that your past isn’t perfect. My mother...I think she understood that too, even without knowing the details. She chose you--I chose you--because you are good and strong and kind, Cas. Your past doesn't change that." Cas says nothing but Jack feels him run his fingers softly through his hair. "But I realized--if I’d spent less time negotiating with the Empty, if I’d gone as soon as I could--I left you there alone, and it’s my fault that--”
“No.” Cas leans into his line of sight, eyes bright and firm. “It is not your fault, Jack. You didn’t send me there, and you didn’t leave me there. It was my choice to go, and my own sins that--” he sits back, shielded by the shadows. “You had nothing to do with it. And you had no way of knowing what was happening to me.”
“But I do now,” Jack chokes out. “Cas, I know what it’s like to die as an angel. The way the light burns you from the inside out. The way you feel every particle dying inside you. The pain, how could you--” a tear rolls off his nose and he feels Cas’ thumb brushing the next one away “--how could you bear it?” He smells the smoke of his own death and thinks of Cas screaming as he’s incinerated and a rippling chill racks his frame back and forth.
The press of Cas’ hand to his temple anchors him and he feels the soft edge of a blanket being pulled around his shoulders. ”It’s okay,” his father whispers, close to his ear. “It’s okay. I’m here now. I’m right here.”
+
The next morning Cas agrees to let them search for a way to remove the numbers. “Agrees” as in he doesn’t object when he walks into the library and sees Sam and Dean bent over fat volumes that are clearly not for researching how to take on a ghoul over in St Louis. Cas hesitates in the doorway, like he wants to say something, but then he just walks over and pulls out a chair across from Dean.
He sits there silently, watching Sam and Dean pass pieces of paper with incomplete translations and half-drawn sigils back and forth. Some time before lunch he finally speaks up, saying “it means ‘purity’ not ‘soul’ “ about one of the Enochian texts the boys are arguing over.
Jack comes out of his room and helps Sam make sandwiches for lunch. When they bring the plates over Jack puts his next to where Cas is sitting. As Jack stretches for a bottle of Sprite and Dean complains about the number of cucumber slices in his turkey sandwich Sam notices that Cas is sitting still, picking at the hem of his left sleeve, his eyes unfocused on the distance ahead.
“Cas?” he prompts. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” The angel puts on a polite smile. “I was just--
“--remembering?” Dean shifts slightly in his seat to face him. Sam wasn’t the only one who noticed.
Cas doesn’t shake his head. And then suddenly all the quiet moments and seeming sullenness since his return from the Empty make sense to Dean. He remembers how, years ago, in the first few months after being out of Hell the Pit would still return to him, in moments before sleep, during long drives in the Impala, in the lull between surfing television channels.
“When I first came back from--you know,” Dean begins, studiously avoiding Sam’s gaze, already noticing the shift in his brother’s posture, “I tried to remember the faces of all the souls I--it wasn’t like I was forgetting them, either, but I’d catalogue them in my mind. Try to list them according to time and place. Try to find a way to secure them in my memory so I wouldn’t--couldn’t--forget them. I felt like if I did forget them, then my sin was twice done.”
“I always knew their faces,” Cas confesses. “But their names…I lost some of those when Naomi tore through my mind. I remember all their names now, and I…don’t want to forget again. I can’t lose them again.”
Sam understands now, before Cas even verbalizes it, why Cas resisted their attempts to find a cure before. In fact he now realizes why Cas never told them about the branding in the first place. A lump thickens in his throat as he watches Cas push back the fabric of the sleeve and expose those four digits. They stand out against his skin like they are embedded with pins. “I know you mean well with trying to find a way to remove it,” Cas goes on, “but I--if it’s gone, how can I make sure I remember?”
“You don’t need that to--” Sam inhales lightly. “Cas, you don’t need to carry that with you for the rest of your life.”
“We can help remember them for you,” Jack speaks up.”You can tell us--” he glances at Sam, who nods in support “--tell us their names, and then their memory would be shared by all of us.”
Cas looks puzzled. “But they’re not your family.”
Jack nudges his elbow against Cas’. “But you are.”
Cas pauses, like he’s clutching the entirety of those three words to his chest, and then nods slowly. Sam grabs the nearest pad and passes Dean and Jack each a sheet of paper and a pencil.
It takes a few more minutes for Cas to start announcing the names aloud.
Judith. Obidiah. Adoniel.
Three thousand one hundred and ninety four names.
Sometimes Cas closes his eyes and pauses for a few minutes between names. His brow becomes furrowed and his hands forms fists and Sam wonders if he’s reliving their life, or death, or both. Sometimes he whispers the name so faintly Dean has to ask him to repeat it. Some of the names are familiar to them--Raphael, Rachel, Samandriel--and others--Balthazar, Hannah, Dumah--they didn’t know Cas was the one who killed them until now.
It takes almost an hour until the last name is uttered. Cas’ eyes are shinning but there’s also a lightness haloing him now. His fingers unfurl, joint by joint, revealing deep, bloody crescents carved into his palm from the squeeze of his fist. Jack slips his hand into his and heals the angry red marks with a golden whisper.
Cas looks from Sam to Dean to Jack and moves his lips wordlessly. Thank you.
None of them point out that the numbers have faded from his arm.