Chapter Text
Sam’s excitement lights his eyes. His hands dart and dive, describing shapes in the air, and Castiel tries to listen. He does. It’s hard, though. Harder than it should be.
His eyes drift back to the other lights, the shifting lights on the TV screen. They form stories, lives that Castiel can sink into. Thousands of them. They almost swallow him, and he welcomes it.
It’s something about a murderer, the spark which has lit Sam’s enthusiasm. It seems an odd thing for a Winchester to find so much joy in, but Sam has often shown an almost angelic ability to become consumed by his interests, his goals. It is perhaps something Castiel should have warned Sam about, but changing someone’s nature is far from easy. It has occurred to Castiel, more than once, that attempting it could be considered an interference with free will.
“Oh course, Sam,” he says, because Sam’s hands are still, stationary along their arcs, and an answer is clearly expected.
He sees Sam’s brow crease, sees him lean and turn his head. Most likely, he is looking at the screen. The smile and shake of the head suggest Sam is amused by it, and Castiel wonders what his friend expected to see. Perhaps he is surprised that Castiel is watching this particular show, but if so then it is one of those cases where the reason is lost on Castiel.
In any case, when he next looks away from the screen, Sam is gone. He reaches out and finds no human life in the Bunker. Ah. Sam was possibly telling him about a case. It looks as though he did not intend to ask Castiel to come along.
As there is nothing to be done about it now, Castiel steals a few seconds before the next episode starts to text Sam a message. He tells him to enjoy himself. He considers sending a message to Dean, but the show starts and he drops his phone onto the bedding beside him.
He will text Dean later.
***********************************************
“Cas! Hey, what’ve you been doing?”
The shape and texture of the voice, the warm honey-gold and green of it, can’t be mistaken. It takes a moment to find the thread of the words.
“Dean,” he says, because that much he is sure of. Then, blinking, he pulls away from the lives lived in light before him and parses the sentence. “The same. Watching TV.” He wants to sink back into it, but makes himself flick the show to a standstill. It only helps a bit. “How’s the case?”
“Sam’s a freaking teenager going weak at the knees for Lizzie,” Dean says. He sounds disgruntled.
“Sam’s a teenager?” Castiel feels disconnected. Sam is older than a teenager, but for the moment he can’t remember by how much. “Is it a spell?”
A beat of silence suggests Dean has been thrown by the question. Ah. It will have been a turn of phrase, then, and not age-regression. That is something. From what Sam has told him, seeing Dean as a teenager was disturbing. He is glad it hasn’t happened again.
“No, Cas, not an actual teenager,” Dean’s voice tells him, although Dean’s silence has already done so. “He’s way too happy to be staying in murder-girl’s bedroom. He sprayed toilet water. This is what I deal with.”
“Where are you staying?” Castiel asks, because he doesn’t like the sound of Dean staying in a room with a murderer. He isn’t happy about Sam, either, but if this is linked to Sam’s excitement there is little point in trying to persuade him.
“Got a different room. It’s not quite as gross.”
Dean spends valuable minutes complaining about the decoration, minutes Castiel could be spending watching the end of the current episode, but he doesn’t say anything. Dean would be unlikely to appreciate the comment. Instead, he tucks the phone under his ear and slides off the bed, the blanket left in a pool of grey behind him.
As Dean speaks, he pads barefooted along the hallway. The tiles are cool under his feet. It’s far more pleasant than wearing those boots. He wonders what else will be more pleasant.
“And the bathroom’s running for some sort of competition,” Dean says, as Castiel pushes open a door and slips into the darkness of the room. “Seriously, you’d have to be shrunk down by a shrink-ray to find this place spacious.”
“It’s worse than all of the motels you’ve stayed in?” Castiel asks, because he remembers finding Dean in a bathroom once where the presence of two adult human forms had meant accidentally pressing into Dean’s back. It had been a good thing that Castiel could fly back then, or else they would have needed Sam to pry them out. The thought is distant and weighted, something he has to dredge up from the depths. Unusual, when it comes to thoughts containing Dean.
“It’s… That’s… Not the point, Cas.”
Dean doesn’t tell him what the point is.
Shortly after, Dean hangs up, after telling Cas there’s no need to do any research. Dean’s sure there’s no real case for them. Castiel flicks on the light in the room and sets his phone down on the top of a dresser. Dean’s room. Dean’s clothing is closer in size to what Jimmy used to buy, to what Castiel found would stay on him when he was Steve.
Bare feet are more comfortable in the Bunker than boots are. Perhaps softer clothing would be good.
He finds a leather jacket, something battered and huge, that he doesn’t ever remember Dean wearing. It’s similar to the one Dean used to don as a shield, the one which was lost somewhere during the fight against Lucifer. Castiel tries it on, but it doesn’t feel right. He has no idea if it’s because the jacket doesn’t fit on him, or if it’s the sense it’s something Dean picked up as a replacement and found didn’t work. It’s a feeling Castiel finds familiar.
He wonders if Dean finds this most recent version of Castiel to be something that doesn’t quite work.
A pair of jeans are more comfortable than his pants, but they’re a few inches too long. It isn’t much, but Castiel has been made to feel smaller than he used to be too many times. He puts the jeans back and tries one of Dean’s suits. The material is nicer, finer, than the suits Cas has worn. He strokes his fingers over the fabric. Not the sort of thing to sit around in, perhaps. Besides, it is clearly a better fit for Dean’s frame. All it does is remind Castiel how broad Dean’s shoulders are, how his body tapers.
The flannel shirts are warm. Warmer than he needs when he’ll be pulling the blanket back over himself soon enough.
When he returns to Sam’s room and the TV, he wears a pair of pajama bottoms and a baggy T-shit, both soft and clean. He leaves behind his pants and shirt, the tie coiled on top. He forgets to pick up his phone.
**************************************************
He isn’t sure how much later it is when he pauses the TV again. It’s strange, this not knowing. If he focuses, he knows he’ll be able to sense the threads of time, to know how much has unspooled since Sam spoke to him, since he spoke to Dean. If he focuses. It seems like too much effort for something that isn’t, really, all that important.
Dean has told him his job is to rest. Surely, that must mean relaxing his hold on time and location and everything else he usually monitors.
Instead, he investigates Sam’s dresser, his closet. There isn’t as much as he found in Dean’s. Sam has fewer clothes, it seems, and keeps more of them folded and ready in bags, as though at any moment he might choose to move out. He wonders if Dean knows.
Sam does have several interesting T-shirts, with patterns and pictures Castiel doesn’t remember seeing being worn. One is purple. The dog on it is appealing. There’s a too small hoodie, surely too small for Sam for a very long time, that Castiel tries on. He tugs on the sleeves, but they fail to cover the last few inches of his forearms.
Next, he tries one of Sam’s shirts. It drapes around him like a shroud, and Castiel looks down at himself in contemplation.
He takes care to return all of Sam’s clothing to their rightful places. Sam has had enough disruption in his life, of places he has thought safe and stable. Castiel will not add to it.
There are more episodes to watch, and watching allows him to quiet the irritation he feels under his borrowed skin at being confined to this place he was once denied. It must be that. He is an angel, and used to having purpose. That is all. Curling himself back under the blanket, he flicks his hand at the TV and disappears back into the glow.
**********************************************
Sam’s excitement has faded when he steps back into his room. That light is gone from his eyes and his shoulders slump. He still smiles when he sees Castiel.
“Hey. You been staying comfortable?”
Castiel is lying on his side across the bed, a pillow under his head and the grey blanket covering every inch of him save for his head and the fingers of one hand. Sam’s question is most likely rhetorical.
“How was the hunt? Was there a ghost?” he asks, his own questions rumbling up through his frame. He can feel his words vibrating in the shell of his ear.
“You didn’t get Dean’s messages?” Sam asks.
Castiel wonders if they will conduct this entire conversation in questions. He should probably sit up, at least, take a more active role. But the blanket is warm and he’s comfortable, and he doesn’t need to look directly at Sam with his vessel’s eyes to see him. He has more than one set of eyes.
He has taken too long to respond. Sam pulls one of those faces that says he’s amused and exasperated by Castiel. He never seems to realize that Castiel knows the expression, but as it does contain fondness he has never challenged it.
“Right,” Sam says. “Of course you haven’t. And Dean hasn’t prayed at all? Okay. Well. I’m going to get something to eat. You, er, might want to come out and see Dean. He got a bit banged up. Again.”
That should certainly draw Castiel from the bed, but his sense of dislocation lingers. The bed is real, the blanket is real. His cocoon of warmth is real. The rest seems…less so.
Still, he is going to move. It’s Dean. Of course he’s going to move.
Dean’s warmth seeps into the room before Castiel can reconnect with his surroundings enough to move from the bed, clapping Sam on the shoulder and flicking his gaze to Castiel. His eyebrows rise.
“Made yourself at home, Cas?” he asks. “This some sort of angel nesting thing?”
There’s a note of recrimination, of hurt. Most likely Dean is displeased that Castiel has missed his messages. Dean can be a creature of much emotion, driven by his need of the moment.
“No,” Castiel says, because it isn’t.
This is nothing any full angel would know. After years of being burned in strange crucible after strange crucible, Castiel is taking stock. He’s trying to find out what is left, what has been made of him. And Dean and Sam are the ones who told him to do that by lying on a bed and watching made-up people. They should have remembered that an angel, once committed, completes its task.
Dean turns to Sam as though Sam will have an explanation, but Sam shrugs.
They both leave him shortly after, Dean still unhealed. If Dean wants Castiel to heal him, he will say. Castiel remains in his blanket and sets the current show moving again. These people have plot-lines which will make sense. They have plot-lines which will finish.
*****************************************
It’s later that Dean reappears, arriving in the doorway with a creased look to his face. He’s wearing a robe, boxers and a dark T-shirt underneath. He must have been sleeping.
“Hey,” he says. “Cas, er, you planning on staying in here all night?”
Castiel shifts his wings, using the one working pair of eyes on them to look at Dean in the near dark.
“Yes,” he says.
His human eyes stay fixed on the screen.
Dean shifts, glancing at Castiel on the bed. If he thinks Castiel misses the way his eyes trail along the shape under the blanket, he is wrong. Castiel does not correct him.
“It’s just, Sam kind of wants to get some shut-eye.”
“Then he should do so,” Castiel says. Of course Sam should sleep. Humans need sleep.
“Yeah,” Dean says. He draws the words out like taffy. “It’s just, he needs his bed back, and you’re kind of…well…”
Dean finishes the sentence with a sweep of his arm.
Castiel freezes the show and sits up, the blanket still wrapped tightly around him
“Where can I go?” he asks. “The TV is in here.”
Dean blinks, smiles, like he can’t quite believe what he’s just heard.
“You really like that, huh? Well, look, we can get you set-up on my laptop. I’ll show you the best shows before I get back to bed.”
Castiel considers this. The laptop has a smaller screen. Size is relative, of course. When his true form is unfettered, it is massive: far larger than Dean has ever seemed able to comprehend. It shouldn’t matter that the screen will be so much smaller, so much less. But it does.
“I like this screen,” he says. He isn’t sure why he’s being difficult. Something about being left behind, about being told to ‘stay’ and to ‘rest’ as though he’s of no use, has irritated him. On this last case, he wasn’t even asked to help with research. Irritation bubbles darkly far too easily these days.
“Cas, come on,” Dean says, but the thread of annoyance is tempered by something Cas can’t quite name. It ripples the air between them, tugging at him.
He holds out for as long as he can. It turns out to be a few minutes.
“Fine.” He sighs the word and slips off the bed, watching Dean’s gaze flick down his body and back up to his face.
“You ditch the shoes?” Dean asks. “And are you wearing…? Where’d you get the pajamas?”
“From your room,” Cas tells him and watches Dean’s face go blank. “Where am I allowed to watch this laptop?”
“Er. Yeah. Yeah, right. Let’s try the library.”
He isn’t sure how he’s managed to fluster Dean, but he follows his friend in silence. Whatever the issue is, Dean will try to bury it or will let it explode, and neither one is likely to be much altered by Castiel. There is no sense in dashing himself against any more rocks than he has to.
Out in the library, Dean gets out his laptop and mutters over it as though trying to coax the magic of Netflix out of the thing with words. Sam appears briefly from somewhere else in the Bunker and disappears quickly when Dean tells him his room is free. Castiel wonders how much of an inconvenience he is being. The thought is both vague and one which conjures up a roiling mix of deep purple and grey, of sickly green and bruise yellow. He pretends the reaction isn’t there.
Finally, Dean gestures him to the chair in front of the laptop and pats his shoulders once he’s settled.
“Right. All ready for you. Just pull up what you want.”
“I preferred lying on the bed.”
“Yeah, well, we haven’t really got another bed set up now, so…”
Dean shrugs and turns to go.
Castiel lets him.
**************************************
Sam coughs, making Castiel jump.
“Er, sorry, Cas,” Sam says, but there’s an odd note in his voice, one Castiel can not fathom. “You want to take a break from the shows for a while, get some breakfast?”
It takes an age to bring the words up to the surface, to make them spill into the air.
“I don’t eat,” Castiel says at last.
He doesn’t start at Sam, at any human, walking into a room, either. Another thought he ignores. The show is engaging, that is all. His eyes drift back to it. If Sam says anything else, he misses it.
**************************************
The screen slams shut. This time, he jumps harder, his body spasming with the shock of losing his anchor, of being plunged back into the world without warning. He gathers himself, glares up at Dean.
“What did you do that for?” he growls.
Dean raises an eyebrow. He’s leaning over the table, his hand splayed on the laptop’s lid as though it needs to be kept closed. Castiel manages not to bat his hands away.
“You’ve been staring at that screen for hours.”
“You said I should watch-”
“Watch, Cas! Not become some junkie and blank us. I’ve tried to talk to you five times today.”
No. That can’t be right. Castiel would have noticed. He always notices Dean.
Movement to the side brings his wings up, useless as they now are, and he registers Sam, a look on his face that makes Castiel want to snap, to reject the pity or concern or whatever it is dripping down the taller man’s face.
“Dean’s right, Cas,” Sam says, his voice soft. “You’ve been zoned out. Time to give it a rest.”
“I was resting,” he says, sullen.
“Yeah, well, now the laptop needs a rest,” Dean says.
It must be annoyance making his words so heavy. They fall into Castiel and sink. Their passage disturbs the currents of his thoughts and he fights to bring back the stillness he felt when staring at that screen. He fails.
“What do you want me to do instead?” he asks. Because it’s always about what someone else wants. Always about demands and orders and expectations.
Instead of answering, Dean turns to Sam, his mouth opening but no words arriving. Dean shakes his head. Sam pulls a face, one Castiel has seen before when Sam hasn’t known how to say what Dean wants to hear. When Dean turns back, he points at Castiel with his free hand.
“You need to take a break from this. All right? I know you dive in to shit, all in, but sometimes that ain’t healthy, Cas. I mean, fuck, if I’d known you’d go all…” He waves his hand in a circle, as though trying to outline Castiel. “Whatever this is, I’d never have let you watch anything.”
“Let me?”
“You know what I mean,” Dean says, straightening and pulling the laptop away. “You need to get out, get some air. And you need to get dressed.”
“I am dressed.”
His wings are still up. There’s an itch across his skin, his real skin, making him feel like he might have to fight. Reminding himself Sam and Dean are his friends doesn’t help.
“You’re wearing my pajama bottoms, Cas,” Dean shoots back. “They don’t count as being dressed. Come on. I’ll take you into town, get you some different clothes if you’re done with the suit and tie.”
Is he done with those? He imagines putting them on again. Unbidden, his wings pull in, shielding him.
“What? You don’t want new clothes?” Dean must have noticed something about his vessel’s posture, something mimicking his wings. It does that sometimes. “Or do you just not want me to take you? Fine. Sam? You take Cas shopping. I’m going to put this away and you don’t get any more TV time until you’ve had enough time not staring at the idiot box, you hear?”
Dean is gone before Castiel can process it. Something must be wrong with his connection to time, because Dean should not be able to move fast enough for that. Somehow, he can’t bring himself to wind the threads of time more closely around his form.
“You, er, you gonna get your suit back on to go shopping? You can ditch it again after,” Sam says.
Castiel manages to look at him, though there is an odd stiffness in his neck, in his shoulders, that makes it harder than it should be to move.
“What?” he asks.
“Your clothes?” Sam asks. “You can’t go to the shops in those. We’ll get you something more comfortable. Hey. You all right?”
That’s concern. Sam’s voice is full of concern.
Before Castiel can answer, Sam ducks down, kneeling by Castiel’s chair with one hand hovering just over Castiel’s forearm.
“I’m fine,” Castiel says. He doesn’t lean away from Sam.
“Your breathing’s off,” Sam says. “Cas, are you telling us everything?”
And Castiel hates that Sam asks that, that he has, in the past, given either Winchester cause to ask that. After all, he now keeps nothing from them which could hurt them.
“I’m fine,” he manages. He has to clamp his mouth shut, jaw tense, to avoid the chattering noise inside him from flooding into the room.
Sam sighs, shifts his hand from its hovering to pat at Castiel’s shoulder. If he notices Castiel flinch, he doesn’t comment.
“Right. Well, then, go and get dressed. I’ll meet you at the car in ten.”
Castiel’s fingers grip more tightly around the arms of the chair. For a moment, he holds on, resisting movement, before he sighs and uncurls from the chair. He has his orders, after all.
********************************************
Sam glances at him more than once before he speaks, the soothing rumble of the Impala’s engine surrounding them. They’re pulling into the car-park and circling for a space before he finally says anything.
“You don’t look so good.”
“How am I meant to look?”
That came out too fast, too harsh. Sam doesn’t comment on it.
“Look, I know you’ve been through a lot, Cas, but you look clammy. Kind of…kind of panicked. Is there some reason you don’t want to be out?”
“I’m fine.”
Castiel refuses to say anything else as they park, as they make their way into the shop. It’s more like a warehouse, far larger than anywhere he went to as Steve. He follows Sam to the aisles with jeans and sweaters and other things he might need.
“Do you not see anything you like?” Sam asks.
“What?”
The way Sam asked that suggests it’s not the first time he’s spoken. Castiel looks around to see Sam standing by a rack of shirts, frustration and that same concern coming off him in waves. He looks like he discards several comments before he replies.
“We’ve been in here for nearly an hour, Cas, and you haven’t picked anything yet. Do you not know what you like?”
It’s the way Sam talks to Dean when Dean’s being especially trying and Sam is wanting to get things back on track without an argument. The upwards curl of Sam’s lips, the way his voice lifts at the end of the sentence, are things he does to placate his brother, to keep from keying into that part of Dean that sees threat and reacts. Castiel doesn’t know why Sam is using the tactic on him.
He also doesn’t know what to say. Why would he know? The only time in his life he’s had to choose his clothes he didn’t have the money to experiment with style. Nora pointed him to a shop selling second-hand items and he wore whatever was close to his size and appropriate.
Sam must pick up on something, because his eyebrows pull together.
“Do you want me to pick?” he asks.
When they leave the store half an hour later, Sam carries two bags full of clothing Castiel did not pick. He trails after Sam back to the car, his wings tucked tight to his back. It’s difficult, scanning the area with only the working eyes left to him. The sensation of blind spots is a constant irritant.
“Hey!”
Sam stops, throwing his arms out as though he needs to brake, and Castiel steps to the side to see a man in their path. He’s tall. Not as tall as Sam, but taller than Castiel’s vessel, and he’s beefy in that way that suggests real muscle under the coating of fat. He’s also swaying.
“Watch out,” the man slurs, swaying closer. His gaze is fixed slightly below Sam’s eyes.
“You nearly walked into me,” Sam says, but already he’s tamping down on his flare of anger. Castiel can see it, see the signs that Sam is pulling himself in. “Just…go easy.”
He steps to the side, but the man follows, blocking him. Castiel checks again, suddenly thinking the man might have friends nearby. He doesn’t see anyone, but they could be shielded by the cars.
“Look, man,” Sam says, and he seems to grow larger, somehow, “you don’t want to start something here. Trust me. Just let us get to our car.”
“Not until you apologize,” the man says, stumbling over the last word. He crowds closer to Sam.
Castiel tenses, gearing up to protect Sam if he needs to. His blade is close to phasing into the physical plane, the weight of it something Castiel knows he will find reassuring. He will. He’s an angel, a warrior, and his blade is one of the solid stones of his world. His hand doesn’t tremble at the phantom feel of its shape.
“Cas? Cas! Breathe. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
There’s warmth on his shoulders, the solid press of hands. It takes a moment to see Sam in front of him, and that should worry Castiel more than it does. But it doesn’t feel real. Nothing around him feels real. Another long moment passes before he realizes the ragged breathing is his.
He can’t keep looking at Sam’s grey eyes, any other colours in them pushed aside by emotions Castiel shouldn’t be causing him. It’s his job to protect the Winchesters, not to bring them troubles. Instead, his gaze skitters away over the car-park. The drunk man is gone. Instead, a small knot of people stand nearby, one of them with a phone pressed to her ear.
“Is your friend all right?” another woman asks, her bulky sweater making her look soft and warm.
Sam speaks up, which is good, because Castiel is having enough trouble understanding their human words right now. A slow stream of Enochian flows through his head, thick and sluggish, calling orders to fight, to run, to hide, to attack. He shivers at the effort of resisting.
“He’s fine,” Sam says, his hands still on Castiel’s shoulders. “Sorry. He’s not been back from deployment long.”
The faces around them shift, sympathy and discomfort and apology in varying degrees washing across each face. Castiel feels Sam turn him, lets himself be turned and guided, and hears Sam murmuring behind him. He isn’t sure if Sam is speaking to him or to the people still watching. Either way, he is relieved to slide into the Impala. As soon as the door shuts he is able to settle his wings. That last set of working eyes shuts, his whole true-form pulling in as though recovering from a battle.
Sam slides in behind the wheel and starts the car. Castiel keeps his human eyes on his own hands. He doesn’t want to know what is on Sam’s face.
“Where’d you go, Cas?” Sam asks, soft and careful, when they’re half-way back to the Bunker.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he tells his hands.
“You spaced out,” Sam says. “For at least five minutes. I almost called Dean.”
That sends a jolt through Castiel.
“Don’t tell him.”
Sam lets a beat pass and answers in the same careful tone as before.
“Cas, this isn’t the kind of thing you can hide from him. You shouldn’t hide it. Whatever that was, it’s not the first time, is it?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have an answer. How could he know? Time slipped strangely when Sam and Dean were away, but that might not be what Sam means. There were times, before this, when he found stepping down from a fight to be a struggle, when he couldn’t be sure how long a battle had taken. He can’t think of another time when this exact situation has arisen, however.
“I don’t know,” he says, at last. He wishes he didn’t sound so broken. Dean will have no use for a broken angel. He made that clear before, the last time Castiel tried to step back, the last time he admitted he was damaged.
“Well,” Sam says, “if it was the first time, it can’t be the first sign that something’s off. Is it the spell? Did Rowena not cure it all?”
Castiel doesn’t reply. The spell is gone. He’s almost sure of it. Yet…yet something lingers. Perhaps it is the spell making him feel the need to hide away in the Winchester’s home, making him want to hide inside the TV shows and the blankets. Better than it just being him.
“Look,” Sam says once they’ve traveled another mile, “I don’t think it’s the spell. I mean, I think it’s linked, but… Did you hear what I said back there? To that woman?”
“That I just got back from deployment,” Castiel answers woodenly. His thoughts are circling around the idea of Sam telling Dean. He finds his wings drawing tightly around himself.
“Yeah. You think…you think there might be something in that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Whatever Sam is trying to say, he seems to give up. They drive the rest of the way in silence, Castiel trying to work out where he will go once Dean decides he doesn’t want a broken angel in his home.
*******************************************
Sam leads him to a spare room, where Castiel blinks at the newly made-up bed. Dean said last night that there were no other beds ready to be used. He tilts his head at the TV standing against one wall.
“I don’t understand,” he says, knowing he sounds numb.
Dean appears behind Sam, slapping his brother on the shoulder as he peers at the bags Sam has dropped onto the bed.
“What did you go for?” Dean asks, looking a lot more interested in the contents of the bags than Castiel feels. “Anything worth wearing, or did you let him buy a load of crap?”
Sam doesn’t tell Dean that Castiel failed to make his own choices.
“Why don’t we let Cas show you when he’s sorted through everything?” Sam says instead. “You, er, you moved the new TV in here?”
Dean nods.
“Yeah. I know we got it for the main rooms, but I figure we can get a bigger one. He’s only getting a few hours a day, though.”
Castiel has no idea how Dean thinks he’s going to enforce that. He also has no idea why Dean is telling Sam instead of telling Castiel about rules which apparently apply to him.
“Yeah,” Sam says, and he has that look on his face that says he’s building up to saying something Dean won’t like. “Listen, Dean, we should let Cas settle in, get his new clothes unpacked. Why don’t we go start on dinner?”
If Dean is confused as to why Sam is suddenly including himself in food preparation, he doesn’t say anything. Castiel considers stopping Sam from going. Briefly. Whatever he says, if Sam has decided Dean must know about what happened back in the car-park, he will tell Dean. All Castiel can do is hope the fall-out is bearable.
At least this time he doesn’t need to eat to live. If Dean makes him leave, Castiel won’t need to find work just to survive. He won’t have to scavenge from dumpsters.
While he waits, he empties the bags. Sam has bought him pajamas. They look cheerful, a blue several shades brighter than his tie. And they’re soft. Still, Dean is right: he can’t wear sleepwear outside. He changes into a pair of dark jeans and a T-shirt, pulling a navy sweater over the top. If he is told to leave, he will be ready.
He sits on the bed. He waits.
***************************************
It isn’t long before Dean’s back, padding into the room and crouching to peer up into Castiel’s face. Dean’s expression is tightly controlled.
“Tell me straight, Cas,” he says. “Was that the first time?”
He tells him the same thing he told Sam.
“I don’t know.”
Dean sighs, sets his hands on either side of Castiel on the bed. It must be to balance himself, although Dean usually has excellent balance. Either way, it’s hard to say whether it’s more comforting or more…more bothersome. He doesn’t see Dean snarling at him, Dean’s fist heading towards his face. He doesn’t.
“I don’t know,” he says again, in case this time Dean hears him and replies. He needs to know if he is being thrown out.
“Sam said you zoned out,” Dean says. He’s speaking slowly. “He said you were shaking. You’re shaking now, Cas. Did you know? Can you feel that?”
Why won’t Dean just tell him if he’s being thrown out?
“Is this…is this why you’ve been binge watching everything? To stop from feeling whatever this is? Hey,” Dean says, ducking further and catching Castiel’s gaze. Dean’s eyes are warm. Not the way they looked when he told Castiel no-one cared he was broken. Not the way they looked when he threw Castiel out. “Hey, Cas, come on. Talk to me.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
A thin trickle of hope is all he can allow himself. Dean’s mood changes quickly sometimes. Castiel might still not be safe.
“I want you to tell me what’s going on with you,” Dean says. “I thought once the spell had gone, you’d be okay. Bit of rest, fine. You’ve been through a lot. But…but I should have known. Right? I mean, everything that’s happened since we met, that’s bound to catch up to you at some point. Fuck, Cas, I’ve had my moments. I have. But much as I hate to admit it, this isn’t going to go away by ignoring it. You’ve gotta tell me what’s going on with you.”
“I don’t-”
“Know, yeah. I’m getting that.”
Dean moves, rising and settling next to Castiel on the bed. His thigh’s only a few inches away from Castiel’s. Dean takes a few deep breaths.
“With me, it was after Hell. The first time. Then again after Purgatory. I figure at least some of that was you. Leaving you, I mean. Anyway, it was… It was fucking impossible to relax, is what it was. Flashbacks, cold sweats, my lungs feeling like they were going to burst out of my chest.”
“You’re talking about PTSD,” Castiel says, dragging the term up from wherever it’s stored. It floats between them, something he can’t attach to anything solid. It’s just a concept, just a name.
“Yeah, Cas, I am,” Dean says. He leans closer, until his shoulder is close to brushing Castiel’s own. “And it’s rough. And it sounds to me like you might be going through that.”
“No.”
“No? You think it’s something else?”
“No. I don’t know. But it’s not that. It can’t be that.”
“Why not?” Dean asks.
“Because I’m an angel,” Castiel says. “I’m a warrior. It’s what I was made for. I can’t get…PTSD. That’s for humans.”
“You’re an angel,” Dean agrees, “but I think at this point you’re pretty much human, too. At least, I think with everything you’ve been through over the past few years, any angelic warrior-shielding is probably not up for the job. Shit, Cas, look at what’s happened to you just in the last couple of months. That spell? Your own people chaining you to a ceiling, cutting into you. Hannah dying. Me.”
Dean says the last bit quietly.
“What do you mean, you?” Castiel asks.
He is trying to push aside the image of Hannah dying in front of him, but it’s far from easy, and behind her he sees Samandriel, Hestor, Balthazar, Rachel, others who he at one point or another called an ally, if not a friend.
“I’m sorry, man,” Dean says. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
He’s crying? Lifting a hand, Castiel is irritated to find his cheeks are wet.
“What did you mean, by saying ‘me’?” he asks, swiping at his eyes to make them stop.
“You know what I mean,” Dean says. And now he sounds as uncomfortable as Castiel. “I mean when I hit you, when I…when I almost fucking killed you. That has to be part of it.”
“What about when I beat you almost to death?” Castiel asks. He wavers, standing for one moment in that crypt, and then in the warehouse, before he’s back on the bed with Dean.
“Well, yeah. That could do it, too,” Dean allows. “God knows, I have my share of nightmares over what I did to you.”
“You really think I have PTSD?” The shape of it is wrong in his mouth.
“It’s got to be worth considering,” Dean says. “Even if it’s some angel form, it fits. You know? And hey, we can help you through it, all right? Sam’s already on his laptop, looking into it. And I’m here. If you need me.”
“I always need you,” Castiel says before he can stop himself.
Panic sets in a moment after the last word washes from his lips. He has no way to call that back. No way to stop Dean from hearing it.
“What?” Dean asks, after a pause.
Castiel stands, needing to be away, his wings flaring and then pulling in in a restless pattern.
“Cas?” Dean stands, too, following him across the room. “Cas, wait.”
He stops with Dean’s hand on his arm, caught between the need to run and the need to fight. The tides in him will tear him apart. He needs to face this, to fight it. If he could only work out what to fight.
“I don’t want to push you,” Dean says. “You’re going through enough. But can you tell me what you mean by that? That you need me?”
Castiel shakes his head, not able to look Dean in the eyes. Not with any of his own eyes.
“No? Right. Okay, then.”
Dean swallows, the sound too loud in the room.
“Well, then I guess I’ll say it to you. Get the ball rolling, so to speak. Sam had better be right about this.”
“About what?” Despite himself, Castiel wants to know what Dean is talking about.
“About letting you know you’re cared for,” Dean says. He clears his throat. “That…you’re loved. Sam says it’ll help to remind you. In case you didn’t know. Sounds kinda mushy to me, but Sam’s been doing this reading, and… Yeah. Anyway. So, there’s that.”
Dean squeezes Castiel’s arm and lets go, stepping back.
“I’m going to get dinner and we’ll come eat in here with you. Watch some TV. What do you say?”
Castiel can’t move. He seems to be frozen in place, right where Dean caught him.
“Okay.” It’s barely more than a murmur.
“Okay,” Dean repeats. “You choose something to watch and I’ll be right back.”
He isn’t being asked to leave. He isn’t being asked to leave and Dean has made him a space, has shown he cares. Said he cares. He isn’t being asked to leave, but Dean knows he’s broken. And now Dean and Sam will come in here and they’ll all sit together knowing Castiel is broken.
Dean’s been gone for several minutes. It won’t be long before Sam and Dean bring food.
Castiel tries to ignore the jittery feeling of grit under his skin, crawling and scratching at him. If Sam and Dean are right, it’s a result of trauma. In either of the Winchesters, it would be understandable, no cause for shame.
Castiel unfreezes, scans the items he hasn’t yet put away.
When Sam walks in, Castiel has just pulled on the second sock, deep blue and patterned with white lines. He looks up at Sam from the bed, seeing the tray with its plate and mug. He sees Sam’s eyes track across him and on to the rest of the room. With raised eyebrows, Sam takes in the bag on the floor and turns a look on Castiel that cuts.
“You going somewhere, Cas?” Sam asks.
Castiel can’t answer. He feels he’s been caught, no matter how many times he’s left to continue his missions. This time, it feels like he’s been caught planning to sneak away.
“Were you going to tell us? Tell Dean?” Sam asks.
To be fair, he has been caught trying to sneak away. Just badly. He should have known there wasn’t time. All of his words are drowning in his throat.
Sam sighs, setting the tray down on top of a dresser and pushing the bag over to the wall, out of the way, before sitting next to Castiel on the bed. He keeps his hands to himself, but Castiel feels as though Sam wants to reach out to him, maybe clap a hand to his shoulder.
“Look, Cas, I know this is…I know you don’t find it easy to talk about this crap, and that’s on us. I mean, you’ve learned how to do all this human stuff from us, right? Can’t imagine you were encouraged to be open about your feelings in the Garrison.”
“Understatement,” Castiel manages, like he’s reading a line from a script that isn’t even appropriate for the genre. This isn’t a comedy. He isn’t sure what it is, but it isn’t a comedy.
“Right,” Sam says. “And Dean’s practically allergic to talking about how he feels. Hell, I’m no better. I do a better job pretending, but I don’t really…” Sam trails off. He starts up again in a slightly different tone of voice. “I owe you an apology,” he says, and waves Cas into silence when he opens his mouth. “No, I do. I know I didn’t beat you, and yeah, Dean’s told me about that. New spirit of honesty thing we’re trying. So, I didn’t beat you half to death, but I did use you, and I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”
“When did you use me?” Castiel asks, because he isn’t sure what Sam is counting and he finds he needs to know.
“Are you kidding?” Sam asks, but he doesn’t sound like that’s an attack on Castiel’s understanding. “I’ve seen it, Cas. Over the last few years, I’ve seen the way Dean bosses you around, gives you orders. And I’ve seen you do as he says, a lot of the time. More than I used to think an angel would. I figured it was partly some angelic obedience thing, when you cut ties with your superiors, you know. Kind of needing someone to follow?”
Castiel wants to protest at that, but hearing his own tendencies explained back to him stills his tongue. He isn’t sure Sam is wrong.
“And then part of it must just be Dean,” Sam goes on. “I’ve seen the way you two are. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d do a lot for you, too, Sam,” Castiel says, because it’s true.
“I know,” Sam says. “Trust me, I’m not being all jealous here or anything. Me and you? We’re brothers, all right? I told Dean he should tell you how he feels, in case that helps, so I should take my own advice for once. I love you, Cas, just like I love Dean. You get that?”
Castiel nods. It’s…nice to hear. He knows that the way Sam loves him isn’t quite the same as the way Sam loves Dean. If Castiel dies, Sam won’t lose himself in the same way. Still, the way Sam and Dean are with each other can be as damaging as it can be wonderful, and he doesn’t want to be the potential cause of Sam unraveling.
“Thank you,” he says, because he has no idea how he’s meant to respond. “And…I love you, too,” he adds, because it’s true. If strange to say out loud. He never thought he’d be allowed to say that to either Winchester without a negative reaction. It does soothe some of the itch in his body.
“The thing is,” Sam goes on, “I knew you’d do whatever it took for Dean, and I let myself forget that it might hurt you. I let myself get so focused on saving Dean that I threw you under a bus. I should never have ordered you around like that. I shouldn’t have made you stay with Rowena.”
“I wanted to help,” Castiel says quietly, uneasily.
“Yeah, I know. But you didn’t like the way we were doing it and I refused to listen. I took advantage of the way I’d seen you react to orders before. And I’m sorry for that.”
It’s not news to Castiel that Sam will reason his way to decisions many people would reject, but it is hard to hear that Sam knew exactly what he was doing when he got Castiel to go along with his plans with the Book of the Damned and that witch. Still, Castiel knows strategy, knows tactics, knows that to achieve a goal you sometimes have to view others as nothing more than parts of a plan. And it was to save Dean.
Dean, who walks in at that moment with his own tray and stops to stare at them.
“Everything okay in here?” he asks, an edge to his voice Castiel can’t quite interpret.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “I think so. You decide what you want to watch, Cas?”
When he doesn’t answer, Dean takes over, choosing some film where a girl is taken by her family to a holiday camp. As the opening plays, Dean gets Castiel to sit back against the headboard and hands him a plate, waving off his protest that he doesn’t eat.
“Just indulge me, all right? It’s one piece of chicken pie.”
Dean settles on one side of him, Sam on the other, shoulders pressing against him. For a moment, that sense of crawling panic shifts inside him, but Dean leans in and murmurs something about the lead actor, some comment Castiel doesn’t fully take in, but which settles his wings in their restless movement.
“We’ll just watch this one film and then that’s it for today,” Dean announces once his food is gone. “You start to feel worked up, you come get one of us, okay?”
Castiel takes another small bite of the pie and nods. He doesn’t know if Dean has any real idea what he’s doing here, whether there’s an actual, established plan to help Castiel, or if his friend is making it up as he goes. Then again, that’s worked for them before, and he can’t deny that he feels a little more grounded here, with his family on either side of him. He’s glad Sam slid the bag out of focus.
The film isn’t over before he feels Dean sag against him, feels his weight grow and his breathing even out. Shortly after, Sam leans in and speaks quietly in Castiel’s ear.
“You okay with Dean using you as a pillow? Because if so, I’m going to get to bed. But remember what Dean said, Cas. You need one of us, you just come and wake me up, all right?”
Sam is gone before Castiel can think of a reply, of a way to say thank-you which won’t sound stilted and strange. He watches the end of the film by himself, wondering if Dean ever makes the connection between the girl in the film and his car, and has a confusing image of Dean trying to heave the Impala over his head in a lift. Perhaps Dean is right, and he has watched enough TV for now.
When the film is done, he waves the TV off and sits in the dark, Dean’s head almost touching Castiel’s. It’s comforting. He doesn’t know, still, quite how he’s going to recover from this condition Dean says he has, or whether Dean is quite right. He is still an angel, after all, and the horrors he has seen in his long existence should have driven him over this edge before if angels really can get PTSD, but Naomi is not around anymore to reset him, and the horror of hurting Dean, of having Dean hurt him…these things have a texture, a colour, which no previous terror has had.
It will take some thought, but with Dean asleep next to him, and with both of the Winchesters having declared their affection for him, he finds he can let his wings settle at last. The feeling that he must watch out for danger recedes, enough that he can cope without losing himself in the lives of TV people.
He closes all of his eyes and listens to Dean breathing in the dark.