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Moving is too much work. Sharp, undiluted pain pumps through him, dragging along his veins like molten knives under his skin. He feels too much, and nothing at all; cotton-balled off from everything he's supposed to know. His mind tumbles, reaching, grasping for anything but tripping over so much else.
Muffled, in the distance, so far away, he hears words. He squeezes his eyes shut tight, because he can't understand them. The sound comes closer, and he wants to push it away. He wants it to stop, it's too confusing, it's too much. It doesn't relent, though, just comes too close and repeats. He gives a futile attempt at wrapping his mind around it, the voice permeating the pounding in his ears.
“Cas, c'mon, man. Say something.”
Castiel almost shakes his head, but tight, coiled hurt seizes his spine and he remains still. Dean, he thinks, vaguely, but it doesn't mean anything to him. Slowly, it trickles in, distracting him from the pinprick pain in his fingers and toes. Friend, charge, hunter, FAMILY. Dean touches him, then, puts a hand on his shoulder, and Cas can't.
no dean go away please please just go please leave me dea-. That doesn't work. His eyes fly open.
He screams. He can't help it.
Dean reels back from where he was kneeling at Castiel's side, but Cas doesn't watch him. He screams loud, and long, tears prickling the corners of his eyes. The sound to him is deafening. Somewhere, he understands Dean wants him to stop, Dean is saying something or touching him or slapping him, he's not sure. His voice catches in his throat and shatters, shoulders clenching up in sobs.
Slowly, the world focuses around him. Forest. Dean's clutching his shoulders.
“D-dean.” His voice is so quiet, throat vibrating with the words. His shoulders still heave in aborted sobs as he breathes, deep, swallowing air.
“Yeah, Cas.” Dean's eyes are big and round, eyebrows drawn up in what Cas somehow recognizes as concern. He can't see inside. “Look, man, we have to get you back to the bunker. It's not safe out here.”
“Gone,” Cas murmurs.
“What? I'm right here, dude. Sam's fine, too,” Dean says. He sounds confused, but happy. He think he's won. He has won. Cas stares up at the forest canopy, the dim twinkle of pale stars peeking through the branches. Unimpressive.
“Everyth-” Cas tries to say, but is cut off by a bubble of broken grief bursting in his throat. He cries.
Dean is quiet for a while, to which Cas feels resentful. Guilty. Grateful. Too many different emotions, too many different physical reactions, he feels his stomach turn with nausea.
“Is, uh-” Dean starts, slowly. “Is this about your mojo, Cas? We saw- Sam and I, we saw the angels all falling from the sky. Does this-”
“I'm HUMAN,” Cas snaps, suddenly, the word foreign and satisfying on his tongue. “Human,” he says again, and he sobs once. “HUMAN,” he shouts through the pain. When he yells, he can almost ignore it. “Human, human, human.”
Dean stares at him. He can feel it. “Are you sure?”
Cas just closes his eyes.
“We have to keep moving, Cas. I get it, this is- well, it's horrible. But we can't stay here.”
Cas tries to get up. He wills his legs to tuck underneath him, his arms to push at the moist ground and his spine to curve into a sitting position. He wills these things to happen, and they don't. He manages to shake his head this time, no.
Dean's worry is blanketing him, near-suffocating, but warm. “Listen to me, Cas. There's an emergency kit in the car. It's got some pretty intense painkillers in it. They'll make the pain stop for awhile. They might even make you fall asleep. D'you want that?”
He manages to nod. Human drugs. No, don't go there. Don't think that. No. Dean mumbles something else and his gone, and Cas is alone again, curled on the forest floor and cut off and crying. The word 'pathetic' floats somewhere in his consciousness, and he hates it. His back throbs.
Dean is back and helping him lean up, tipping a bottle of water to his lips. Cas sips the water, tears still creeping down his cheeks. He doesn't even know why he's crying. He's crying because Dean looks lost, he's crying because the pain is killing him but he's not even hurt. He's crying because he's crying, and angels don't cry. But he's not an angel.
“Cas...” Dean's voice, all wrapped up in the molasses of care. Castiel feels Dean's fingers at his lips, pushing forward a little semi-circle of chemicals. Cas can taste the bitter pill, overflowing his tongue, before Dean is having him drink again. “Swallow this. You'll feel really weird, but I'm right here. I'm not gonna let anything bad happen to you.”
Cas coughs, a little water spilling down his chin. He manages to swallow the human medicine- the medicine, he mentally corrects himself. The medicine for him.
“Good job, Cas. Sammy couldn't swallow pills 'til he was twelve. And you're a newborn.”
Cas pushes himself up, managing to keep himself there for a moment before his weak arms give out. Dean catches him, and Cas leans against him. He's tired. His vision tunnels a little and his eyes slide shut, a warm nothingness sweeping up his body. He likes this. This is good. Good.
He blacks out.
His eyes shoot open and he sits up, frenetic panic edging his brain. “Dean.”
He is in a bed. The bunker, he realizes. Dean is sitting in the chair across the room, holding a manilla folder. Research. Cas blinks at him.
“Hey, man. I'm here. How're you feeli-”
“DEAN.”
“Oh, uh,” Dean scrambles out of the chair to kneel at the bed. Cas notes he would have laughed at the sight, if he could. Instead he grabs Dean and hugs him close. It feels wrong, but when Dean hesitantly hugs him back, his shoulders push with a sob.
“Dean.”
“It's all right, Cas,” Dean says quietly, and Cas can feel how unsure he is. He flinches hard when Dean runs a hand down his back, the pain flaring up hot, and he swallows the lump in his throat. Not crying. No more crying.
“It's gone,” he manages to mumble into Dean's neck. The emptiness in his head is loud, sharp and jarring, and distracting.
“Jesus.” Dean squeezes him and he bites his tongue. “I don't know, man, I'm just- so, fucking sorry.”
Sorry. Cas feels the word between his eyes, his throat, his shoulders, his stomach. He feels sorry all over, inside him, on his face, in his mouth. Dean tries to pull back and the pit in his stomach rolls, grumbles. Empty. He clutches Dean tighter.
“Dean, do you have any food?” His voice comes out weak and hoarse from his screaming. His cheeks redden with embarrassment. He can't control his body's reactions to his emotions and it teeters on the edge of infuriating.
“Yeah, man, of course. I'll make some lunch. Sammy left some healthy shit in the fridge.”
“Where is Sam?” It doesn't matter. But he doesn't want them to see him like this.
“He's in a fucking hospital,” Dean says, and his anger is palpable. “He insisted he'd be better there.”
Cas doesn't say anything.
“Just, uh. You gotta let me go. And I'll go get you some food.”
Cas slides his arms away from Dean, allowing the other man to stand. He holds himself up, vacantly, and stares down at the sheets. Nothing buzzes between his ears but the throbbing reminder of his isolation. His fall. His back hunches and his hands sit in his lap, unmoving. His back twinges.
When Dean comes back, he's holding a tray piled with all kinds of food. Cas doesn't recognize all of it, but his eyes drift over some things he knows. Apples, potato chips, a sandwich.“I don't know what you like, so I just got a bunch of stuff,” he says, putting the tray on Cas' lap. “There's-”
But Castiel has dug in, eating slowly, then building to a ravenous pace. He barely tastes the food, but the hole in his gut feels smaller and fuller.
“Whoa, slow down-”
He doesn't. He ignores Dean's eyes and eats until every crumb is licked from his fingers. His stomach still rolls, but with less fluttering anxiety than before. He looks up to Dean, finally, who warily takes the tray from him.
“Can I have more?”
Dean shakes his head. “You can't eat like you used to, Cas. You'll get sick. Let that settle first and maybe I'll order us some pizzas later.”
Castiel does not want to be here. Dean's concern is overwhelming Cas doesn't deserve it. He wants to teleport away to Heaven and watch from afar. He remembers flying. He's anchored down here. He can feel himself getting heavier, weighing himself down. He weighs Dean down. His face falls into his hands.
“Cas, c'mon, man. You're doing so good.”
Cas feels himself smile. “No, I'm not.”
“Hey!” Dean grabs Castiel's shoulders. “That's not true. Look at you! Eating, making eye contact, talking. That's a Hell of a lot better than off than I'd be in your shoes. You're still strong, Cas.”
A morbid laugh bubbles out of Cas' mouth, surprising him. He realizes he can't smile or laugh without it being drenched in his depression. “You and Sam are stronger.”
Dean rolls his eyes. “Me and Sam wouldn't be shit without you, dude. Remember the apocalypse? How about how you torched Michael, or saved Bobby, or the thousands of times you've healed me?”
Castiel can't hear this. His head throbs with the effort to shut Dean out.
“Remember how you carved a banishing symbol into your skin to give me and Sammy a chance? Or how you dropped your pacifist act and ended up in Purgatory. Where you ran from me, to save me. Any of this ringing a bell?”
Castiel stares ahead blankly.
“Okay, how about this. Remember when you beat the shit out of me, seconds away from killing me, and you didn't? Because you know we're on the same side. We're family.”
“The same side,” Cas echoes. “Nowhere else to go. You'll stay here. With Sam. And me.”
“Yeah, man!” Dean seems excited and Castiel's heart clenches tight. “You, me, and Sammy. Team Free Will, right? Don't we deserve that?”
“You do,” Cas mutters.
“YOU do!” Dean's frustration is seeping out of his pores and Cas' guilt manifests itself in a hard glare, down at the sheets. “You saved me and Sam from Hell, Cas. Jesus.”
“Okay, Dean,” he says, trying to sound like his former self. Stilted. It sounds right in his ears but the wrongness washes over him and he just wants to bury himself deep in the sheets and slip back into unconsciousness.
Dean sits on the bed and gathers Cas toward him, in a manner that Cas expects was used on Sam back when he was a child. He tries not to be offended and instead allows himself to fall against Dean's chest.
“Don't fucking lie to me,” Dean says, and his chest rumbles pleasantly as he speaks. Cas leans into it. “If you say 'okay, Dean,' and I know you don't mean it, I'm gonna make you regret it.”
“I'm not.” Cas tries a little honesty, for Dean's sake. “Not okay. Everything is wrong.”
“Not for long,” Dean says, giving Cas a quick pat on the shoulder before pulling away. Castiel realizes how much he craves that touch that isn't painful and watches Dean stand, moving away. “For now, you've got some pretty nasty wounds on your back, and I have to change your bandages.”
Cas notices for the first time that he's out of his vessel's clothing. He's wearing soft, long pants and a thin white t-shirt, probably Dean's. It's big on him. He resists the urge to smell it. He looks to Dean, brows raised in silent question.
“I had to get you out of that coat, Cas. It was caked in blood and dirt.”
“Blood?” Cas says, and reaches around his torso to gently touch his back. He hisses at the sting, white-hot pain throbbing around the wounds.
“Shit, Cas, don't touch 'em. I had to stitch them up,” Dean pulls Cas' hands back around reprovingly. “They'll be okay in a few days. But we have to wash you, or they'll get infected.”
“Okay, Dean,” Cas says, and winces, waiting for his admonishment. But Dean doesn't notice, instead maneuvering to get Cas out of the bed. He allows himself to be helped up, cringing at the stabbing pain towards his back. Dean steadies him and starts to lead him toward the bathroom.
“Rumpled is a good look on you, Cas. You almost look cute.” Seeing Dean grin, joking around, makes Cas miserable. He wants to will his hair clean, his wounds gone, and the memory of this entire event out of his head. How Dean can be this way, so caring for someone so useless, Cas cannot understand.
Dean helps him get his shirt off, careful not to jostle Castiel's injuries. “Almost soaked through,” he mumbles, peeling off the old gauze.
Cas sits on the edge of the bathtub, feet in, while Dean cleans his wounds. He hisses at the antiseptic and curses Dean's mumbled apology, gripping his thighs tightly as his friend works. The light press of the gauze soothes him somewhat, but his physical pain distracted him from his anguish. Anxiety creeps back into his mind and he sighs restlessly. Dean clearly misinterprets this as a pleased sigh, because his smile is blinding. Cas closes his eyes to it.
“What do they look like?”
“Hm? The scars?” Dean says absently, dressing the other wound. “Two pretty big gashes just outside of your shoulder blades.” He runs a finger alongside one of them, and Castiel shivers. “About that long. Pretty gory.”
Castiel ducks his head and does not respond. He doesn't know what good it'll do. As Dean dresses up the second gash, Castiel finds himself compiling a list in his head. All the things he can no longer do, alphabetized. He gets to “F” for “fly” when Dean pulls away.
“All done,” he says, thumbing Castiel's bare shoulders. He tries to get a look at them, but can't quite bend far enough. Dean laughs, the sound flaring embarrassment in Castiel's gut. He stills. “Aw, c'mon, Cas.” Dean ruffles his hair, and Castiel can't help falling further into his guilt. Dean is trying so hard.
He tries to pat his hair down, but he finds it doesn't cooperate. “Humans have to deal with constant minor inconveniences,” he says, and Dean raises his eyebrows at him.
“Hey, that was a full sentence! Filled with big words and everything,” he says happily. Cas frowns, mussing his hair. “Stop that. Just wash it.”
Castiel freezes. “I've never. Had to.” Wash?
Dean's smile falters. “And we're back. Did you have to do all this stuff when you were faith-healing and married and living with that chick Daphne?”
Castiel's mind grasps for the memory. “I forgot most of my time as Emmanuel when I took on Sam's insanity,” he says, softly. “I know it was something I did, but the details are... gone.” Among other things, his mind helpfully supplies, and he frowns again.
“It's no big deal,” Dean chirps, pulling Cas up. “I used to wash Sammy's hair all the time when he was a rugrat. I'll go get a chair, wait here.”
“Okay, Dean.” Why does Dean care? He doesn't need Castiel anymore. Why is he trying so hard? He knows he has to say something, something other than, 'okay, Dean.' Something about the echoing silence in his head, the separation, or the loneliness. Something that explains how overwhelming the loss of everything can be. But how grateful he is for Dean. And how much he hates him.
Dean returns with a chair and sets it in front of the sink. He gently guides Cas to sit in it, and tips his head back slowly so he gets the idea. Castiel finds himself staring up at Dean's stubble, absently wondering when his will come in. Like in Purgatory. Except he'll have to shave it, like Dean and Sam do, instead of willing it away. Helplessness seizes his bones and he feels weak as Dean guides his head under the warm tap.
“How's that?”
“Okay,” Castiel croaks back. Okay, okay, okay.
“This feels awesome, just for the record,” Dean chatters, filling the silence while he works the water through Cas' dirty hair. “You're getting a four-star spa treatment. Courtesy of Yours Truly.”
“Okay,” Cas says. What's wrong with him? The water is fine, but nothing else is. What's he expected to say? Dean works shampoo into his hair and his neuroses quietly ebb to a dull thrum in the back of his mind. He lets out a breath. He could see potentially enjoying this custom.
“When you're all healed up, I'll show you how to do this on your own,” Dean says, scrubbing out the shampoo until the water runs clear. “I can give you a hand 'til then.” He works the conditioner in, sliding his fingers from the base of Cas' neck up to the crown of his skull.
“Okay.” Panic seizes Cas very suddenly, seizing his muscles, making him thrash upward. “No, stop!”
Dean snatches his hands away so fast. They drip all over the linoleum floor, Dean's mouth slightly agape. “What is it?”
“Not 'okay.'”
“You're not okay?”
“I need to say something else.” He tilts his head back into the water, wordlessly signaling for Dean to keep going. Dean very carefully resumes washing his hair, trying to be a bit more gentle this time.
“You can say whatever you want, Cas,” he runs his fingers through Cas' hair, untangling the snags, smoothing it out. “The only reason I'm asking you so many questions is I want you to be all right. Don't wanna do something wrong and piss you off.”
Cas hates Dean. He realizes this as Dean stands above him, being open and gentle, and Cas sits beneath him, scared and broken. All his words crawl up his throat, build in his mouth until he can't hold them back any longer.
“I would have died without you, Dean. I would have bled out in thirty minutes and died,” is the first thing he says. Dean opens his mouth to respond, but Cas beats him to it.
“I can't save you very well now. I can't really save anyone. I can't hear you pray- I can't hear Sam. And if you leave, I can't find you. I can't fly.”
He stares anywhere but Dean's eyes. “I can't even wash my hair.”
Dean doesn't say anything right away, he just listens and finishes washing Cas' hair. He grabs a towel and tucks it under Cas' head. He works it over Castiel's wet hair, sort of drying it out, before tossing the towel away and kneeling next to Cas, who refuses to look at him.
Dean surprises Castiel by grabbing his chin and forcing their gazes together. “You listen to me, Cas. You're goddamn right I saved your life. There was no way I was going to let you die. And look at me. What am I? Just human, just a regular Joe with a little bit of training in ass-kicking. I can't fly, or heal myself. And I can't hear Sam, either. My little brother is states away, miserable and hurt, and I can't hear him. But I still managed to save your ass, didn't I? And one day, you'd better repay the favor, human or not. Got it?”
Cas stares right at Dean. Right into Dean.
“Yes.”
“Good,” Dean replies, breaking the moment, ruffling Cas' damp hair.
“Knowing you, you'll need it,” Castiel says. He managed a weak joke, and Dean looks thrilled. He pulls Cas to his feet.
“Hey, you haven't had to bring me back to life in years. I'm think I'm doing pretty well.”
Cas wobbles a little and Dean catches his shoulder. “Thank you for washing my hair.”
“No sweat. But you look ridiculous with it all in your face like that. When Sam gets back he'll show you how to mousse it up.”
Castiel nods, wondering how important that could possibly be. “I probably only have a few more days before I have to think about-” he deflates a bit. “Everything.”
“We all need a break from 'everything' sometimes, right? Consider yourself on shore leave.”
Castiel wants to collapse. Dean can't possibly do this, considering his own emotional stability rested on a wobbling structure of revenge and alcohol. How could he support Cas up there, too? He wants to apologize, and run out the front door and as far as his legs will take him. Which may not be as far as he needs. And Dean would hunt him down and drag him back here, because he can, now.
“Can we just lie down?” Cas asks, wearily.
“Sure, man. C'mon.”
As Cas trails Dean back to the bedroom, his mind wanders through human history, of everything he once knew and may now forget. He passes under a lamp and thinks of Icarus, the boy whose wings melted away, who fell into the sea and drowned. He walks a step closer to Dean.
“Be careful lying down, don't rustle your bandages,” Dean says, his eyes hovering at the base of Cas' head. He touches his hair self-consciously. Dean coughs to clear his throat and Castiel's eyebrows knit together. “Your hair dries curly.”
Cas turns on heel and flops down onto the bed, pain surging up his back, down his arms to his fingertips. He vaguely hears Dean protest, but the blood flows so loud and strong in his ears that it's muddy and muffled.
“You can't go hurting yourself, man. You owe me a debt.”
Cas looks at the ceiling for answers. “You're right, Dean.”
“Damn right I am. And don't think I can't I see you hiding in there. You keep losing yourself in your head like that and you'll never find your way out.”
Castiel hums, softly, just once. “I want to sleep.”
“Okay. You can nap. Want me to stick around? I can do some work-”
Castiel grabs Dean's wrist. Solid. Like a rock for a helium balloon. Something to hold him down, ground him, before he deflates and sinks to the ground. “Stay here.”
Dean nods and climbs into the big bed, jumping a little as Cas presses against him. His arm falls around his friend's shoulders, carefully, and Cas curls against his side.
“I'm sorry for-” Castiel begins, but can't find anywhere to finish. Dean shrugs off the half apology.
“Whatever, man. Just get to sleep so we can get to the stage of your recovery that's way less awkward.”
Cas finds the will to smile, inside.