Chapter Text
Castiel felt concrete crumble under his back and air rush from his lungs.
He fell to his knees, the impact of hitting the wall vibrating through his vessel so hard he felt his true form rattling around inside it like a marble in a tin can.
He spit an Enochian curse word, absolutely sick of banishing sigils. If Anna were alive he’d kill her again for introducing them to humans.
As the daze from being tossed through the ether like a rag-doll subsided, flashes of memories returned to Castiel in a nauseating smear: saying goodbye to Dean, promising to look after Sam, and then promptly letting himself get banished by a woman pointing a gun at Sam’s face.
Well done, Castiel, he sneered at himself. He planted his feet wide when a wave of dizziness threatened to topple him. He didn’t have time to fall over.
Rage bubbled up inside him like magma, because of course. Of course. They could never catch a break. They were never allowed to catch their breath.
Never.
Dean was gone – dead – and the one task he’d asked of him, Castiel had already failed. It hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours. Had it even been ten? Five? He had no way of knowing, could not recall when he had said goodbye to the man he had pulled from Hell so few years ago.
He wondered if his Father had known this was how things would turn out. He wondered at the irony of it. Castiel had left Hell with one Righteous Man and several less brothers and sisters and now Dean had died to fix God’s mistake.
Castiel wondered if, even at the very height of his blind faith and obedience, he would have been able to make any sense of this.
But he was veering somewhat off track with these thoughts.
Gods, but he hated how frazzled being banished left him.
He seethed. It had been a long time since he’d last felt such pure, holy, wrath coursing through him and Castiel lashed out at the innocent wall he’d been thrown against, slamming his fist into the fissure left from the impact and feeling satisfied when the concrete was obliterated, showering him with pebbles and dust. Inside the wall, he wrapped his fingers around the first thing he touched and ripped it back out, feeling the muscles in his whole body turn to steel as his grace infused every atom.
A large pipe bent and groaned when he pulled it from the wall like it was nothing more than copper wire.
It went sailing across the deserted parking lot, smashing against the ground with a deafening clang, and water sprayed out of the ragged, gapping hole in the wall.
Castiel closed his eyes, feeling no better for the small amount of destruction he’d caused. If anything, his heart felt as if it might burst from his chest at any moment, gushing blood over the cold concrete just like water gushed from the broken pipe.
He hauled a breath through his nose with great effort, swallowed down the scream in his throat, and squeezed his eyes around the prickle of frustrated tears.
Just once, could they catch a break? Just once could they be given a moment of reprieve? A moment to rest? A moment to grieve?
His cellphone vibrated against his leg and he nearly broke his fingers shoving his hand in to his pocket to pull it out. He jabbed the green button under the ‘Unknown Caller’ and brought the phone to his ear, choosing to ignore the way his hands shook.
Angels – soldiers – were not allowed to shake. They were not allowed to crumble. He was not allowed to come apart and lose control.
“Sam?!” He barked the name into his phone, biting down on his tongue until he could feel the pain of it and taste the blood. Used it to focus and stop the tremble that was running through him like a rumbling volcano.
“Cas!”
The air rushed from Castiel’s lungs again and for a long moment, he didn’t bother refilling them. All he could hear was the sound of pressurized water blasting out of the wall beside him, or maybe it was the sound of blood roaring between his ears. It was difficult to tell.
“Cas, you there?”
He stared around then, trying to find some explanation. A witch in the trees or a demon in the gas station, mind strangely numb even though his chest ached and something deep inside him felt in danger of rupturing.
He felt a bit like a concrete pillar in an earthquake. He was strong, but with the earth constantly heaving violently under his feet, eventually he would crumble.
He spit a mouthful of blood onto the pavement.
“Cas?!”
Though his eyes roamed the deserted area, there was no one. It was only him and the voice in his ear.
He swallowed heavily, copper on his tongue, forcing the tremor running up his legs to just stop it already before it brought him to his knees. He shoved grace into his muscle fibers and turned them to stone.
“…Dean?”
A harsh breath through the receiver. “Jesus Christ, Ca – ow! Ok, ok sorry…jeez.”
Dean was talking to someone else, whoever he was with, but it hardly registered in Castiel’s sluggish brain.
“You’re alive…you can’t be alive,” Castiel mumbled, blinked, swallowed and felt his legs shaking again already. “You can’t…”
“Yeah, Cas, I’m alive. It’s a long story but I’m on my way back to the bunker.”
Castiel blinked and suddenly his brain was coming back on line, flickering to life like power returning to chunks of a city. This was a mission. This was something he could latch on to, something he could strengthen himself with against the earthquake.
He smeared the blood in his mouth against the inside of his cheek, forcing more of the copper tang against his taste buds.
Dean was alive. Dean was going to the bunker. Castiel was not there and they needed to find Sam.
Yes. A plan. A mission.
Now he just needed orders and everything would fall in to place.
“I’m not there,” he said, because on some level he was sure that was important information for Dean to know.
Dean, who was alive and driving in the Impala as if he hadn’t been dead mere moments ago. Back to the bunker where Sam was not because Castiel had failed again.
His heart gave an aching beat. What good was a soldier that could not follow orders?
Silence.
“What? What do you mean you’re not there, what the hell happened, I was gone for less than ten fuc – freaking hours!”
“I…I was banished. By a woman. She was in the bunker waiting for us when we got back.” So late it was almost embarrassing, Castiel realized he needed to find out where the hell he was if he had any hope of getting back to help right the latest mistake he’d made and he straightened, shaking off the shock of hearing Dean’s voice and looking around for any clues that might tell him where he was.
Because Dean was alive and Sam was missing and Castiel was going to…do something about it. What, exactly, he’d figure out later. Step one was figuring out where he’d been banished to in the first place.
He was in a remote area, the gas station the only thing he could see in either direction down the single road in front of him. The tall fir trees all around kept him from seeing very far, so he turned back to the building, noting the little sign in the door that said ‘closed’.
Probably for the best, since he’d just ripped out half the wall in a fit of rage. Which now felt ridiculous given that Dean was alive and perfectly fine.
Speaking of, the man was prattling on in his ear and Castiel tried to pay attention as he walked to the doors and smashed the window in.
Beside him, a small lake was gathering in a dip in the time-ravaged parking lot. The water continued to rush out of the wall as if there was an unlimited supply of it.
“What was that?” Dean asked. He sounded alarmed.
And what a strange thing that was to hear, Castiel thought. What a strange, strange thing it was to hear alarm in Dean’s voice when Castiel had thought he was dead.
Detached and faded, something like shock was seeping in to Castiel’s veins, pressing up against the metaphorical rebar he’d hammered through himself and corroding it.
“I’m at a gas station. I’m breaking in to find a map. I don’t know where I am.”
“You think you’re still in the US?”
“Definitely.”
“Well you landed in Australia the last time.”
“The last time I was banished I had my wings and was…not of sound mind. I vaguely remember flying for a while before I even remembered I’d been banished at all. By then I was in Perth.”
“Right…”
“I’m in Colorado.” Eyeing a rack of maps, he tried to remember where the hell they had all been when they said goodbye to Dean, but his mind was still refusing to fully cooperate. Looking down at the map he had just grabbed, he remembered it would be of little use if he didn’t know where in Colorado he was.
“Shit, we’re in Kansas but we’re still an hour or two away from the Colorado border. You know where in Colorado?”
Resisting the urge to snap back about the lack of ‘You Are Here’ posters, Castiel moved behind the counter and started riffling through some paperwork. It took less then five seconds to find a piece of mail with the address on it.
“Apache City,” he read out loud.
Dean mumbled for him to hang on, told whoever was in the passenger seat to take the wheel for a second and then, presumably, googled the town on his phone. Castiel listened, honing in on the sounds of two people mumbling and moving around and belatedly realized that Dean had said ‘we are in Kansas’.
We? Who would Dean have in the car with him if Sam was gone and Castiel was in Colorado? He was just about to ask, something cold swelling behind his ribs without reason, when Dean’s voice, sharp and too loud, made Castiel flinch and forget what he’d even wanted to ask.
“Shit, you’re in the middle of freaking nowhere.”
Right. Mission. Focus, soldier.
“I know that already.”
“Alright, smart ass, start walking. There’s only one gas station near that town so that must be the one you’re at. Turn left down the road in front of you and you should find the highway in less than a half an hour. Head north on the highway and we’ll be coming at you from the other direction.”
Castiel sighed and did as he was told. “I miss my wings.” Missing them won’t bring them back.
Focus!
Dean’s voice softened, “I know. Be careful Cas, I’m on my way.”
It had rained in Apache City the night before and the long grass on the side of the highway was wet. It whipped at his legs as he walked, soaking the thin fabric within minutes. The air was still and heavy with the passing of a storm and a grey canopy over his head told Castiel that the sun would not manage to struggle through today.
He didn’t mind. The overcast sky felt a bit like a heavy blanket and the tremble in his nerves seemed to calm a little under the comforting weight of the dreary weather.
It was lucky his grace was strong enough now that he didn’t need to eat or sleep. Though even so, he felt tired. Actually, if he was being honest with himself, he was exhausted, which didn’t make any sense at all. He had his grace, mangled though it felt. Dean was alive. Sam was missing but…they would find him. They would. He would not allow Dean to narrowly escape death again just to come back and find out that Castiel had let him down. Again.
All in all, things were far better than Castiel had been expecting, but his feet and legs still ached with every step and his head still felt like it was full of sand. His throat stung with dryness and the weight of something intangible threatened to pull him down so hard he worried it might flip him inside out. It made it difficult to turn down the three people that had pulled over on the side of the highway to offer him a ride as far as they were going. He thanked them for their kindness but insisted that he was fine. He didn’t want to risk driving right by Dean going the other way.
They had all been confused, as most people were when they tried to talk to him, taking in his smart suit and the lack of perspiration on his brow, and let him be with nothing more than a bemused smile and a “Well, if you’re sure.”
Castiel had just managed to let himself sink in to the familiar and mind-numbing trance of a long and steady march on aching legs when the sound of the Impala roaring in the distance caught his ear. He heard it before any human would and smiled – a pitiful twitch of his lips – knowing the sound of that car more than an angel should. He crossed the two lanes and trudged through the soggy median and across the other two lanes just as the Impala came over a gentle hill in the road.
The tires squealed and gravel sprayed in a shower as Dean pulled over and the hunter was out of the car before it had even come to a full stop, grin splitting his face as he barrelled in to Castiel and tried his best to crush him in a hug.
“Man, it’s good to see you,” Dean muttered against his shoulder.
“And you, considering I never thought I would again.” Castiel had to remind himself not to hug the fragile human back as hard as he wanted and pulled away sooner than he’d have liked to. Dean was warm and solid and real; he felt like something Castiel could hold on to while everything shook and splintered around him.
He made himself step back. His legs were shaking again. “Dean, what about Sam –”
“Sam’s fine,” Dean quickly explained, still smiling, still with both hands on Castiel’s shoulders. “I got a hold of him two hours ago. He’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine.”
It didn’t sound real and Castiel struggled to understand. Three times he opened and closed his mouth without saying anything, hearing gravel crunch under his boots, hearing the woosh of cars speeding by, feeling the moisture of another storm building in the air – and understanding none of it.
Fine meant…well it meant fine. It meant no mission. It meant he had nothing to focus on. It meant…he wasn’t sure what the entirety of fine encompassed but he was quite sure that it was not, ironically, anything good. Not for him.
“Cas?”
It wasn’t the first time Dean had called his name.
Castiel let his eyes snap sideways, to where he could make out the back of a blond head of hair in the passenger seat.
“Who is that?” he asked, because he figured he was supposed to, redundant though it seemed – obviously if Dean trusted her she was probably alright.
Dean’s eyes narrowed and flicked this way and that over his face, making Castiel wonder what the hunter was looking for. But then his expression cleared and a small and achingly tentative smile curled the corner of his lips, moving freckles around his face.
“It’s my mom,” Dean nearly whispered. There was incredulity in his voice and something close to awe.
Castiel blinked, once again trying to will his brain to start processing the information coming at him. But it felt like throwing rocks at a castle wall.
Why did something like this – something that should be like a wrecking ball to that castle wall – feel like a pebble? Dean’s mother was sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala and Castiel knew that was bigger than it felt.
What was wrong with him?
Dean’s hand settling on his shoulder might as well have been a cattle prod and Castiel jerked back into the foreground, his gaze quickly snapping back to Dean. He looked worried again, all reverence for his mother replaced by the much more familiar worry lines around his troubled green eyes.
Dean’s other hand came to rest on the side of his face and Castiel stared blankly, nonplused, as Dean’s thumb slid under his chin, gently urging him to look up a little more.
“Look at me,” Dean asked, his voice uncharacteristically gentle.
Castiel nearly pointed out that he already was, but then he realized it wasn’t his vessel’s eyes he was watching Dean with.
He made his human eyes rise to Dean’s. “What are you doing?”
“You just need some rest, that’s all,” Dean told him, as if that answered his question. As if he had asked a question.
The short conversation was doing nothing to help ease the disconnected and misaligned feeling Castiel was struggling to understand. He felt like he was missing whole chunks of understanding; even though he frequently had a hard time reading between the lines that Dean spoke, this was something altogether different.
Why couldn’t he think properly?
Perhaps that banishing sigil had hit him harder than he thought. He poked at his grace. It stabbed back.
Dean was pushing him by the shoulder, steering him towards the car. Where his mother was waiting.
She stared at Castiel through the window, offering a small, tentative smile under dazed blue eyes. He supposed being dead for thirty years and then suddenly not would be a bit jarring.
“Cas.”
He looked over. With his human face.Tedious.
Dean was holding the back door open, gesturing for him to sit in the seat behind his mother.
“Come on, buddy, get in.”
The leather gave under his weight and Castiel sunk gratefully into it, his bones had turned to lead now that he’d finally stopped moving for a second.
Dean was pushing at his shoulder again and Castiel glared without managing to turn his head and aim it at Dean.
“Lay down, Cas.”
What for? Castiel wanted to ask. There were things to be done and sitting up would be much better to do them. He needed to be debriefed, first of all.
Dean’s mother was sitting in the passenger seat.
Dean was alive.
Things were fine.
An explanation was in order.
“Cas…Cas, lay down, it’s ok. Just rest.”
But why, though? He realized then that he didn’t care. Dean was still pushing against his shoulder, his gentle touch much more irritating than the hunter likely intended. So he gave in, he laid down across the back seat, and curled his arms around the leather jacket that appeared under his head.
Pointed screws burrowed into his brain, searing his nerves like hot pokers.
Iron shackles bit into his wrists when he struggled and screamed.
Castiel scrambled away, his chest seizing and eyes snapping open. Dean was in front of him, his hand hovering in the air between them as if frozen in time, and the hard bulges of the door were digging hard into Castiel’s back.
“You’re ok, Cas,” Dean assured him. He spoke so softly. So un-Dean like. “We’re home, we just…here, let me help you.”
Castiel flinched away from Dean’s hand without knowing why, grace flaring behind his ribs and crackling along his finger tips like faulty wires. Twisting to grab the handle, he shouldered the door open and smothered the urge to lash out like a trapped animal.
Outside, the crisp fresh air felt too thick to make it down his constricted throat, but that didn’t stop Castiel’s lungs from trying to suck as much of it down as they could.
For a moment he let himself mourn the days where he could tell his vessel to do something and it would obey. He could shut emotions off as easy as flicking a switch. He could push muscle and bone and blood beyond their natural capacity. He could rip his own arm off and beat someone with it if he’d felt compelled.
Now…now he rested his elbows on the roof of the car and threaded his fingers into his hair, trying to slow his breathing, noticing for the first time the coldness that was spreading through his gut and the tight feeling in his chest – like there was a thick rubber band around his rib cage.
“Cas…”
A gentle breeze carried Dean’s voice and the hunter sounded hesitant in the vast darkness behind Castiel’s eyelids.
He clung to the sound of the breeze moving through the tall trees around him, listened to the gentle rustle of leaves and the creaking of the thick trunks as they swayed. Timing his breathing to the sound of the wind helped his heart and his mind to slow down as well and, after a few moments, Castiel no longer felt as if he was in danger of splitting at the seams. His grace sputtered and hissed one last time before he finally felt calm enough to pull it back in and he took one last, deep breath.
“I’m sorry,” he said before he’d even opened his eyes, sounding like a broken record even to himself.
Sorry I couldn’t protect Sam. Sorry I couldn’t fight off Rowena’s spell. Sorry I nearly beat you to death. Sorry you had to come get me because I wasn’t paying attention and got banished. Sorry I couldn’t tell you apart from a nightmare. Sorry I can’t seem to do anything right.
Sorry, sorry, sorry…
“It’s ok,” and the careful, gentle way Dean spoke was like a nail through Castiel’s heart. He very narrowly stopped himself from clutching his chest, once again left wondering why.
Why did he feel as if he was on the verge of collapsing in on himself like a dying star? He’d died before on the end of his own blade. This felt disturbingly similar, but no matter how many times he rubbed his hand across his chest, he found no wounds.
This was human. This was emotion.
This was bullshit.
Dean was talking to him again, being so careful in the way he moved and spoke that Castiel found it unnerving. He inched away, feeling infinitely guilty for it even as he did so. It didn’t help when Dean looked as if he’d been punched in the gut, his hand outstretched into the air between them as Castiel backed away.
Clenching his jaw so hard Castiel could see the muscle jump, Dean let his hand drop.
Castiel’s throat tightened ominously. “I’m sorry…I’m just – I’m just tired.” It was a weak excuse but it was the only one he had.
“I know,” Dean told him. The gravel under his worn boots crunched loudly when he shifted his feet. “Come on, let’s get inside and you can get some sleep, ok? You can sleep as long as you want, I promise.” He tried to smile, but it looked more like he urgently needed the washroom instead.
It wasn’t what Castiel had meant by ‘tired’ but he chose not to correct the man. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t need to sleep. He probably couldn’t even if he tried. Which was probably for the best, he thought, following Dean through the heavy metal door to the bunker. He remembered what sleep was like from when he was human. As if willingly falling unconscious wasn’t terrifying enough, his brain had, most confusingly, been primed to make his sleep as horrifying and unrestful as possible.
No. He would not sleep. It wouldn’t do anything other than leave him vulnerable, and he’d been feeling enough of that as it was lately without subjecting himself to more of it.
At the bottom of the iron staircase, Sam was standing before his mother, both of them dancing without moving. Unsaid words hung between them like the delicate bubbles he’d seen children at parks playing with and there was a palpable air of something charged and electric in the war room.
It took him longer than it should have to realize Sam’s arm was in a sling.
Right. He’d been shot. Probably by that woman.
“You’re hurt,” he needlessly declared.
He was already raising his hand, grace sputtering along his frayed nerve endings.
Dean’s hand clamped around his wrist and his arm was pushed back down and then he was quickly shoved in the direction of the dorms.
“Dean?” Why wouldn’t Dean let him heal Sam? It was one of the few things he could still do. And after all, it was his fault Sam was even in need of healing. If he’d only been more careful, if he’d only stayed more aware of his surroundings instead of selfishly allowing himself to grieve Dean’s death so thoroughly –
“You need to rest, Cas, not use up your grace healing some scratch.” The hands on his shoulders eased their grip a little.
“I’m not…I don’t need – Dean, I’m fine,” the words didn’t snap as much as he thought they would, given how irritated and on edge he felt.
Dean spun him around right there in the middle of the hall, settling both hands on Castiel’s shoulders and holding him in place. When he stared at Castiel, Castiel thought Dean’s eyes looked a bit more dull than normal, the green faded from its usual vibrancy. But when he moved all of his eyes around, he rather thought that could be said for everything around him. Had the old lead paint on the walls always been so…grey looking?
“Cas, you are not ok and I really need you to take off your coat, change into the pj’s I’m gonna give you and sleep. Can you do that for me?”
He felt his mouth open but halted the words for a moment. He could not promise Dean that he would sleep, because he wouldn’t. It became obvious then, as he read the eager yet strained expression on the man’s face, that he probably wanted to go spend time with his newly resurrected mother.
Heat pushed in to Castiel’s face and he took a step back, letting Dean’s hands slip from his shoulders.
Of course the brothers would want to spend time with their mother. Of course they would. And they wouldn’t want him intruding on such a private family reunion.
“Ok,” he quietly agreed. He could give Sam and Dean this time alone. He would pretend to sleep and stay out of the way like they needed. It was the least he could do after all the trouble he had caused.
Suddenly he was simply grateful they were letting him stay at all. He wondered how long he had before they would grow tired of his presence once more. Perhaps it would be best if he left before they felt the need to ask him to. It wouldn’t be so bad this time, he reasoned even as his heart squeezed itself dry. He wasn’t human, he had his grace – and his mind – back. He only needed enough time to heal a bit more. Just a few days, maybe a week, to smooth down the raw and jagged edges from where Lucifer had been ripped from him and from where Rowena’s curse had dug its claws in deep.
When they reached the room he was to stay in, Castiel wasted no time shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over the foot of the bed. Reaching for his tie he looked up in time to catch Dean staring at him with a deep frown before the hunter cleared his throat and left the room, mumbling that he’d be back in a minute.
Castiel felt like he was stripping off layers of armor rather than clothing. By the time he had tossed his suit jacket and tie on top of his trench, his fingers were shaking too badly to properly manage the tiny buttons on his shirt.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he told himself. It was just a shirt. It was made of cotton, not chain-mail. It would do nothing to impede the point of a blade. He was no safer with it on than off.
“Here you go.”
Castiel flinched at the sudden sound of Dean’s voice, ripping the top two buttons right off and blinking as they pinged against the floor. Heat pushed in to his face again.
“Sorry,” Dean nearly whispered, hands clenching around the flannel pyjama bottoms he was holding.
Shame, Castiel remembered, was a disgusting feeling, and his lip curled around the sour taste of it, his gut swooping. Frustrated, he tugged on either side of his shirt, feeling a tiny amount of satisfaction when the rest of the buttons pinged off the floor.
He tossed the shirt on his pile of clothes and turned to Dean with his hand outstretched. But Dean was staring at him, his dull green eyes wide and worried.
Irritation smeared itself across the heat of shame in his chest and Castiel snapped. “You want me to change, right?”
As soon as he said it he realized it sounded strange. The kind of thing that would make Dean sputter and make some kind of joke before quickly leaving the room.
“I…” Dean swallowed. “I just want you to be comfortable. You look…” he cleared his throat like he was gargling rocks. “Here, just…”
Castiel took the proffered clothing and watched Dean’s back until he was out of the room and his footsteps had faded down the hall. Back towards where his mother and brother were waiting. Only then, when he was sure he was alone, did Castiel close the door and jam the desk chair under the handle.