Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1315984.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Supernatural
  Relationship:
      Castiel/Dean_Winchester, Balthazar/Gabriel_(Supernatural)
  Character:
      Dean_Winchester, Castiel_(Supernatural), Sam_Winchester, John_Winchester,
      Bobby_Singer, Gabriel_(Supernatural), Michael_(Supernatural), Lucifer_
      (Supernatural), Ellen_Harvelle, Jo_Harvelle, Alastair_(Supernatural),
      Balthazar_(Supernatural), Crowley_(Supernatural), Anna_Milton, Kevin
      Tran, Meg_Masters, Benny_Lafitte, Naomi_(Supernatural), Bartholomew_
      (Supernatural), Charlie_Bradbury
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Prostitution, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Abusive_John
      Winchester, prostitute!Cas, prostitute!Dean, Slow_Build, Eventual_Happy
      Ending, Lots_of_Angst_Though, human!AU, feelings_of_worthlessness, John
      Winchester's_A+_Parenting, Child_Abuse, Physical_Abuse, Minor_Character
      Death, Canonical_Character_Death, Sex_Work, Torture, Whipping, Forced
      Prostitution, Pimp!Crowley, Bakery_and_Coffee_Shop, Hurt_Dean_Winchester,
      Hurt_Castiel, Benny_is_a_BAMF, Alastair_Being_an_Asshole, Suicide
      Attempt, Emotional_Manipulation, Blackmail, Death_Threats, The_Author_Is
      Not_Actually_Sorry_For_Any_Of_This, Unfinished_and_Discontinued, THIS_IS
      NO_LONGER_UPDATING
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-03-15 Completed: 2014-11-27 Chapters: 12/12 Words: 40373
****** Fractus Animarum ******
by psychecas_(orphan_account)
Summary
     Dean’s life has gone to hell. John’s left him alone in Flagstaff with
     nothing but a few changes of clothes and his ratty shoes, and winter
     is just starting to settle in. He runs into Castiel purely by chance;
     he needs somewhere to stay, and the alley behind The Roadhouse is as
     good a place as any. The two boys do what they have to to get by as
     the days get shorter, but when Dean disappears, what will become of
     Castiel and the life he was hoping they could start to build? 
(Or:
     AU where John’s not a hunter, but still overreacts when Sam runs
     away.)

     UNFINISHED, ORPHANED, AND DISCONTINUED
***** The One Where I Find You *****
Dean doesn't know where he is, or how he got there, but he doesn't care. He
just keeps turning corners and dodging cars and listening for the thud of boot-
clad feet behind him. Only after he's heard nothing but the indignant horns of
commuters for several blocks does he slow and finally come to a stop in the
alley behind some bar. Dean leans against a dumpster and tries to catch his
breath, chest heaving. He sinks to the ground with exhaustion, not caring that
something wet is soaking into the seat of his jeans and that some kind of
insect just drawled its way across his knuckles. There's a slow burning rage in
the back of his mind, rage that he lets seep int every corner of his mind until
he physically can't hold it in anymore. He slams his fist into the metal
dumpster with a growl, but staggers upright when he hears a startled cry come
from behind it. Dean starts to move back as a head pops up from behind the
dumpster, quickly followed by shoulders and a torso. The boy standing in front
of him is about Dean's height, with wild black hair and a rumpled shirt.
"Who are you?" The boy asks suspiciously, wiping his eyes on the back of his
hand while simultaneously running a hand through his tousled hair.
"No one," Dean replies quickly. "Sorry, um, I'll just go." The boy peers at him
curiously.
"You're not a customer," he states, and Dean nods quickly. He's definitely not
looking for the services the boy probably markets. "What's wrong?" He seems
genuinely curious, and his piercing blue eyes feel like they're boring holes
into Dean's.
"Nothing. Nothing's wrong. I should let you go back to sleep." Dean turns away,
but he hears the boy step out from behind the dumpster and towards him.
"No, you've obviously been running, and there must be a reason why you look so
upset. Why are you here?"
"Honestly, dude, I didn't mean to end up here. I'll go."
"Stay," the boy commands, and there's something about his voice that makes Dean
turn back to him. "Tell me what's wrong."
"Why should you care?" Dean snaps, but the boy doesn't flinch .
"Why shouldn't I? Now tell me what's the matter."
"You're bossy."
"Yes, I am. Now tell me." Dean shrugs and looks down at his feet.
"Dad kicked me out of the motel. He'll be gone by the time I get back." The
boy's eyebrows furrow in confusion.
"What do you mean? Gone?"
"Yeah, gone. He's probably packed the car up by now and driven off with my
brother and all my stuff." Dean laughs bitterly, blinking away the tears
stinging the backs of his eyes. The boy reaches out a comforting hand, but
withdraws it when Dean shifts away.
"I'm sorry." The look the boy gives him tells Dean that he knows it's an
inadequate response.
"Yeah, well. That won't fix it. I just wish I'd had enough time to say goodbye
to Sammy."
"Your brother?" Dean has no idea why he's telling all this to a strange, bossy
guy who sleeps behind a dumpster and probably turns tricks for a living, but
there's an air of kindness around the boy that Dean didn't see a lot. The boy
seemed interested and, even more surprisingly, concerned for Dean and his well-
being.
"Yeah, my little brother." Dean scuffs the toe of his three-year-old sneakers
against the dirty asphalt and glares at a pile of trash a few feet away. The
boy shakes his head, a small smile on his face.
"I'm sorry. I've been rude. My name's Castiel." He sticks his hand out again,
but Dean takes it this time and shakes it, making eye contact and trying not to
be intimidated by the boy's eyes.
"Dean," he replies. Castiel nods and stifles a yawn.
"Sorry. You kind of woke me up there." Dean looks away again, guiltily, and
drops Castiel's hand.
"Like I said, I should go. You can get back to sleep." Castiel looks confused,
brows pinching together.
"I thought you said your dad would be gone?"
"I just thought I'd check to see if he left any of my stuff behind." Dean
doubted it. He'd be lucky if John hadn't burned his clothes. He turns away
again, and this time Castiel doesn't stop him.
"Dean?" He calls after a moment.
"Yeah?" Dean replies, half turning.
"If you don't have a place to stay, you could always come back here. It's
rather nice, for an alley." Dean grins, but hesitates. He doesn't know this
person, no matter how well-meaning he may be. He doesn't know why Castiel is on
the streets, why he lives like this. He could be a criminal or insane or even
just down on his luck. But he seems honest and open, and he took an interest in
dean when he could've just thrown something at him and yelled at him to get
away.
"Thanks, Cas. I'll remember that."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean isn't surprised at all to find the Impala gone when he finally makes his
way back to the motel. What he is shocked to see is a pile of clothes next to
the slightly propped door of their motel room. There's a small piece of paper
fluttering from underneath the pile, and Dean pulls it out and holds the note
gingerly.
Sorry. Love you, it reads in Sam's hurried scrawl. Dean sinks to his knees in
front of the door and tries to stifle the sobs building in his chest. What if
this is the last time he ever hears from his brother? What if he never sees Sam
again?
A few minutes later, when Dean's pulled himself together, he stands and enters
the room. It's immaculate, almost as if no one had been there for days, and he
knows that housekeeping - if there was any at the cheap business - wouldn't
have come for a few more hours at least. Dean pictures Sam stalling for time,
waiting for Dean to walk back in the door, even after John's shouts to never
come back were thrown across a busy street. Maybe Sam had made the beds as
slowly as possible, double and triple-checking that the sheets were even on
both sides, before straightening all the shampoo bottles and sneaking a t-shirt
or some socks for Dean under his jacket when John wasn't looking.
"I'm sorry, Sam," Dean whispers to the empty room. "I'm so sorry."
***** The One Where I Come Back *****
Chapter Summary
     "So," Cas says, after a moment of silence. "You came back." Dean
     nods, and finally Cas meets his gaze again.
     "Yeah."
     "Can I ask why?" Dean shrugs.
     "My dad left me. I've got nowhere else to go. Chances are I would've
     ended up somewhere like this anyways."
Dean showers in the motel room. He figures that he helped pay for it and they
weren't supposed to be leaving until nightfall anyways, so he has a good few
hours. Before the maid comes to clean the room, Dean sneaks out with wet hair
and a fresh pair of jeans, and all of his meagre belongings in a plastic bag
from Target.
He doesn't know where else to go, so Dean starts walking in the direction he
vaguely remembers running in earlier. John hadn't planned on staying in
Flagstaff long, just enough to take a look at some old cars his old mentor had
brought in. Even if John hadn't come home early, Sam might still have been gone
when he got back.
Soon enough, Dean reaches the Roadhouse, the bar in front of the alley where
Castiel lives. It's fairly busy for three on a Tuesday, so Dean figures that it
must double as a restaurant, but who is he to judge the people sitting in
stools and nursing beers? Places like this are where John Winchester spends
most of his time, and Dean would be lying if he said he'd never used his fake
I.D. to get in one and try to earn something to feed Sammy. Dean walks around
to the back, where he spots the familiar dumpster. This time, he walks around
it, and is pleased to see Castiel curled up underneath a few ratty sheets and a
jacket, with a bag of clothes stuffed under his head. Dean sits down slowly,
trying not to wake the sleeping boy, and leans his head against the building
behind them. Exhausted by the events of the last few hours, Dean drifts off to
sleep.
When Dean wakes up, it's considerably darker and Castiel is staring at him with
a force that makes him slightly uncomfortable. He's about a foot away from Dean
and is sitting with his legs crossed and hands folded. His dark hair is flat on
one side and sticking straight up on the other, and Dean can't help but let a
grin work its way across his face.
"Hi," he says stupidly, and mentally slaps himself. He's gate-crashed what
passes as this kid's house, and all he has to say is 'hi'?
"Hello, Dean." Castiel's eyes don't stray from Dean, who clears his throat and
glances around the alley uncomfortably.
"Um. Personal space, Cas. It's a thing, you know?" Castiel blushes faintly and
glances down at his lap.
"Sorry. I haven't had much social interaction in my life." Dean glances at his
clothes, the ripped black skinny jeans that look like they're just a few wears
away from falling apart and the painted-on shirt that frames the boy's chest
and raises an eyebrow. Cas's blush deepens. "That-that's not what I meant."
"Sorry," Dean offers. Cas nods, still mostly looking away from Dean.
"So," he says, after a moment of silence. "You came back." Dean nods, and
finally Cas meets his gaze again.
"Yeah."
"Can I ask why?" Dean shrugs.
"My dad left me. I've got nowhere else to go. Chances are I would've ended up
somewhere like this anyways." Dean sits forward and rolls out the kinks in his
neck, cursing himself for falling asleep upright. He takes in his surroundings
slowly, neither him nor Castiel saying a word. The alley is lit by the faint
glow of street lamps on the corners of the block, even though it's clear that
the sun has just recently gone down. People are walking in and out of the
Roadhouse, some obviously drunk and others just heading home after a nice meal.
"When do you start working?" Dean asks abruptly. He knows what Cas most likely
does for a living; he's been doing it for years to keep him and Sammy on their
feet. Cas shoots him a wary look, like he's not sure what Dean's going to do
next.
"Usually about an hour from now. Why?" Dean lifts one shoulder and lets it drop
casually.
"Just wondering if you wanted to protect your territory or something." Castiel
visibly relaxes.
"Not really. You've worked a corner before, then?" He unfolds his hands and
places them on the ground, lifting himself up and moving so that he and Dean
are nearly shoulder-to-shoulder.
"Been doing it for a long time. Someone had to keep me and Sam alive while my
dad was off getting drunk." At that thought, Dean's stomach rolls. Will John be
able to provide for Sam like Dean did, or will he just let the kid take care of
himself while he gets pissed? Dean always made sure that Sam always had clothes
that fit and food he liked, and he never resented the kid for anything he had
to do to get the money. What will John be willing to give up to keep Sam happy?
"A long time? How old are you?" Cas inquires.
"Eighteen, if anyone's asking," Dean replies with a wry grin Cas readily
returns.
"Ditto. What a pair we make, huh?"
"Yeah. So if we're both going to be hooking tonight and you still want me to
stay, how are we gonna do this?" Dean asks, getting back to the point he was
trying to make earlier.
"You can take the other corner if you like; a lot of the Roadhouse's patrons
leave that way. I've switched back and forth before, but I have a few regulars
that come this way consistently." Dean thinks that over. Cas is giving him a
place to stay (although technically it's neither his nor a legitimate
dwelling), and he's offering to give up a regular spot to him.
"You must be really starved for human contact if you're willing to let me crash
your party," Dean marvels.
"I'm not normally, although I've probably spoken to less than a hundred people
in my life if you're not counting customers," Cas responds seriously, and Dean
just about chokes on his own spit.
"Less than...you know what? I won't even ask." Cas laughs and knocks his
shoulder into Dean's.
"Shut up. Asshole." Dean grins. This is the kind of playful banter he'd had
with Sam on the good days when John had been gone for a while and wouldn't be
back for a few days yet. Dean had made sure to fight with Sam as little as
possible when their dad was gone because Sam and John never got along and could
hardly be in the same room for five minutes without disagreeing on something or
other.
A moment later, Cas's eyes fix on a man coming out of the Roadhouse door and
stands quickly.
"Guess that's my cue," Dean says, accepting the offered hand and pulling
himself upright.
"Good hunting, Cas," Dean tosses over his shoulder as he walks away, and grins
when he hears Cas laugh.
"You too, Dean."
***** The One Where I Tell You Things (And You Tell Me Things Back) *****
Chapter Summary
     "No big deal. How long have you been doing this?" He's genuinely
     curious -Cas doesn't exactly seem the type to be homeless and turning
     tricks for a living, and he can't be older than Dean himself.
     "On and off for the last four years. I've been in and out of my
     family home since then. A while ago I found myself out of my house
     and decided to just stay here permanently. The Roadhouse is a good
     place for business." Dean nods.
     "You can say that again. I've made more in the last three hours than
     I did tricking for two days straight in Tennessee."
     "You must be good at what you do then." Cas says this with no
     particular inflection, as if he's just stating a mundane fact and not
     discussing Dean's ability to give head.
     "We've been doing this for a while, you and me. We should be pretty
     close in skill."
It's a good night, as far as Dean's concerned. He learned the trade years ago,
and can lure customers in -both men and the occasional woman- in with just a
look. Usually. He has to applaud Cas's choice of location; hustling outside of
a bar can pull in good cash. In a city like Flagstaff, plenty of people are
willing to pay for what Dean has to offer, and after just a few hours he's made
nearly a hundred dollars, even with the ache in his bones and bruises starting
to form below his skin. He doubts anything's broken, but his ribs hurt and he
still fights back a wince whenever he moves his left wrist.
When the sign in the Roadhouse's window flips from Open to Closed, Dean turns
and heads slowly down the alley, listening for the telltale noises that would
signal that Cas has a customer. There's nothing but the faint hum of traffic
from the opposite corner, so Dean heads towards Cas, who is leaning casually
against the brick wall of the bakery behind the Roadhouse. He eyes each
pedestrian with the gaze of a predator, calculating and dangerous. Dean tries
to suppress the shiver that look sends down his spine when Cas turns to him.
"Jesus, Cas. Stop it with the sex eyes," Dean mutters, and Castiel looks down,
flushing. It's a wonder how he can go from sexy hooker to embarrassed teenager
in .05 seconds, and Dean can't help but marvel how this boy has managed to
survive on the streets.
"Sorry. I didn't realize," Cas says softly. Dean shrugs it off.
"No big deal. How long have you been doing this?" He's genuinely curious -Cas
doesn't exactly seem the type to be homeless and turning tricks for a living,
and he can't be older than Dean himself.
"On and off for the last four years. I've been in and out of my family home
since then. A while ago I found myself out of my house and decided to just stay
here permanently. The Roadhouse is a good place for business." Dean nods.
"You can say that again. I've made more in the last three hours than I did
tricking for two days straight in Tennessee."
"You must be good at what you do then." Cas says this with no particular
inflection, as if he's just stating a mundane fact and not discussing Dean's
ability to give head.
"We've been doing this for a while, you and me. We should be pretty close in
skill." Cas scoffs.
"Yeah, sure. Hey," he glances towards the Closed sign on the door of the bar.
"You got enough for a burger? The owner usually lets me in if it's just after
closing." Dean shrugs. It's not like he's going to be using the money for
anything else except condoms. And maybe socks -he always seems to lose them as
soon as he takes them off.
"Why not?" He follows Cas out of the alley and into the Roadhouse, which hasn't
been locked up yet. Castiel takes a seat at the bar like he's done it dozens of
times (and hey, he probably has). There's a girl not much older than them
wiping down the counter, and she shoots a friendly grin at Cas and a wink at
Dean. He winks back, and she comes ofer and leans across the counter.
"You allergic to daytime or something, Castiel?" She asks playfully. Cas smiles
and shakes his head.
"I'm afraid not, Jo. More often than not Gabriel brings someone home with him
and the last thing I want to be doing is listening to my brother have sex." Jo
scrunches up her face in a universal conveyance of ewwww.
"TMI, Castiel. Who's your pretty friend?" She directs this towards Dean, who
offers his hand across the counter, thinks about where that hand has been in
the last hour, and withdraws it.
"I'm Dean. Dean Winchester." Jo jerks back from the counter like she's been
shocked.
"Did you say Winchester?" She asks tensely, a shadow darkening her face. Dean
nods uncertainly, wondering what had made her react like this.
"Jo? What's wrong?" Cas asks, confusion evident in his voice.
"Nothing...I need to get my mom," she says abruptly, and ducks out from behind
the bar. Jo rushes towards and older woman who's chatting with some men seated
in the corner of the restaurant and murmurs something too low for Dean to
catch. The woman's head snaps toward him, an inscrutable expression on her
face. She makes her way over to where Dean and Cas are sitting, never once
taking her eyes off Dean.
"Is there a problem, Ellen?" Cas asks, but she doesn't reply.
"You Dean Winchester?" She asks sharply.
"Yes, ma'am." Dean decides that polite deference is the way to go with this
Ellen. She doesn't look too pleased with him, and he'd prefer not to get kicked
out his first time in.
"John Winchester's boy?" He nods, and her eyes soften a bit.
"Where's your father?" She inquires, glancing around the bar like John had
walked in without her knowing. Dean looks away.
"I don't know, ma'am." Her gaze is drawn back to him, and Dean makes himself
look her in the eye.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
"Dad left me here earlier today. Kicked me out of the motel and took off with
Sammy. He could be anywhere by now." Ellen's scowl creases her forehead, anger
hardening her features.
"That son of a bitch. I'm calling him and telling him you're here." Before Dean
can protest, Ellen has her phone out and is dialing in John's number.
"John Winchester, you get your ass back down here and you pick up your son,"
she snaps into the phone as soon as it stops ringing. There's muffled shouting
from the speaker, and from what Dean can gather, John is drunk off his head and
has no intentions of taking him back.
"John, I don't know what happened and I'm not gonna ask, but the boy need his
father. He's, what, seventeen? He's lucky he still has a father, you bastard."
the voice from the other end is softer now, and Dean can't make out the words.
"I'm not trying to make this about Bill, John. This is about you and your son.
You can't just dump him in a city he knows nothing about and expect him to
survive. You're lucky he came in with one of my customers." Dean can hear John
make a cutting remark along the lines of "he can feed himself just fine if he
puts his mind to it" and flushes in shame. Ellen barely spares him a glance.
"Just-" she cuts off and holds the phone away from her ear. "The bastard hung
up on me." Dean sneaks a glance over at Cas, who looks confused but
sympathetic.
"What does this have to do with Bill?" He asks. Ellen shakes her head wearily.
"Nothing, Castiel. Leave it." He slumps at the admonishment.
"Sorry."
"It's alright, boy. Now," she turns towards Dean again. "Do you have a place to
stay?" Dean hesitates. He's not sure if he wants to accept this woman's
hospitality, but it would be a welcome reprieve from the streets. He glances
again at Castiel, who shrugs, as if to say it's up to you.
"I thought I might stay with Cas," he answers. Not a lie, and it gives him a
chance to see how much Ellen knows about Cas's living conditions. Ellen peers
at Cas suspiciously.
"Your brothers know about this, Castiel?"
"I'm staying with Gabriel, and he's okay with it." Cas gives a noncommittal
shrug, meeting Ellen's eyes evenly. She eyes him suspiciously, but eventually
nods.
"Alright then. But if either of you need anything, don't you dare hesitate to
ask." Dean sags in his seat - out of relief or disappointment he's not sure.
"Thanks, Ellen."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean and Cas stay at the bar and order burgers, which cost more than the fast-
food burgers that Dean's used to but are worth every cent. They talk with Jo
and Ellen before she points out that it's nearly four in the morning and won't
Gabriel be wondering where they are, so they leave, but before Dean can walk
out Ellen hugs him and Jo kisses his cheek and sends him another flirtatious
wink. As he follows Cas behind the bar, Dean can't help but feel guilty for
deceiving the Harvelles. The two of them make their 'beds' silently, lying
close together to protect themselves from the slight chill of the August air.
The dumpster provides a bit of reprieve, but Dean's still cold. It takes nearly
ten minutes of both of them not-sleeping for Dean to break the silence.
"So they don't know you live here." It's not a question.
"No. I've imposed on their hospitality before; I'd feel guilty doing it again.
Also, I'd rather Ellen not know that I got kicked out of my home." Dean raises
his eyebrows, though he knows Cas can't see him.
"Wow. What'd you do?" Cas laughs low in his throat.
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." This pulls a laugh out of Dean. It
can't hurt to share with Cas, and while he's never been lax with personal
information, he's never met anyone quite like the boy lying next to him.
"Why not?" He turns on his side so that he's facing Cas, who follows him. Their
faces are inches away when Dean begins to speak.
"My dad's never around. Every month or so he packs me and Sammy up and moves us
somewhere else, but during that month, we're basically left to fend for
ourselves. He leaves us money for cheap vending machine food and a little to
placate the clerk at whatever crappy motel we're staying at, but it's hardly
ever enough. I don't know where he gets it, and I don't really want to, but
it's never enough. So a few years back, I left the room and went to a local
truck stop. Wasn't quite sure what I was doing, to be honest, but I managed
enough to keep Sam eating for the next few days. I went again and again, that
month, and by the time Dad showed up I'd given the guy at the motel enough to
keep him off of our backs for the last few days he was gone. So that was what I
did whenever he left: found a truck stop or worked a corner for a week or so
until I had enough to keep us in the motel.
"Sam's always done what I tell him to, which is basically to stay in the room
and watch TV until I get back. Dad tells me to stay and watch him, but I can't
exactly do that. I came back to the room we rented a few days ago, and Sam was
gone. Half of his clothes were gone and there was nothing but a note saying
that he'd be back before Dad. I tore up the town looking for him, I swear, but
I hadn't found anything except a shit ton of druggies and hookers. Today Dad
came back, around noon, and Sammy was still gone. I was sleeping when he came
in, and when he saw that Sam was gone, he flipped. Started beating the crap
outta me before I was even really awake, shouting that I was supposed to take
care of my brother, that I had one job and I fucked it up. Not sure how long
that went on.
"Pretty soon, I think, Sam walked back in the room, casual as you like, and
stopped dead when he saw Dad. Dad told him real quietly to get outside, but he
didn't move. I ran out the door, just wanting to get away. I shoulda known
better. By the time I was halfway out of the parking lot, Dad was chasing me,
but I just kept running. He shouted at me to not come back, that he never
wanted to see me again, but I didn't stop. And then, well, I did. You know the
rest." Dean's voice hangs in the air, and he opens eyes he hadn't realized were
closed to meet Cas's gaze.
"Wow," is all Cas manages.
"Yeah. The only thing I regret is leaving Sammy. The kid left me clothes and a
note and everything. I don't even know where he went for those few days, never
had the time to ask."
"Why did your father get so angry?" Dean lifts the shoulder that's not
supporting his weight in a shrug.
"When I was four, my mom was killed in a house fire that started in Sammy's
nursery. I managed to carry him out in time, but my dad couldn't save her. He's
been borderline obsessive over keeping Sam safe -I think he thinks that Sam's
the last piece of his wife he's got left." Dean tries not to let bitterness
seep into his tone, but judging by the comforting hand Cas lays on his arm, he
doesn't succeed.
"Do you resent him for that?" Cas asks quietly, and for a second Dean wants to
shout at him that this isn't Dr. Phil and that he has no right asking him
questions like that, but then he thinks about it.
"No," he replies honestly. "The man taught me how to shoot a .22 at age nine
and drank himself into a coma when I was too young to stay with Sam alone. I
was always trying so hard to do what he wanted, to be the perfect son, but he
never seemed to care. If I hadn't been around, Sam might have died before he
turned two."
"My family was always extremely religious," Cas says suddenly, drawing his hand
back. "My mother named all her children after angels: the twins Michael and
Lucifer, Gabriel, Annael, and me."
"Religious, huh?" Dean breaks in. "Is that why they named your brother
Lucifer?"
"Yes, although no one really comments anymore. He and Michael have made quite a
name for themselves in the medical industry." Dean's mind flashes back to
headlines he caught glimpses of as a child, and his jaw drops.
"You're a Novak?" The family was supposedly rich, full of stuck-up old money
folks who were only interested in making life easier for themselves.
"Yes." The answer is matter-of-fact.
"What the hell are you doing on the streets then, Cas?"
"I was getting to that part. Now, are you going to let me talk or not?" Dean
rolls onto his back and nudges Cas's leg with his foot.
"Sorry. Keep going."
"My mother died when I was just an infant. She had some kind of cancer, which I
suppose is one of the reasons Michael and Lucifer decided to pursue medical
careers. My father abandoned us shortly after, just after they turned nineteen.
I was only five at the time, Gabriel was thirteen, and Anna was eleven. Michael
took control of the family, legally adopting the three of us. Lucifer left
home, but still visited occasionally. It wasn't a bad life, I suppose. Michael
tended to follow in our parents' methods of raising children: hiring nannies
and tutors for me, and sending Gabriel and Anna to public school after they'd
begged him to for years.
"I never had any interest in going to school. By the time I was twelve, I had
completed most of the coursework for typical high schools and was even
beginning to take some online college courses. Michael and Gabriel showed up
for dinner one night and tried to convince me to enroll in the middle school a
few streets away. I refused, and Michael said that he would make me, that I had
to have some semblance of social interaction and normalcy in my life. That was
the first time I ran away." Castiel pauses in his story to nudge Dean's side.
"I'm listening," he murmurs. Cas's voice is soothing, but the story he tells is
keeping him alert.
"Do you want all the sordid details of how I started whoring myself out, or are
you content with me skipping it?"
"What ever you're comfortable with."
"Okay. So I left the house for the first time in nearly a year. I was never a
social person, as you may have gathered, and when I was younger I had developed
anxiety. It was a spur of the moment decision, running away. I was angry and
hurt and wanted to get away from my brothers as soon as I could. So I ran for a
few blocks with no idea where I was going, and ended up outside of the
Roadhouse. I didn't know what to do, so I stood out by the entrance for a short
while, until an older guy came stumbling out, shoved some bills in my hand, and
told me to suck him off.
"I was thirteen, and while I had free access to the internet, I knew very
little about sex. I allowed the man to pull me into this alley and was too
confused and frightened to tell him to stop when he pushed me onto my knees."
"Did you go through with it?" Dean questions. Cas huffs out a laugh.
"I did, as a matter of fact. It wasn't very good, but the guy was too drunk to
notice. He finished, pulled up his pants and staggered away. I think I was
mostly in shock after that first incident." Dean shakes his head and laughs in
disbelief.
"So, let me get this straight. You didn't want to go to school, so you threw a
bitch fit, ran away, got mistaken for a hooker, and sucked someone off because
you didn't see why not? Dude, you were almost as messed up as me!" He can't
stop laughing, and after a moment, Cas joins him.
"I suppose I was a rather strange child," Cas admits when they finally calm
down. "But that night it happened again, twice. I fell asleep behind the
dumpster and sat on the curb the following night. I'm not sure why I did it,
actually. It's all a bit hazy, actually. I vaguely remember doing that for a
few days, before Ellen found me in the alley and took me in until I felt like
going home. She never brought up what I was doing, just told me that I could
stay however long I needed to."
"And where was your family in this whole equation?"
"I suppose Michael thought I was blowing off steam, which wouldn't be wrong. I
asked Gabriel why he didn't look for me, and he replied that he'd run away so
often, he knew what I felt like. He reminded me that he never wanted to be
found then, and that he knew I'd left for a reason, albeit a stupid one. Anna
was the only one who was truly concerned; she sat me down and told me that her
apartment on the college grounds was always open to me, should I need it."
"I think I like your sister better than your brothers," Dean remarks. "Not that
I have much to go on, of course.
"I did too," Cas murmurs.
"Did?" Dean winces, berating himself for asking.
"Anna died." They both fall silent, letting the faint noises of the early-
morning traffic hang in the air with those words.
"I don't think I'm supposed to say 'I'm sorry,'" Dean says roughly.
"I was kind of hoping you wouldn't." There's a trace of a smile in Cas's voice,
that little one that he gets when he's remembering something from long ago, and
wow it's really creepy how Dean knows that after just a day together.
"Michael and I never agreed on anything as I was growing up. He wanted me to
attend social functions with his friends from Harvard; I refused and slept here
every night for three weeks. He attempted to cut off my connection to Anna when
she encouraged me to study what made me happy instead of the medical path
Michael laid out for me; I lived with her for a few days and here for a few
more. He enrolled me in a public high school; I cut classes and left home for
nearly two months, most of which I spent in this alley. I stayed with Ellen, at
first, but I felt I'd overstayed my welcome and left. I couldn't bear to be
around my family at the time, so this seemed like the only reasonable option.
""In that time, I met a man, who I eventually began to call a friend. He was a
whore, in every sense of the word, and he embraced it. He taught me many things
about the life, and for a while we had a...I'm not even sure I can call it a
relationship. When we were sexually frustrated after a night of tricking, we
took it out on each other. It was nice, for a while. He left, eventually,
moving on to Vegas, his original destination, so I went home.
"It was alright, for a while. I resumed my studies without being made to go to
school, and Michael left me alone. Then, about eight months ago, a truck plowed
into Anna's car. It killed her instantly, but I was not so fortunate. I was the
one behind the wheel; she said that it was time for me to get my license and
that she would teach me during her free time. I was proficient by then, but the
driver of the truck was apparently too drunk to notice that he was driving on
the wrong side of the freeway.
"I was in critical condition for several weeks, and for a while it was thought
that I wouldn't pull through. I had lost a large amount of blood, and, had I
been sitting an inch to the left or right, my spine would have been severed and
my lungs punctured. Lucifer performed all my surgeries himself, refusing to let
anyone else do it. After they were complete, I was comatose. They gave it a 60/
40 chance of me waking up again, but I did." As Cas speaks, it occurs to Dean
that he doesn't remove his clothes for tricks. It seemed strange to him when he
got back from the opposite corner, earlier, that Cas looked so un-rumpled and
professional, for lack of a better word. Now he wonders if Cas has scars too
personal to just show any john who wants him naked in the back of a truck.
"I was in the hospital doing physical therapy and being closely monitored for
nearly three months, completing my recovery in an astonishingly short time.
Preparations for Anna's funeral were made and when I returned home, I joined
them. When Michael told me that I was too young to speak, that he wouldn't
allow it, I exploded. I said things I regret, and I can only hope that he
regrets his words. He blamed me, maybe still does, and he told me so. He told
me that he could hardly bear to look at me, that it made him sick to think that
I had survived and that she did not." Cas's voice cracks, and Dean places a
hand on his. Cas laces their fingers together, and he doesn't resist.
"So I left. I've been here ever since." Dean can't breathe, and the only thing
running through his mind is that Cas shouldn't feel like this, should never be
angry or sad or scared, and he doesn't know where that came from at all.
"Cas," he starts, but then he realizes that he has nothing to say, no words to
describe how he's feeling.
"I know, Dean." And then he notices that his fingers are still locked with
Cas's and he breathes again.
"Thank you. For telling me that." And that's enough, for now. That's enough to
say to this stranger who he just poured out his soul to and got a soul poured
out to him in return from.
"Goodnight, Cas."
"Goodnight, Dean." And there's that small, sad smile again.
***** The One Where We Might Be Lovers *****
Chapter Summary
     "What can we do for you today?" Cas rumbles, his voice pitched an
     octave lower than normal.
     "How much for both of you?" The man asks without preamble. Dean holds
     back a derisive snort - he and Cas always seem to get the ones who
     like threesomes.
     "Two hundred, up front," Cas replies evenly. Dean's happy to let his
     friend take care of the 'business' part of their jobs.
     "That seems a bit excessive," the john says with a raised eyebrow.
     "One fifty."
     "One seventy-five, final offer," Cas replies, his face blank and
     voice steady. The john smirks.
     "Fine." He forks over the money to Cas, who carefully counts it and
     then slides the cash into his pocket. Dean knows he'll get his share
     after the job.
     "And what will you be paying for tonight?" Dean asks smoothly. The
     john smiles coldly.
     "I just want to watch."
Chapter Notes
     I honestly have no excuse for this. I am so sorry. Really. It's just
     that life's been hectic, and I lost my muse for a bit, but NEVER
     FEAR. This story is actually completed, and all I have to do is type
     the rest up. I promise that I'll be updating much more frequently now
     that summer's almost here. And so, without further ado, here is
     Chapter 4!
Three months later...
"Dean." A voice is tugging at his consciousness. "Dean, wake up." He groans and
rolls over, clutching his pillow closer. It's weird, but the mattress feels
harder than usual and it's way colder than any motel has the right to be.
"Fuck off," he mumbles. A hand grips his shoulder.
"Get up, you lazy ass. It's almost six." Six? What? Dean opens one bleary eye
and is met with the sight of Castiel standing over him. He jumps up, panic
rushing over him How long has he been asleep? how much time has he wasted
already?
"Relax, Dean." Cas steps away from him, allowing him enough room to stand.
"How late were we up?" Dean's memory of the previous night is hazy at best. He
vaguely recalls Jo trying to hook him up with one of her friends and Cas
sitting back with a beer and a taunting smirk as he ran in circles around the
girl trying to ward her off. He thinks that eventually he just threw his arms
around Cas and glared at her. He's not really sure.
"Well, you passed out a bit after sunrise. I was asleep a bit after that, but
I've been up for a few hours." Cas is one of those stupid people who don't get
hungover, which, given that his mouth tastes like cotton and his head feels
like it's being slammed repeatedly with a sledgehammer, kind of pisses Dean
off.
"Have I mentioned that I hate you?" He grumbles, stripping out of his shirt and
reaching into his 'suitcase' for a clean one. Cas chuckles and tosses a bottle
of Tylenol at him.
"No, never. In fact, I believe last night it was along the lines of 'oh,
Castiel, what ever would I do without you?'" Dean downs a few pills and glares
at his friend, who's smirking at him from the brick wall in front of the
dumpster that Dean's called home for three months.
"Shut up, you dick." He stretches languidly, moaning as he feels his bones
shift back into place. Dean doesn't miss the way that Cas's eyes follow the
strip of skin that the too-tight AC/DC shirt reveals as he lifts his arms over
his head, nor the way his eyes widen and his tongue darts out of his mouth to
wet his lips when Dean moans. It's become a routine for them; trying to out-do
each other by showing off. It kind of reminds Dean of peacocks, the way the
males show off their plumage to each other, trying to prove that they're better
than the others to try and attract a mate. Sometimes, though, Dean feels like
he does it just to see the look on Cas's face, and he won't deny that when his
friend stretches into one of those weird-ass yoga moves his sister taught him,
his eyes roam freely.
"You love me. Anyways, I woke you up because I assumed you wanted to work
tonight." Dean straightens his shirt and nods, stepping out from behind the
dumpster to join Cas.
"Yeah. I am in desperate need of a freaking pillowcase; if I wake up with dirt
on my face again I'm going to murder the pillow." Cas nods solemnly.
"Indeed. It would be a shame if anything ever got on your face, Dean. I mean,
dirt is so...ew." Dean laughs and knocks Cas's shoulder with his own.
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah. Want to share a corner?" Cas asks. They've done that before, tricking
together. Sometimes a john hires one of them over the other, sometimes one
hires them both. The 'package deal', as Dean has jokingly dubbed it, brings in
twice their usual income at least, and the night usually ends with them in the
Roadhouse convincing Ellen to let them have a beer or two.
"Yeah, sure," Dean decides. Cas is good company, if nothing else, and they
haven't run out of things to talk about yet. The day after they'd met, Dean had
absently asked what kind of music Cas listened to, only to be shocked into
horrified silence when Cas had replied that he'd really only ever listened to
classical music at home.
"You're joking," Dean had deadpanned. "You, mister I'm-Going-To-Become-A-
Hooker-To-Piss-My-Brother-Off, have never listened to anything harder than
Mozart?" Cas had flushed and looked down, and at that second, Dean had taken it
upon himself to educate Cas. Even if it had meant sleeping with the creepy goth
chick who worked at the record store three blocks away every thursday to be
able to use their collection.
As Dean follows Cas to the corner, he reflects on how much his life has changed
in the last three months. During those first few days, he and Cas danced around
each other, worried that they had shared too much. They'd relaxed soon, eased
by the late-night conversations about trivial things and Cas's strange
affection for sex jokes. As the days flew by he and Cas had grown close, closer
than he'd ever been with anyone but Sam. He took comfort in the fact that it
was new to Cas as well. Now as he follows his friend to the corner of the
street, he can't think of anyone he'd rather be with.
"So, do we have any specifics for the night?" Cas asks. It's their routine
question, an attempt to spare both of them a little dignity.
"Whatever you're cool with is fine. Just...no letting people slam me against
walls, okay? My head hurts like a bitch," Dean replies.
"And whose fault is that?" Cas teases.
"Yours, asshole. for letting me drink too much."
"I think that one's on Ellen," Cas says reasonably.
"Yeah, you're probably right. She must have finally gotten sick of telling me
no."
"She thinks you're a lot like your dad. That's why she's always looking out for
you, you know. She knows you can be better than him and she wants to help you
do it." Cas is doing the thing where he stares at Dean for an uncomfortable
amount of time, but by now Dean's used to it.
"Cas?"
"Yes, Dean?"
"Shut up."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It's a monday, so business is slower than normal, but Dean and Cas make do with
what they can get. It's about eleven thirty when a man who looks to be in his
mid-twenties stops in front of them. His eyes rake them both up and down, and
while it makes Dean feel distinctly uncomfortable, he's never one to turn down
a job.
"What can we do for you today?" Cas rumbles, his voice pitched an octave lower
than normal.
"How much for both of you?" The man asks without preamble. Dean holds back a
derisive snort - he and Cas always seem to get the ones who like threesomes.
"One hundred, up front," Cas replies evenly. Dean's happy to let his friend
take care of the 'business' part of their jobs.
"That seems a bit excessive," the john says with a raised eyebrow. "Fifty."
"Seventy-five, final offer," Cas replies, his face blank and voice steady. The
john smirks.
"Fine." He forks over the money to Cas, who carefully counts it and then slides
the cash into his pocket. Dean knows he'll get his share after the job.
"And what will you be paying for tonight?" Dean asks smoothly. The john smiles
coldly.
"I just want to watch." That's a new request, one that he's not sure would be
overstepping his and Cas's unspoken boundaries. Dean glances at his friend,
whose eyes are fixed on his, but Cas's face is as impassive as normal. Dean
nods ever so slightly, and Cas turns back to the john.
"Anything else?"
"No." Cas shrugs and motions the man to follow them deeper into the alley.
They've had a few close calls with cops before, ones that Dean would be glad to
never repeat. As soon as they're a safe distance away from the main street, Cas
turns to him, and Dean feels the first tendrils of trepidation coiling in his
stomach.
"Ready?" Cas rumbles. His face is half hidden in the dim light of the
streetlamp, and then Cas is advancing towards him with a predatory gleam in his
eyes and he’s giving Dean a look that he’s never seen directed at him before.
Cas’s eyes are dark with unbridled lust, a thin ring of blue barely visible
ringing his blown pupil, and it’s all Dean can do to stay upright when Cas
locks his gaze on his. He doesn’t realize he’s been backing up until his back
hits the brick wall of the Roadhouse. Cas is in Dean’s space now, barely two
inches of air separating their bodies. He can’t tear his gaze away from Cas,
and his breaths are erratic and hitched. Cas smirks, all cocky self-assurance
and swagger. Dean doesn’t think he’s ever been so turned on in his life.
“Ready?” Cas mutters, his whole body tensed, poised to strike at any moment.
“No,” Dean whispers. He’ll never be ready for this, not when Cas is so good and
kind and honest. He’s never going to be ready to lose Cas like he undoubtedly
will after this is over.
“Good.” And then Cas is pressed up against him and his mouth is covering Dean’s
and holy shit he’s a good kisser. Cas’s whole body is pressed flush into Dean’s
now, and he groans into his friend's mouth as Cas rolls his hips into Dean's.
"Jeans. Now," Cas bites, barely lifting his mouth from Dean's. He complies as
quickly as possible, while trying not to lose too much contact. There's no
question to how they're going to be doing this, not with the way Cas is acting.
So Dean does what he does best: lets himself relax. At least Cas will make sure
he enjoys himself.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean's still on sensory overload as he slumps against the wall, and he's so
fatigued that he doesn't notice that the john's gone until he musters the
strength to lift his head. Cas looks exhausted slumped next to him, with his
eyes shut and whole body sagging against the wall. His hair is the epitome of
'just had filthy morning sex' and his cheeks are flushed, but whether that's
from exertion or embarrassment Dean's not sure.
"Dude," he groans. "You look well and truly fucked." It's true, and Cas
chuckles darkly, finally opening his eyes.
"I thought that was supposed to be you," he grumbles lewdly. Dean knocks their
shoulders together and laughs.
"You're horrible."
"You like it," Cas returns, and Dean knows he's smiling stupidly but he can't
bring himself to stop because this is familiar and good and Cas doesn't seem to
be making any move to get as far away from Dean as possible. A swell of
affection rises in his chest as he and Cas lean on each other, and maybe that's
weird because Cas just fucked his brains out, but it doesn't feel out of place.
Dean looks at Cas and for some unfathomable reason can't stop smiling.
"You should go talk to Ellen," Cas says abruptly, and Dean snaps his eyes away.
"What? Why?"
"She promised you last night that she'd call Bobby." Dean's up on his feet in
an instant. It's been three months since he's heard anything about Sam, and no
matter how many times he or Ellen calls Bobby, nothing ever seems to turn up.
It hurts to hope, every week when Ellen calls again, but Dean holds tight to
it. If he doesn't hope, he's not sure how he'd handle never seeing Sam again.
Cas stumbles after him as he walks into the Roadhouse, grabbing the stupid
trench coat that Dean's tried to throw away more times than he can count, and
drops into a seat at the mostly-empty bar. It's still a few minutes before
closing time, which Dean is surprised to note.
"Guess Gabriel's not the only one getting laid tonight, huh Cas?" Jo says from
behind the counter, throwing a wink at the both of them. Cas flushes all the
way down his neck and raises a hand to try and flatten his hair down down. Dean
swats it away before he has the time to consider that maybe it's a bad idea
because Cas looks freaking adorable with sex hair. And then he's surprised that
he thought that at all. Jo smirks and pushes two glasses of water at them.
"Thank you for the commentary, Jo," Dean says, and raises his glass to her. She
grabs one of her own and clinks it against his.
"To you and Cas finally getting a clue." Cas chokes on the gulp of water he's
just taken and Dean whacks him solidly on the back before turning back to Jo,
his cheeks burning.
"What the hell, Jo?" He mutters, running a hand over the back of his neck.
She's talking like he and Cas have something going on, which he's pretty sure
they don't. Nothing beyond the last few minutes, anyways. Her eyes widen and
she glances quickly between the two of them.
"You mean you're not..."
"Dean and I have a strictly professional relationship, Jo. It's hardly
romantic, no matter what you may believe," Cas cuts in, and Dean tries to
pretend like the words don't inexplicably hit him like a punch in the gut.
"Yeah, Jo. Strictly professional," he echoes hollowly. She looks at them like
she doesn't quite buy it, but thankfully refrains from pressing further.
"Too bad. I guess I can call back Lisa, tell her you're interested after all."
Dean leans forward in his seat.
"Joanna Beth Harvelle, if you ever, ever try and set me up with one of your
friends again, you'll wish that the video camera had never been invented." He's
not exactly sure how he'd manage to get his hands on Ellen's home videos, or
what he'd find in them, but Jo's face pales, so he figures there's some pretty
good dirt on her somewhere.
"Fine," she says, glaring. Cas chuckles from next to him, and Dean leans back,
satisfied.
"Thank you." They chat for a bit about nothing in particular until Ellen
finally finds the time to make her way over.
"I talked to Bobby earlier," she starts. "And apparently your daddy showed up
blind drunk late friday night with your brother in tow." Dean sags in relief.
At least he knows that Sam's alive and safe.
"Did he leave a message?" He asks hopefully.
"No, but he said to call as soon as I told you." Ellen offers Dean her phone
and he grabs it, dialing in Bobby's familiar number. It takes a few rings for
him to pick up, but Dean's never been more relieved to hear his brother's
voice.
"Sammy?" His voice wavers, and he clears his throat, self conscious of Ellen,
Jo, and Cas all watching him.
"Hi, Dean." Sam sounds tired, but happy, and Dean briefly wonders if he was
sleeping.
"Did I wake you?"
"Nah. Not really. Where are you, Dean?"
"Still in Flagstaff. I'm staying with a friend."
"Didn't realize you knew anyone in Flagstaff," Sam says, sounding a little
confused.
"I met someone the day you left. He offered me a place to stay. Not important.
How have you been? Where have you been, for God's sake?"
"Dad's been hauling me all over the midwest for the last few months. He was
drunk off his ass for most of it, but we got by." Deans stomach sinks,
remembering what he had to do sometimes to keep Sam eating.
"You did okay? Got enough to eat and all?" He doesn't want to ask anything more
in depth than that. Sam's only thirteen, after all, and has no idea the lengths
Dean has gone to keep him sheltered from parts of his life. He doesn't resent
his brother, but sometimes when Sam takes simple things for granted, like the
box of cereal Dean blew a trucker to get the money for, he wishes he'd let him
see a little more of the struggle he'd gone through to provide for him when dad
couldn't.
"Yeah. I took some money from dad's wallet when we ran out of food." Dean
relaxes, unaware that he'd been holding his breath.
"Good, good. So are you gonna stay with Bobby?"
"Yeah, I'm gonna stick it out here until the end of the school year, maybe even
finish and graduate if it all plays out right. You can come up too, Bobby says,
graduate, if you work hard enough." Dean pauses. Sam's telling him that he can
go back to Bobby's, where he's spent a quarter of his life, and maybe find
something permanent. Bobby's not going to let John take Sam again, he knows
that much, so maybe he'll sober up. They can be a family again, or as close to
one as they can get. But then he glances up at Cas, at Ellen and Jo. If he
leaves now, he may never come back. He might never get to see Jo graduate, or
find out if Cas ever makes up with his brothers. They're his family, too, now,
and he doesn't just want to leave them. Dean is torn, between wanting to be
with his brother and wanting to stay with his family, and neither option sounds
perfect to him.
"Dean?" Dean meets Cas's gaze. He's staring at Dean like this might be the last
time he ever sees him, and all of a sudden he makes up his mind.
"Sorry, Sammy. I'm gonna stick it out here a while longer." Cas's lips twitch
up into a relieved, barely-there smile, and Dean can't help but think that he's
done the right thing. He couldn't bear to leave Cas, not now. Not after all
they've been through.
"What?"
"I'll stay here until the end of the school year, then come up to visit you and
Bobby and Dad. Then I might come back down and look for a place of my own here
in Flagstaff." Dean shocks himself by saying it. Those are the most solid plans
he's thought of in the last months. Cas is full on grinning now, and Ellen is
smiling softly and looking at him with pride in her eyes.
"Huh. Well, good for you, I guess," Sam says, and now it's Dean's turn to be
confused.
"I thought you'd be upset."
"Nah. You're finally doing something for you, Dean. That's all I really care
about." Dean grins and blinks hard. He's not tearing up. Definitely not. Nope.
"Shut up, bitch."
"Yeah, whatever, jerk." The line is silent for a moment.
"I'll call you," Dean finally says into the receiver. "Every week."
"Got it. Good luck, Dean. I'll miss you." Sam sounds final, and Dean figures
it's time to wrap the conversation up.
"'Night, short stack."
"I'm almost as tall as you are."
"Good night, Sammy."
"Yeah, good night." The line goes dead, and Dean hands back the phone to Ellen.
She pulls him into a hug, then gives him a gentle nudge toward the door.
"You and Cas should get going. It's almost closing time." Cas stands and moves
next to Dean. They exchange goodbyes, and soon they're back in the alley that
Dean has begun to think of as home.
"So you're really staying?" Cas asks as soon as they're settled for the night.
"Yeah, I guess so," Dean replies.
"Good." Cas is turned towards him, and they're very nearly wrapped around each
other, faces inches apart. It's long since stopped being awkward, but it's only
now that Dean realizes how close they are, and not only physically. He's just
about to say something - he's not sure what - when Cas kisses him.
This is nothing like the heat-filled, frenzied kisses of earlier. No, this kiss
is just a brief pressure of Castiel's lips against Dean's; there one second and
gone so quickly he might have imagined it. For some reason, he hopes that he
didn't.
"Cas-" Again, he's not sure what he's going to say. Maybe something like 'do
that again', he's not sure. He never gets the chance.
"Good night, Dean." Cas turns onto his other side, and the conversation is over
before it's even begun.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean can't sleep. His mind is replaying the kiss on repeat, a litany of Cas
pressed up against him playing over and over again inside his head. Eventually,
he gives up on sleep and crawls out from behind the dumpster to pace the alley.
Cas kissed him. Cas kissed him with no warning, no paid incentive. He absently
touches his fingers to his mouth, trying to recreate the sensation of Cas's
lips. It doesn't work.
It's nearly noon when Dean stops pacing. His feet are sore and his eyes keep
drooping shut and he still can't bring himself to lie down next to Cas and try
to sleep. So he does the next best thing. He knows it's dangerous to be out
tricking in broad daylight, but there's nothing else he can do. So Dean stands
on the corner and waits as normal people with normal lives walk by him. He lets
his mind wander to Sam, to Bobby, to anything but Cas as he leans against the
red brick of the side of the Roadhouse, until he hears a voice come from behind
him.
"You'll do." Dean whirls around to see a tall man with sandy hair watching him
from a few feet away with a glint in his eye that makes Dean want to run away.
"Yes, I think you'll do quite nicely." The man approaches him slowly, sliding
his wallet out of his pocket.
"How much for everything?" He asks. Dean assesses him, trying to figure out how
much he's willing to give. He's dressed in an expensive looking suit, and he
moves with a sleek pride that Dean rarely sees in anyone but the supremely
wealthy.
"Eighty," he replies, trying not to let the nervousness he feels when the man
gets close seep into his voice. The john nods, looking down at his wallet. Dean
starts to stretch his arm out, but before he can take the bills offered to him,
there's a sharp jab of pain in his neck. Before he can react, darkness is
swimming in his vision and strong, impersonal arms are pulling him up away from
the ground. The last thing he sees before he slips into unconsciousness is the
man's wicked smile.
***** The One Where We Both Get Lost *****
Chapter Summary
     "And up there, Castiel, is the Angel. He's not a real constellation,
     I guess, not to the scientists, but I remember that Mom used to point
     him out to me every night when she was pregnant with you. She'd trace
     him with her fingers and she'd touch her belly, and she'd call you
     her little angel. I think she always loved you best, even if she
     never really knew you."
     "If Mom's gone, Anna, then why are the stars still there?"
     "Because she told them to keep you company, Castiel. And they're
     never going to break that promise."
When Cas wakes up, he is alone. The last vestiges of sunlight are still
lingering in the sky, coloring it a rich purple he rarely sees. It's nearly
November, and soon enough the snow will come. He's not sure what he and Dean
will do then, but they'll think of something. They always do. As he sits up,
Cas glances around. Dean is nowhere to be seen, but that's not exactly unusual.
He can't help the worry curling in his gut, however. He'd messed up last night,
when he kissed Dean, and he doesn't want to think about what's going to happen
when Dean, inevitably, tells him that he's not interested. How could he be?
Sure, they play their games, and the entire incident with the john last night,
but deep down, Dean's too good for him, and they both know it.
  He tries not to worry too much as he changes his shirt quickly. Dean's things
are still where they were last night, so there's little chance of him actually
being gone. Cas decides against checking Dean's corner just to see if he's
there; if Dean wanted to talk to him he would have waited or woken him up. So
he drapes Anna's trench coat over their bed and walks to the corner. As the
last drops of sunlight drain away, more and more people come walking out of the
Roadhouse, some drunk, some not. Cas doesn't really care, as long as he gets
some decent pay.
By the time the Roadhouse is closing, Cas is tired. He slept too much last
night and now he's paying the price for it. He just wants to curl up next to
Dean and pass out for a few more hours, so that's what he does. Before another
John can catch his eye, Castiel starts walking the alley towards Dean. Or at
least, towards where he's supposed to be. Because Dean's not there, not leaning
against the Roadhouse with the confident swagger that Cas has become so
accustomed to seeing while they trick.
It's fine, he assures himself. He's just off in some asshole's truck. It
happens occasionally, when men don't want to get blown in an alley, which Cas
finds strange. They're the ones paying for sex, why should they care where it
is or even who it comes from? But Dean rarely goes with strangers, and Cas
never does. He never shows anyone his scars, and he never, ever lets himself
come. They're just rules. He doesn't know when he made them or even when he
started thinking of them as rules, exactly. Whenever he changes, he keeps his
back to Dean. He's never gone off in he he dead of night with a shady-looking
trucker. And before yesterday, he'd never come on the job. Before Dean.
It's not his biggest rule, but it's still been broken, and until now he hasn't
thought about it at all. When he's around Dean, Cas is different. He's not the
sheltered boy he used to be, hidden from the world by Michael's careful
protection, but he's not the whore Balthazar tried to teach him to be, the one
he projects onto clients, but he's not the closed off teen that hated the world
and everyone in it, either. When he's with Dean, he's someone new. He's Cas,
and to Dean, that seems to be enough. He's acquiring Dean's love of classic
rock, and, though he may never admit it to anyone, is starting to harbor a soft
spot for Elvis. He loves bantering with Jo, even if when she talks about school
and her friends, he feels a little out of his depth. He loves looking up at the
stars and trying to remember the constellations that Anna taught him about when
he was nine and she was going through a mythology phase.
And up there, Castiel, is the Angel. He's not a real constellation, I guess,
not to the scientists, but I remember that Mom used to point him out to me
every night when she was pregnant with you. She'd trace him with her fingers
and she'd touch her belly, and she'd call you her little angel. I think she
always loved you best, even if she never really knew you.
If Mom's gone, Anna, then why are the stars still there?
Because she told them to keep you company, Castiel. And they're never going to
break that promise.
The first star Castiel sees that night comes out while he waits for Dean. He's
been gone for nearly ten minutes, by Castiel's careful watch, and while that's
not especially unusual, tonight it just sets him on edge. The seconds tick by,
and with each that passes, he grows more and more nervous. Dean is rarely gone
so long. Scenes dance around in his head, acting out possibilities and
explanations for his friend's absence. Maybe Dean decided that he was better
off without Castiel. Maybe he's realized that the months of teasing and flashes
of skin had only been fueling Cas's desire, and couldn't handle being around
him anymore. Maybe he knows that Cas is about as in love with him as he thinks
could be possible. Cas lets out a shaky breath and slumps against the wall. He
refuses to entertain the notion that Dean is gone for good; it's a ridiculous
idea. Dean wouldn't justleavehim, no matter what. He wouldn't leave his clothes
behind, much less that last scribbled note from Sam that Cas has only seen a
handful of times, and he certainly wouldn't go without saying goodbye.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jo is wiping down the counter when he walks in. She's only fifteen, a good two
years younger than Cas, but she's been working behind the bar since he can
remember. When the occasional cop stops by she sides out and throws on an apron
to take orders, but all the regulars know that Jo Harvelle makes the best damn
drinks in the city. She glances up at Cas with a smile as he walks up to her,
nerves coiling in his stomach.
"Hey, Cas. Is something wrong?" Her eyes flick over him, probably noticing the
worry that almost definitely creases his face.
"Have you seen Dean at all today?" He asks, and she shakes her head. The
nervous twist wrenches itself into dread.
"You night owls never come in before midnight. If he'd come in without you in
broad daylight, I would have been seriously concerned." Jo studies him
carefully. "Do you want me to get my mom?"
"No, it's fine. Good night, Jo," Cas replies tersely. He walks out of the
Roadhouse as fast as he dares, feeling Jo's concerned gaze resting on his back.
Hoping beyond desperate hope that Dean will be back at his corner, he checks
again, but to no avail. Dean is still gone.
It feels like the air all leaves Castiel's chest at once. He collapses against
the dumpster in shock. Dean is gone. The makeshift bed is cold, their spare
clothing is still tucked away in plastic bags waiting for the next time one of
them remembers to go to the laundromat, cars are still rushing down the
adjacent streets, Dean is gone, and Castiel is alone. He buries his head in his
lap and promises himself that he will not cry.
"Cas," Ellen's gentle voice pulls him out of his haze of shock. A gentle hand
rests on his shoulder and he jerks away instinctively before he can really
register that Ellen Harvelle is crouched in front of him.
"Ellen?" He wants to ask her what she's doing here, how she even knows to be
here, but nothing else comes out.
"Come on, Cas. Let's get you inside." She pulls him upright and lets him lean
on her, unlocking the back door of the Roadhouse with practiced ease. Castiel
smiles weakly at her in gratitude when she lowers him gently onto one of the
rarely used couches in the back room. She produces a blanket and a mug of hot
something from somewhere and wraps him up before settling next to him with a
mug of her own. "Where's Dean, honey?" She asks, and before he really knows
what he's doing, Cas is being held to Ellen's breast as he cries for the first
time since before the crash.
"I don't know. I woke up and he was just gone. I thought he was just - but he
wasn't. He's gone, Ellen. And I think it might be my fault, but he wouldn't
just leave without saying goodbye and his things are still where we left them."
It all comes out in a rush, and Ellen just holds him and rubs his back in
circular motions a hand even though she's touching his scars Castiel can't
bring himself to make her stop. It's been so long since anyone but Dean has he
held him, and even longer since it was someone who he could look up to and
wholly trust. Ellen is so close to him that he sees her as a mother, almost,
and being hugged by her is almost as good as being in his mother's embrace
again.
"Oh, Cas," she sighs, arms tightening around him. "It's not your fault that
Dean's gone. Bt I do need to know everything about what happened and where he
might be so I can tell the police." Cas jerks in her arms and twists around.
"No! You can't call the cops." It comes out more desperate than he intended,
but he got the words out and that's all that matters.
"Cas, I know about what you an Dean have been doing, where you've been living.
And I need to know what happened today so we can start looking for Dean."
Castiel is shocked into silence.
"You...knew? All this time, and you knew?"
"Not all of it. Just the last few weeks, to be honest. I took out the trash
later than usual one night and saw you throw dead asleep, all tangled up in one
another, behind the dumpster," Ellen admits.
"Why didn't you say something?" Cas isn't sure what to feel, anger and pain and
guilt and exhaustion all battling inside him for more room. Ellen sighs, never
once loosening her hold on him.
"You two were always so prideful. I knew that if I tried to help you'd deny
everything, and probably leave. I figured I could keep a better eye on you like
this, and do my best to keep you out of trouble." Her voice is weary, but holds
no anger or judgement. "I guess I didn't do too great." Cas finally lets
himself relax against her again.
"I'm sorry for putting you through this," he says quietly. Ellen laughs a
little, the vibrations bleeding into him, warm and familiar after weeks of
sleeping pressed close to Dean and talking through the nights.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, Castiel. You and Dean are stubborn as hell,
but I knew that I'd never have to worry about you too much. You boys are like
sons to me, and as much as I hate seeing you two doing this to yourselves, I
can't make your decisions for you."
"Are you still going to call the police?" He asks after a moment of silence.
"Probably. And unless you want to get hauled off to jail or your brother's
house, you'll tell me everything that happened and then think up a damn solid
alibi," Ellen advises. Cas mulls her words over, wondering if it's really worth
the trouble. The worst that any court could do is send him to juvenile hall for
a while, but what would be far more likely is counseling sessions, community
service, and back 'home' to Michael.
"We were, um, working," he begins, voice rough. "Last night. Before we came in
here. There was a man who wanted us to..." He trails off, not wanting to
recount everything in vivid detail to Ellen. She is silent, patiently waiting
for whatever he's willing to give her. "Together. And we did. We came in here
almost immediately after, because Dean wanted to see if you had called Bobby.
And you had, and they talked. You know that part. And he said he was staying,
and I was so happy.
"We left, and we were lying down, and I kissed him. I just - I wasn't sure what
to do or how to apologize, and I had just kissed him, so I turned away. I don't
know after that. I think I fell asleep, but when I woke up he was gone. I
assumed he was working, it's not uncommon for one of us to get up and start
before the other, but I couldn't help but worry because...well. But I didn't go
looking for him, not for hours. I figured he needed space, and that if he
wanted it i should give it to him. And when I went to check on him, he wasn't
there. And sometimes Dean went off in a guy's truck if he asked. And I always
tell him not to, I do, but he does it anyways. So I waited. For an hour,
almost, I waited. And he didn't come back. So I came in here." Cas says this
all quickly, never once looking Ellen in the eye. When he finishes, the room is
silent but for the faint noise of the Roadhouse waiters cleaning up for the
night.
"Okay," Ellen says quietly. "Okay."
"Okay what?"
"You're sleeping here tonight, in the apartment. We'll go in the morning to
file a missing persons report, and you can tell me what you want me to say to
the police. I won't make you tell them anything, Castiel. But we need to report
him missing. It's the best chance we have of finding him." Her words hang
heavy, and Castiel can't help but find hidden meanings. If we find him at all,
his brain helpfully supplies. The police never look too hard for homeless kids.
They'll probably brush it off as soon as you leave the station. Face it, the
voice taunts, sounding horribly like Michael. You'll probably never see Dean
again.
"Castiel, I need you to promise me that you'll stay here tonight." Ellen looks
him dead in the eye, face serious.
"I promise," he replies. If he were still a child, he might have crossed his
fingers.
When Ellen wakes up the next morning, Cas is gone, and there's no trace left of
either him or Dean in the alley behind the Roadhouse. He never wants to see
that place again.
***** The One Where I Come Home *****
Chapter Summary
     "Castiel, what happened to you?" He asks softly, shutting the door
     with a click. Castiel laughs hollowly, not meeting his eyes.
     "That's a loaded question. Are you sure you want to know the answer?"
     Castiel's tone is bitter, reminding Gabriel of all those other times
     the boy had run away. Never once had he asked where he'd been. Now he
     wonders if he could have changed anything by asking.
     "Yes," he says forcefully. Castiel shakes his head, almost collapsing
     onto the couch, throwing his bag next to it. It's then that Gabriel
     notices that his brother is shaking, and remembers the snow that
     started falling two weeks ago and had barely let up since. Something
     twists in his gut; has Castiel been sleeping on the streets?
     !!!PLEASE NOTE RATING CHANGE!!
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Thirty-six days later...
It's three in the morning, and Gabriel is asleep, as all sane people are, when
he hears the doorbell. Not opening his eyes, he rolls over and buries his face
in his pillow, wanting to chalk it up to the dream he was having.
Unfortunately, when it comes again, he can't ignore it. He stumbles out of
bead, swearing under his breath as he stubs his toe on something lying on his
floor. The bell rings for a third time.
"Shut up, I'm coming," he rasps, his voice hoarse from sleep. He fumbles with
the light switch and unlocks the door, completely fed up with whoever it is who
seems to think that waking someone up at three in the goddamn morning is a good
idea. When he sees the figure slumped against the apartment's doorframe,
however, all thoughts fly out of his head.
"Castiel?" His brother is barely recognizable. Gabriel hasn't seen him in
nearly a year, and in that time he's grown taller and leaner, almost to the
point where he looks starved. His clothes don't fit right and his hair's longer
and looks like it hasn't seen a brush in days.
"Hello, Gabriel." His voice is deeper, rougher. He looks Gabriel dead in the
eye, with that piercing blue gaze that he's never felt entirely comfortable
holding. They both stand there for a moment, Gabriel still to shocked to really
move, and Castiel looking like he's just too exhausted to do anything but lean
on the doorframe clutching a beat up plastic bag. When his brother finally
blinks and lowers his gaze, Gabriel jolts back from the door.
"Come in." It's not very eloquent, but Castiel looks relieved at the simple
order. He walks into the apartment on unsteady feet, and Gabriel finally gets
to take a closer look at his little brother. There are dark circles under his
eyes, and his skin has a pale, sick sheen to it. Gabriel tries not to think
about what that could mean. What really catches his attention, though, are the
bruises that ring Castiel's neck.
"Castiel, what happened to you?" He asks softly, shutting the door with a
click. Castiel laughs hollowly, not meeting his eyes.
"That's a loaded question. Are you sure you want to know the answer?" Castiel's
tone is bitter, reminding Gabriel of all those other times the boy had run
away. Never once had he asked where he'd been. Now he wonders if he could have
changed anything by asking.
"Yes," he says forcefully. Castiel shakes his head, almost collapsing onto the
couch, throwing his bag next to it. It's then that Gabriel notices that his
brother is shaking, and remembers the snow that started falling two weeks ago
and had barely let up since. Something twists in his gut; has Castiel been
sleeping on the streets?
"In the morning," Castiel says warily. "Let me sleep." Gabriel nods. It looks
like the boy hasn't gotten any rest in days.
"Do you want a blanket?" He asks carefully, and gets a nod in response. After
handing a spare to Castiel and getting only a nod in return as the boy lay down
and covered himself with it, Gabriel flicks the light off and heads back to
bed. Even though his thoughts are churning and he's more awake than he was that
afternoon, he falls asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Everything can wait until morning
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
When Cas wakes up on a strange couch, he panics. He flails around, trying to
simultaneously trow off the blanket tangled in his limbs and climb off the
couch, which ends in him falling ungracefully to the floor with a curse. He
hears an aborted chuckle and looks up to see Gabriel watching him from the
other side of the room. Castiel glares at him as he stands, throwing off the
blanket. He notices that he's still wearing his clothes from the night before
and he grimaces, remembering Crowley's visit.
"Morning, Cassie," Gabriel drawls, eyeing Cas carefully.
"Can I take a shower?" Cas asks. He hates the feel of Crowley on him; can still
smell the tinge of sulfur the man always brought with him. Gabriel looks
thrown, but nods.
"Sure. Down the hall, first door on the left." Castiel nods, walking to the
bathroom and locking the door before stripping down. A single glance in the
mirror tells him that the mottled bruises on his neck and chest are still
there, and they throb in agreement. Cas jumps under the freezing spray before
he has the chance to see himself again. How fucked up is he now, that he can't
stand seeing his own reflection?
When the water warms up after a few minutes, it is a welcome surprise; he's not
used to the water pressure Gabriel's shower has, much less heated water.
Castiel washes quickly and efficiently, touching himself as little as possible.
After rinsing his hair of the strangely scented shampoo no doubt leftover from
one of Gabriel's sporadic attempts at a relationship, he jumps out and dries
quickly, throwing on a somewhat fresh pair of jeans and one of Dean's AC/DC t-
shirts.
The smell of bacon hits Cas like a brick as soon as he steps out of the
bathroom, and he follows his nose towards a small kitchen, where Gabriel stands
in nothing but a KISS THE COOK apron and a pair of sweatpants. He's poking at
strips of bacon sizzling in a pan with his left hand and easing a spatula under
a half-cooked pancake with the right.
"Call it, Cassie," he says, not looking up from the pan.
"Tails," Cas replies, as he always does, a small smile working its way across
his face. Gabriel grins up at him, then flips the pancake up in the air in a
perfect arc, catching it in the pan, raw side down, with a splat.
"Always betting against me, Castiel. When will you learn?" He teases, and
Castiel leans on the counter towards him.
"Never. You'll have to slip sometime." This is an old game they'd used to play,
when Gabriel and Anna would still come over and cook breakfast early on
Saturday mornings and Michael would come out in nothing but his flannel pajama
pants and rub his eyes and smile for the first time that week. When Lucifer
would poke Anna with a spatula until she chased him around the kitchen,
brandishing a fork, and Gabriel would 'accidentally' stick out his foot and
trip one or the other up and Castiel and Michael would smile at each other over
mugs of steaming tea and forget that Castiel hadn't been home for a week. When
Anna would start eating before Michael said grace, which he insisted on doing
at every meal, and he would let her because Michael could never really deny
Anna anything, and nobody really wanted to wait for grace to be said before
digging into the delicious food. When Gabriel would put a disgusting amount of
syrup on his pancakes, and make special ones with chocolate chips smuggled into
the house earlier by Lucifer and slide them onto Castiel's plate. When his
family could be happy for an hour or so before the phone rang to call Michael
and Lucifer into the hospital for an emergency open-heart surgery, before Anna
had to get to a class, before Gabriel needed to open up the coffee shop/candy
store/chocolate factory that he ran. Before everything fell apart.
"Chocolate chip?" He asks hopefully, and Gabriel nods with an understanding
smile.
"Only the best for my favorite little brother." Cas snorts.
"I'm your only little brother, Gabriel."
"Really? I never noticed!" Gabriel drops some bacon and a few pancakes on a
plate and slides it over to Cas, who takes it gratefully. He hasn't eaten since
before Crowley's visit yesterday and his stomach is growling in protest.
Gabriel's bacon is as good as ever, and soon enough his brother sits down
across from him with a large pile of food. Cas isn't fazed by this; Gabriel's
always eaten at least twice as much as anyone in the house. They eat in silence
for a while, Cas scarfing his down almost as fast as his brother. Finally, they
both have eaten everything on their plates.
"So," Gabriel starts. "Start talking."
"About what?" Castiel asks. Leave it to Gabriel to immediately bring up exactly
what he doesn't want to talk about.
"Well, we can start off with where the hell you've been for the last eight
months. Or why you showed up at my door at three A.M. Whatever you like,
really." Cas sighs. Gabriel is staring at him with the glint in his eyes that
means that he's not giving up anytime soon.
"Fine." Cas glares sullenly down at the table, feeling very much like the
younger brother he is. "I spent most of it behind the Roadhouse." He doesn't
mention Dean. That would be too much to explain, too much pain to relive.
"That bar downtown? What were you doing living behind a bar?"
"Are you going to shut up and let me talk?" Cas snaps. "Sorry. Go on." Gabriel
settles back in his chair. "I left there about a month ago. Someone set me up
in an apartment, and I was living there until I decided to come back. Simple as
that." None of that is an outright lie, but Castiel still feels the deception,
and he knows Gabriel does as well. But his brother doesn't push, only looks at
him solemnly.
"I'm sorry." He says it quietly, so quietly that Cas almost misses it.
"Why?" He cocks his head in confusion. Gabriel huffs out a laugh and shakes his
head.
"I'm your brother, Cassie. I'm supposed to protect you, look out for you, be
there when you need me, not let you run away and start whoring yourself out!"
Castiel flinches back in his chair, the words hitting him like a blow to the
chest. Guilt immediately spells itself over Gabriel's face. "I'm sorry. I
shouldn't have said that."
"You're not wrong." Cas laughs bitterly, hand flying up to rub at his neck of
its own accord. "So why should you be sorry?" Gabriel sighs.
"I hoped that I was wrong. Why'd you do it, Cassie?"
"Cas. My name is Cas, Gabriel." It feels strange, telling someone the name Dean
branded him with. Everyone they knew (which was mostly limited to Ellen and Jo)
heard it from Dean first. "And I did it because it seemed fairly obvious that
no one in this family wanted me around. Anyways," he shrugs. "None of you
seemed to care when I did it the first twenty times." Gabriel has the good
grace to look ashamed.
"We just thought you were blowing off steam." Realization spreads it's way
across his brother's face. "Was that what you were doing every time?" Cas looks
at him evenly, not breaking eye contact. "But the first time you ran
away...that was years ago."
"I was thirteen, Gabriel. I was angry and lost and had no one to tell me what
it meant, why it was dangerous. No one to tell me 'don't go with that man,
Cassie' because you thought I was just blowing off steam," he hisses. Castiel
feels so angry, all of a sudden. He's furious with his brothers for isolating
him, with his after for leaving him, with Anna and his mother for dying, and
even with Dean, for disappearing and leaving him to spiral down into the web of
lies Crowley spun around him.
"You never asked," Cas continues, standing up abruptly and beginning to pace.
"Never even seemed to wonder where I went. Not even Anna, though god knows she
cared a hell of a lot more than you ever did. So I kept going back because I
couldn't stand to be around Michael and Lucifer and their constant stream of
bullshit. And I made friends with the owner and her daughter, and even if they
took me in once or twice, I could never stay with them because no one except
for one person-one person-ever, in my life, told me that he would care if I
died, or left.
"So I went back and learned how to feed myself when Michael forgot, when you
weren't there with a fancy new recipe or even a microwave dinner. And then
someone taught me how not to get myself killed, how to stay as safe as we could
get. But he left, too. I left and came back and left and came back and none of
it changed until the crash Anna died, and I couldn't walk for weeks, and then I
was out for good. And the last time I saw you you told me to suck it up and
stay with Michael for a bit longer, until I turned eighteen, so I couldn't come
here. So I went back to what I knew how to do. And then Dean-" he chokes off
abruptly and collapses back into the chair, tears clawing up from a pit in his
chest that he's been ignoring for a month.
He sits and he buries his face in his hands and he sobs out everything that
he's feeling, all the anger and shame and hopelessness and guilt, until Gabriel
finally comes around the table and pulls him close.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Gabriel whispers into his ear. Bruises throb where
Gabriel is pressed against his chest, but Cas can't bring himself to care. He
feels safe, for the first time since the nights spent wrapped up in Dean, legs
intwined and arms around each other. Gabriel is warm around him, a welcome
change from the aching cold of Crowley and his 'clients'.
"Thank you," he whispers against his brother's neck. When he finally stifles
his tears, he lets go almost immediately. No matter how safe Gabriel might
feel, he's spent the last month doing things he'd never like to think about
again, and the physical contact brings with it an itch under his skin, a pulse
that throbs in time with his increasing heartbeat, pounding
getawaygetawaygetaway. Gabriel releases him willingly, sliding back into his
own seat. Cas looks and sees the tears in his eyes before Gabriel blinks them
away.
"I-I'm not sure what to say to that," Gabriel laughs hollowly and swipes at his
eyes.
"You don't have to say anything. I'm sorry for going off like that; you didn't
deserve it."
"Yeah I did. Although, if you're going to be staying with me, I need to lay
down some ground rules, Cas. No more apologizing for things, for one. I don't
know how to respond and it just makes me feel guilty." Another apology is on
the tip of Cas's tongue, but he bites it back carefully.
"Alright. Anything else?" He doesn't like rules. Michael's chafed at him
constantly, his own became oppressing after too much time spent with Dean, and
Crowley could hone in on a single misstep like a bloodhound and make him pay
severely. Rules never end well for Cas, but for Gabriel he'll try.
"Not really. I need to get you some new clothes-" he wrinkles his nose at
Dean's shirt and the jeans that are too tight in some places and too loose in
others. Cas clutches the top protectively. He won't let Gabriel throw away
anything of Dean's. "-And we should be set."
"What should I do with myself while you're at work?" Gabriel mulls this over
for a moment, coming to a quick conclusion.
"You can come to work with me, I can give you a job waiting tables or something
since you can't cook for shit." It's true, unfortunately. Castiel's never been
good in the kitchen, something Michael once commented that he must have gotten
from his mother.
"Are you working today?" He asks. "Nah, I called Balthazar and told him to take
over for the day." Balthazar is a friend of Gabriel's that has been around for
years. The two of them won't ever admit to being a couple, but Castiel is petty
sure that they've at least been fucking since high school. "Why, is there
somewhere you want to go?"
"I was wondering if you could take me over to the Roadhouse. I would like to
see Ellen, if you don't mind." Gabriel's face softens at the request.
"Of course. Do you want to go now? I could take you to get some clothes and we
could stop by for lunch in a few hours, if you like." Cas nods.
"That would be nice."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
By the time they get to the Roadhouse, Castiel has more clothes than he could
ever possibly need. Gabriel had tried to get him to change out of Dean's shirt,
but he had refused. Even if Dean never comes back, Cas doesn't want to get rid
of his things. The Roadhouse isn't very busy, with only a few customers sitting
at the tables and bar. Castiel keeps his head down, not looking anyone in the
eye. It's unlikely that anyone in here will recognize him, but it's a chance he
doesn't want to bother taking.
"Cas!" Before he can even turn his head to look for Ellen, he's swept up into a
tight embrace. He grins into her and wraps his arms around her. When Ellen
finally pulls away from him, he steps back with a smile.
"Hello, Ellen." She looks like she can't decide whether to be elated or
furious. She settles for pulling him close again.
"Where the hell have you been, Cas? When I woke up, you were just gone! Do you
have any idea how worried I was?" The smile falls from his face.
"I'm sorry, Ellen. I just-I couldn't stay. Not with everything that happened."
Ellen looks understanding, but still concerned.
"You didn't answer my question. Where have you been?" At this Castiel looks
down. He can't tell Ellen, he can't tell anyone. Even thinking about it makes
his stomach churn. "I..." He trails off into silence.
"Ellen, I can't." He chokes the words out without meeting her gaze.
"Hey, Cas, it's okay. You don't have to tell me anything. I just need to know
that you're okay." Cas nods, and they stand in silence for a moment until
Gabriel clears his throat loudly from behind Cas.
"Hi," he says, sticking his hand out towards Ellen. "I'm Gabriel Novak, Cas's
older brother." Ellen shakes his hand, looking him up and down.
"Novak?" He's never told Ellen his last name, Cas realizes. She looks at him
with raised eyebrows, and he shrugs.
"Yeah. Thanks for taking care of him for me," Gabriel continues.
"He can take care of himself just fine. The boys didn't need me for any of it."
Gabriel's brow furrows in confusion and he glances between the two of them.
"The boys?" Cas looks away.
"Cas and Dean. They managed on their own, though I tried to get them to let me
help. Stubborn, the both of them." Ellen motions toward the bar, and the three
of them sit, Gabriel sitting between Ellen and Cas.
"I've heard you say that name before, Cas. Dean. Who is he?" Gabriel asks. Cas
winces, and Ellen shoots Gabriel a warning look that he pretends not to see.
"When did you meet him?"
"About five months ago, not that it's any of your business," Cas replies.
Better to tell Gabriel the bare minimum and satisfy his curiosity than to let
him wonder and keep asking. "We stayed together. Worked together. He was a good
friend." Ellen looks at him with sympathy in her eyes.
"Wait, you both...?" Gabriel asks, eyes wide. He turns to Ellen. "Did you up
know about him- about them? What they were doing?"
"I had my suspicions. They were only confirmed a week or so before Cas up and
left."
"I'm right here, you know," he snaps. They'd both have the grace to look a bit
abashed.
"Why don't you go say hi to Jo, Cas?" Ellen suggests. It's a blatant tactic to
get to talk to Gabriel privately, but Cas does as she asks anyways.
Jo is crunching numbers behind the desk in the back room when Cas finds her.
It's a job he'd worked once or twice, when Ellen needed things done and he was
just too tired to trick that night. She glances up briefly, then back down at
the computer. A few seconds later, Jo freezes, eyes slowly returning to him in
disbelief.
"Cas?" She whispers.
"Hey, Jo," he replies, a half smile tugging at his lips. She's up from behind
the desk and flinging her arms around him in three seconds flat, hugging him so
hard that Cas staggers back a few steps.
"I thought you were dead!" She cries, arms still firmly wrapped around his
chest. "Mom didn't tell me anything about where you went, or what happened."
Cas buries his face in he hair and blinks back tears for what seems to be the
hundredth time today.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't want to leave," he murmurs, realizing only now
how true the statement is. Jo steps back and, without warning, punches him
solidly on the arm, right over a bruise. Cas cries out in pain, clutching the
limb. Regret immediately fills her face.
"Cas, are you okay? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you!" She babbles, concern
creasing her brow. "Should I get Mom? Are you badly hurt?" He waves her off,
biting his tongue to distract himself from the ache in his arm.
"It's fine, Jo. It wasn't you." She still hovers over him as he sits heavily in
one of the chairs in the office.
"I'm sorry," she apologizes again, quiet sincerity lacing her voice.
"And I said that it's fine." Cas has known Jo for years, ever since she was
just ten years old. When they first met, Cas was a cold, tired, frightened
thirteen year old who was still angry at his brother and just wanted to go to
sleep in an actual bed. She had offered to let him borrow a nightgown, and
scowled at him and locked herself in her room when he politely refused. Jo came
out a few hours later with her stuffed bear and sat on the edge of the couch he
was sleeping on.
"This is Garth," she'd whispered conspiratorially. "Mom says I'm too old for
him, but I like him anyways. He helps me sleep when my daddy's gone." Cas had
smiled awkwardly, unsure if he was supposed to say anything in return. When he
hadn't replied for a long time, Jo frowned at him, then thrust out the bear and
dropped it on his lap.
"You should keep him tonight. You look like you could use some help sleeping."
She'd paused, narrowing her eyes. "Even if you were an assbutt earlier." She
had padded back to her room, leaving Cas bewildered, exhausted, and clutching a
stuffed bear like his life depended on it. He'd woken up the next morning with
Garth tucked solidly under his chin and Jo staring at him, face inches away
from his. They'd both walked away with nasty bruises on their foreheads, and
had been friends ever since.
"Is Dean with you?" She asks now, looking around like he might be hiding in a
closet or something.
"I haven't seen him in weeks, Jo. I'm sorry." Her face falls minutely, but she
plasters back on a reassuring smile.
"I'm sure he's fine." It's a lie, and they both know it, but he nods in
agreement.
"So how have you been, Jo?" She shrugs, sitting down next to him.
"Boring, without you here. It's become a routine of gross guys trying to feel
me up at the bar and the jackasses at school, to be honest. I'd rather be out
hunting with my mom, but every time I suggest it....well. You know how she
gets." Bill, Ellen's husband and Jo's father, had been killed by a wildcat on
one of his frequent hunting trips in the mountains when Jo was eleven. For the
short time that Cas had known Bill, they had gotten on relatively well, even if
the man didn't trust him much around Jo. Ellen hadn't taken Jo hunting ever
since, though apparently it used to be a common tradition.
"You can't really blame her, Jo," he rationalizes. "Just give her some time."
"She's had four years, for God's sake. How much more time does she need?" Jo
asks, though her tone is softer. Cas knows that she misses her father, more
than she ever lets on. He places a comforting hand on her arm, and she leans
into him, probably subconsciously.
"I know. It's hard losing someone. Remember, they were married for fourteen
years, and you're all she has left. I knew Anna my entire life, and I miss her
every day. I still think about Dean more often than I'd like to admit. It's
okay to miss people, Jo." She laughs hollowly and swipes at her eyes.
"I know. It's just hard, sometimes."
"Yeah." They sit like that, Castiel's hand on Jo's shoulder, knees bumping
together, until a gentle knock on the door interrupts them. Cas turns around to
find Gabriel and Ellen standing in the doorway.
"Cas, we should get going," Gabriel says softly. Cas nods and stands, following
them out the door with a nod goodbye to Jo, who smiles in thanks. As they wait
by the entrance of the Roadhouse, Castiel asks Ellen a question.
"What did you tell Sam?" Ellen's face falls. Her mournful eyes dart away from
his, then back.
"I lied, the week after. Told him that Dean was fine, just busy. That he'd call
him when he could. Sam hasn't called since."
"Thank you. I'll see you soon, Ellen." Gabriel holds the door open, and Castiel
walks out.
Chapter End Notes
     Yeah, sorry about the wait. I had a bit of a case of writers block,
     even though this chapter was already written. But I added like six
     scenes and 2,000 words and I'm finally happy with it. Here you go,
     then, 4,000 words of this story. Feel free to check me out on tumblr
     ( hallucinating-vividly ) if you're so inclined!
***** The One Where I Try To Change *****
Chapter Summary
     “Hello, Castiel. Long time, no see.” Cas glares.
     “Spare me the pleasantries, Crowley. What do you want?”
     “I’m offended. Who says I want anything?” There’s a tiny smile
     playing at the corner of Crowley’s mouth that tells Castiel that he
     definitely wants something, and it’s most likely that it’s something
     Castiel won’t want to give.
     “You always want something. Tell me what it is,”
Chapter Notes
     Thank you so much to all of you who have taken interest in this
     story! It all means a lot to me. I'm sorry about the lateness of this
     chapter-I had to rewrite almost half of it because I really wanted to
     show more of Castiel's past with Crowley. Thank you for all your
     support.
When the alarm blares, jolting Castiel out of sleep, he groans. Every day
without fail for the last week, Gabriel’s damn alarm clock has started
screeching at six-thirty A.M. Castiel gets it, he really does, but he’s used to
sleeping the day away and being awake all night. It’s going to take more than a
week to get him back on a normal sleeping schedule, and the added help of the
alarm is an infuriating necessity.
“Come on, Cassie, up and at ‘em,” Gabriel crows from the kitchen. Cas sits up
on the collapsible bed that took Gabriel nearly two hours to unfold and rubs at
his eyes. He’s still not quite used to waking up on an actual bed instead of a
pile of blankets on a cold apartment floor, or even just a sheet spread over
rocky gravel with a few shirts stuffed under his head. Cas doesn’t think he’ll
ever get used to not waking up next to Dean.
“Come on,” Gabriel urges him. “We have to be at work in twenty minutes, so
don’t bother showering.” Cas stands and stretches languidly, both he and
Gabriel wincing when they hear his shoulders pop.
“I’ll never get used to that noise, Cas, I swear to God,” Gabriel huffs.
“Neither will I, and I hear it every day,” he agrees, moving over to the
nightstand Gabriel had dragged out into the living room and rifling through the
drawers for clean clothes. Dean’s Led Zepplin shirt-the only shirt he’ll sleep
in now-is halfway over his head before Gabriel stops him.
“Woah there, Cas. I know you have no modesty or whatever, but not all of us
want you stripping down in out living rooms.” Cas flushes, pulling the shirt
back down.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, beginning to walk over to the bathroom door. Gabriel
pauses him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Dude, it’s fine. I was kidding.” Most of the time, Castiel can put his former
profession to the back of his mind, but now all he can think about is how he’s
so used to stripping around people he can’t even find himself caring when
Gabriel barges into the bathroom without knocking.
“Oh. Okay.” He fidgets under his brother’s gaze, until Gabriel glances away.
“Your back healed well,” Gabriel says, effectively changing the subject and
stepping back slightly. One of Cas’s hands drifts back of it’s own free will,
brushing the intersection at his tailbone.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose,” he responds quietly. “I’m going to go
change.” He walks quickly into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind
him. He leans against the sink, nausea working its way into his stomach. He
used to have some semblance of dignity left, back when he worked with Dean. He
used to draw the line at disrobing for clients; there were marks too personal
to show to just any john etched onto his skin. With Crowley, he didn’t have
much of a choice. It was either strip or starve for another few days. after the
hospital, only Gabriel and the doctors had been allowed to see him, and that
was only to dress the wounds and make sure they were healing correctly. Castiel
used to think that maybe showing another person his scars would be more
intimate. Then again, he used to think that he’d be showing them to someone he
one, someone he trusted. Someone like Dean.
Gabriel is on the phone when Castiel reemerges from the bathroom. 
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll talk to him. Goodbye,Michael.” Castiel stiffens. Gabriel
sighs and slides the phone back in his pocket.
“What’s going on?”
“That, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, was Michael. He wants to see you.” Cas’s
first impulse is to immediately refuse. He and Michael can hardly stand to be
in the same room anymore, or at least that was the case a year ago. Seeing him
would only end in a fight.
“No.” Gabriel looks at him imploringly.
“Please, Cas. He told me that he wants to make amends, apologize. You of all
people know that I’m not exactly his number-one fan, but he sounded sincere.”
“Michael always sounds sincere. I don’t want to hear anything he has to say.”
Cas turns away, trying to stop his voice from trembling with anger. He thought
he’d forgiven Michael, truly, but now that he’s confronted with the possibility
of a meeting, the long-forgotten fury bubbles to the surface of his mind.
“Just listen to me. He knows he made a mistake, and he wants to try and make it
up to you. He said things he regrets, he toldme-”
“Then you know what he said to me! You know that he valued Anna’s life more
than my own, that he was glad to see me go!” Cas turns back to face his brother
sharply. “Why would he apologize when he spoke nothing but the truth?”
“Cas,” Gabriel starts. “You don’t have to decide right now. We just want you to
think it over. I told Michael not to expect you to agree - I know I wouldn’t if
I were you. But please, I want you to try.”
Cas wants to argue, to scream and rage and break down, but he knows he can’t.
He has to be strong, has to keep himself in line. No good will come from him
throwing a tantrum like a spoiled child. He lets his guard drop and sighs
heavily.
“I’ll think about it. Maybe,” he says. Gabriel looks relieved.
“Awesome. Come on, we can’t be late.” This makes Cas smile a little.
“You’ve been late four times since I came here.” Gabriel grins back at him,
opening the door and stepping out. Cas follows.
“Pics or it didn’t happen, little brother.” Castiel’s brow furrows in
confusion.
“I don’t understand that reference.”
.............. 
“Morning, darling,” Balthazar croons to Gabriel as soon as the pair steps
through the back door of Sweet Tooth. Sweet Tooth is a curious blend of a
bakery, a cafe, and a chocolate factory that both students from the nearby
college and workers from the surrounding neighborhoods flock to, and Cas would
be lying if he said that the warm atmosphere and the rich smell of chocolate
didn’t make him feel safe and comfortable.
“You two aren’t discreet at all,” he says casually tying on an apron as Gabriel
shoves Balthazar gently away. Gabriel sputters indignantly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Balthazar looks amused and wraps one
arm around him.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Castiel remarks dryly. “Other than the fact that you two
have had something going on since you were teenagers.” Gabriel goes read in the
face and Balthazar throws his head back and laughs, arm still tight around
Gabriel.
“You’re smarter than we give you credit for, Cassie.” Gabriel scowls at them
and shrugs off his friend’s arm, reaching for an apron himself. 
“I hope so,” Cas remarks. “And I’d like to thank both of you for not continuing
your relations while I’m present.” Gabriel, if possible, turns even redder.
“Cas, shut up.” He shoves a broom into Cas’s hands. “Do your goddamn job before
I decide to fire you.” 
“Like that’s going to happen.” Cas rolls his eyes, but starts heading out
anyways. There are already several students sitting in the several comfortable
chairs, with their laptops out and steaming mugs beside them. He flashes a
smile at Kevin, who’s working the register, and begins sweeping around the
tables.
“Hey, Castiel,” Kevin calls.
“Yeah?”
“There was a guy in here, earlier. He was looking for you. Said to give you
this.” Castiel’s mouth goes dry as Kevin hands out a small slip of paper.
There’s no way it could possibly be Crowley. He takes the paper with trembling
fingers.
I miss you. Regular spot, 11 o’clock. See you there. There’s no signature. Of
course. Crowley doesn’t need to put one. Castiel leans heavily on his broom.
He’s going to be sick, he thinks, but nothing comes up.
“Are you okay?” Kevin asks. Cas nods, straightening up.
“What did he look like?” Kevin frowns a little, tilting his head.
“Um…short. Dark hair, a bit of stubble. Fancy suit. He had this accent, like
somewhere in England.” What little hope Cas had drains away. What could Crowley
want? Well, that’s a stupid question. Castiel ran away from him. Had ‘broken
their agreement’. If he’s being perfectly honest, he’s surprised it took
Crowley this long to find him. So he’ll go. What other choice does he have?
..............
Gabriel finally lets him go that night without Cas having to explain anything.
He just says that he has somewhere to be and that he’ll be back before too
long, and Gabriel sends him off after making him promise to text every hour.
“I trust you,” he says firmly, and shuts the door behind him. The usual spot is
the ratty apartment building that Castiel had lived in for over a month, at
Crowley’s expense. The owner lets him into his old single room with a scowl and
some muttered curses at 10:57. Exactly three minutes later, Crowley strides in
with his usual smirk plastered to his face.
“Hello, Castiel. Long time, no see.” Cas glares.
“Spare me the pleasantries, Crowley. What do you want?”
“I’m offended. Who says I want anything?” There’s a tiny smile playing at the
corner of Crowley’s mouth that tells Castiel that he definitely wants
something, and it’s most likely that it’s something Castiel won’t want to give.
“You always want something. Tell me what it is,” he growls. Crowley looks at
him like he’s a puppy trying to stand its ground against a wolf.
“Well, you did leave rather suddenly last week, wouldn’t you say? What prompted
that, I wonder?”
“I wasn’t under the impression that I had to stay here,” Castiel bites out.
“That wasn’t part of our agreement.”
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Castiel is cold. It’s the middle of October and while it isn’t snowing yet, the
air holds a distinct chill that it didn’t have three months ago, and his few
lairs of short sleeved shirts and one ratty hoody aren’t doing much to keep him
warm. He’s been walking for a few hours, at his last count, not exactly sure of
where he’s going other thanaway.Away from the Roadhouse, away from Ellen, and
Jo, and the memory of Dean pressed warm into his chest. He’s clutching both of
their bags in his nearly numb hand, and he has to glance at it every few
seconds to make sure that the handles haven’t slipped through his fingers.
When he finds himself at the too-familiar cemetery, Castiel stops outside the
gate. He pushes it open slowly, and even though it must be hours since closing
time, it swings open easily, with barely a creak. He walks silently through the
dark to where he knows from years of monthly trips that his mother is buried.
When he reaches her grave, something is different. There’s a fresh plot of
ground directly to the left, and even though Castiel doesn’t have to look at
the headstone to know who it is, he does anyway. 
In Loving Memory of Annael Novak, it reads.May she never be forgotten. He sinks
to his knees between their graves. His mother, who he never really knew, and
his sister, who he knew much too well. He could never really let either of them
go. 
“Please,” he whispers into the night. “I don’t know what to do.” It’s true.
Hecan’t go back to the Roadhouse, not with all the memories that come with it.
Gabriel doesn't want him, and Michael…well. Michael made his view on Castiel
clear a long time ago. He waits for an answer, from anyone, but nothing comes. 
“I’m sorry.” He rises from his knees. Only now does he see the bundle of
flowers lying on the fresh dirt of his sister’s grave. Lilies and peonies and a
single white rose. He doesn’t know who put them there. He doesn’t know if it
was one of his siblings, or one of Anna’s many friends from the university. A
part of him wants to get angry, rage and scream at the person who cares enough
to to leave flowers at her grave. Instead, he sighs softly and turns away,
walking slowly into the darkness that shrouds the cemetery. He closes the gate
behind him softly.
Castiel doesn't know this part of town very well. In fact, he doesn’t know it
at all. Every once in a while, a car will pass by and illuminate what isn’t lit
by the dim street, but the brief moments of light don’t do much to help Cas
find his way. Even if he knew where he was going.
This neighborhood is crammed with run-down stores and beaten up apartment
buildings, and in every alley Castiel sees shadowy figures that he knows much
better than to approach. He doesn’t make eye contact with anyone and draws
Anna’s trench coat tighter around his body, hoping that he’ll be left alone.
His hopes are dashed, however, when he notices a small pack of men trailing
him, walking half a block back and across the street, but still keeping him in
their sights.
Cas knows better than to panic. Running will only encourage the men to attack,
like a pack of wild dogs. No, it’s better to keep his head down and ignore
them. If worst comes to worst, he has the knife Jo gave him for his fifteenth
birthday tucked in his jacket, and he knows from experience how to fight men
like these. Castiel realizes with a sinking feeling that there are far too many
of them now for him to fight with any chance of winning. All he can do is hope
that they leave him alone, but even he knows that it’s not likely to happen.
For a few minutes, Castiel ignores the pack, not even looking in their
direction, and when he finally does sneak a look out of the corner of his eye,
he stops dead.
A shortish man in a finely tailored suit has stopped in front of the gang and
is talking to one of the larger members who Castiel thinks might be the leader.
The shorter man gestures widely and the leader’s eyes flick over to Castiel,
then back without seeming to care that he’s staring at them, stopped dead in
the middle of the sidewalk. A few minutes later and some violent hand gestures
from the pack leader later, and the short man crosses the street and catches up
to Castiel, who still hasn’t moved.
“What’s a pretty young thing like yourself doing out at this hour, hmm?” The
man asks with what Castiel can immediately tell is businessman’s sympathy. His
guard flies up and he stiffens, straightening his spine.
“None of your business,” he says. It’s probably not a good idea, but he’s
tired. He just wants somewhere to sleep for the night. Despite the rude answer,
the man perks up slightly.
“Ah. I see. Well, if you decide that you’re in need of a place to stay for the
foreseeable future,” he pulls a business card from god knows where and holds it
out towards Castiel. “Give me a call.” 
Cas takes the card automatically, and the man turns his back and begins walking
away. He doesn’t know why he does it, only knows that it’s a tremendously bad
idea, but Cas calls out after him.
“Wait!” The man turns back to him, a satisfied smirk on his face.
“Yes?” Castiel falters. He has no idea why he called out to him, other than
he’s exhausted and wants to survive the night.
“What did you mean, a place to stay?” The  man’s smirk grows wider.
“Exactly what I said,” he replies in that smooth accent. “I can set you up for
free, tonight.” Castiel catches the hidden meaning.
“And after tonight?” He asks cautiously. The resulting smile puts him in mind
of a shark; no real joy, just a predator staring down at its prey.
“We can discuss that later. Are you in?” Cas shouldn’t say yes, this goes
against everything Dean and Balthazar and Ellen ever told him, this is a
monumentally stupid thing to do, and-
“Yes.”
.............
Crowley’s still staring at him, amusement evident in his face.
“No, I suppose it wasn’t. However,” and there’s the inevitable however, “I had
to pay the rent for the day that no one realized that you were gone. Also, I
had to compensate the clients you had scheduled. Meg especially.”
Cas winces. He knew he was digging his own grave when he left, and now comes
the inevitable fallout he was waiting for. Meg was his most regular client, who
showed up every week without fail, sometimes twice or more. He has no idea how
much she paid Crowley for him, only that it must have been a lot, because
Crowley hates her with a burning passion and yet he granted her the privilege
of his ‘favorite employee’ so often.
“What do you want me to do about it?” He knows that he can’t hold his own
against someone like Crowley, that it’s impossible to do and will only end in
more pain for him, but he can’t help mouthing off every once in a while. It
seems to only amuse Crowley further.
“Well, I set up an appointment with Meg for tomorrow night, Naiomi the next,
Bartholomew the next, and Meg again the night after, and of course I’ll be
coming to see you the following night, and then that should cover it, don’t you
think?” It’s not a question. Castiel nods sharply, shifting in his chair.
“Can I go?” He asks carefully. Crowley raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.
“Please.”He’s not going to cater to Crowley’s sick ego any more than he has to.
Finally, the man heaves a sigh and waves his hand.
“Yes, yes, you can go. Remember, next five days, same time. And if you don’t
show up, remember I can reach you through that pretty young thing working at
the bakery.” And that solidifies any doubt Castiel has that he’s coming. No way
is he dragging Kevin into this.
“Goodbye, Crowley.” And with that he sweeps out of the room.
............
“Hey, Cas?”
“Yes, Dean?” He turns his head so that he’s looking Dean in the eye, who’s face
is more serious than it has been all day.
“If I up and disappear one day-”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Goddamn it, Cas, just hear me out.” Cas huffs indignantly.
“Fine. What?”
“If I disappear one day, you have to promise that you won’t come looking for
me, okay? That’s how dumb bastards get themselves killed on the streets.”
“I can’t promise that. You know I can’t.”
“Yes you can. If you got taken by someone, would you want me to go on some
stupid suicide mission to find you?” An indignant pause.
“No,” he admits.
“Okay. So swear to me, and I’ll swear to you, that if one of us disappears that
we’ll go to Ellen, or somebody, and we won’t do anything stupid like try and
track down the son of a bitch who did it.” Cas doesn’t want to do it. He wants
to cling to Dean with every ounce of strength in his body, but he knows that
his friend is right.
“Okay. I swear.”
“Me too.”
“Goodnight, Dean.”
“Night, Cas.”
***** The One Where I Am Torn Apart *****
Chapter Summary
     “Castiel, go get Ellen and tell her to call 911.”
     “But-”
     “Now, Castiel.” The bite in his brother’s tone has Castiel jumping up
     and running as fast as he can into the Roadhouse.
     “Cas, what’s wrong?” Ellen catches him as he barrels in.
     “Call 911,” he pants. “I found Dean.”
Chapter Notes
     I'm sorry about the lateness of this chapter, but, since all of you
     are SO concerned about Dean, I've decided to up his return to now.
     And I am so, so sorry. But this chapter, the one I wrote first, is
     the exact reason I started writing this story. So, yeah. Enter Dean
     Winchester.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
As soon as Castiel gets out of the building, he calls Gabriel.
“Is everything okay?” Is the first thing Gabriel says when he picks up the
phone after the first ring.
“Mostly. I just wanted to tell you that I’m going over to the Roadhouse for a
while. I just… I need to be out of the apartment.
“Okay, I get it. But I’m meeting you there. How far away are you?” Now that he
knows his way around, Castiel can more accurately tell where he is and how
close he is to the Roadhouse.
“About half an hour if I walk. But you don’t have to come.”
“I know,” Gabriel replies plainly, and then the connection is cut.
Gabriel is already sitting at the bar, chatting amicably with Jo, when Cas
walks in and takes a seat next to him. He smiles at Jo and she nods back before
moving away, seeming to get that he wants to talk to Gabriel alone.
“So do you want to tell me where you’ve been?” It’s a request, not a command,
and Castiel is thankful for that. He pauses, unsure if he actually wants to
tell Gabriel about his meeting with Crowley.
“An old associate of mine wanted a word.” Is what he finally settles with.
“Uh-huh,” Gabriel replies dubiously. “How old is ‘old’?”
“We stopped working together about a week ago,” Cas replies honestly. Gabriel’s
eyes widen.
“Look, Cas, I wasn’t gonna ask about what it is you’ve gotten up to over the
last few years, but now it seems like something I have to know. If you’re
putting yourself in danger, I need to at least know about it.” Castiel
appraises his brother. Gabriel looks dead serious, all concern and stern
resolve.
“If you’re sure.”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Crowley was, in a word, my pimp.” This makes Gabriel blanch, but he doesn’t
stop Castiel. “I left without telling him, and he feels that I owe him. He
offered me a deal: I work for the next five nights, and he never bothers me
again. I accepted. Simple as that.” 
“That’s hardly simple.” Cas shrugs. “And what do you mean, work?” 
“Sweeping floors,” he says sarcastically, raising an eyebrow. A slight flush
tinges Gabriel’s cheeks.
“Oh.”
“Indeed. Will that be a problem?” Gabriel flounders for an answer.
“Um. No? Maybe,” he says eloquently.
“Why maybe?” Cas prompts.
“Because it’s illegal, maybe? Or because I’m supposed to let you go and
do…things like that, and ignore it?”
“Not ignore it, no, but respect the fact that this is something I need to do,”
Cas replies. Gabriel nods.
“Okay, but say I forbid you go. What then?”
“That would be very unwise,” Cas says, narrowing his eyes. “Crowley is a
powerful man who is known for using his influence to harm others. I would not
put you or anyone else at risk from my failure to repay my own debts.”
Gabriel’s eyebrows fly up on his forehead.
“Jesus, Cas, who the hell have you been messing around with?” He asks
incredulously.
“No one good, I’m afraid.” Gabriel tips his beer at him.
“I’ll drink to that." Gabriel takes a large drink of his beer.
“For what it’s worth, I am sorry that I dragged you into this,” Castiel offers
as Gabriel finishes off the last of his drink.
“Yeah, I know. But I guess there’s not much we can do about it now.”
“No, I suppose not.”
They leave the Roadhouse a few minutes later, after Ellen swings by their seats
to say hello, and Jo comes back to say goodbye. As they pass by the familiar
alley on their way out to Gabriel’s car, Castiel can’t help but pause.
“Cassie, you coming?” Gabriel calls.
“Yeah, just…give me a moment,” he replies, before stepping into the alley. He’s
not exactly sure why, but he does anyway. Castiel retraces his often-walked
path to the dumpster, running his hands along the cool metal. He’s just about
to turn and go when he hears something. Maybe a whimper, maybe a groan, but
it’s definitely something, and it’s definitely human.
Cas cautiously peers around the dumpster and freezes. There, half-hidden in the
darkness, is a person. Probably male, from what Castiel can see of his figure.
He’s curled in the fetal position on his side, back facing Cas, and what Cas
sees of his back makes his stomach turn.
The man’s skin is mauled, criss-crossed with bloody lines and open wounds that
are deep and raw. The marks disappear into the shadows draped over his lower
body, but Castiel doesn't think he’s wearing any clothes. The man is trembling
violently, and with a start, Cas remembers the snow that fell in a light
blanket over the city last night and pulls his coat off hastily. He approaches
the man cautiously, still unable to make out any distinct features. His hair is
matted with blood, the same as every new inch of skin Cas can see. Scars both
old and new mar the man’s arm and the small amount of skin Castiel can see on
his chest. It’s only when the man shifts slightly with a small cry of pain that
Castiel begins to make out his face. When he finally sees enough to recognize
the man, his blood runs cold.
Castiel hadn’t dared to hope-indeed, after seeing the horror that is the man’s
skin, he hadn’t wanted to. But there’s no mistaking those lips, that nose,
those closed eyes. There’s no one else it could be.
“Dean?” He whispers, voice breaking. Dean-for indeed it is Dean-flinches away
from the sound of his voice.
“Please,” he rasps, voice completely wrecked. He curls into himself and draws
away, even though it must be agony. “No more.”
Panic is clawing its way up Castiel’s throat. He can’t think, can’t breathe,
then only thing he knows is Dean is here and Dean is hurt.
“Dean, it’s me. It’s Cas,” he chokes out, falling to his knees painfully and
shuffling towards his friend.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll be good, please,” Dean begs pitifully, still not
opening is eyes. “Not him. Please, not him.”
Castiel thinks he’s crying.
“Cas, come on!” Gabriel calls from the mouth of the alley. “What are you doing
back there?”
“Gabriel,” he says, as loudly as he can manage. “Gabriel, I need help.” 
His brother is there in what could be either seconds or minutes; it’s hard to
tell when his head keeps spinning and his heart feels like it’s going to beat
out of his chest.
“What the hell? Castiel, who is this?”
“Dean,” is all he can say. Thankfully, Gabriel seems to understand, and pulls
him back from Dean’s still form. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing.
“What happened?” When Castiel doesn’t answer, Gabriel grabs him by the
shoulders and shakes him hard. “Castiel, look at me. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he replies honestly. “I just…found him.” 
“Okay.” Gabriel nods and turns away, back to Dean. His posture is stiff, and
Cas suddenly remembers that Gabriel spent three years in medical school and
probably knows exactly what he’s doing.
“Dean,” Gabriel begins. Dean doesn't move. “Dean, I need you to open your
eyes.” It’s said firmly but not unkindly, and after a few moments of silence,
Dean finally opens the eye that’s not swollen shut. He looks at Gabriel for a
long moment, but then his gaze flicks to Castiel and he goes even stiller, if
possible. 
“Cas,” he whispers, his voice still hoarse and cracked. Cas doesn’t want to
think about why that might be. 
“Yeah, Dean. I’m here.” Dean’s eye slides shut again, relief hinted at in the
way his face loses a bit of tension.
“Castiel, give me your jacket,” Gabriel orders, and Cas scrambles to comply.
Gabriel takes it and slowly moves to cover Dean with it, who flinches again at
the contact.
“Dean, I need you to sit up. Can you do that?” Gabriel asks calmly. “Castiel,
go get Ellen and tell her to call 911.”
“But-”
“Now,Castiel.” The bite in his brother’s tone has Castiel jumping up and
running as fast as he can into the Roadhouse.  
“Cas, what’s wrong?” Ellen catches him as he barrels in.
“Call 911,” he pants. “I found Dean.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The paramedics don’t let him ride in the ambulance. Instead, Ellen climbs in
with the now unconscious Dean, and Cas is left to ride home with Gabriel. He
protests, of course, but Gabriel pulls him away from the ambulance with a
resigned grimace on his face.
“You need to sleep, Cas. Come on. We can visit Dean when he’s better.” Cas
finally follows his brother to the car and, once they return to the apartment,
changes into Dean’s shirt and his own flannel bottoms. When he emerges from the
bathroom, Gabriel is leaning against the kitchen counter, pouring some sort of
alcohol into a mug of coffee.
“That can’t taste very good,” Cas says dryly, attempting some sort of normalcy.
Gabriel huffs a laugh through his nose.
“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, baby brother.” They stand in silence for
a moment, Gabriel sipping at his drink and Castiel watching, silent. Neither of
them want to be the first to speak, and eventually Castiel walks back to the
living room and slides under the covers of the sofa bed. He hears Gabriel heave
a sigh, then the lights flick off and Gabriel pads back to his room, coffee
presumably still in hand.
He can’t sleep. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, what with everything that’s
happened in the last few hours. The idea of going back to Crowley now that Dean
is back, now that he can seehim, makes him feel even worse than it did when it
wast first proposed, but Castiel doesn’t see any other options. If he doesn’t
obey Crowley, his friends and family will almost definitely end up getting hurt
in some way. If he does…well. He only loses what’s left of his dignity and self
worth. No big deal.
Before, dealing with Crowley hadn’t really weighed on him. Sure, he’d known it
was wrong and that it would probably come around to bite him on the ass one
day, but he couldn’t ever bring himself to care. Even without the drugs that
Crowley offered him every time he came around for a ‘visit’, Castiel had felt
numb throughout that whole month. He kept pushing his memories of better days
to the back of his mind and refusing to acknowledge the fact that he’d fallen
so low. He knew that his predicament was the exact opposite of what Dean had
wanted, but every time he thought about that, he’d just pushed it away.
Everything hurt, and he wanted nothing to do with that sort of pain.
Now, Castiel knows he was foolish. He was too stubborn to accept Ellen’s help,
too arrogant to even admit to needing it. He was upset and confused, but he
knows that he overreacted. Dean was an integral part of his life for a long
time, but he shouldn’t have gone overboard with his reaction. For all they
knew, Dean hadn’t even been missing. Of course, they know he was now, know that
something indescribably horrible happened to him, but Dean could have shown up
hours after Castiel had left and they would have no way of contacting each
other. He tries to put this out of his mind, tries to clear his thoughts so he
can get some sleep, but as soon as he does, every mistake he’s made over the
course of his life springs unbidden to the front of his mind.
Running away for the first time. He was young and stupid and had no idea what
he was getting into.
Following that man into Ellen’s alley, and doing what he asked even though he
knew it was wrong.
Staying there for three days before Ellen found him.
Not trying hard enough to get along with Michael.
Going back to the Roadhouse again and again and again.
Trusting strangers not to murder him after doing what they paid for.
Not confiding in Anna when he had the chance.
Driving home with her in the car after dark, completely aware that he was
taking a risk.
Not paying close enough attention to the road because she wouldn’t stop making
him laugh.
Killing her.
Kissing Dean.
Accepting Crowley’s offer.
Being too ‘strong’ and ‘smart’ and ‘independent’ to accept help from anyone.
Wanting to keep Dean with him when Ellen offered him a place to stay the first
night they met.
The list goes on and on, and by the time he hears Gabriel’s alarm go off at six
thirty, he feels worse than he has in months. He doesn’t speak a word when
Gabriel shuffles in, and when he ignores every attempt at conversation, his
brother seems to get the hint. The air is filled with a tense silence until
they’re halfway to Sweet Tooth and Gabriel finally clears his throat.
“I talked to Ellen,” he begins. “She said that Dean’s going to be fine, but
other than that she doesn’t know much. His family should be here in a few
hours, and they’re the only ones allowed to visit for the next few days.” 
“Thanks,” Castiel replies. It hardly makes him feel better, knowing that he
won’t be able to see Dean again for days at least. He can wait, though. As long
as Dean’s going to be okay, he can wait.
The day is surprisingly normal. Cas does the menial tasks he seems to be decent
at, sweeping and wiping down tables and delivering food and coffee, and his
mind only strays to Dean, broken and bloody, every once in a while. Gabriel
leans over the counter in between baking and serving drinks and laughs with
customers, both familiar and new, eyes only straying to his younger brother in
concern once or twice. Balthazar teases everyone and makes lewd jokes and leans
over to kiss Gabriel on the cheek once, twice, three times, winking at Castiel
after the third. Kevin tries not to laugh at his boss’s horrible jokes and
passes Cas a free latte during his break. It’s actually the most normal day
he’s had in a while, if he ignores the facts that he has an appointment with
Meg in a few hours, and Dean is lying in a hospital bed somewhere, recovering
from God knows what sort of trauma.
When everyone has finally left Sweet Tooth and Gabriel locks the doors behind
them at 10:30, Castiel starts to panic. He remembers all too clearly the things
that Meg loved to do to him, and he grabs Gabriel’s sleeve as they walk back to
the car.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he confesses. Gabriel pauses, then turns to
face him fully.
“You don’t have to. We’ll figure something out, Cas. We always do.” He shakes
his head.
“Not this time. Not with Crowley.” He shoves back his doubts and fears and gets
in the car. “Can you drop me off?”
“Sure,” Gabriel replies wearily. “Where do you need to go?”
Castiel gives him directions to the apartment block, and Gabriel can’t really
hide his disgust at the place.
“You lived here for a month?” Cas shrugs.
“Better than being out on the streets when it started to snow.” He exits the
car quickly, after telling his brother that he’ll call if he needs a ride home.
He enters the building and is escorted to his old room again, closing the door
behind him two minutes before eleven.
He knows the drill. He knows what Meg expects, what his instructions are.
Resignedly, he sheds his clothes, folding them neatly and placing them on top
of the tiny dresser. He doesn’t open the drawers; Meg will do that later. The
clock strikes eleven as he kneels next to the bed, hands clasped tightly behind
his back and eyes staring blankly forward.
Meg breezes in through the door seconds after he settles into position. Cas
doesn’t look at her, doesn’t twitch a single muscle. She stops in front of him
and cards a hand through his hair. He tries his hardest not to flinch away,
only barely succeeding.
“Hello, Clarence,” she drawls, dropping down to squat in front of him. He looks
past her, cold and professional, just the way she wants. Meg always enjoys
breaking him. When he doesn’t react, she stands back up and circles him,
inspecting his still form. With a nudge of her foot here and there and a final
shove that forces his head and gaze down, Meg has him exactly where she wants
him
“It’s been a while, Clarence,” she says, using the nickname she’d given him
once she’d seen his back. “I’m hurt that you ran out on me.” 
He says nothing. Meg walks over to the dresser and opens a drawer. Cas hears it
slide shut just a few moments later. He doesn’t know what she took out until
her feet stop in front of him and suddenly a black cloth is being tied over his
eyes. So it’s one of those nights.
“Open up,” she bites, and when he does, she presses a rubber gag into his open
mouth. Cas can’t see a thing, can only wait for the inevitable. He doesn’t have
to wait long.
The first lash from the flogger comes unexpectedly, blazing across his upper
back. Meg doesn’t bother with a few gentle lashes to warm up; she begins with a
single, hard strike that has Castiel whimpering around the gag. He can’t flinch
back or pull away, even if his hands aren’t bound. He knows what will happen if
he does. 
“I missed you the other night,” Meg says, as calmly as if she were discussing
the weather and not beating a whore mercilessly with a leather flogger. Castiel
fights to choke back the noises he wants to make as it strikes the tender skin
of his back, digging into the old scars. He can’t get the image of Dean’s back
out of his mind. Nobody’s ever hurt him like that; the few times blood had been
drawn with a whip or cane, the damage had been minimal and Crowley had left him
the materials with which to clean himself up, and the client had been banned.
As much as he dislikes and distrusts Meg, he’s positive that she won’t leave
him any lasting scars. 
“You know, Clarence, I pay a lot of money to see you. A lot. And you can’t
believe that I was happy last week, to hear that my favorite angel had flown
the coop.” The lashes pause, the sound of leather hitting skin broken my her
careful footsteps. Cas pants heavily through the gag, his whole body vibrating
with tension as the sound stops directly in front of him. He might trust her
not to scar him, but a lot of pain can be inflicted without leaving lasting
marks.
“Relax,” Meg whispers, letting the leather strips caress his face. Cas lifts
his head reluctantly, though he still can’t see.
“Good boy.” The instrument continues its gentle course down his chest, running
along Castiel’s thighs and over his half-hard cock. “Such a good boy for me,
aren’t you Castiel?”
When Castiel nods obediently, Meg lays a gentle hand in his hair, playing with
the dark strands in an almost affectionate way.
“Such a good boy. Now,” she says, sharp all of a sudden as she pulls both her
hand and the flogger away. “Let’s get to the fun stuff, shall we?”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cas stumbles out of the building two hours later in desperate need of a drink.
A call to Gabriel and a silent car ride later, he’s sitting in his brother’s
kitchen with a glass full of cranberry juice and vodka in his hand.
“You’re not old enough to drink,” Gabriel comments blandly.
“Shut the fuck up,” Castiel snaps. “And let me drink in peace.”
“What the hell happened back there that’s making you of all people swear?”
Castiel absently rubs his throat, where the bruises Crowley left last week have
faded to little more than shadows.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Really?” Gabriel arches an eyebrow, settling back in his chair. “Says who?”
“Says me.” He takes another drink, relishing the burn that makes him forget the
marks that are rapidly darkening under his clothes.
“Well, start talking. Because, guess what? I’m sick and tired of you and your
goddamn secrets!” Gabriel slams his hand on the table, making Cas flinch back
in shock.
“Are you drunk?” He asks quietly.
“So what if I am? It’s the only way I could handle letting my kid brother go
and whore himself for a few hours.” The words sting, but they don’t matter.
“You were drunk,” he repeats coldly. “And you went driving? Are you insane?
After what happened to Anna, you thought that it would be a good idea to get
behind the wheel of a car drunk?” Gabriel glares at him.
“What do you want me to say, Cas? ‘I’m sorry’? Okay, I’m sorry! I messed up.
But you did too. You never trusted me, never trusted anyof us to take care of
you! You were stupid and fucking stubborn and had your arrogant head in the
clouds thinking that you had every fucking answer under the sun. You’re my
brother, Castiel, and I trust you, but you’ve never awarded any of us the same
courtesy. And look what came of it. You’re selling yourself, living on the
streets and in shitty apartments, when all you had to do was ask me or Michael
for a place to stay!” Cas looks away. Gabriel is angry, angrier that he’s seen
him in a long time, and the words he’s saying are a product of the drink, but
Castiel knows he’s been thinking them all week.
“You are selfish and inconsiderate and arrogant, Castiel Novak, and I hate to
say it, but with everything you’ve done, all the pain you caused Michael and me
and Anna, bless her soul, you deservewhat you got. Like they say, Cas, you’ve
made your bed. Go fucking lie in it.” and with that, Gabriel shoves his chair
back and storms into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
Cas feels like he’s been hit. What Gabriel said, it’s nothing other than what
Cas has told himself dozens of times, but when the words come from his brother
they hit so much harder. He blinks, and is surprised to find his vision
blurring with tears. He blinks them away resolutely, scraping the chair back
and moving over to his bed. Cas sinks to the ground and drags himself almost
halfway under it before he finds what he’s looking for: the old plastic bag
he’d kept his clothes in for so long. He had mostly emptied all his belongings,
both old and new, into the small dresser Gabriel dragged out for him a few days
earlier, but he’d left a single item in the ratty bag.
As he withdraws the trench coat, Castiel can’t help but smile. Dean hated the
coat with a burning passion, and had tried to throw it away several times.
Once, while they were sharing a corner, he had threatened to burn it. Cas
shrugs it on, the worn fabric smooth and familiar against his aching skin.
Being with Meg-with any of his clients, really, always makes him feel wrong,
but just pulling his arms through the sleeves of the trench coat eases the knot
of hurt and self loathing that’s coiled tight somewhere deep inside him.
Cas wants to run away. He’s done it so often that it’s become his first
impulse; the fight instinct long since trained out of him by strangers, and the
urge to get away from everything that hurts and goes wrong is like an itch
under his skin that he gives into scratching too easily. At the same time as he
needs to get away, Cas knows that, even though he hasn’t slept in nearly two
days, he won’t be resting tonight if he doesn’t do something.So when he looks
up and sees Gabriel’s keys still lying on the counter, next to a pad of paper
with Dean, room 106 printed on the top page, he knows what he’s going to do.
Castiel hasn’t been behind the wheel of a car in a year, but his muscles still
remember the movements and he’s more careful on the streets than he probably
should be considering the fact that it’s two in the morning and no one is on
the road. When he pulls up to the hospital, his hands are sweating and he’s
still shaking a little bit, but at least he's managed to get there. The
building is brightly lit from the inside, the only one on the street with the
lights still on. The door to the waiting room is open and when he pushes it
open, and the lady at the desk immediately perks her head up.
“Visiting hours are over, son,” she says, like it’s not two in the morning. Cas
nods and takes a seat in one of the chairs that fill the room, settling back
and closing his eyes. 
He waits for what feels like hours before the lady gets up from behind the desk
and walks back into some other room, and then he’s halfway down the opposite
hall. The first room he sees is labeled 126, and the next one down is 124, so
he follows them down the hall until he sees the room marked 106. The door is
shut, but not locked, and Castiel has no problem slipping in and walking to
Dean’s bedside.
Dean almost looks worse than he did last night. The blood has been cleaned off
his face, but that only draws attention to all the bruises that spread across
his face, his split lips, and the black eye that has begun to swell. Seeing the
state of his friend makes Cas's heart clench in guilt. Maybe there was nothing
he could shave done to help Dean, but he shouldn’t have just left. Promises
made in the dead of night be damned.
“Hey, Dean,” he whispers, sinking into the chair next to the hospital bed.
Dean’s deep breaths don’t falter, and his face is just as peaceful in sleep as
Castiel remembers, even if he looks so much worse for wear. 
“I’m so sorry. I know that you’d probably say that none of this is my fault,
but it is. You’re just too selfless to see it. You should have stayed with
Ellen that night and gone back to South Dakota to be with your brother, but you
stayed. You stayed because of me. I was too selfish to let you go-after
everything we’d been through, I wasn’t ready to give you up.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes, Dean. I fuck up and I don’t even acknowledge it
anymore because somewhere, deep down, I still think that I’m doing the right
thing. But I’ve caused so much pain for my family, I’ve hurt myself and so many
other people, and I don’t think I can stand it anymore.” Cas speaks softly,
confessing everything he’s feeling without ever looking up from his folded
hands.
“I just want to fix it, I want to make everything better, but I don’t know how.
All I know how to do is run away from my problems. I just-” Cas cuts himself
off before the lump in his throat grows any bigger. Dean doesn’t move, his
breaths coming in slow, even intervals.
“I’m sorry,” Cas says finally. “I just wanted to tell you that, If I don’t see
you for a while. I’m not family, you know. They won’t let me in to see you
until they’re sure you’re okay.”
He leaves the room as carefully as he entered it, watching for nurses on his
way out of the hospital. Even as Cas pulls up outside Gabriel’s apartment, he
still feels that sense of calm that settled over him as he sat next to Dean.
He’s going to fix this, he will. As soon as he unlocks the apartment and hears
Gabriel’s snores, however, he is overcome with exhaustion. He hasn’t slept in
almost two days, and the aftermath of his session with Meg is just starting to
set in. 
His bed suddenly looks very appealing, and when he lies down, Cas wraps himself
in the trench coat that still smells vaguely of Dean and pulls up the covers.
He settles in, and as his eyes drift shut, he makes himself one last promise.
I’ll fix this. I swear.
Chapter End Notes
     I probably don't feel guilty enough about that. Anyway, more on Dean
     next chapter. Expect me back in the next few days!
***** The One Where You Are Shattered *****
Chapter Summary
     "She's been staring at you all week, dude. How did you not see it?"
     Maybe because he's so used to people looking at him like that, he's
     become unable to distinguish those looks from any other.
     "I'm gay." Cas goes with the simplest answer, even if it's not
     particularly true. He's never thought about his sexuality that much,
     never had some soul wrenching epiphany in the middle of a blowjob
     that he was either gay or straight. It's just...never really
     mattered. Kevin just shrugs and waves the next person in line
     forward. Garth, who's rushing around the small area in a whirl,
     mixing three different coffee concoctions at once, offers Cas a
     sympathetic glance.
     "Let her down easy," he advises. "Hester's nice. She'll be fine."
     "Thanks, Garth."
Chapter Notes
     You ask for more Dean? I give you more Dean! (You might regret it,
     with what I have planned for him.)
See the end of the chapter for more notes
“Morning, Dean-o,” Alastair croons, leaning aver him. Dean fights to slip back
into unconsciousness, but he can’t ignore the icy cold finger trailing down his
still-raw chest. He tries to keep his breathing steady, stave off the panic
that’s rising in his throat, but the wicked smile that he justknowsis on
Alastair’s face tells him that he knows Dean’s awake, and knows that he’s not
getting back to sleep anytime soon. 
As usual, Dean’s been moved in his sleep, and he finds himself cuffed to the
cold metal of Alastair’s rack in the all too familiar spread-eagle position.
“Are you going to give in today, Dean? Are you finally going to pick up my
blade?” The same question, every day. And every day, the same response.
“Go to hell,” he growls from behind clenched teeth. Alastair draws away,
abandoning Dean’s torso, and clucks his tongue in that condescending way he
has. 
“Pity. Well, what shall we do today? You have a client later, so we’ll make it
quick.” Dean flinches back into the cold metal table. Clients mean more pain,
unfamiliar pain. He knows Alastair, knows the way he likes to torture, and
while that doesn’t make it any better, at least there’s the comfort of being
able to somewhat anticipate what comes next. He can’t predict a client, and
that makes things ten times worse.  
He forces his eyes open, makes himself watch as Alastair gazes down fondly at
his favorite toys: the collection of knives that he’d personally and painfully
introduced Dean to. He moves out of Dean’s line of sight, and he tries to twist
his head back to see what Alastair’s doing, but the cuffs around his wrists and
ankles, along with the metal table, hinder his mobility to say the least.
“You’ve held out for so long, Dean. Longer than all my favorite pets, in fact.
I knew, of course, when I first saw you, that breaking you would be fun. But I
never,” Alastair walks back to where Dean can see him, holding the delicate
blade that he dubbed “Ruby” almost reverently in his hands. “ Neverthought it
would be this much fun.”
“Fuck yourself,” Dean spits as the man approaches him. Alastair just grins and
rakes his eyes over Dean’s naked body, as if to find a spot not yet marred by
his blades. Dean knows it’s futile; he’s been here long enough that several of
his first scars have already started to scab and heal, the words carved into
his arms and thighs among them.
“Now, now. Let’s not be crude.” He’s leaning over Dean now, the tip of the
blade pressed against Dean’s lips. He feels a sudden jolt of fear as Alastair
slowly applies more and more pressure, until he thinks that he can’t take
anymore without the skin splitting, and only then does Alastair ease up.
There’s no pain, just the sensation of Ruby truing her tip along the bow of his
lips.
“As much as customers love that mouth of yours, Dean-o, if you keep that up I
might have to cut it out.” Dean keeps his eyes locked on Alastair’s, despite
the fear that’s writhing in his stomach. It’s a horribly familiar feeling.
“Now,” Alastair whispers, bringing his face close to Dean’s and letting his
breath waft over his lips. “Are you going to be good?”
Dean wishes he could look away. Alastair’s face is inches from his own, the
man’s too-sweet breath mingling with his. Alastair’s smile is all predator, no
kindness or empathy, only twisted cruelty. And just as it does every morning,
Dean’s breath catches in his throat.
“Yes,” he breathes, hating himself for it. Alistair’s grin broadens, and he
pulls away, Ruby trailing from Dean’s lips to his neck, all the way down to his
hipbones, then to the insides of his thighs.
“Let’s freshen these up, then,” Alastair purrs. Dean takes a breath and tries
to brace himself from the pain he knows is coming.
And then Alastair starts to slice.
And Dean wakes up screaming.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Cas wakes up wrapped up in his trench coat, and for a while he can fool himself
into thinking that Dean his curled up just a few inches away, but eventually he
has to open his eyes when he hears pots and pans clanging in the kitchen.
Despite what he promised last night, he still isn't looking froward to seeing
Gabriel again, but eventually he does sit up and peer into the other room.
“Morning, Cas,” Gabriel grumbles. He looks slightly shaky and there are dark
bags under his eyes.
“Are you okay?” Cas asks tentatively. Gabriel snorts.
“I hid a bottle of whiskey under my bed a few months ago and brought it out
last night.” He doesn't have to say anything else. Cas settles at the table as
quietly as possible, looking anywhere but at his brother as he moves sluggishly
around the kitchen, scrambling eggs.
When he’s done, Gabriel slams down a plate of eggs in front of Castiel, who
eats them obediently. When he opens his mouth to speak, his brother glares at
him and shakes his head, so Cas waits until they’re on their way to sweet tooth
to start talking.
“I’d like to meet with Michael,” he says, and Gabriel nearly swerves off the
street.
“What?” He exclaims, then flinches at the volume of his own voice.
“I’d like to meet with Michael,” Cas repeats. Gabriel grips the steering wheel
tightly, eyes flicking over to where Castiel sits in the passenger seat.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I think I’ve hurt him enough; I shouldn’t try and keep punishing him for
my own mistakes,” he replies steadily. Gabriel turns his head, looking at him
with regret in his eyes.
“Cas, I didn’t-what I said last night. I shouldn't have, and I’m sorry.” Cas
shakes his head.
“You meant it, and you were right. About everything. And I know that
apologizing won’t fix anything, but I figure that I could at least offer
Michael one. He deserves my apologies more than I deserve his.”
“Cas, you know that what happened to Anna wasn’t your fault, right? It was the
bastard driving the truck,” Gabriel says. “I was angry and drunk last night,
and it’s not something I actually believe.”
“You might not believe it, but I do. I was there, Gabriel. I could have stopped
it from happening if I’d just been paying more attention.” Gabriel swerves
suddenly, pulling into the parking lot behind Sweet Tooth. He parks the car and
turns himself in his seat to glare at Castiel, who shrinks back in his seat.
“Don’t you dare say that, Castiel. You are not to blame for what happened that
night. If it had been me driving, would you have blamed me?” He pauses, and
after a short while it becomes  clear to Castiel that he expects an answer.
“No,” he mutters, looking away. “Of course not.”
“So why should the fact that it was you be any different?” 
“Because Anna had so much to live for!” Cas bursts out suddenly. “If I could
trade places with her, I would in a heartbeat!” 
Gabriel draws back as if he’s been burned. Castiel pleads with his eyes for his
brother to understand, to leave it alone, but of course Gabriel does no such
thing.
“What did you say?” Gabriel asks, his voice too calm for Castiel’s liking.
“I said that it should have been me,” he replies, breaking eye contact again.
“I had nothing; she had everything. Anna would have done so much more with her
life than me, but I walked out of that wreck alive, and I just don’t see why.”
“Cas, you almost died. They couldn’t keep Lucifer from doing the surgeries
because he was afraid that if you left his sight for even a moment, then you
wouldn’t make it. Michael and I sat by your bedside for days while you were in
that coma, and I know for a fact that he hardly slept or ate until you woke up.
How could you think that it would have been any easier for us to lose you
instead of Anna?” Gabriel’s hands are on his shoulders now, forcing Cas to look
at him dead in the eye. To his surprise, tears are glistening in his brother’s
eyes.
“You just-you always seemed to need her more that you needed me.” He knows that
he shouldn’t be saying any of this. He’s wallowed in self pity for half his
life, he doesn’t need any more of it now. Cas is shocked when Gabriel pulls him
as close as he can within the confines of the car, hands gripping him tightly.
“Don’t ever think that,” Gabriel whispers violently. “Don’t ever think that we
don’t want you, Castiel. I know Michael and I both have said some horrible
things to you, but we’re family. We need you just as much as we needed Anna,
and we nearly lost both of you. Don’t make us lose you too, Castiel. Don’t you
dare.”
“I-” Cas stammers against Gabriel’s shoulder. Gabriel’s words have left him
speechless, and the embrace he’s wrapped in goes on and on until his brother
claps him hard on the shoulder and pulls away, wiping his eyes.
“Sorry, Cassie. I got a bit carried away.” Gabriel exits the car hastily,
leaving Cas alone and bewildered in the passenger seat of the Prius. He sits in
stunned silence for a few moments after that, staring after Gabriel. After last
night, after what was said…it’s too much. Everything is too much.
Finally, after a long moment of staring blankly, Castiel clambers out of the
car. Everything that Gabriel’s said is swirling around in his head. His mind
darts after individual trains of thought, one after another until he has to
lean against the wall outside Sweet Tooth to get his bearings. Nothing makes
sense, nothing’s fitting together the way it’s supposed to. He’s supposed to
fix things, supposed to apologize and make amends and try and make his brothers
forget the horrible things he’s done. He’s not supposed to be forgiven. He’s
not supposed to let the blame lift off his shoulders. That’s not how this goes.
Eventually, Kevin guides him inside the shop with a gentle hand on his shoulder
and a hot chocolate pressed into his hands. It always was Cas's favorite,
though he doesn’t know how Kevin knew that.
“You look like you need it,” he offers when Castiel asks why he brought it to
him.
“Thank you,” Cas replies sincerely. He likes Kevin, even if he’s only known him
for a week. He's a genuinely good kid, with a natural knack for languages that
immediately endears him to the frequent patrons that don't speak English, both
exchange students and adults alike. "I'll let you get back to work now."
"No problem," Kevin replies, grinning from over the counter. "If you ever need
anything, just ask."
Gabriel has long since disappeared into the back, and Cas knows better than to
disturb him while he's baking, so he merely thanks Kevin again and ties on an
apron. He knows several of the regular customers by name now, and as he clears
their tables he greets Rachel and Inias. As he takes Hester's plate and mug,
she stands, giving him a wink. There's a brief pressure near the pocket of his
apron, and then she's gone.
What Cas finds after taking the dishes back into the kitchen shocks him. It's a
phone number, scrawled in messy purple handwriting, and a lipstick kiss. He
frowns. It strikes him as the sort of thing that Dean would have thrown his
head back and laughed long and hard at, but Cas doesn't feel like laughing. He
feels like running out and catching Hester by the arm and telling her that no
you can't want me I'm broken and a whore and I'll just hurt you.
But he doesn't. Instead, Cas tucks the scrap of paper into his jeans pocket and
walks back out to finish wiping down her table. Kevin winks at him.
"She's been staring at you all week, dude. How did you not see it?" Maybe
becuase he's so used to people looking at him like that, he's become unable to
distinguish those looks from any other.
"I'm gay." Cas goes with the simplest answer, even if it's not particularly
true. He's never thought about his sexuality that much, never had some soul
wrenching epiphany in the middle of a blowjob that he was either gay or
straight. It's just...never really mattered. Kevin just shrugs and waves the
next person in line forward. Garth, who's rushing around the small area in a
whirl, mixing three different coffee concoctions at once, offers Cas a
sympathetic glance.
"Let her down easy," he advises. "Hester's nice. She'll be fine."
"Thanks, Garth."
Cas only sees Gabriel twice from then until closing, but he doesn't think his
brother is actively ignoring him. It's been a busy day, mostly because midterms
are creeping up and students are coming in every two hours for another dose of
caffeine. Cas locks the door behind him once Gabriel finally manages to drag
Kevin and his girlfriend out of a comfortable corner where they had been poring
over papers for their government class, and Gabriel tosses him the keys to the
Prius.
"I'm getting a ride home with Balthazar," he explains. "Come home safe, okay?"
"Okay," Cas replies, looking down at the keys in his hand. "I'll see to later,
then."
"Night, Cassie!" Balthazar calls as they begin walking down the street.
The routine is roughly the same as yesterday. Cas gets to the motel, strips
down, and is settled into position just before Naomi walks through the door. He
should be grateful; she's not so much about physical pain as much as playing
mind games. By the time their session is done, the only thing Cas wants to do
is go home and curl up under a blanket.
Cas hears faint murmuring coming from Gabriel's bedroom when he gets back to
the apartment, but he ignores it in favor of stepping immediately into the
shower and scrubbing himself clean of the last day. It's silent when he gets
out, and it doesn't take him long at all to relax into the comforts of sleep.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
When Gabriel shakes him awake several hours later, Castiel wants to ignore him.
It's his day off; why  is Gabriel bothering him. He groans and rolls over onto
his stomach, burying his face in his pillow.
"Cas, wake up." Gabriel barks. "They  need you down at the hospital."
"What?" This makes him bolt upright, nearly head-butting Gabriel, who's leaning
over him. "What's wrong? Did something happen to Dean?"
"Everything's fine, Castiel. The police just want to ask you a few questions."
"The police?" Cas swings his legs over the side of the bed and stretches, the
panic receding.
"Ellen filed a missing persons report on him last month. They want to talk to
you because you and Ellen were apparently the only people he knew in the entire
city," Gabriel answers. He steps away from the bed and Cas stands, stripping
off his shirt and rummaging in the drawer for a new one.
"What on earth...?" Balthazar. He'd forgotten that Balthazar was here. He
turns, shirt in hand, to find him staring open mouthed at his chest from the
doorway. Cas glances down, remembering the bruises and welts that mar his skin.
"Good morning," he says as calmly as he can, shrugging the shirt on.
"Balthazar, let's go down to the car. We'll give you a lift, Cassie." Gabriel
pulls his partner out of the apartment, and Cas waits a few minutes before
following and locking the door. He finds them waiting in the Prius and slides
into the backseat.
"I won't ask if you don't want me to, Cassie," Balthazar says finally. Cas
smiles at him in the rear view mirror.
"Appreciated. Gabriel," he asks, turning towards his brother. "Can I use your
phone?"
"Yeah, sure. Ellen's number is the most recent, if that's who you're calling."
As he enters Ellen's number, Cas can't help but wonder what the police are
going to ask him. He was Dean’s closest friend-Dean’s only friend, if he didn’t
count Ellen and Jo, so he isn’t really surprised that they would want to talk
to him.
“Hello?” After three rings, Ellen picks up, sounding exhausted.
“Hello, Ellen.”
“Oh, hey, Cas. How you been?” She attempts casualty, so Cas humors her.
“I’ve been fine. Yourself?” Ellen sighs over the line.
“It’s been rough. I can guess why you’re calling, though, and it’s not for idle
chat. What do you want to know?”
“Just what you told the police about me,” Cas replies. He wants desperately to
ask about Dean, but if he’s lucky they’ll let him in today to see him.
“It’s pretty simple. I told them the truth, mostly; that I’ve known you since
you were a kid and ran away from home. We kept in contact over the years, and
you came in a lot when you didn’t want to be around your family. A few months
ago, you came in with a friend of yours who happened to be the son of my
husband’s buddy from the Marines. You and Dean visited fairly regularly, but
never ordered any alcohol or tried to show me a fake ID.”
“What did you say about our living conditions? Our…line of work?” Cas asks
tentatively. It could be risky to lie about those things, and it would have to
be thought out carefully.
“As far as I know, you’ve been living with Gabriel for a long time. I offered
Dean a place to stay when he first came in, but he turned me down. I assumed
that he was living with you, but didn’t confer anything. I didn’t say anything
about your work.”
“Thank you so much, Ellen,” Cas says, emphasizing his gratitude.
“You have nothing to thank me for, Cas. Come and find me in the lobby when you
get here, there’s a few people I want you to meet.”
“Of course. I’ll see you soon.” He ends the call and hands the phone back to
Gabriel.
“Anything that I should know, Castiel?” Gabriel asks.
“Is it alright to say that I’ve been living with you for the last year? And
that every time I ran away, I was staying with you or Anna?”
“Of course. Do you want me to tell Michael this, too?” Cas considers.
“If you would, please. Tell him that I’ll explain everything later, if he’d
still like to talk.” Gabriel looks surprised that he still wants to speak with
Michael, but doesn’t comment.
“Awesome. First lying to the police, now our older brother.”
“We’re not lying to Michael, and I’m only lying to the police because I don’t
want to get arrested.”
“Um,” Balthazar says suddenly from the passenger seat, drawing Cas's attention
suddenly. “I think you two may have forgotten that I’m still here.”
“Oh,” Gabriel says eloquently. Cas merely stares at Balthazar, matching his
curious gaze.
“Do I want to know why you’re lying to the police to stay out of jail?”
Balthazar asks rationally.
“Probably, but I’m not going to tell you,” Cas replies just as evenly.
Balthazar snorts and turns back to face the road, Gabriel watching him
carefully.
“Then like I said before: I’m not going to ask. I know not to meddle where I
don’t belong. Gabriel, you missed your turn.” Gabriel swears and turns the
wheel sharply, pulling in to the next lane to make a U-turn, and all of a
sudden the tense atmosphere snaps back into something more relaxed. Cas even
smiles at the two of them as he climbs out of the backseat once Gabriel has
pulled up in front of the hospital.
“I think I’ll be here for a while. If I need anything, I’ll call you from
Ellen’s phone,” Cas promises. Gabriel sighs.
“I need to get you a damn cell phone.” Cas merely turns on his heel and strides
into the lobby. He doesn’t need a cell phone, nor does he particularly want
one.
The hospital is somewhat busier than the last time Castiel was there, but the
last time he was there it had also been two in the morning. He spies Ellen in
the lobby almost instantly and makes his way over to where she's standing with
two older men and a boy who can’t be older than fourteen. The two men, who Cas
can only assume are Bobby Singer and Dean's father, appear to be in a heated
but quiet argument, and the boy who must be Sam is slumped in a chair, his nose
buried in a book and turned pointedly away from his father.
“Hey, Castiel,” Ellen greets him warmly, pulling him into a tight embrace. He
hugs her back just as hard before stepping back and dropping into the chair
next to Sam, who glances up from his book.
“When will they need to speak to me?” Cas asks, the question directed at Ellen.
She sits down on his other side and rubs at the bags under her eyes.
“Dean just woke up. They had to dose him with something to keep him under
during the night because he wouldn’t stop screaming.” Fatigue and pain lace
Ellen’s voice, and Cas feels an unreasonable stab of guilt. “An officer is in
there now; they wanted to talk to him as soon as possible.”
“You don’t sound happy about that,” Cas remarks, and she shakes her head.
“John got a full report of his injuries yesterday, and…it’s not good, Cas. The
poor boy’s been through so much, and we only know what the doctors told us.”
“And what’s that?” Cas asks hoarsely, almost afraid to know. “What did they
tell you?”
“He’s severely malnourished,” Ellen begins, voice shaking. Out of the corner of
his eye, Cas sees Sam sit up a little straighter and turn slightly toward them.
They probably haven’t told him anything. “And dehydrated. ‘Severe psychological
and physical trauma’ are the words they used, when they talked about the scars
and bruises. And he…” She pauses, blinking back tears.
“You don’t have to say anything else, Ellen. It’s fine,” Cas reassures her, but
she shakes her head.
"He was raped, Castiel. He's bleeding internally. They're taking him in for
surgery in   few hours." Cas's blood runs cold. He'd known, of course. How
could he not, with the way Dean had flinched back from him, with the scars on
his back? He just hadn't wanted to admit it. 
"I'm sorry," he whispers, because there's nothing else to say. Ellen wipes away
tears and sits up in her chair, and Cas can see Sam wipe the expression of
disbelief off his face and replace it with anger.
"Sam," he says, turning to him. He feels like he knows Sam, through Dean's
endless anecdotes and memories that he whispered in the dead of night, when he
missed his little brother more than he disliked talking about his feelings.
Sam, however, knocks his offered hand away and stands abruptly, leaving the
book on his chair.
"You were his friend," Sam hisses, and Castiel is struck by how much anger one
gangly teenager can put into just four words. "How could you let that happen to
him?"
"I didn't know," Cas starts, even though he knows it's futile. If Sam's going
to blame him, there's nothing he can do about it. If he's honest, he blames
himself too. 
"You were the only reason he stayed!" Sam bites, standing over him with his
fists clenched and trembling. "He could have been on a bus home that night, but
you made him stay."
Cas stands, and he must be more intimidating than he feels because Sam backs up
for him, standing almost back to back with his father, who's been ignoring the
three of them in favor of arguing with Bobby and drinking from a flask he
hasn't put down since Cas came in.
"Do you know anyone who can make your brother do anything he doesn't want to?"
He asks, as calmly as he can possibly manage. "Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I
should have looked out for him better, or tried harder to keep him from
wandering off, but in the end it was Dean's choice to stay here. Not mine. So
that's something you can't blame me for, no matter how much you may want to.
Blame me fore everything else. But not that. Anything but that."
Sam looks stricken, and he looks down and shuffles his feet awkwardly. Ellen’s
staring at him, and so is Bobby Singer, looking with wide eyes over John’s
shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” Sam offers. When he looks up, his eyes are wide and shining with
tears. “I just-he’s my brother. I don’t like that he’s hurt and I don’t know
what to do about it.”
“Hey, I get it,” Cas replies, still a little wary of Sam and the way his moods
seem to switch in an instant. Although, he was rather like that at fourteen,
even if he was a fair bit shorter. 
“You must be Castiel,” Bobby says abruptly, shoving past John and extending his
hand. Cas shakes it firmly, ignoring the way John stumbles and collapses into
the nearest chair. “I’m Bobby Singer, Dean’s uncle.”
“It’s good to finally meet you, sir,” he says. He doesn’t mention that he knows
that Bobby isn’t related to the Winchesters in the slightest. “Dean spoke very
highly of you.”
“I sure hope so,” Bobby says, a smile lighting his gruff face. “Ellen told me
that you and Dean were good for each other.”
“He mostly helped me,” Cas admits. It’s starting to feel eerily like a funeral,
the four of them bathed in fluorescent light and talking about Dean. He hates
that everyone, including himself, is speaking of Dean in the past tense. “He
never needed me as much as I needed him.”
That wasn’t supposed to slip out. Cas lets his gaze drop, feeling a blush rise
to his cheeks. Bobby chuckles, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Cas tries not
to wince under the-admittedly gentle-blow.
“If I know one thing about Dean, son, it’s that he likes to act tough. From
what I’ve heard, you mean a lot to the idjit.” 
“Which one of you is Castiel Novak?” A voice breaks through the air, and Cas’s
head snaps up.
“That would be me,” he replies. The policewoman smiles gently at him and
motions him closer.
“If you’d just follow me, Mr. Novak, I’d like to ask you a few questions.” He
tries to quell the butterflies in his stomach as he follows her into the
hallway he remembers Dean’s room being in.
“What would you like to know, Officer…?”
“Sheriff Jody Mills,” the officer says with a smile. “I just want to talk about
your friend Dean. Please, have a seat.” Cas sits reluctantly in one of the
uncomfortable hospital chairs and, to his surprise, Sheriff Mills sits down
across from him, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.
“When did you and Dean meet?” That one’s easy enough.
“Outside my apartment. I was about to go for a walk when I saw him. He was
carrying a plastic bag with a few articles of clothing in it, and I felt bad
for him, so I invited him inside.”
“Why? You never heard the phrase ‘stranger danger’?” Cas shrugs.
“It was stupid of me, but I did it anyway. He took a shower and fell asleep on
my couch, that day, and when he woke up I took him down to the Roadhouse to
eat.”
“Why?” Sheriff Mills asks, scribbling on her pad.
“He looked hungry, and said that he hadn’t eaten in a while.” Cas shrugs. “I’ve
never had the best common sense in the world.”
“I’m starting to get that feeling, yeah,” Sheriff Mills jokes. “Did you let him
sleep in your brother’s apartment that night?”
“No, he told me that he had enough money for a motel. I gave him directions to
the nearest one and went home.” Sheriff Mills nods.
“Okay, and when did you see Dean next?”
“The day after, outside the Roadhouse.”
The questions keep coming, and Castiel answers the the best he can while trying
not to look guilty. After what feels like hours, which in reality is only about
thirty minutes, Sheriff Mills flips her notepad shut and puts it back in her
bag.
“Look, Castiel,” she says, leaning towards him. “You’re a good kid. So I’m
going to pretend that everything you said to me just now was completely true.”
“I don’t-” Cas begins to protest, but she simply holds a hand up and he falls
silent again.
“Promise me one thing, Castiel, and I won’t report you or Dean for underage
prostitution.”
“Isn’t that against your-”
“Don’t remind me.” She cuts him off again, and Castiel slumps in his chair,
giving in.
“What do you want?”
“Promise me you’ll stop, and that when Dean’s out of here, you won’t let him go
back to what the two of you used to do.” Hope starts rising in Cas's chest, the
hope that he might not walk out of here with a court order or handcuffs on his
wrists.
“Of course,” he promises.
“Good,” Sheriff Mills rises, and after a moment, so does he.
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Cas says, starting back toward the lobby.
“My pleasure, Castiel. Oh,” she adds after a moment. “I think they might let
you in to see Dean, before they take him in for surgery.” Cas spins on his heel
and is halfway to Dean’s room before she even finishes her sentence. He’s going
to see Dean again.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dean’s still in the cell when he wakes up, which is a change from the recent
days. He can’t tell if it’s a good change or a bad one when he pushes himself
up on his elbows (it hurts too much to do anything else) and peers around the
room.
The cell is where he’s spent the least time in this hellhole, as far as Dean
can tell. It’s where the whores go to sleep, in a dark chamber lined with thin
mattresses stuffed with straw or whatever the hell is in them that definitely
isn’t feathers. They’re constantly damp and smell like sweat and vomit and sex,
and that’s only if Dean ignores the stench of the people. The cells are where
he’s deposited at the end of every day, at least for a few hours, when they
shove plates of stale, dry, drugged food at him, and force the drugged water
down his throat. The cells are where he sleeps in a foggy haze of nightmares
and homesickness and vomiting and dreams of blue, blue eyes. The cells are
where he can think about the horrible things he’s done and contemplates asking
one of the other kids to let him help them escape, because at least then he’ll
be killed quickly and for a cause.
When he sits up, the two people with mattresses closest to him flinch back.
Dean doesn’t blame them. Everyone in this place knows who he is now, Alastair’s
perfect little pet. The whore-turned-monster. They’re right to fear him, even
if they don’t know the full extent of what he’s done. What he’s learned that
he’s capable of.
The drugs from whenever they dumped him here have worn off, so when the locks
on the doors rattle and they bang open and strong arms grab him and pull him up
and a blindfold is secured around his eyes, Dean could fight. He could struggle
and kick and scream like he thinks he did forweeks, but he’s given up.
Alastair’s made him into a monster; what left is there to fight for?
The hired muscle drags him through the hallways, and Dean realizes when they
reach stairs that they’re not going to Alastair’s chamber. They’re going to the
Dungeon. The Dungeon is almost a cavern, filled with at least two dozen racks
just like Alastair’s, and on each is a screaming captive. This is where the
truly sadistic go to satisfy themselves, with whores and junkies grabbed off
the streets, kids that are Dean’s age, sometimes younger. He thinks he might
have had a birthday at some point down here.
The only rack he’s allowed on is Alastair’s own. Sure, he gets clients that
like some of the Rec Rooms, but Dean’s first introduction to the Dungeon had
been the day he gave in. He’s intimately familiar with the Rack he calls his
own, now. As the blindfold is dropped to reveal Alastair standing in front of
him, Dean’s chest flutters. Even though he knows that he’s not the whore down
here, the sight brings memories of knives and screws and burning cigarettes.
“Hello, Dean,” Alastair drawls, stepping closer to him and further obscuring
the view of his rack. “I’ve got a treat for you today.”
When Alastair steps back, revealing the rack behind him, Dean’s eyes widen. On
it is a girl with dark brown hair hanging over her face, head bent and lips
moving in what he can only assume is a silent prayer. Her eyes are closed and
her hands strain in the shackles, but none of this is what draws Dean’s
attention. No, what catches his eye is the expanse of naked, tanned skin, void
of any cut or bruise or welt. Everyone he’s worked over has had at least a day
with another client. Alastair’s gifted him a fresh soul to scar.
“Thank you,” he murmurs reverently, taking an unconscious step forward.
“Oh,” Alastair calls casually, making Dean turn back. His mentor is holding out
Ruby, presenting her to him like a precious gift. “I want you to have this.
She’s yours, now.”
Dean approaches the girl, and when he gets close enough that he can hear her
whispered prayer, he stops.
“Hey,” he says, as gently as he can, smoothing the girl’s hair back from her
forehead. She squeezes her eyes shut tighter. “Hey, it’s okay. What’s your
name, sweetie? Come on, open your eyes and tell me your name.”
After several agonizing moments, the girl opens her eyes, and Dean’s heart
stops. Blue. Her eyes are the exact shade of blue that he never thought he
would see again, contrasting with that dark hair to send him back weeks,
months, years, back to a boy named Cas who spun his world around and broke him
in the sweetest way possible and gave the stars a shape.
“I’m Cassie,” the girl whispers, just loud enough for Dean to hear, and then
he’s done. He throws Ruby to the ground and makes it an astonishing three steps
before the guards have caught him and are throwing him to the ground and
descending upon him with fists and feet and he hears Alastair tutting in
disapproval somewhere above him.
“Pity,” Alastair snarls, and Dean can’t bring himself to care when he finally
sinks into unconsciousness.
Chapter End Notes
     I know, I know, I'm an asshole. I have no excuse for the lateness of
     this chapter other than I went to Palm Springs for the weekend (all
     you Southern Californians know what that does to a person's
     motivation) and also writer's block is a bitch. I'm sorry, for both
     that and what I'm doing to Dean. I know a lot of you are more
     invested in him than in Cas at this point, even though I rewrote half
     this fix and made it twice as long because I figured that people
     would want more Cas in it. Oh, well. Woe is me.
     Also, my tumblr is hallucinating-vividly. Just fyi. I post updates
     and fandom shit there, too.
***** The One Where I Need You *****
Chapter Notes
     So, um, instead of working on this I wrote over ten pages of a Percy
     Jackson AU. I'm so sorry. But if any of you would like to read it, it
     will be posted here soon, as well as on my tumblr.
     Gosh, I'd almost forgotten what it's like to write from Dean's
     perspective. I tried to convey his panic attacks in this chapter and
     the next few the way mine usually work-thoughts that spin on and on
     and don't stop and just get darker and more frightening until
     something snaps me away. I drew on some of my own experiences for the
     way that Dean recalls his time with Alastair, but I'm not a
     professional by far, so if there are any medical inaccuracies, I
     apologize.
See the end of the chapter for more notes
When Dean opens his eyes to bright blue, he thinks he’s still dreaming, so he
promptly shuts them again. He doesn’t need the reminder of Cas, not here. Any
second now, Alastair’s goons are going to wake him up with fists and drag him
back to the rack, and Benny and Cas and the hospital will all have been an
agonizingly realistic dream that will haunt him for as long as Alastair lets
him live. However, closing his eyes doesn’t block out dream-Cas’s words.
“He opened his eyes. Is he awake?” No, because all of this is a dream and his
subconscious is apparently a masochistic asshole.
“Dean?” A different voice, young and unfamiliar and female and sweet and no
please don’t make me hurt her I don’t want to. “Dean, are you awake?”
“Dean, please open your eyes.” And so, because Dean never could say no to Cas,
even if this one is just a figment of his imagination, he opens his eyes. And
is confronted with that blue again, and a furrowed brow and chapped lips and a
5’ o clock shadow.
“Cas.” Dean doesn’t even realize that he’s spoken until he feels the raw scrape
of his throat, and of course he still has to be in pain in his dreams. And then
he feels the bandages and stitches that seem to cover every inch of his body,
because even before Alastair he was no stranger to stitches and gauze and
hydrogen peroxide, and he knows them when he feels them, even if these feel
professional and not done by his own hand. Huh. Maybe this dream isn’t so bad,
if it would just last a while longer. “How are you feeling?” Dream-Cas asks,
his voice quivering just enough for Dean to notice. He still hasn’t looked away
from that unwavering blue, and is just starting to notice that they’re shining
with unshed tears. That’s what makes him sure this is a dream; he’s neverseen
Cas cry.
“Like shit,” he replies, because even if it hurts like hell to speak, he’s
going to talk to dream-Cas because Dean will likely be dead before he ever gets
the chance to see the real him again. 
“I’ll be back shortly with the doctor, Mr. Novak,” the woman’s voice says from
somewhere across the room, but Dean doesn’t look away from dream-Cas’s eyes,
because he’d almost forgotten how blue they were and never wants to forget
again. “Press the red button if you need assistance.”
“Thank you,” Cas says, finally looking away from Dean, and he wants to grab
Cas’s face and never let his eyes stray again, because looking at Cas right now
makes him feel safe and warm, like he’s not dreaming about being in a hospital
from his bloody mattress in the cells.
“Cas,” he says a bit desperately, because he doesn’t know what else to say and
he needsCas to look at him again. His hand twitches, reaching out blindly for
where he thinks Cas’s may be resting, until he brushes Cas’s side and his
friend’s hands dart out and grab it, squeezing tightly. And then the tears
gathering in Castiel’s eyes aren’t unshed anymore, and he’s crying silently.
And all of a sudden, Dean doesn’t care that it’s all a dream. He would sit up
and pull this Cas as close as he possibly could, if only his entire body wasn’t
laced with aching pain.
“You’re okay, Dean. You’re okay,” Cas reassures him shakily, gripping his hand
even tighter. “I’m right here.”
“I don’t want to wake up,” Dean rasps, because it’s true, and he might not
remember this when he does wake up, and this Cas isn’t real anyways. And it
doesn’t matter, because Dean would say it even if he was.
“What?” Cas looks confused, and when he blinks a few more tears run down the
side of his face. Dean would give his life to be able to reach up and brush
them away.
“I’m dreaming. I don’t want to go back, Cas. Don’t make me go back.” It feels
like his throat is bleeding, but he forces the words out anyway. The look on
Cas’s face hurtsto watch, but Dean can’t close his eyes.
“This isn’t a dream, Dean,” Cas chokes out. “You’re in Flagstaff General
Hospital, where you’ve been for the last two days. After I found you behind the
Roadhouse.” 
“But…” That can’t be right. That would mean that he’s out. It would mean he’s
free from Alastair’s hell, that he didn’t dream up Benny and the cop earlier
and now Cas, a very real, alive Cas, who’s sitting next to his completely real
hospital bed and clutching one of Dean’s hands in both of his. “I’m out?”
“Yeah, you’re out.” Cas has stopped crying by now, but he still doesn’t let
Dean’s hand go to wipe his face.
“How?” He asks through the sandpaper lining his throat. He remembers Benny, a
truck, and gasping out the Roadhouse’s address through the agony that rippled
on and under his skin. What he doesn’t remember is how Benny got him out of the
compound, how they avoided Alastair’s guards, and how he ended up in the
hospital in the first place.
“Dean, no one even knows where you were, much less how you got out,” Cas says,
sounding a little more confident.
“Hell,” Dean mumbles. He’s starting to float, being pushed up higher by what is
no doubt morphine or something of the like; there’s no way the noticeable lack
of pain comes from anything other than a powerful pain drug. “I was in hell.”
Cas opens his mouth, pain etched on all his features, but before he can speak,
his eyes flick across the room. Dean finally tears his eyes away from Castiel
to see two women standing in the doorway, both wearing pale blue scrubs.
“Mr. Novak, I’m going to have to ask you to leave while we prepare Dean for the
surgery,” the slightly taller one says as they both walk into the room. Dean
flinches at the way the woman says the word prepare. His recent history with
preparation brings memories of knives and paddles and that one awful machine
the client had paid to use on him. Cas's grip grows, if possible, even tighter
around Dean's hand.
“Will that really be necessary?” Cas asks, sounding a hell of a lot more
confident than he did just a few moments ago.
“I’m afraid so, sir. We need Dean to be completely relaxed while we put him
under.” Dean freezes. They’re going to put him to sleep. They’re going to stick
a needle in his neck and drag him away and lock him in a van and then they’re
going to take turns fucking him dry until he’s raw and bleeding and hoarse from
all the screaming he’s done and then the drug will finallykick in and he’ll
wake up strapped to the cold metal rack alone with Alastair and-
“Dean!” Monitors he hasn't even realized that he's hooked up to are beeping
loud and fast, and he can't breathe, can't get enough air so he sucks it in in
short pants. Panic is clawing in his brain and he's  twisting up to try and get
out of the bed despite the pain that's ricocheting through his entire body
because they're going to hurt him again. “Dean, calm down!”
“Mr. Novak, please-” Two strong hands are holding Dean’s arms down, but when
his vision clears enough for him to see who’s going to be holding him down this
time, he relaxes slightly, his breathing still coming in rushed gasps.
“Cas,” he rasps. It’s quickly becoming this word of the day.
“I’m right here, Dean. You’re safe.” Dean’s drowning in blue, but he slowly
lets himself sink back into the too-comfortable mattress of the hospital bed. 
“Don’t let them drug me,” he pleads. Cas’s eyes soften, a little bit of worry
easing out of the taut lines of his face. “I don’t wanna go under.”
“Mr. Winchester-Dean,” the doctor says from the other side of the bed. Cas
tears his gaze away from Dean to glare at her. “You’re going into surgery in a
little under half an hour, and it will take ten minutes for the drug to go into
affect. We need to inject it now. Your father has signed the permission forms,
given that you won’t be eighteen for another week.”
Dean is torn between panic and horror and anger, because when the fuck did his
dad get pulled into this has been added to the litany of thoughts running
around in circles in his head and nothing’s making sense at all. Nothing except
Cas reaching out again and twining the fingers of his hand with Dean’s own, and
the hope that maybe if Cas is here they won’t hurt him.
“Do I have to?” The doctor’s face softens slightly and she reaches out to put a
hand on his shoulder, pulling back when Dean automatically flinches away.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Winchester, but this surgery is necessary.” Something
clenches in the pit of Dean’s stomach. They’re going to cut him open, but this
time they’re trying to help. It’s not like Alastair. Alastair can’t find him
now.
“Get it over with,” he rasps.
“Dean-” Cas starts from his other side.
“Just,” he forces out, letting his eyes slip shut again. “Just doit, already.”
“All right. I’m going to inject this,” the Doctor says, and Dean opens his eyes
again to see her holding a small syringe with a long, sharp needle attached. He
tries to reign in his panic, but judging by the way Cas’s hand tightens around
his, he doesn’t succeed. “Into your arm. I need you to stay as still as
possible for me, okay?”
“Okay,” Dean whispers. He can’t take his eyes off the needle.
“Dean, look at me,” Cas says from his left. And because, again, Dean could
never refuse Cas, he does. And promptly loses himself all over again in the
overwhelming concern that’s etched into his friend’s face. “Don’t take your
eyes off me.”
It’s funny how, up until now, Dean hasn’t thought about the last time he saw
Cas. How, after that brief touch of lips, Cas had turned away from him. How Cas
must have known, somehow, about what Dean was capable of, he must have somehow
seen that darkness in him and decided that no, he wasn’t worth it. But now it’s
the only thing he can think about while he waits for the sting of the needle:
how he was never going to do anything but hurt Cas.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and immediately wishes he could take the words back,
because it looks like Cas just got punched, like he’s going to throw up or cry
or do that thing where he bites his lip and looks at the ceiling and
desperately tries not to tear up that Dean only saw twice after a john had come
and went after having his way with Cas.
“What do you possibly have to be sorry for?” Cas asks, his voice wrecked. Guilt
wraps around Dean’s core, but he still answers the question.
“For never being good enough for you.” And then Cas doesdo the thing, his teeth
nearly splitting the skin of his lip, and Dean can still see the way his eyes
are shining when he looks back down. And of course, that’s when the nurse
decides to stick the needle into his arm and Dean hisses at the sting and tries
not to remember the day Alastair took the sewing needles and the matches and…
“Focus on me, Dean. I’m right here,” Cas says, and Dean remembers that Cas is
here, and he’s safe, and he’ll never have to go back. (Unless they figure out
that it’s all you’re good for really. Once you tell them what you did they’re
never going to forgive you. Cas won’t even what tolookat you, and Sam will be
too ashamed to call you his brother. You should just run back to Alastair now
with your tail in between your legs like a good bitch, like they always told
you. Alastair loves you. He’ll take care of you. He’ll give you what you need…)
The sting is over before it even manages to bloom into pain, and the next thing
Dean knows, the nurse is sliding the needle out of his arm and the doctor is
standing to the side, clipboard in hand.
“The drug should go into effect in about ten minutes, so I’m going to allow
your brother in now, Mr. Winchester.” Wait, what? When did Sam get here? Dean
looks around, and suddenly Sam’s standing in the doorway. Tall, gangly Sammy
who’s grown at least three inches in the last months, who has dark circles
under his eyes and trembling hands.
“Dean.” He says just the one word, then strides over to his bedside.
“Heya, Sammy.” He blinks, and the world blurs in front of him. He’s not tearing
up, he’s not. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah,” Sam croaks, his voice cracking. “Yeah, it has.”
Dean dreamed about Sam in the Pit. He dreamed that Sam woke up next to him,
chained to the wall and lying on a blood stained mattress, stripped not only of
clothes but of dignity. He dreamed that Alastair set Sam up on a rack, pressed
a razor into Dean’s hand, and told him to slice into Sam’s skin. He dreamed
that he did, and he dreamed that he liked it.
“I missed you.” It’s the truth, a raw, honest truth that Dean had tried to deny
for the first few weeks he was staying with Cas.
“Yeah, I missed you too, Dean.” The blur still hasn’t gone away, and it’s
stopping Dean from making out Sam’s face clearly. “I missed you too.”
“Did you meet Cas?” He asks, even though he really shouldn’t be talking right
now and introductions are possibly the most mundane things in the world.
“Yeah, I met Cas. How did you guys meet?” Dean opens his mouth to reply, but
Cas beats him to it.
“Dean interrupted my nap. Rather rudely, now that I think about it.” He can
hear the smile in Cas’s voice, and it makes him want to smile too.
“I don’t…” Sam says, confusion evident in his tone. “What?”
“It’s a long story,” Cas murmurs. Or maybe he doesn’t; maybe Dean’s just
drifting farther and farther away from the conversation, floating on a pain
drug that isn’t quite working.
“Go ‘head an’ tell him,” he slurs, not entirely sure that what he’s saying
comes across at all. “Tell ‘m all ‘f it.” 
There’s the rumble of Cas’s voice, the telltale gravelly baritone that had
lulled him to sleep on so many occasions, and then Dean  welcomes the darkness
and lets it lead him away.
• • • •
It’s the collar that breaks him. Dean likes to think that he could have gone on
denying Alastair for a long time, if it weren’t for that damn collar. He wakes
up one morning (or night-there’s no windows in the Pit and he’s lost all
ability to keep track of time) strapped to the familiar metal rack. Alastair is
sitting in front of him, hands clasped and a serene smile on his face.
“Good morning, Dean.” It’s the most civil he’s sounded since Dean got here,
which immediately puts him on edge. He strains automatically against the cuffs,
even though he knows they won’t give. “I’ve got something special for you
today.”
“Go to hell,” Dean growls, his throat raw from all the screaming he had done
yesterday. It’s become his trademark, down here, whenever Alastair chains him
up and starts talking.
“Been there,” Alastair drawls, seemingly bored as he leans back in his chair
and digs dried blood out from under his nails with Ruby. “Donethat.”
Dean is tense, waiting for his captor to stand up and start digging Ruby into
his skin, but Alastair just continues picking under his nails, not even looking
up at Dean. Slowly, he starts to panic. What does Alastair want? Is he going to
just let him hang here, wasting away? He hasn’t eaten in god knows how long,
because for some reason after they threw him in the cell, they didn’t shove the
usual plate of moldy and stale food at him, or the tin cup of drugged water. He
slept fitfully, plagued by the distant screams of other captives, and woke with
a start whenever the heavy metal doors clanged open or shut.
“What do you want?” Dean finally rasps, when he can’t take the oppressive
silence anymore, shame twisting in his gut. Alastair looks up and grins
wolfishly, sliding Ruby back into her sheath on his belt. He stares at Dean
like he’s going to pounce and rip him to shreds at any second, but Dean holds
his gaze because he’s stupid and not quite willing to let all of his dignity go
just yet.
“Oh, Dean,” Alastair says, mock sympathy twisting his words. “I don’t want
anything, today. That’syourjob.” 
“What?” Alastair grins before standing and moving around to the back of the
rack, to where Dean can’t see him. There’s a clink of metal before Alastair
returns to his line of sight, an object in his hands that makes Dean’s blood
run cold.
“Today, you have two choices, Dean. You can either wear this,” he says,
dangling the leather collar from one finger in front of Dean’s face. “Or I can
leave you alone with the guards who are on break. Your choice.”
Not for the first time, Dean thinks he’s going to be sick all over himself on
the rack. The collar hangs off of Alastair’s finger, and the very thought of
letting it be put on him repulses Dean. But he once spent a day with Alastair’s
guard, and he bled from his hole for days afterward. It’s a Hobson’s choice,
the one that Alastair has laid out for him. Both options are bad, and neither
will end well. Dean lets himself sink back against the unyielding metal and
closes his eyes.
“Fine.”
“Ah, ah, ah, Dean-o. Tell me what you want,” Alastair croons, amusement tinting
his voice. Dean forces back tears and humiliation behind closed eyes, because
he doesn’t think he can take another day with the guards.
“I want you,” he chokes out, voice raw and burning as it escapes his throat.
“To collar me.”
“Good boy,” Alastair says softly, and Dean hears the soft click of a lock
opening before warm, supple leather being fastened around his neck and snapped
into place. “Look at me, pet.”
As Dean opens his eyes, he feels like something has changed beyond the fact
that there’s a strip of leather around his neck. He feels really and
trulyowned, for the first time since he arrived in the pit.
“Good bitch.” The biting words are at odds with the way Alastair says them, as
if Dean’s a precious thing to be cherished and kept. But that can’t be right,
because Dean’s a whore, because he’s poison and everybody leaves him
eventually. Except Alastair wants him, Alastair calls himgood, so maybe this
really is where he belongs. Somewhere that he’s wanted, that he’s cherished and
praised for being good. And maybe it hurts, but it’s worth it because Alastair
loves him for taking it. “If I let you down, are you going to be good, Dean?”
“Yes,” he replies, and he means it. So Alastair unlocks the cuffs and guides
Dean down onto his knees and threads a hand through his hair.
“You and I are going to take a walk, Dean.” Alastair sounds gentler than Dean’s
ever heard him as he clips a leash onto the collar and pets his hair softly.
With a few tugs, he has Dean on all fours, walking around the rack towards a
door he’s never seen before. Alastair unlocks it and pulls it open carefully
before leading Dean through into a dark hallway. As he shuffles on his hands
and knees, eyes down, he sometimes catches glimpses of feet and legs, which he
assumes must belong to either security or clients.
It’s beyond strange, being led through dark corridors like a dog, and the
connotations of the collar around his neck makes Dean want to throw up. But
he's spent so long fighting Alastair, and he’s just so overwhelminglytired. 
Finally, Alastair pauses in front of a door and Dean hears the jingle of keys
before it’s unlocked and he’s lead through into the largest room he’s ever
seen. His head lifts as he tries to take in the tall, arching ceiling that’s
mostly shrouded in darkness, but is distracted by the racks that line the room
that is more like a giant hallway. Dozens of them, and on most there’s a body.
Clients use whips and knives and matches and their own bodies to torture them,
and Dean has to look down because the sight brings bile to the back of his
throat.
“Today, Dean, you’re just going to watch,” Alastair says from above him,
forcing Dean’s head up to meet his gaze. “You’re going to watch, and you’re
going to learn.”
Dean picks up a blade at the end of the day, and he knows that there’s no going
back.
Chapter End Notes
     I'm still looking for a beta for this, by the way. Feel free to
     message me on Tumblr or leave me a note in the comments if you're
     interested.
     My tumblr url: hallucinating-vividly
     OKAY GUYS IMPORTANT QUESTION:
     DO YOU OR DO YOU NOT WANT A MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH LATER IN THE STORY
     THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR ME TO KNOW BECAUSE IT WILL DRASTICALLY
     CHANGE THE ENDING
     SO: DO YOU WANT HAPPY ENDINGS AND FLUFF AT THE END
     OR DO YOU WANT A PAINFUL TEAR-JERKING ENDING WITH REGRETS AND CRYING
     OVER A GRAVE
     IT IS COMPLETELY UP TO YOU
***** The One Where I Am Locked Away *****
Chapter Summary
     “It’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you.”
     If he were able to Dean might laugh. Instead, he stares at the
     stranger, who is looking at him with a sort of helpless
     determination.
     “My name’s Benny. I’m going to get you out of here.”
     “No.”
Chapter Notes
     I am so, so sorry. Really. I apologize for the lateness of this.
Dean wants to die. He’s been in this cold, empty room for hours, days, weeks,
years, and there’s no end to the constant pain. Between Alastair’s visits,
which are filled with knives and scathing words and being kicked in the gut
over and over while he’s curled on the ground screaming and vomiting blood,
there are clients. They hang his limp body from the hooks on the ceiling and
whip him until he’s nothing more than a bloody slab of meat and fuck him dry
until his throat is bleeding and raw and too sore to scream any more. The pain
is worse than anything he's ever felt, and all he can think is that he wishes
Alastair would let him die. That’s the point of it all, right? To teach him a
lesson and then kill him?
He’s curled up in a corner when Dean hears shouting. The room is empty but for
him, a welcome reprieve from the attentions of Alastair and the clients, and
when he hears raised voices passing by the heavy door, he tries to lift his
head to hear what they’re saying. A sharp pain stops him, so he rests his chin
back on his knees, which are tucked up to his chest, even though the position
means that Dean is sitting down on his ass, because he tried lying down and the
rough concrete had rubbed up against his back and made him scream when he tried
to move.
Just when Dean thinks that Alastair might have finally forgotten about him,
caught up in whatever commotion seems to be happening elsewhere in the
compound, the heavy metal door swings open. Dean peers through the one eye he
has that’s not swollen shut, blinking tears away to try and see better. The man
who steps through the doorway is big, bigger than Alastair and most of the
clients Dean’s seen recently. If he could find the energy to move, Dean would
shrink back against the corner. Instead, he watches in resignation as the man
approaches him.
“What did they do to you?” The man murmurs in a slow southern drawl. He moves
slowly toward Dean, as if trying not to startle a cornered animal. Dean
watches, waiting for the man to take one of the whips from the table on the
other side of the room, or to grab him and haul him to his knees. When the
stranger holds out a hand, Dean flinches back, letting out an involuntary cry
of pain when his back hits the wall.
“Hey, hey,” the stranger says sharply, and Dean freezes. Any second now, the
man is going to grab him and do whatever he paid to come in here and do. “It’s
okay. I’m not here to hurt you.”
If he were able to Dean might laugh. Instead, he stares at the stranger, who is
looking at him with a sort of helpless determination.
“My name’s Benny. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“No.” Dean surprises himself by saying it, forcing the words out even though
they tear at his throat. It’s impossible to escape this place; he’s seen what
happens to the people who try. He won’t get his hopes up, because it’s not
possible. He’ll die here, and he knows it.
“I am going to get you out whether you want me to or not, brother, so I’d
advise you to make this as easy on yourself as you can,” the man -Benny- warns.
It sounds like a threat, and Dean takes it like one, letting the tension flood
out of his body and curling himself up to appear as small as possible. Benny
sighs, stopping a few feet in front of him.
“Look, I’m not here to hurt you. I rigged a distraction on the other side of
the compound, so we need to get out fast.” The words, combined with the honesty
in Benny’s eyes, are what convince Dean that this is really happening.
“Okay,” he rasps, and the relief is evident in Benny’s face.
“Good. Now, I’m going to try and make this as painless as possible, but it’s
still going to hurt. Is that okay?” Dean nods, because if there’s one thing he
know how to handle by now, it’s pain. Then Benny is taking those last few steps
toward him and picking him up and ithurts, the open wounds on his chest and
back rubbing against the scratchy material of Benny’s shirt and Dean bites
another gash in his lip trying to hold in a scream.
“Sorry, brother.” Every movement Benny makes is agony, but it’s nothing worse
than what Dean has endured over the last hours. As he finally relaxes against
the man’s chest, Dean finds himself sinking into unconsciousness. He hasn’t
slept in such a long time, and while his stomach is knotted with hunger and
every inch of him hurts, the exhaustion finally overtakes him and his eyes
slide shut.
“Yeah, go to sleep, brother. You don’t want to be awake for this bit.” The
words concern Dean, but not enough to keep him from slipping into darkness.
•  •  •  •
When Dean wakes up, it’s to the bouncing and jerking of a truck. He’s sprawled
on the floor of the backseat of an old pickup truck, two men conversing in low
tones in the front. As soon as he moves, white-hot pain laces through his
entire body and he groans.
“Morning, sunshine,” an unfamiliar voice says, and Dean glances up to see Benny
and another man peering back at him. “How’re you feeling?” 
“Shut it, Victor,” Benny growls, turning back to the dark road. “Look, kid, is
there anywhere we can drop you where you’ll be safe? Security at that place was
tighter than we’re used to and they got our plate number. We need to get you
out as soon as possible.”
Dean flounders for an answer, his foggy brain working to catch up with Benny’s
words. “I…the Roadhouse,” he rasps, before realizing that he has no idea where
he actually is. “Flagstaff."
“I’ve been in there once or twice,” the other man, Victor, says. “I can get us
there in maybe twenty minutes.”
“Good. Thanks, brother.” Benny turns back to Dean briefly, who is already
sinking back onto the floor, exhaustion reclaiming him. “Don’t worry, kid.
We’ll get you home.”
The next thing Dean hears is Cas’s voice, and thinking that he’s either dead,
or Alastair has caught Cas and is using him to break Dean. If that’s the case,
he doesn’t have to do any more. Even hearing that raspy voice breaks every
barrier Dean has flat. He thinks, as Cas speaks to him and he pleads for
Alastair to stop, that if he’s dying or dead, at least he got to hear Cas’s
voice one last time.
•  •  •  •
As Castiel and Sam walk back out to the waiting room, he mulls over what he's
going to say to Sam. Sure, Dean had said everything, but did he really mean
everything?  Castiel knows things about Dean that he would never tell without
permission, but did Dean just grant it? And, Castiel reminds himself, this
isn't just anyone. This is Sam,the kid that Dean orbited around for thirteen
years of his life. And he said everything.
They return to the lobby in silence, even as Sam looks at him expectantly.
Ellen and Bobby's are waiting there, John Winchester nowhere in sight.
"How is he?" Ellen asks, worry creasing her brow.
"He's...fine," Castiel says feebly. "Considering."
"He'll pull through," Bobby says gruffly, as if trying to convince himself.
"He's a tough kid."
"I hope so," is all Castiel can say in response. "Sam, can we speak alone
somewhere?"
"Yeah," Sam replies instantly, perking up. He looks too eager to hear this
story, Castiel thinks. Doesn't he know it doesn't have a happy ending?
Castiel can feel Ellen and Bobby watching them as they move back into one of
the hallways and sit in the chairs that line the walls. It's far enough away
that they won't be overheard, but still close enough that Castiel will be able
to see if anything goes wrong with Dean's surgery. Sam eyes him expectantly as
he looks down at his folded hands, hunched forward in his seat.
"Are you going to tell me or not?" Sam asks with the trademark impatience of a
fourteen year old.
"I don't know where to start."
"Try the beginning. How did you and Dean meet?"  
So Castiel tells him. Tells him how he was asleep behind the dumpster, almost
ready to give up his resentment and just go home, when he'd been woken by
someone banging on the dumpster. How he'd stuck his head out and, going against
every instinct he had, spoken to the boy who'd woken him up. How the boy had
left, shoulders slumped in defeat, and Castiel never expected to see him again.
He tells Sam about that first night, when Dean had told him everything, and Cas
had returned the favor. Tells him about nights spent talking until the sun
started to rise, and the motel room they stayed in for a week when cops had
almost caught them and were patrolling around.
Cas tells Sam about the way Dean wormed himself into every space Castiel hadn't
known needed to be filled, with his music and tales from the road and teasing
prank wars that were stupid and fun and lost them a few customers, not that
either of them cared. He regales Sam with the kind of stories that Dean had
told him, simple days that maybe weren't particularly special, but were good.
Stories about nights spent sitting at the bar of the Roadhouse and maybe
getting slipped a beer or two by Jo. And then, Cas tells him about that night. 
The customer, the call, the kiss. How he'd woken up and hadn't thought anything
was amiss, and maybe if he'd gone looking for Dean sooner none of it would have
happened. He ends his story with how he found Dean, broken and bloody in the
very spot they used to sleep, legs twined together and Dean's head on his chest
and Cas's arms around him. 
"You love him," Sam says, and it's so obviouswhen he says it, like its the
easiest thing in the world. Castiel has never allowed himself to think it, not
when he was with Dean and definitelynot after. 
"Yeah," he says simply, and it seems to be enough. Sam is looking at him with
something akin to wonder shining in his eyes, not pity or anger or contempt,
and it makes warmth spread throughout Castiel's entire body. Here is someone
who knows him, who knows, to some extent, the things that he's done, and
doesn't hate him for it. 
"What I said earlier, about this being your fault...I was wrong. There's
nothing you could have done to stop it, Cas, and you shouldn't be telling
yourself that there was. You're probably closer to Dean than I ever bothered to
try and be, and that's great. Dean was always so focused on me and Dad that he
never really took anything for himself. So... I'm glad that he had time with
you, to do stuff for himself. And thanks for that. " Sam concludes the small
speech with a nod, and Cas smiles. He's grateful that Sam at least seems to
care about Dean enough to see those things.
"Thank you Sam," he says earnestly, before spying Ellen walking toward them,
phone pressed to her ear. Once she reaches them, she holds it out for Cas.
"It's you brother," she explains as he takes the phone. Cas I nods and holds
the device to his ear.
"Hello?" He can't think of a reason Gabriel would be calling; it's his day off
from the shop. 
"Hey, Cas. Look, I know this is a little short notice, but Michael wants to
know if you want to have lunch in about an hour. If you don't, that's totally
cool, but this is the only time until Sunday that he's available." Gabriel's
tone is easygoing, but Castiel can hear the underlying tension that lines his
words. 
"Of course. Will you be picking me up from the hospital?"
"Yeah," Gabriel says with a relieved, staticky exhale. "Is it cool if Lucifer
comes, too?"
"It's fine, Gabriel."
"Good. How's Dean?" His brother asks, sounding concerned.
"In surgery. He'll be out soon, and I will most likely be allowed to stay until
he wakes up." He doesn't tell Gabriel about the panic attack Dean had, or the
way he was so convinced it was a dream until Castiel corrected him.
"All right. I'll probably leave in about forty five minutes, I don't want to
leave Kevin alone with Balthazar for too long, and Garth's shift doesn't start
until eleven thirty."
“I’ll see you later then,” Cas says, glancing back up at Ellen.
“Yeah, see you. Bye.” Gabriel disconnects, and Cas hands the phone back. 
“My brother will pick me up in about an hour,” he informs her, and she nods.
“You and Sam doing all right over here?” She asks, receiving nods from the both
of them. “I have to get back to the Roadhouse, but Bobby’s here if anything
happens.”
“Thanks, Ellen,” Cas says earnestly as she turns to leave. “For everything.”
“No problem, Cas. It’s what family’s for, right?”
•  •  •  • 
This time, when Dean wakes up, he knows where he is. He remembers the hospital,
remembers Cas and Sam being there. The room looks familiar, and sure enough,
when he turns his head, Cas is sitting in the same chair he was earlier, Sam
and Bobby on either side of him.
“Hey,” Dean mumbles, mind still warped by whatever painkillers they have him
on. It’s different than the affects of the drugs Alastair gave him, these only
blurring the edges of the pain, not making him lose control of his body or pass
out.
“Hello, Dean,” Cas says, and it’s just now that Dean realizes how much he
missed Cas in the Pit. He missed the was Cas said his name and looked at him
and touched him with careful reverence. 
“Missed you,” he slurs, too tired to concentrate on saying it right. A small
smile tugs at the corners of Cas’s mouth, giving the impression of both
happiness and an aching sadness.
“I missed you too,” Cas replies, and Dean can hear that sad smile in his voice.
“How do you feel?”
“Fine.” Dean gets the feeling that that question is gonna get real old, real
fast. “When can I leave?”
“I don’t…” Cas trail off, glancing at someone on the other side of the bed
Dean’s in. He turns his head and sees the nurse that put him under for the
surgery.
“Mr. Winchester needs to stay here for a minimum of twenty-four hours, at which
point it would be relatively safe to discharge him. I advise against it
however; the injuries he has sustained are moderately severe and we should keep
him under observation for two days at least just to make sure the surgery was
completed without further complications. However, you will need to check back
in in two to three weeks to get his stitches removed.” The woman rattles all
this off in a clinical tone, and at least half the words go over Dean’s head.
He can’t keep up, but apparently everyone else can, because Bobby nods and Sam
begins worrying at his lower lip. Cas grabs Dean’s hand and squeezes hard.
“Just a few days, Dean.” He doesn’t want to think about afterthose few days,
about what’s going to happen to him.
“I’m tired,” is what he says, even though it’s only partially true. The drugs
are fogging up his brain, making him want to sleep, but he’s done nothing but
sleep for the last few days, or however long it’s been. 
“Do you want us to go?” Sam asks gently, like he wouldn’t be offended if Dean
said yes.
“Nah,” he replies. “Did Cas tell you…?”
He lets the question trail off, and Sam nods.
“Yeah, he told me everything.” Sam doesn’t lookmad, but then again, Alastair
never did either. But Sam isn’t Alastair. Sam isn’t going to hurt him.
“You’re not mad?” He asks, just to be safe..
“Of course not,” Sam says, with a look on his face that asks how Dean could
ever think something like that. “Of course I’m not mad at you.”
Dean grips Cas’s hand like a lifeline. It feels natural to do so, even though
they’ve never really done something like that before. Their touches before were
always brief brushes during their conversations, or wrapping themselves up in
each other during the night. One extreme or another. Now, he clings to the
casual contact, still not quite believing that the sting of pain isn’t going to
follow.
“Do you want us to go?” Cas asks, jerking Dean out of his thoughts.
“No,” he says, as loudly as he can. Cas doesn’t seem to mind, just holding onto
his hand a little tighter. “Don’t leave me.”
“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas reassures him, tightening his grip even more, if
possible. “I’m not going anywhere for now.”
“For now?” He asks, because he’s pathetic and doesn’t want to let go of his
hand. Cas gets a pained look on his face and sinks back into the chair, never
once letting go.
“I’m going to have lunch with Michael in about half an hour. He wanted to see
me, and I said yes.” The news fills Dean with a kind of warmth he hadn’t
thought he was still capable of feeling, and he tries to smile.
“That’s good. I’m glad.” He wants Cas to fix things with his brothers, even if
Dean’s probably broken things with Sammy beyond repair and Sam’s just waiting
to tell him when he gets out of this place.
“Me too,” Cas said, and he looks relieved. He hasn’t changed much since Dean
was taken, but the shade of his skin has lightened a little bit and his hair is
shorter than Dean’s ever seen it. He suppose that he looks a lot different too,
because the last time he checked in the Pit he could count his ribs and most of
his freckles had faded.
“I missed you,” Dean says, because apparently he has no filter and every
thought he’s had about Cas since he woke up is settling more and more firmly
into his head. He wantsto tell Cas, wants to tell him that he was the only ting
Dean thought about for the first few days, that the one and only time he tried
to escape on his own was because he had to get back to him. He wants to tell
Cas about Alastair, about how he had carved his name into Dean’s flesh over and
over again, and when Dean had screamed for Cas, Alastair had started carving
his name instead. He wants to tell Cas about the brand on his arm, the one that
is covered by the hospital gown but he can still feelit there, burning into his
skin like the day Alastair pressed the metal into his skin. Dean wants to open
up to Cas about everything that happened, but he can’t, because when he tries
to his throat closes up and he freezes and Alastair is in front of him and he
can’t think.
“Dean.” Cas’s tone is gentle but insistent, and it breaks through Dean’s haze
to sound in his head as clear as day. And he remembers that he’s not on
Alastair’s rack, that he’s in the hospital and Cas is here and he’s safe. “I
missed you too.”
It’s not until Cas is leaning over and gently brushing a tear off of Dean’s
face that he even realizes that he’s started crying. Before Alastair, Dean
hadn’t cried in years, not since he was nine and Johnny Rogers pushed him off
the swings on the playground. But then he was in the Pit and being whipped or
cut or fucked until snot ran down his face and he couldn’t see through the
tears and they streaked his cheeks and left tracks that didn’t come off until
the next time Alastair sprayed him down. But Cas is here, and somehow Bobby and
Sam have disappeared without him noticing, and he’s safe, so he lets himself
cry. Silently, the tears fall, and Cas wipes them all away until Dean can’t cry
anymore.
“It’s okay, Dean. I’m right here. I’ve got you.” The words bring Dean back
months, to when Cas had woken screaming from a nightmare, thrashing and yelling
and crying, and Dean had held him and whispered in his ear until he woke up,
and Cas had pulled him close and cried into his shirt until he couldn't
anymore. They remind him of a time when he comforted Cas, instead of the other
way around. 
Eventually his tears run out, but Cas’s hand stays on Dean’s face. It’s a
tender gesture that makes him think of when his mom was alive, when she pulled
him close after he’d fallen in the park. It feels almost natural, to have Cas
sitting there with his thumb slowly caressing the bruises on Dean's jaw, and
all he can do is look helplessly at Cas because he doesn’t remember the last
time someone touched him without hurting him.
The way Cas is looking at him hurts. It’s everything Dean doesn’t deserve, and
everything he craves. It’s affection and trust and concern and not a single
trace of pity or anger or fear, and it make Dean want to both recoil and lean
into the caress all at once. It’s overwhelming and impossible and nothing that
he’s worthy of, so Dean lets his eyes slide shut and his head fall back, Cas’s
hand slipping from his face.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, sinking back into the pillows.
“Don’t say that,” Cas pleads, hand tightening around Dean’s. “You have nothing
to be sorry for.”
“You weren’t there,” he replies, voice trembling. “You don’t know what I did.”
“I don’t care. You don’t have to apologize for anything. None of it was your
fault.” But Cas doesn’t know, he doesn’t know that Dean broke and he tortured
kids younger than him because Alastair gave him a knife and said have at ‘em
and that he likedit. Cas doesn’t know that he savored every second he got to
carve into someone else’s skin, and that he followed Alastair around like a dog
on a leash after that day, and every time he managed to break a scared kid who
wanted nothing more than to go home, Dean turned to him for approval. He
doesn’t deserve Cas’s forgiveness, he didn’t deserve to be saved. So when Cas
reaches out for him again, Dean draws back, letting go of his hand and
burrowing deep into the too-soft bed. He turns his head away, eyes still closed
so he doesn’t have to see the hurt on Castiel’s face.
“I’m tired,” Dean says, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. He hears Cas
sigh, before a gentle hand smooths his hair from his forehead.
“Sleep well, Dean.”
The next time Dean turns to look, Cas is gone.
***** The One Where We Make Up *****
Chapter Summary
     "Look, Cas," Gabriel says after a few minutes. Castiel looks up to
     see Gabriel fidgeting uneasily and avoiding his eye. "Michael...it
     hit him hard when you left, that last time. You'd done it before, but
     after what he said to you...it hurt him. And I know you thought you
     didn't have another option, but I want you to remember that he loves
     you."
     Usually, Gabriel isn't one to talk about serious things. He makes
     jokes and tries to smooth things over, but he never really engages.
     Castiel has had more serious conversations with him in the last two
     weeks than he had in the seventeen years before them. So now, when
     Gabriel says something like that, Cas listens.
     "I know," he replies quietly. "I never wanted to hurt him."
Chapter Notes
     I am literally so sorry for this. It's really short and originally
     when i wrote it I planned for another section from Dean's POV but it
     wouldn't come out, so this is what you get. Hopefully I'll be
     finishing the story around the end of january, but you never know. I
     hope you enjoy this part!
Early in September, Dean starts to draw away from Cas, both physically and
emotionally. He checks the calendar hanging up on Ellen’s wall every day, and
when Cas asks him about it, he glares and says, “I don’t know what you’re
talking about.”
Finally, one night as they're lying farther away than they have in weeks,
Castiel gets fed up. He kicks Dean repeatedly in the shins until the other boy
can't ignore him anymore and turns over and smacks him across the face. 
"Cas, what the hell is your problem? I'm trying to sleep here!" His tone is
sharp as he props himself up on one elbow, rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he
peers at Cas. 
"No you weren't, you were moping. Now tell me what's going on."  
"Dude, I wassleeping!" Cas just eyes him, both if them fully aware that the
other knows that Dean is lying. "It's none of your fucking business, that's
what's going on, jackass."
The words are sharp, but even as he speaks them, Dean is leaning over towards
Cas the way be always does when they're about to have a "chick flick moment",
as he's named them. Over the weeks, Castiel has become attuned to Dean’s body
language, learning to read him like an open book, and whenever Dean reaches out
a comforting hand to brush at the nape of his neck whenever everything’s just
starting to become toomuch, Castiel thinks that Dean has learned how to read
him too. Eventually, as they lay there illuminated oh so slightly by the
streetlamp at the corner of the street, Dean sighs and flops onto his back,
scooting closer to Cas.
“School started last week and I still haven’t heard from Sam. I don’t know
where he is or if he’s eating or if Dad even remembered to register him this
year. That was all my job, you know? I was the one who made enough money to
keep him full, I was the one who forged Dad’s signature on the school
documents, and drove him to and from the place when I dropped out. I was more
of a parent to that kid than Dad ever was, and I don’t like thinking about how
he’ll manage without me.”
“Dean, I’m sure Sam is capable of taking care of himself. He sounds like an
incredibly intelligent person, and I’m sure he’s smart enough to figure
something out,” Cas says as reassuringly as possible, even though he knows Dean
doesn’t want to be reassured. He needs someone to rant to, and Castiel can be
that person. So he shuts up and waits for Dean to continue.
“Sam’s never been as street-smart as me. It’s the one thing he’s not amazing
at. I was always the one who talked up the landlord or the motel manager or the
sleazy guys in the bars, even though there wasn’t much talking involved,
y’know? He can memorize poetry and balance equations blindfolded, but he never
clued in onto how exactly I made our money. He always bought that I won it in a
pool game, or that I begged it off some old lady in the grocery store, even
when I came back reeking like sex. He always figured that I’d gone out and
picked up a chick, I guess.” Dean’s voice is rough, pitched low in the space
between them. His breath drifts over Cas’s lips and, not for the first time, he
finds himself wanting more than ever to lean over and finally learn what Dean’s
mouth feels like against his own. He doesn’t, though, because he doesn’t
deserve someone like Dean, and they’re only this close because neither of them
really had a choice.
“I miss him, every day, Cas. I mean, I went fourteen years of my life with
Sammy being the first thing I thought about in the morning and the last thing I
thought about at night. Everything I did was to keep him happy and safe, from
whoring myself out when we ran out of food, to letting Dad beat the crap outta
me so he wouldn’t take out his hangover on Sam. I’d never let anyone hurt him,
but here I am in the middle of fucking Flagstaff, with no way to even know if
he’s still breathing.” Dean finishes jaggedly, his tone roughening in an
obvious attempt to clear away tears before they fall, and Castiel reaches out a
hand to twine their fingers together. Dean pulls him in close, almost crushing
Castiel against his chest as his arms drag over the rough and worn blanket
beneath them. He might have carpet burn tomorrow, but he doesn’t really care.
He just knows that Dean is holding him and it feelsright.
“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas murmurs into his friend’s chest, and he’s not sure if
Dean hears him, but the strong arms around him seem to wrap a little bit
tighter. Eventually, he drifts off, secure in Dean’s arms and wishing he could
stay there for the rest of his life.
•  •  •  •
The diner Gabriel drives him to is small, not the kind of restaurant Castiel
remembers dining at in his childhood. Those were the days when Lucifer and
Michael were fresh out of medical school and Michael was still willing to let
his younger siblings be seen in public. Soon after Castiel turned five, he
began homeschool, and those rare but pleasant outings with all of his siblings
dwindled from rare to nonexistent. 
As a waitress leads them towards the back of the room towards their table,
Castiel wonders what he could possibly say to Michael to make things between
them better. Castiel was so angry for all those years, and he knows that he
made mistakes, but he wants to fix them. He doesn't want to be at odds with
Michael for the rest of his life. 
Gabriel watches him closely, out of the side of his eye, after they're settled
at the empty booth. Michael and Lucifer. Castiel pretends not to notice,
keeping his eyes down and slowly shredding a paper napkin. 
"Look, Cas," Gabriel says after a few minutes. Castiel looks up to see Gabriel
fidgeting uneasily and avoiding his eye. "Michael...it hit him hard when you
left, that last time. You'd done it before, but after what he said to you...it
hurt him. And I know you thought you didn't have another option, but I want you
to remember that he loves you."
Usually, Gabriel isn't one to talk about serious things. He makes jokes and
tries to smooth things over, but he never really engages. Castiel has had more
serious conversations with him in the last two weeks than he had in the
seventeen years before them. So now, when Gabriel says something like that, Cas
listens. 
"I know," he replies quietly. "I never wanted to hurt him."
"But what did you think would happen? When you left in the middle of the night
after the worst argument you two have ever had, how did you think he would
react?" There's no accusation in Gabriel's words, but they still make him feel
guilty enough that he averts his eyes from his brother's face. "Did you think
that he'd just be fine with it? That he wouldn't care?"
"Yes." It's the truth, and Castiel knows that it's not what Gabriel wants to
hear. "And I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. But it's the truth." 
"Yeah," Gabriel sighs. "I know.”
It’s a few more minutes until Michael and Lucifer show up, and when they do,
Castiel freezes. He feels like he’s fought in the headlights of an oncoming
train, two pairs of eyes boring into him with varying levels of relief and
disbelief.
“Hello, Castiel,” Michael finally says, and he breaks like a wave crashing onto
sand. In what feels like less than a second, Castiel has slid out of the booth
and is wrapping his arms around his older brother.
“Hello, Michael.” In the months that he’s been absent, Castiel has caught up to
his older brother, and he can easily rest his head on Michael’s shoulder.
Michael is gripping him just as tightly as Castiel is holding him, and after a
moment he claps his hand on Castiel’s shoulder and steps back. His eyes are
glistening with unshed tears, but before they can fall, he steps back and
slides into the booth.
“It’s been a long time, Castiel,” Lucifer remarks quietly before embracing him
much like Michael had. He's still several inches taller than Castiel, and he
resists the urge to bury his head in his brother's chest like he did when he
was a child. Even back then, he always went to Lucifer when he needed to be
comforted. 
"I know," he whispers instead. "I'm sorry.” It's not nearly enough, not nearly
enough to convey everything that he's feeling, but it's all Castiel can give.
Lucifer just smiles, releasing his hold, and slides into the booth next to
Michael. Gabriel is looking at the three of them with an undecipherable
expression, something like hope and regret and pain all thrown together.  
"It's all right, Castiel. I understand," Michael says, sounding as if he's
dragging the words out as they fight tooth and nail against him. "I said some
truly unforgivable things, and you had every right to react the way you did." 
No. This isn't how it's supposed to go. Michael isn't supposed to forgive him,
isn't supposed to absolve Castiel of his sins. Castiel has done horrible
things, and he's put his family  through so much that he shouldn't be allowed
to have this. 
"No," he says, and Lucifer's brow furrows in confusion. 
"I'm sorry?" 
"No," he repeats. "I didn't have the right to do that. I should never have left
in the first place, and you shouldn't' tell me otherwise. I hurt you, both of
you." Gabriel is looking steadily at Michael, like this is some type of test
that he needs to make sure their brother passes. 
"That's what family does, Castiel. We hurt each other, intentionally or not. I
don't want to pretend that these last months have been easy for me, but they
were undoubtedly more difficult for you. I'm your brother, and I will be here
for you whenever you need it, and you need me now. It's not the time to discuss
my personal baggage.”
The statement leaves Cas shocked, frozen in place on the other side of the
table. Nothing is making sense; nothing is going the way it should. Michael
should be yelling at him, should be screaming and furious and hurting him, but
he's not. He should be punishing Castiel for the sins he's committed, and he's
not, and it makes Castiel so confused that he doesn't know what to say.  
"Michael, maybe we should wait until after we eat to discuss things," Lucifer
says rationally, signaling a nearby waitress. She takes their orders quickly,
Castiel ordering the first thing he sees because he's still not used to being
able to pick and choose his meals like this again. The silence is almost
overwhelming, until Lucifer quietly asks Michael how his last patient is
recovering, and Gabriel offers to bring around cookies at the hospital for the
kids in pediatrics. It almost feels normal, sitting with the three of them and
listening to the muted conversation, but Castiel feels more like an outsider
than he ever did when Anna was alive. She was his support when he lived with
Michael. She would always respond to his calls and come over when he asked, she
was his shelter in the never ending storm of shame and anger and apathy that
reigned his life in that too-big house. 
As their food arrives, Castiel ponders the way their little family has fallen
apart. He rarely saw Gabriel after he left home, and with Lucifer's hours it
was a miracle that they even crossed paths at all. Anna and Michael were the
only two siblings Castiel ever saw regularly; polar opposites who, even with
the best intentions, still only managed to push him away further. Nothing in
his family was ever simple back then, and nothing has changed now. He still has
no idea how to approach Lucifer, or how to make amends with Michel, or even how
do decipher the extent of Gabriel's emotional range behind the façade of a
happy-go-lucky chef.  He eats his food without tasting it, eyes cast downwards
and hands folded carefully in his lap when he finished. Every lesson his tutors
drilled into him as a child, sit up straight and don't put your elbows on the
table and be seen, not heard chime in his ears, and the last words his father
ever spoke to a two year old boy who was all to happy to be called by his full
name echo around in his head. 
"Be good, Castiel."
As his brothers finish, Castiel finds himself dreading the upcoming
conversation. There will be questions he doesn't not want to answer, and
questions that he simply cannot respond to. Michel will ask to know his story,
and, if he's honest with himself, Castiel doesn't think he can tell it.
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