I'M SO SORRY I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT I EVER UPDATED ON THIS WEBSITE I HATE MYSELF MORE THAN YA'LL I PROMISE. ANYWHOO I'M GONNA RUN AWAY UNTIL TOMORROW WHEN I UPDATE AGAIN SO YA'LL DONT FIGURE OUT WHERE I LIVE AND MOB ME.
When they had finally gotten to the Milton house, Cas had refused to go to bed. Instead, he announced that he wanted to take a bath.
Mrs. Milton, understanding something that everyone else obviously didn't, had quietly told everyone except Dean to go to bed. She had been crying ever since they had gotten the call from the police, and her face was brimmed with tears. She was a strong woman though, Dean knew, one of the strongest, and her face was filled with quiet strength and determination as she kissed Dean on the cheek and nodded at him, going to bed.
Dean knew what that nod meant. Mrs. Milton was the most doting mother ever, but she knew when to back off. When to give someone else the responsibility, per se. And Dean knew exactly what she was telling him without words, as he held Cas up, who was silently staring upstairs at his bedroom door.
Take care of my son.
The shock hadn't really settled in yet, really, and as Dean helped Cas upstairs to his bathroom, he knew what had happened, yes, but it hadn't really hit him. He silently got the bath running, hot water filling up the tub, and turned around to look at his soul mate, who was biting his nails and looking around, unblinking. His watery blue eyes darted this way, and Dean grabbed his arm and gently pulled him forward. Cas started, making a small scared noise in the back of his throat, but Dean pretended not to hear it, gesturing to the tub.
"Come on angel," he whispered, because it just seemed like the right thing to do, "get in."
Cas laughed, a bitter, wrong sound that as soon as Dean heard it he immediately winced and hoped to never have to hear it coming out of Cas's mouth again, and replied, "Not an angel, anymore, Dean. She took that from me too."
Dean didn't know how to reply to that. He stared at Cas, waiting for him to say something else.
"You'll always be my angel."
He shook his head wildly, and that's when Dean noticed the blood caked on his lips. Resisting the urge to wipe it all away, he gestured to the bath again, repeating, "Come on ang-," he stopped, "I mean, Cas. You wanted to take a bath."
"Yeah," he mumbled, and there was something weird about his eyes that Dean couldn't quite place, "wanted to...wash it off."
"Wash what off?"
Cas didn't answer, just looked at Dean, and assuming that Cas wanted him to help, leaned forward and started taking off his soul mate's coat.
The reaction was immediate. Cas gave out a cry and jerked away so hard that Dean was pushed back into the wall, banging his head on the wall behind him.
Cas screamed, and what a scream it was. It made Dean's hair stand on end on the back of his neck; It was a scream of wild panic, and hysteria and disbelief, bordering on terror. Cas screamed again, bending over in two, his eyes wide and unblinking; Dean squeezed his eyes shut and plugged his ears with his fingers in an effort to not hear that horrible sound again, cause there was no way that was coming from Cas, no way. Cas was a dork who thought books were better than people and could quote Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and To Kill A Mockingbird word for word at any given time, he laughed at stupid puns and had a secret obsession with Miley Cyrus. Cas was the type of person to find beauty in anything and anyone, and could say the most profound Aristotle shit and then turn around and make a joke about Beyonce and her turning into a Feyonce when she was engaged. Cas was the one that always had a smile on his face, even when he was tired or frustrated, there was always light in his eyes, full of hope.
And that's when it hit him.
Cas had been raped. Touched. More than that, in fact. He had someone else's hands, someones filthy paws, all over him, A girl just waltzed up and took it all, came up and took his virginity and dignity and hope. Dean remembered earlier today, shit, was that just a few hours ago?, when Cas had screamed when he had seen the woman's boobs on the TV. Everyone had always teased him for being a virgin, for wanting to wait; Dean even remembered Cas mumbling once in the middle of the night, all sleep drunk, that he wanted it to be Dean, that it had always been Dean.
This shit was going to haunt him for the rest of his life.
The desolation Dean felt, right then and there, was all consuming. His mind became an icy wasteland, the wind howled in his soul and wrapped icy tentacles around his heart so tightly it almost stopped beating.
Dean pressed his palm against his mouth, and looked down at his soul mate, who was on the floor, curled up into a little ball with his head stuck between his knees. A broken man.
Closing the tap so the water stopped running, Dean slid down to sit across from Cas, and peeked at him through his fingers. Cas was trembling, and Dean hesitated before reaching over and tentatively resting his hand on his hair, which was wilder than Dean had ever seen it before. The Milton started, and Dean almost withdrew his hand, but then Cas suddenly grabbed it, sitting upright, his eyes darting this way and that, all wide and open and Dean realized that the thing that was wrong with Cas's eyes was that he didn't blink. Well, he did, but only when absolutely necessary, and it was fleeting, quick, rapid.
Is he...scared of blinking?
At this point, Cas could be scared of anything. Dean had read something somewhere about triggers, how anything could be a potential trigger for a victim who had seen or been through something horrible. For Cas, it was blinking...or was it something deeper?
Cas's pain was an ocean of unknowable depths, swift currents and lurking beasts. Dean stared at him, trying, in the first time in forever, to figure out what he was thinking, what he was feeling; Dean had always been able to figure Cas out, but now, not knowing, that scared him to no depths.
Cas squeezed Dean's hand, the one he was grasping, and found his eyes again, goggling at him.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rough. "Dean."
Dean didn't speak; He felt emotionally bankrupt. The was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say, nothing left but the void that enveloped his mind in swirling blackness.
Cas shook his hand. "Dean," he repeated.
Dean rubbed his eyes with his other hand, shaking his head. Cas squeezed his fingers even tighter and Dean leaned ever so slightly forward, enough to let Cas know that he was here but not enough to scare him. "Yeah?" he asked, voice coarse.
Cas sat up even straighter, scooting forward. Dean didn't move, not knowing what was okay, and oh God he hated that, he hated not knowing. Cas kept on scooting forward, and when their noses were mere centimeters apart, he took Dean's other hand. In the light, up close, Dean could see the bruises on soul mate's cheekbones, the blue welts scattered across his sharp cheeks like a disease. Cas saw him staring and grimly pulled his collar down to reveal a deep dark purple bruise lining his neck.
Battered, was the word. Such a simple word for a simple idea. But this was not simple. Cas's sense of self, once a high and proud feeling of one destined for good things, now was as bruised and broken as his face. Dean wiped the dried blood from his lover's pallid skin and stared into his empty eyes. He barely recognized him.
"Oh, Cas," Dean breathed, tracing the bruises and wounds with his fingers, as light as a feather, "What did she do to you?"
Licking his dry lips, Cas shrugged gently, and wrapped his arms around Dean's waist, leaning back and taking Dean with him. Dean tried to speak again, but Cas simply looked away, refusing to meet his eyes and staring at a crack in the wall behind him.
Dean had never had an urge to kill someone. He, after all, was not a savage. Yes, he had done some pretty low things in his life, but that had always been for Sam, when they were younger and Dad gave them less than half of what he gave them now, and he had to do some drastic things for food or to pay bills. But killing someone, that was always out of the question.
Right now, though, everything was different.
He was filled with an overwhelming urge to kill her, kill that sick bitch who had done this to Cas. And if not kill, something worse. Dean swore right then and there, that he would get revenge.
He was shaken out of his thoughts by Cas, who suddenly grabbed his shirt and pulled him forward. Dean almost toppled over on top of him, and Dean suddenly remembered that they were on the bathroom floor and the toilet was pretty far away from them, but this was still kind of gross.
He sighed, he would've never thought this before. Cas had turned him into such a girl.
"Come on angel," he mumbled, getting up and offering Cas his hand. Cas didn't take it, using the wall for leverage and standing up by himself. Dark bags circled his eyes, and there was no other way to say it. He looked like shit. His coat clung to him like his body was a hanger, and his whole being drooped, all scrunched over and pathetic, like he had lost his very will to live.
For all Dean knew, he might have very well have.
*************************************
The bath forgotten, Dean left Cas in the bathroom for a moment and went downstairs to the kitchen to rummage in the medicine cabinet.He found ibuprofen first, and then grabbed the vinegar and a glass of water, along with an ice pack. When he came back in Cas was washing his hands, drowning in soap. Dean waited until Cas was satisfied with the cleanliness of his hands, and then asked him, in a low voice to get on the counter, please. Cas either didn't hear or listen, because he said that he was going to wash his hands again, just to make sure, and Dean had no idea what that meant but ignored him and lifted him onto the counter. Maybe it was the events that had occurred previously or just in general, but he was surprisingly light.
Dean set the vinegar and ice pack down, and instructed Cas to take the ibuprofen pill, handing it to him in the palm of his hand. Cas obeyed, putting the pill inside his mouth mechanically and closing it, waiting for further instruction. Dean raised the glass of water to Cas's lips and the Milton drank automatically, like a machine. I
t was sad, seeing Cas like this. Normally he would roll his eyes at being treated like a small child, and push Dean out of the way gently to do his own thing by himself. Now he was just here, waiting for further things to listen to, to obey. Dean almost wished that Cas would scoff at him, sigh and call him an idiot, something. But he just sat there, his Caribbean blue irises refusing to blink as he stared at Dean.
Sighing, Dean set the water down when Cas was done with it, and took some vinegar out of the bottle, mixing it with some warm water and, ever so slowly, lifting Cas's collar and rubbing it there with his fingers. Cas made a small noise, but other than that, didn't react, and Dean, taking that as permission, worked his way up to Cas's face, kneading his fingers into Cas's skin where the bruises covered them. The Milton let out a minuscular breath. This was something that he had learned from Ellen, Bobby's wife, another home remedy when Sam had came home with bruises all over his body one day in his freshmen year cause the boys at his school found out about their dad and Dean and were basically pissed that Sammy was smarter and not scared of them. That, of course, was before he had gotten his growth spurt. Dean had wanted to go over to Sam's school and give those boys a piece of his mind and fist, but Sam had insisted not to. Ellen had rubbed vinegar with hot water on Sam's bruises as Dean watched, helpless, explaining that vinegar increased blood flow near the skin's surface, so it helped to dissipate the blood that had pooled in the bruised area.
Dean shook away the bad memory, and washed the vinegar away to grab the ice pack, putting it on Cas's right cheekbone. Cas hissed at the sudden change in temperature, as he hadn't really been paying attention and hadn't been expecting it at all, and Dean leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead before realizing his mistake and jumping back.
Shitshitshitshit he's gonna flip he made it very clear that he didn't want that jesus christ I messed everything up
But instead, Cas just looked at Dean.
There was a long stretch of silence, as Dean panicked a little inside, frozen to the spot with the ice pack in one hand. He started counting heartbeats.
5 heartbeats.
Cas squinted at him, tilting his head like he always did.
10 heartbeats.
He leaned his bruised face forward slightly, not moving his body.
15 heartbeats.
Cas held his arms out to Dean, and the Winchester tentatively took his soul mate's hands in his own, cupping them. The ice pack dropped to the floor.
20 heartbeats.
Dean stepped forward, and Cas nodded, so he took another one and another one and another one until his stomach was pressed up against Cas's.
25 heartbeats.
Cas finally broke the silence.
"Kiss me," he whispered.
Dean leaned in and did just so, giving him a peck, but Cas shook his head and pulled him forward even more so; Sliding his hands around his neck, Cas smashed his lips into Dean's. Dean reciprocated after a second, after he got over the shock, and held on tight to Cas's waist. Cas's hands slid down to roam around his back, but Dean pulled back to catch his breath. Before he knew it, Cas was kissing him again, and again, and again, and he was mumbling something about cleaning himself, washing, but Dean just kept on going because that's what Cas wanted and Cas deserved to get what he wanted; Cas deserved the world, in fact, Dean would run to the edges of the universe if only to bring him back a star. Cas was crying silently, and Dean could feel the saltwater against his cheeks, but he pretended not to notice and just kept on kissing him until they both were out of breath and had to stop.