Rough hands shook Dean awake, and he groaned, swatting them off before he remembered the....situation and shot up. Cas's bedroom slowly came into view as his eyes adjusted to the light, but one thing didn't come into view.
Cas.
Who had been right next to him on the bed last night.
Shit.
Dean leapt out of the bed and before he could run out the bedroom the same hands that had awoken him grabbed his shoulder and forced him back. It was Anna, looking tired as hell in her cat pajamas and bun that didn't even look anything near intentionally messy.
"He's in the kitchen, making pancakes" she frowned and knit her eyebrows together, rubbing her eye, "and he's...smiling and, saying that he's fine and that he's making a nice breakfast for us and....," she sighed, "I woke you up cause-"
Dean waved her off, already starting to open the door and go downstairs to the kitchen. "I know."
*********************************
He was singing.
Singing.
It was an old twangy slow song, sung under the breath, and Dean was so confused and perplexed when he heard Cas singing it that he almost shook him, asking what the hell he was doing. Shiba was nuzzling his leg and as soon as she caught sight of Dean, scurried off. Smart cat, she had figured out that she wasn't to be in the same room as the Winchester, and Cas laughed, making Dean's stomach drop.
There he was, making pancakes with his wild hair and slender profile; The sun hadn't risen yet, making the house all gloomy and dark, but Cas could be the sun himself, because he was smiling so wide and singing under his breath and this weird happiness shone from him.
It was all so wrong.
Dean didn't know what to do, standing there in the kitchen doorway, with Anna behind him, waiting for him to make it all better.
And that's what he was supposed to do, wasn't it? He was supposed to make everything better, be needed, fix every problem because that was his one and only function, what he was good at.And now had escaped him too.
Realizing that right now was probably not the best time to be wallowing in his own self pity, Dean tentatively stepped forward, running a hand through his hair. Cas flipped a pancake and put it on the stack to the right of him, that had so many pancakes in it that Dean was sure that Cas's family and his combined couldn't eat them all in 2 days. The mechanic cleared his throat, and Cas turned around, smiling all fake and wrong and Dean wanted to cry.
But even the smile couldn't hide what was obvious on Cas's face: He hadn't slept a wink. The bags under his eyes were never ending, and the sallow skin and puffy eyes spoke for themselves. He still wasn't blinking unless necessary. When Dean had turned on the nightlight that Cas had to sleep with every night and went to bed with him, the Milton had become transfixed on the light, refusing to even close his eyes to go to sleep. Dean had attempted to coax him forever, but then he eventually gave up, keeping one hand on his chest, reminding him to breathe.
Cas had spent the whole night staring at the tiny source of light, too afraid to close his eyes. Dean felt like such a piece of shit for falling asleep on his soul mate, because he was supposed to take care of him. He should've waited to go to sleep after Cas had, to make sure everything was alright.
"Look Dean," Cas said, with cheer in his voice, and Dean winced, "I made pancakes!"
He forced himself to smile, nodding. "I can see that angel."
Cas squinted, frowning a little. "Angel," he repeated softly, "angel."
"Yeah. Angel."
Cas looked like he was about to say something else, scrunching his eyebrows together just like Anna had just did not two minutes ago, but then decided against it, shaking his head and turning his attention to making yet another pancake.
The fake smile returned to his face."I was thinking about giving some to her when we find her."
He said it so nonchalantly, like he said that he thought it was going to rain tomorrow maybe, or that they could go to lunch or something.Dean stood there, frozen in shock. He heard Anna intake a sharp breath faintly behind him.
"What?" he breathed, too rattled to say anything else.
"I said-"
"I know what you said, damnit!" Dean yelled, losing it. "I know...I know what you said. I just-" He stopped, looking for the right words. "Her," Dean hissed, his fists clenched, and Cas, eyes wide, took a step backwards. The knuckles grasping his spatula were white. "Your rapist," he said, spitting the word out like poison.
When Cas had finally gotten to pick up the phone and call the police, the girl was long gone. They had taken him to the station, took all his clothes for any biological evidence, and gave him some used torn old ones. When they had gotten the call, Cas had been talking to his assigned rape crisis center trained advocate, a smart professional woman named Kate Hamilton. After taking a physical exam with a doctor who had been called on scene and Kate, they had left. Kate had given them their card and said that she was going to be very close in touch with them until they found the girl, and to go home and try to get some rest.
Anna made a small noise, bringing Dean back to the present, and the only noise in that godforsaken kitchen was the ticking of the clock and the sizzling of the pancake on the pan. What seemed like hours passed by, and Dean realized how close he was standing to Cas, only a few inches from his face, teeth gritted and hands cliched into fists.
Cas finally spoke, a bare whisper. "Please don't be mad at me." he swallowed, blinking more than he had been in the past minutes and Dean eased, backing away and unclenching his fists.
An awkward silence followed that until Anna spoke, breaking it. "So," she started, wavering and uncertain, and she shrunk under Cas's gaze, "I haven't seen Sam in a while. Maybe we could go see him today."
Cas nodded, his blue eyes turning to the pancake on the pan, flipping it. The smile was wiped off his face, and, call him sadistic, but Dean was glad that he didn't have to look at that fake sickening thing anymore. There was a pause as Cas nodded slowly, and replied with a monotone voice that yeah, that would be nice.
The conversation from then on was pained, limited, with tension heavy in the air. Not how it was supposed to be.
After a few moments Cas suddenly said that he was going to take a shower, and, putting the spatula down, went upstairs to his bathroom.
"But you just took a shower....when you woke up!" Anna called after him, but he ignored her and she sighed, rubbing her face.
Dean shrugged at her, sitting down at the table where Anna across from him. "I hate this," the redhead whispered,"I hate it so much."
"Yeah, me too, Anna."
"Pretending everything's okay when it's not and they haven't found the girl yet and I just...!" she bit back a sob, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay. Dean grimaced, closing his eyes. "I don't know what to do, Dean." she groaned. "I don't know."
Me neither. And I'm supposed to know. I'm supposed to know what to do all the time because I'm supposed to take care of people. Of Cas.
He didn't voice those thoughts, forcing himself to be rational.
"Well, his advocate Kate told us she'll be in touch soon to help us find her so..."
Anna nodded, hastily wiping her tears on her eyes away. "I wonder what soon means."
"Probably today. Maybe. I hope so."
"Yeah."She sighed, and said, "I'm just scared that...he's never going to be okay again, yanno?"
Dean shook his head, unwilling to even think that. "He'll be okay. He just needs time. Like you did after the accident, remember?"
Anna bit her lip, taking her hair to the side and dividing it into three parts absentmindedly, starting to braid it. Perhaps it was a nervous tick of hers. "Well," she started, "I got better when I met my soul mate. I mean. My soul mate. And I still don't feel quite whole again. Like something's off, not really there. But that's only on bad days. What if he-"
Snapping at her, Dean interrupted. "Shut up."
She nodded, agreeing of a sort, and continued to braid her hair in the silence.When she spoke a few minutes later, with a strange look on her face, it was as slow as molasses, careful and deliberant. "When they find her, what do you think they'll do to her?"
Dean felt sick when he realized that they would probably just throw her in jail. No. She deserved worse than just jail. Way worse than jail. Jail was where people who had done morally better things than rape people went. She deserved to be punished, to be destroyed, obliterated until there was nothing left. The Winchester hadn't really thought about the girl in that much depth, just what had happened to Cas, really. But now he did, and anger flared up in his chest, threatening to pour out of him. He wanted to rip something apart with his bare hands, feel the destruction. Burning rage hissed through his body like deathly poison, screeching a demanded release in the form of violence. He resisted, taking a deep breath, and said, still shaking, "Something bad, I hope. Worse than jail."
Anna hummed in agreement, just like Cas did all the time, and finished braiding her hair to twist a ponytail holder around the end of it. Dean focused on the expert movement of her hand, to give himself something to hold on to, until he heard Cas come back into the kitchen and turned to give him a smile.
That is, until Cas saw the black burnt pancake on the pan and screamed. Loud.
"No! No!" he shouted, and Dean ran to him to put comfort him, but Cas shook it off, all wide eyes and pointing at the burnt pancake. "No! Please! nO! NO!" Dean grabbed his arm, yanking him back, away from the stupid ass pancake, and Anna ran to the stove and turned it off. Cas was screaming to the point where Dean wouldn't be surprised if he lost his voice, he somehow screamed with his whole body. The eyes wide with horror, the mouth rigid and open, his chalky face gaunt and immobile, the fists clenched with blanched knuckles and the nails digging deeply into the palms of his hand.
"Cas!" Dean shouted,"Cas listen to me!" Dean was vaguely aware of Cas's parents, awoken by the noise, standing by the doorway of the kitchen and watching, worried as hell. Anna grabbed the pancake and, with a scared and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing look on her face, gave it to Cas. Cas screamed once more and glared down at the pancake in his hand, then at his mom and dad, then at Dean, and finally the pancake again. He threw it on the floor with force and his dad yelled at him to stop it right now Castiel but he didn't listen, and pointed at the pancake once more. "It's ruined!" he shrieked. "I was going to make it all better, give them to her and make it all better and she wouldn't be so terrible and...and...and...ruined! Ruined!"
Mrs. Milton stepped forward and tried to gather him into her arms, but he shoved her off. "It's okay, baby," she soothed, rubbing his back, "it's okay. You made so many more." Cas didn't look like he was right there in the moment, staring at that damn pancake, and Mr. Milton flicked his gaze to Dean's, then Anna's. Just for a millisecond, then he went back to awkwardly standing behind his wife and watching his 20 year old kid flip out about a pancake, but it was there, to check on how the other two were doing. It felt good.
Cas nodded as his mother whispered words to him, and she reached up (since Cas was slightly taller than her) and kissed him on the temple; Dean felt a pang of longing at that, but he wiped it away because it wasn't about him right now. It looked like Cas was slowly calming down, clutching on to his mother. That is, until Anna spoke.
"Do you want us to help you make more?"
Cas turned to look at her, and his face twisted into something scared, ugly. He didn't scream, thank God, but just stared at her, and Dean wondered how much time a human being could possibly go without blinking because Cas was really pushing that limit here.
"Your hair," he whispered, his one hand still scrunched up in his mom's shirt.
Anna nodded, and let out a nervous laugh. "It's always been this way, Cassie. Red."
He shook his head, looking terrified, to the point where Dean wanted to rip out whatever in Anna's hair that was bothering Cas to get that terrible look off of his face. "Yeah, but you're wearing a braid."
She ran her hand through the braid. "Yeah, I am."
Cas stepped backwards, eyes wide. "Please," his voice cracked, "take it off."
Frowning, Anna obliged, removing the strands, and when done, Cas visibly relaxed. He blew out a deep breath, wiping his palms on his jeans, and went over to the stove and turned it on again. There was a thick silence in the room, and Mr. Milton tentatively grabbed the burnt pancake on the floor and threw it in the trash.
"I'm going to make more pancakes." Cas announced, and he poured more batter onto the pan, the sizzling noise the only sound in the heavy silence.
The only thing that Dean could think, in that moment, was this:
Why Cas?
August 20th, 2:34:19 PM
"Hey," Dean muttered rather to himself than Cas, leaning against a bookshelf in Cas's room,"maybe we should go see Sam. You like Sam." He looked up at his soul mate, who was pacing the room, distraught and absolutely wrecked. "Instead of just sitting here waiting for the call."
"She said that she'll be in touch soon, Dean!" Cas grumbled, frustrated and almost ripping his hair out. "Soon!"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Kate'll call any minute now. Just," he sighed, and held his arms out to Cas, who crawled into them, "you're so worked up."
"I'm sorry," Cas whispered, and Dean kissed his hair, "I dunno what to do."
Stroking his soul mate's hand with his thumb, Dean shifted to a more comfortable position, burying his face into Cas's soft hair. Cas sighed, curling into a small ball and let Dean hold him. "Let me take care of you," Dean mumbled into his hair. "I'll take care of you. I'll make it all better."
Shaking his head, Cas groaned, "No. No. This is my fault."Dean was shocked, and grabbed Cas's face to force him to look up at his face. Fury building up in his chest, he wildly shook his head. "No." he protested fiercely. "No."
But Cas continued nonetheless. His blue eyes darted around the room, scared and no doubt thinking all these terribly wrong thoughts, "I used to judge people all the time, and-"
"No no no no no no no no," Dean repeated over and over again, like a mantra, because no way in hell was Cas convincing himself of such a terrible thing. "It's not your fault. No."
It's mine.
But Cas already knew what he was thinking, and now it was his turn to shake his head wildly. "I just wanted to do something by myself," his voice caught, "not be such a baby all the time."
Dean wanted to yell, scream at Cas about how horribly wrong that was, but Cas just put a finger to Dean's lips and continued talking.
"I wanted to do something by myself and then I try to and I go and get myself..." he was crying now, bright eyes leaking out silent tears and Dean wiped some away with his thumb. "She wouldn't stop," he wailed, "I tried to fight her and I just couldn't and I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'm so sorry," he kept on repeating it over and over and over again, sobbing, "I'm so sorry I'm so sorry Dean please I'm sorry please," and that's when Dean started crying too, near hyperventilating, protesting.
"No no no no no no no please don't cry please don't cry please," Dean suppressed a pathetic sob, pressing his palm into his mouth to prevent it from spilling out, "don't cry please this is all my fault I was supposed to take care of you remember?" Cas shook his head, burying it into the crook of Dean's neck, his shoulders shaking up and down as he sobbed. "No, no, please," Dean begged, and his voice cracks as he wrapped an arm around Cas's back, resting his chin on the Milton's shoulder. "Remember Cas? Your shit is my shit, remember? Don't you remember?"
He was crying so hard, shit, he was such a stupid girl, and then Anna came in and Dean realized just how much noise they had probably been making, and then she started crying too and came in and wrapped her arms around the boys and they all clung to one another, pathetically.
And then the phone rang.