Cas shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Dean scratched the back of his right knee, the nervous tick that he had picked up after the glass in his knee so long ago had been removed, coughing. Kate Hamilton clicked away on her computer, her pretty petite 5 feet frame obviously convincing Dean, by the frown on his face as he stared at her, that they would need someone a bit tougher to be their advocate.
Cas just wanted to find her. Her. Whoever she was. He wondered how long until they would find out her name and stop having to refer to her as...well...her. He just wanted to see her face again, find her and look at her and say...whatever he was going to say. He hadn't worked that out yet. He just wanted to have the last word.
Maybe he would apologize. Maybe he would spit in her face. Maybe he would do both at the same time. Maybe he would-
"Castiel," Kate said, snapping him out of his thoughts. He jumped, looking up to see Dean, his family, and Kate both staring at him expectedly. Dean reached over and took his hand, rubbing his thumb over Cas's, and Kate raised her eyebrows, her red lipstick stained lips scrunching up. Her long beautiful thick Indian black hair was tied up in a high ponytail, perfect and professional. Despite Dean thinking that she was some pretty little weakling, Cas could tell just by talking to her the other night that she was going to turn out to be one of those fierce powerful woman who could cut a man's heart in half with a high heal shoe and eat it while still being the kindest person you knew. Cas already admired her and he barely knew her.
"Do you hear what I said?" she asked. Her voice was like smooth, like butter, professional and polished. He felt like an idiot, sitting in front of her in her office with Dean in the other chair and his parents standing behind him. A complete stupid idiot.
Then again, I went and got myself raped. I am an idiot.
He shook his head, and she recited patiently, like she had done this millions of times. "We're going to have to take care of the most basic piece of information first. Do you or do you not want to press charges?"
When he paused, staring at her, then his parents, who were just watching him, and Dean, who was too, she added, "You're an adult, so it's your choice. Not your soul mate, not your parents, yours."
There was an uncomfortable silence as Cas paused, staring at his palms. They were sweaty. He needed to take another bath. A longer one this time. Dean cleared his throat loudly, probably holding back the urge to yell at him, that of course you should press charges what the hell are you even thinking about it for?!
But he couldn't. This was all his fault. He had walked into that stupid dark alley, he had wanted to prove how much a goddamn man he was. Look where it got him. In the office of a rape advocate and his soul mate constantly worrying about him.
God, he was such a baby. Such a little kid.
I'm not an adult. Being an adult is knowing what to do, never doubting yourself. I'm still a stupid child.
He was just about to say that, no, he didn't want to press charges, but he just wanted to find her, see her again. It was so twisted, and he didn't know what the hell was wrong with him, and that's when he caught hold of his dad's face in the reflection of the window.
He looked terrible. Cas's dad was a overworked doctor who pretended to be professional and businesslike at the hospital, but in reality was a dork who cooked terrible tasting pancakes for his family every Sunday and had a weird obsession with the French Revolution. He sang songs by an old band called the Beatles enthusiastically every time there was a silence, and fell asleep when watching action movies. And right now, he was looking at Cas like his whole world was crashing down in front of him because he knew. He knew that Cas was going to say no. And the look on his face, utter...whatever the hell it was, was more than he could bear.
"Yes." Cas announced a little too loudly, making Dean jump because there had been an incredibly lengthy silence. He blinked quickly, not wanting to be in the dark more than he had to-it was stupid, he knew- and continued, "I want to press charges." Kate smiled at him softly, nodding and writing something down on her computer.
He heard a soft sigh come from his parents and Dean in the room, and Kate offered him a Kit-Kat from the jar on her desk. It was kind of weird, but who was he to judge, so he shook his head no and she put it back in the jar, folding her hands together.
"So," she started, and Cas heard a sliver of excitement in her voice. After all, she wasn't that much older than Dean, probably, still young. Maybe 25, 26. Her olive skin glowed in the light, her black eyes widened, and she suddenly smiled widely.It was a huge contrast to everyone else in the room, that was for sure. "Let's go catch us a rapist."
Dean winced. Cas was really going to have to do something about him learning to trust Kate if they were going to do this, and he saw his parents in the reflection of the window grimace. They only thing that Cas could think that if he hadn't been so stupid and gotten himself raped, none of this would happen and his loved ones wouldn't be so unhappy. But of course, he did. He always screwed something up.
August 20th, 3:06:18 PM
Cas huffed loudly, slamming the door open to the Winchester house, startling Sam, who was sitting in the dining room table over a pile of books. The youngest Winchester blinked, jumping, and stood up too quickly, knocking two chairs over.
"Hey, guys," he stuttered out, raising his hand to wave but decided against it and ended up scratching at his head awkwardly. "I, um, heard about...Dean called me and...uh..."He gave up, and resorted to looking down at his feet. Cas nor Dean didn't even do so much to bat an eye at him, continuing their arguing.
"Ok, yeah, but, we all know that the whole, psychological counseling, or whatever that that Kate suggested, is complete bullcrap, and that just serves my point." Dean argued as he walked into the door after Cas, banging the door shut, "I mean, come on Cas! We should just go do this ourselves. It's obvious that this Indian chick isn't gonna do shit. I mean, look at her!"
"Don't be rude, Dean!" Cas snapped back, crossing his arms tightly and turning around to glare at his boyfriend, "Just because she's a woman and of a different race doesn't mean that you should underestimate her."
"That's not the point, damnit, and you know it."
Out of the corner of his eye, Cas saw Sam blink a couple of times, and set the chairs around him straight, sinking down in one. He had obviously decided that this was something that he didn't want to get involved in. Smart boy.
Dean's voice snapped him back. "We can, we find her, probably ten times faster than the cops or Kate ever could."
"Dean, really? They're trained professionals."
And we really need to find her as soon as possible because..." he hesitated.
Cas crossed his arms even tighter against his chest. "Because what?" he asked fiercely, daring Dean to say it.
To fix me.
That's what he's going to say, isn't it? To fix me. Because I'm a pathetic, broken, child.
I'm disgusting.
Dean's clenched his jaw, and dropped his gaze, turning around to stare at some random spot on the wall and completely avoid Cas's gaze. When he spoke, it was much softer, lighter, sadder. "Because they'll just throw her in some jail, lie about what she did to the inmates so they don't bear her up, and that'll be it. She deserves to be...punished more than just that."
"Well if we play the right moves and go along with Kate and the cops, then maybe not."
Dean's face suddenly flamed red, turning on Cas like an enraged panther. Cas blinked. Almost. Just almost.
"No it won't, I've seen it happen, Castiel," Dean spat out his full name like he wanted to get it out of his mouth as quickly as he could. That made Cas flinch. "I never told you, but after we moved from Lawrence? Yeah. We didn't move a few miles away from our old house. We didn't move here when I was 16 just cause dad saw one of mom's friends in some public place and freaked. We went around living in trashy motel rooms all over the country because dad gambled and lost when drunk, then spent money on beer to feel better, then gambled again. We lived in places where even the lowest of the low couldn't look at. And we saw things. We learned things." His face was turning different shades of red by the minute, and his green eyes were harsh, furious, almost...black. No, not black, a lot of nothing. Like a depth of ever-ending darkness combined with a large amount of charcoal. Sam opened his mouth to say something, even standing up and beginning to walk over, but Dean held out a hand in the "stop" gesture and he froze. "I learned things, Cas. Dad. He...Cas, you don't even know. There was a Christmas where I had to steal presents from one of the houses up the street from our motel in Indiana, so 8 year old Sam still believed in Santa." Cas could see Sam's look of surprise in the corner of his eye. "The first time money ran out and dad wasn't back, I shoplifted the first time." Cas and Sam's eyes both got wider and wider at each thing he listed. And, of course, the worst one came last. "My favorite time was when money ran out just a week after dad was gone, and that night I learned that if I fluttered my eyelashes and bit my lips in the right way then I could get someone to take me behind a bar and give me a twenty in exchange for a hand job!" He yelled that sentence out, the scream so loud Cas was so sure that the neighbors were going to call any minute and complain. There were tears in Sam's eyes and he quickly blinked them away with his hand, but Cas just stared.
"And I've seen woman, men, countless people," Dean continued, breathing heavily and his face turning back to normal slowly, "raped. And not one of their rapists, Cas," he grabbed his soul mate's hand fiercely and held it to his chest, "not one, got what they deserved." He stepped forward and Cas could see Sam watching with teary eyes, but couldn't care less because Dean kissed him hard on. "I want to gank her."
Oh.
Oh.
He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but no words came out. What do you say to something like that? I'm sorry? I wish that didn't happen? I wish I could brutally murder all the people who were the cause of you and your brother seeing and learning such things myself, and not rest until they get a punishment that I see fit?
Oh.
Oh.
Then Cas understood everything.
Dean loved him. He cared for him. He wanted to probably do the worst thing to her that someone could in all creation could do to a human being. And Kate was in the way of letting him track the woman down himself and completely obliterate her.
There was a lengthy heavy silence in the room because Cas didn't even know when to start, and Sam broke it by clearing his throat loudly.
"So, uh..." This time, though, Cas and Dean actually looked at Sam. "I bought champagne, cause I figured you guys would drop by soon enough. Not the cool kind, though. The really bad cheap $10 kind."
Cas frowned, squinting his eyes and turning his head in the way that he knew that Dean hated, and Sam accepted his confused state as agreement and went into the kitchen to grab it. he mood shifted and the heavy thick air was replaced by the sound of Sam clinking around in the kitchen looking for the bottles and...something weird in the air that Cas couldn't quite place.
Sighing, he flopped down on the empty couch and Dean followed suit, flopping down next to him and turning to look at his soul mate with tired eyes. Cas saw Dean give him a faint smile of a sort, at least, he lifted the corner of his mouth, and he tried to make himself smile back, but he was sick of pretending and smiling and it hadn't even been 24 hours since. Dean reached over and took his hand, squeezing it gently, and it wasn't everything they had been before, but for that moment, it was okay. It was enough. Dean leaned into Cas and pressed a chaste kiss into Cas's cheek, and stayed there, his eyes closed.
Sam came back with three cups filled to the brim with champagne, and offered it to his brother and Cas, who both asked in unison, "What're we celebrating?"
"You, Cas."
Cas frowned again. "Me?"
"Yeah, and Dean. And me. And all the good people in the world. We don't celebrate that enough. Who does?"
"But," Dean said, "We haven't really done anything."
Sam smiled, raising his glass up in a toast dramatically and Cas and Dean did the same so they didn't look like idiots.
"We're living."
He turned the TV on, and a blonde girl with a single braid down her back appeared on the screen.
Cas excused himself to take a shower.