Dear Dean
Sam and Dean pull the covers over Cas, one brother on each side. Dean tucks the blank under Cas's shoulders and Sam runs his hand over Cas's forehead, brushing dark hair away from his eyes. Cas shivers despite the warmth of the blanket. It's the same gesture Cas did for Sam after expelling Gadreel. He wonders if it was intentional, if Sam remembers.
"You get some rest, alright?" Dean cups Cas's cheek and Cas's vision blurs for a moment, before refocusing on Dean. Dean's hand hovers over his, but never lands. Cas lets his eyes close.
Dear Dean and Sam
Sleeping is like drowning. Castiel occasionally sinks under, submerged in darkness, and then resurfaces, gasping, desperate, until he's pulled under again.
The bed is more comfortable than he deserves. He drags the blanket to a corner and curls up against the wall, wrapping the blanket around himself. This works. He's not completely rejecting the Winchester's generosity, he's tempering it so the hospitality doesn't overwhelm him. Humans, which he was now, weren't meant to sleep against walls, but the discomfort keeps his sleep shallow and his nightmares vague.
"Cas?"
He jerks awake with a soft yelp. Sam stares at him.
"Why are you sleeping against the wall?"
"I don't know."
He's too tired to explain. Sam is all light touches as he helps Cas to his feet, steadying him.
"Dean made lunch, if you want to join us. Or you can eat in here."
Castiel must have agreed to go, because Sam leads him to the kitchen. It's the first time he's been in the kitchen, the real kitchen, since-he can't even remember. And the reality is a disappointment. The reality seems fake. He doesn't belong here.
A nauseating array of smells assaults him, and he tries not to scrunch up his face. Dean made what humans would call an impressive "spread," different types of chicken salad, potato salad, bread, cold cuts, vegetables. Cas dazedly falls into the chair Sam pulls out for him.
"I didn't know what you like," Dean says, a note of shame in his voice, shame that he doesn't know his friend's preferences, but Cas doesn't know his own preferences, either. "Except hamburgers but-I don't know, I figured this would be lighter and we can explore."
"Dean has a different definition of 'lighter' than the rest of us have," Sam jokes.
Cas can't bring himself to eat, can't even bring himself to take a spoonful of anything, even though Dean went through all this trouble, hopeful to find something he likes. Dean wants to explore. Dean wants to find out what Cas likes. Cas can't rouse himself to enthusiasm, can't sleep in a bed, can only stare stupidly in front of him.
"Cas? Cas? What's the matter?" Dean rushes over, pressing his hand against Cas's forehead.
"It might be too much," Sam says, "bringing him here and giving him all this. Let's get him to bed."
They help him to his room. He can't remember. When he wakes up, Dean is sitting next to him with a bowl of tomato-rice soup. The famous tomato-rice soup, the Winchester recipe. It doesn't taste like it should, like family and nourishment and belonging, but Cas chokes it down anyway.
Dear Sam and Dean,
I'm sorry but I
Cas pares his existence down to biological necessities, sleeping, eating, excreting. Mostly sleeping. He spends his conscious moments in a fog so he knows Dean and Sam look at him, concerned, hopeful, worried, but he can't bring himself to care. He sleeps in his bed sometimes but mostly winds up in the corner and sometimes the closet. The corner is small and dark and it's the kind of confined space he deserves. When he wakes up there, he crawls to his bed so that Sam and Dean don't find out.
Dean keeps cooking for him, excited to try new dishes, new cooking tips-Dean watches TV shows about food, he hears it sometimes, and Sam teases him about it. There must be some kind of agreement where Sam makes fun of Dean because that's what they would do normally, but it's nothing supposed to change anything Dean does. It's performance.
Cas knows that Dean expects an epiphany. Dean will cook something so amazing that Cas will decide being human isn't so bad after all, but Cas can't even pretend. It all tastes like gruel, painstakingly arranged gruel, vibrant and nutritional balanced gruel that turns to sand in his mouth. Dean waits for some approval, some expression of delight, but Cas disappoints again.
Dear Dean amd Sam,
Thank you for your generosity even after everything I've done to not deser
Things don't get better, and then they get worse.
"Lucifer."
"Always so formal. That's why no one likes you, you know. We used to be so close. What about Lucy? Big Brother? Oni-San?"
Castiel says nothing. He never really thought of the bed as his, but now, with Lucifer sitting on it, sitting next to him, it feels like an invasion. Lucifer wraps his arms around him. The Winchesters have been tactile lately, soft shoulder touches, light pats on the head, even brief, casual hugs, more contact in the past few weeks than in the past years combined, but he doesn't feel them. He feels Lucifer.
"How does it feel to be home, hmm? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?"
Castiel trembles. The Winchesters are invested in his recovery, and this is more than a step back. This is a trap door opening beneath him when he's already cornered. Tears fall. He's been so ungrateful, he doesn't want to be put out in the cold again, and the Winchesters have every right and every reason, and they haven't yet. He can't tell them he's seeing Lucifer again.
But what if they find out that he's been keeping secrets, even a secret that only hurts him? His body is vibrating at this point, with Lucifer grinning at him like a snake about to swallow him whole. He only has one choice.
Dear Sam and Dean,
Please don't be too sad about this. It was my choice and there was nothing you could have done to
"I enjoy this." Castiel heart pounds as he speaks. He's lying again, and keeping secrets, but it doesn't matter because they'll throw him out sooner or later. Maybe if he responds to their attempts, they'll keep him longer.
"You do?" Dean's eyes widen.
"Yes," Cas confirms, spooning another tasteless bite into his mouth.
"Buttered peas," Sam chuckles. "Add it to the menu."
There's something about Sam's laugh that makes Cas think he said the wrong thing. It doesn't matter now, it's too late to change his mind, and they're both smiling at him, so it couldn't have been too wrong.
Dear Dean and Sam,
You did everything you could and more, more than I deserve, so I apologize for disappointing you after a
It's not possible to ignore Lucifer but it is easy to pretend nothing's going on. Lucifer taunts him with the usual, his past lies and deceit and rejections and flaws and breaking Sam's wall and killing his brothers and he's lying again, right now, and they're going to get tired of him and there's nothing he can do about it-
It's nothing Cas hasn't told himself already, nothing he hasn't stopped telling himself for the past six years.
Dreams are harder to control. He wakes up screaming, hoping he doesn't wake anyone else up, because disturbing their sleep is more than enough reason to throw him out.
"You wanna watch a movie with us, Cas? Or a TV show?" Sam offers. Cas doesn't know, but they spent hours trying to figure out something palatable and enjoyable, something that wouldn't trigger anything but wouldn't be infantalizing. Game of Thrones, off the list. Jessica Jones, gone. Comedies were safer, and they settled on Community. It would be a gamble. Cas would either love the meta humor or hate it.
"OK."
"Can't mess up watching a TV show, right?" Lucifer says.
It turns out he can. He tries to pay attention, tries to keep up, but he falls asleep and he doesn't realize it until he opens his eyes to Dean covering him with a blanket.
"The World Failure Champion!" Lucifer cheers. Castiel jolts.
"What's the matter?"
"I-I-I'm sorry, Dean."
"For what?"
"You are such a freak."
"I had a nightmare."
"No worries, buddy. Do you want to talk about it?"
"You are so high maintenance." Lucifer winds his finger around his head, the symbol for crazy.
"No. I'm OK."
"Let's get you to your room. We'll watch it some other time. Or something else."
"They're trying so, so hard, and you can't even-"
dear sam and dean
i dont know what to say or how to begin this please don't be mad at me i didn't know what else to do and it's better
Cas wakes up in a different bed, a protective arm swung around him. He turns around, right into Dean's green eyes.
"You were having a nightmare. I thought you might sleep better in here."
Dean removes his arm and sits up. A tremendous gesture for Dean, intimacy that Castiel never expected to be shown. Dean's bedroom, Dean's bed, Dean's arm around his waist. The memory foam mattress. The bed would remember Cas, and Dean's OK with it.
"I seem more real than this." Lucifer slides in behind Dean and Cas pretends not to notice, focuses on Dean's eyes instead.
"We haven't really talked about anything since, you know. What happened."
"What would you like to know?"
"How you feel? What you need? I don't know, man. Anything you want to tell us. Me."
Cas clutches the blanket, knuckles white. "I, um, I was doing poorly, and now I'm doing better." Cas looks at Dean, eyes wide and, he hopes, earnest. "Thank you, Dean."
Lucifer applauds. "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"
Dean looks like he's about to say something else, but then he smiles and ruffles Cas's hair. It makes Cas feel impossibly young, even though he's eons old and feels it, too. "You've always had a way with words. I'm gonna go prepare breakfast, alright? Actually, you wanna help? I can show you how to make pancakes. Or eggs. They might be better to start off with."
Castiel's heart pounds, because cooking is something he'll mess up. Use the wrong knife, slow Dean down, start a fire, another opportunity for Dean to realize he's a liability and throw him out. It's another gesture of kindness he doesn't deserve, thrown in Dean's face.
"Maybe next time?"
dear
"Wouldn't you rather see the bullet coming?"
Sam and Dean have been nothing but kind and caring, trying everything they can think of to make Cas-something. Happy, maybe. Or normal. Something he'll never be.
"If your bed isn't comfortable, we can get you new sheets or a new mattress." He's been ungrateful. They see him sleeping in the corner and assume that the bed isn't good enough for him.
"If you feel up to it, we can go shopping one day. You've never been to a Wal-Mart!" Another limitation to his humanity, and, he realizes, he's been wearing Sam and Dean's clothes. He owns nothing, and he has no way to obtain anything that isn't theirs.
It's only a matter of time before they give up on him. He tries to earn their kindness but there's still so much he can't do. He hasn't been outside, he can't imagine himself in a store, in the Impala. He doesn't deserve a place in the car. Dean's the driver and Sam rides shot-gun and that's how it should be.
And now Lucifer is suggesting a solution.
"Face it, you're a mess. You're broken. I mean, you've always been broken but wow, this is a whole other level of brokenness. Think about how much time they're wasting trying to fix you. It's not fair to them, is it?"
Castiel agrees. He only wants the Winchesters to be happy, and he's a hindrance.
"The cool thing about this place is you can kill yourself any way you want. Bullet to the brain, hara-kiri, hanging. I, personally, think you should slice open that tummy of yours. Dishonored warrior. Fits, no?"
Castiel stares at the floor. He has his own room. At one point, that would have been his Heaven on Earth. Now, it means nothing.
"Too messy," Castiel replies. He never responded to Lucifer before.
"Right, right! Don't want to leave too much for the Winchesters to clean up. You've made enough messes, huh, little brother?" Lucifer pinches Castiel's cheek. He likes that Cas is game. "That eliminates the gun, too. I'm sure they have a nice little collection of poisons, pills. Live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse."
Castiel tries to imagine the aftermath. He would poison himself, and Sam and Dean would see their wasted efforts. They would resent him, and maybe they would think suicide is selfish, a coward's way out, but they would have grown to resent him anyway, and this would save them time and his eventual heart-break of rejection again. They would find his body and maybe do something akin to mourning, but they already lost so many people, people who meant something to them. Cas would be no more than someone else they failed to save, a botched hunt, bones burned too late. Killing himself would cause the least amount of anguish for everyone.
"They would have to dispose of the body."
That's the one thing he knows for sure.
Lucifer nods. "They would. You think you'd get a hunter's funeral? Nah. You're not a hunter. They'll throw you into a hole in the ground and cover you up so the coyotes don't get you. What a pain in the ass you are, even in death." Lucifer's eyes flash with an idea. "Hey, why don't you dig your own grave?"
Castiel stares at the floor. He's made his decision, he has to work out the details. And digging his own grave, it does sound like a good idea. Poison, and then he'll drop into the hole.
"I'll have to leave a note."
sam and dean,
i regret everything i ever did for you. i regret pulling you out of hell. it should have been any angel, any other angel, who would never hesitate to throw you back onto the rack where you belong. where you both belong. killing myself is the only way to free myself from you and it its preferable to staying with you a second longer. sam, you will always be an abomination. and dean, you are
It rains. No, it pours. It softens the ground, but mostly, it soaks Cas, and Lucifer jokes that he might not even need the poison. The cold and exhaustion will do the job for him.
"Come on, brother! At this rate, you might as well lie down in the dirt, it's so shallow."
Castiel digs as much as he can, but he spent too much time lounging and sleeping.
"I'd help you if I could," Lucifer coos.
Cas stumbles, and he grips the shovel. Spots dance before his eyes. He can do this, though. He thinks he hears Sam and Dean shouting for him in the distance.
"Fast, or else they'll find you, and then you'll have a lot of explaining to do."
Castiel digs and digs and he still barely makes a hole. Lucifer is oddly silent.
"Cas? Cas! What are you doing?" Both Sam and Dean stand in front of him, wet and frantic.
Rain drops blotting his vision, Castiel looks up and steadies himself on the shovel.
"Digging my grave."
His grip loosens and he falls.
Dear Dean and Sam,
First I want to thank you for all the hospitality you've shown me and for your friendship, every high point and every low point, the biggest moments and the smallest. If I still had mastery of every language, ancient and modern, angelic and human, I still wouldn't be able to describe how much it meant to me. There was nothing you could have done to prevent this. You tried. I know you tried.
I tried to minimize any inconvenience this will cause, but there might still be sadness or resentment. I hope those feelings don't last long.
I wish I could have been stronger. I wish I could have returned the gestures of kindness you've given me. Every one of them exceeded what I deserve. You are the best that humanity has to offer. You deserve happiness. Please be happy.
Love, Cas
Dean rips the cheap T-shirt at the seams and yanks the sweatpants off as Sam grabs every towel in the bunker and bundles Cas. He's too cold, he's going to need body heat, and neither of them are too proud to hesitate.
They lay in Cas's bed, limbs tangled together, monitoring the rise and fall of Cas's chest, his pallor, not talking.
"How long was he out there?" Dean mutters into Cas's hair.
"The hole didn't seem that deep."
Grave, not hole. Dean pulls Cas closer. He's returning to normal, and Dean lets himself think that he's going to be OK. He's going to survive.
"Why don't you clean up downstairs?" Dean suggests.
There's not a lot to clean up, just the towels and shirts and pants, but Sam takes his cues from Dean when Cas is involved. He stands up and adjusts the blanket, then leaves.
He was the one who checked on Cas. He and Dean had unofficial shifts. Basically, whenever one of them woke up in the middle of the night, they peaked into Cas's room. He was either in his bed or his corner or, they discovered, the closet. He looked most peaceful in the closet that they let him sleep and never brought it up. Except that night, he wasn't in his room. Only that piece of paper on top of his pillows. Sam shouted couldn't register what he was reading, he just skimmed it-looked at it, really-and knew it was a suicide note.
He screamed for Dean and they began their frantic search, running through the entire Bunker and shouting. Then they saw the lone figure in the yard.
Sam and Dean both grabbed for Cas when he fell, but Dean lifted him bridal style and carried him back to the Bunker. Sam's pants were heavy with the note he found in Cas's room. Dean still didn't know about it.
It was addressed to both of them. They had a No Keeping Secrets pact. But what good could come of showing Dean? They knew what Cas intended to do. They stopped him. End of story.
He unfolded the note, but his eyes bounced off the words again. Cas tried to kill himself. After everything, Cas still wanted to die. They had done something wrong, or they weren't doing enough, because they thought giving Cas time and space was the right thing to do.
Cas was digging his own grave.
Sam squeezed the paper.
Cas is warm and protected, held against something solid. He moans and shifts against whatever it is. Something cards through his hair.
"Good to see you're feeling better."
It's Dean. There's no malice in his voice. He moves one hand to tilt Cas's chin up.
"We're gonna have to talk about this. But not right now. Right now I just want you to-"
Dean's voice breaks off, and Cas swallows and buries his head against Dean's chest. Dean continues petting him, breathing staggered, and Cas can tell he's crying silently. They both are.
After a while, Cas hears Sam ask permission to come in.
"Yeah, Sammy," Dean responds. He adjusts so that he's sitting up with his arm around Cas. Sam doesn't say anything.
"Hey, Cas."
"Hello, Sam."
"How are you feeling?"
Cas looks up at them with guilty eyes. He wants to say he's fine, but he lost that privilege.
"I...regret what I did. I understand now that it was foolish. I should have spoken to you."
Dean's exhale is impatient. Cas can't understand why. He said something wrong, but he wasn't lying. His heart pounds. Dean is going to explode.
"Why did you do it, Cas?"
Why did he? Cas wonders as well. Then it floods back: Lucifer, the taunting, the cajoling, the feelings of worthlessness and regret. They're going to find out that he's still keeping secrets, even though Lucifer is oddly silent. Castiel doesn't want to say gone, but he hasn't seen Lucifer, either.
It doesn't matter, though, because he lied again.
"Cas, hey, shh, shh," Dean pulls him into his arms. Cas can't breathe, he's gasping for air, but he tries to talk anyway.
"I-I've been seeing Lucifer." Cas crumples, because this is the end. "And I hid it from you."
Both of Dean's arms grip him and another set of hands stroke his hair-Sam's. They both shush him, they both tell him it's OK, Dean rocks him even as he sobs pathetically against his chest.
There's more to say, but Cas is still too tired. He's wrapped in Dean's arms, he has their support and maybe even their love, and he falls asleep.