Title: Until You Set Him Free
Author: themetaphornextdoor (Formerly 'isasminion')
Pairing: None (Open to being read as Dean/Cas if preferred)
Genre: Gen, Angst
Rating: R
Word Count: 1,400
Spoilers: 5x11 (Sam Interrupted); All Aired Episodes Up To 7x12 To Be Safe; Recent Speculation/Theories Based On Vague Spoilers For Future Episodes.
Warnings: Psychiatric Illness/Hospitals; PTSD Themes; Slight Non-Explicit References To Self-Harm Intentions (Not Involving Any Characters); Major Angst.
Summary: It's hard to tell if he's still there.
Author Notes: This is sad. It has no happy ending, but not necessarily a bad ending, either. There may be triggers for certain people. Title was inspired by a quote. (How unexpected!)
Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or any of it's characters.
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." - Michelangelo
Cas was seated on an uncomfortable looking plastic chair, his eyes focused on the view through the window.
A small garden lay beyond. Barely more than a patch of grass and two trees that crowded against the brick walls containing it on all four sides. Their leaves scratched a muted whisper against the glass of the window and Dean couldn't help thinking the sound was almost eerie.
Especially in a place like this.
A young man and two women paced the small area, unaware of each other, lost in their own thoughts. They were dressed in plain, but rumpled clothes. Dean guessed an iron would probably be off the menu here. He had a sudden flashback to Glenwood Springs – barred windows, plastic cutlery, a heavily sedated Sam.
He shuddered.
Cas wasn't watching the other patients. Or the trees.
Two small sparrows were hopping along the branch closest to the window. One would approach the other, wings fluffing erratically before the smaller one would skitter backwards and turn away. The other would retreat for a moment before trying again.
It was like a dance. On any other day, Dean would have been amused. He couldn't decide if they were threatening each other or courting.
Cas watched them intently. His head never moved but his eyes followed the small birds back and forth.
Dean could see the sparrows were making noises – singing, he supposed – but he couldn't hear them. The window didn't open and the pane of safety glass effectively blocked most of the noise from the outside world.
He studied Cas. His shape was mostly hidden under loose cotton pants – no belt or drawstring, of course. But it was easy to see he'd lost weight. The light green shirt did nothing to disguise the sharp angles of his shoulders and collarbone where it had slipped to the side and exposed his pale skin.
The clothes looked a little like scrubs, he thought. Which would make sense. The nurse, when they arrived, had informed them that their 'cousin' had been found naked.
It was so quiet.
Under the gentle hum of ducted air conditioning, the only sound was his own breath and the pounding of his heart.
"Cas," he said quietly.
Cas slowly turned his head and met his eyes. Dean's heart leapt, but there was no recognition in his face. In fact, there was no change in his expression at all. Cas didn't look confused, distressed, or even curious.
Just blank.
Empty.
His pupils were wide, his eyes slightly glazed over with a familiar sheen Dean had only seen on either alcoholics or the highly medicated.
Cas turned his face back to the window where the sparrows seemed to be settling. Perhaps coming to terms with each other's presence.
Dean wondered if there was anything left of Cas inside the body before him.
He seemed conscious and reacted to his name, but there was nothing else to signal that he was there.
Still, Dean somehow felt he was. The way the former angel watched the birds, the way his gaze fell on them so intently – even though it was blank, it seemed… it seemed like Cas.
Like Cas' stare.
Maybe it was just those familiar blue eyes tricking him, but Dean felt it all the same.
"Hey," he said softly. "I brought you something."
Cas didn't move or look at him again, didn't react in any way.
Dean approached slowly, not wanting to startle him. It was a moot point though. Cas had withdrawn back into his own world, wherever he'd been when they'd entered the room.
Dean's fingers trembled as he placed the trench coat around Cas' slim shoulders.
They'd stopped briefly on their way here - Sam, ever practical, had insisted on food and sleep, knowing Dean would have been happy to drive through five states non stop.
Dean had found a Laundromat and refused to leave until the coat was as close to pristine as he could get it.
When he found out exactly what kind of hospital Cas was in, he'd double checked the pockets and removed the belt. This was pretty much the only thing in the world that Cas owned now, his only real possession. Dean would be damned if anyone would find a reason to take it off him.
Cas twitched ever so slightly as the heavy fabric was draped around him like a blanket.
"Better, huh?" Dean whispered. "Kinda don't look like you without it. Besides, it's yours, y'know? You should have it back."
Cas gave no sign that he understood or even if he'd heard.
Dean looked down to where the edges of the coat failed to cover the patient ID circled around Cas' slender wrist. He read the words on the plastic armband for perhaps the fourth time since he'd entered the room.
John Doe (Answers to 'Cass')
D.O.B. - Unknown
ADDRESS - Unknown
WARD – 23B
Dr. P. Slate, Psychiatry
Dean's eyes burned. Tears lingered on his lower eyelids, but refused to fall. It blurred his vision until the trees outside blended together and the birds were nothing but brown smudges against a sea of green.
There was a shuffling sound behind him and Dean started badly. He'd completely forgotten Sam was there.
Dean turned and Sam was crying, arms crossed and tears carving wet tracks down his face. He hadn't moved from just inside the door, though his eyes hadn't left Cas the whole time. He seemed reluctant to come closer, like he didn't want to believe what he saw in front of him.
He opened his mouth to say something, but Dean cut him off with a short, sharp shake of his head.
Sam closed his mouth and nodded.
Visibly pulling himself together, Sam took a deep breath. His eyes cut over to Cas once more and then back to Dean. He nodded again.
His younger brother turned and let himself out of the room without a word. Dean watched him pause briefly outside before heading back down the corridor and disappearing.
The door closed with a snick and they were alone.
Dean had never been so grateful for his brother as he was in that moment.
Just a look and he knew.
He understood.
The two birds suddenly spread their wings together and launched themselves from the branch. Dean's chest clenched as Cas' eyes followed them until they were gone, swallowed up by the window frame.
Cas' head dipped in a slow arc to the left, his vision seemingly captured by a small stain on the wall.
He didn't move again, just stared at that one spot.
He might have been imagining things again, but Cas looked sadder, his eyes not so bright. He didn't seem as enraptured by the stain as he had the sparrows, but his dull gaze never wavered just the same.
All the awareness of a stone, Dean thought bitterly.
Dean sighed softly and ran his hand over his face, wiping hard until he could see clearly again.
Cas didn't flinch when Dean dragged a chair over to sit beside him, elbows close but not quite touching. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and let his eyes fall to the window just as the former angel's had when they'd first arrived.
"Nice garden, huh?" he said stupidly. Cas didn't move or respond. Dean hadn't expected him to.
Dean wasn't sure why he was talking. He didn't even know if Cas could hear him.
But he had to say something. Anything.
He needed to.
"Sunny today. It's warm outside, I think you'd like it." He cleared his throat. "We should go for a walk. How about it Cas?"
Nothing.
Dean swallowed. "Maybe next time."
He fell quiet and leaned back in the chair.
The leaves continued to scrape against the glass. Patches of sky peeked through the branches as they swayed, creating a shifting kaleidoscope of blue-green.
Dean watched as the wind picked up and the glimpses of sky became harder and harder to capture.
Outside, a scruffy man in track pants leapt about manically, trying to catch a butterfly that fluttered around him, before a nurse came to gently guide him back inside.
He sat until the sky slowly darkened and all he could see was their reflection against the dark glass. Two men he barely recognised, sitting side by side in silence.
Then Dean watched Cas. His slow, even breaths. His slumped posture. Still as a statue and frighteningly absent.
And all the while, Cas stared at the stain on the wall.
~ end