A/N: So this could be like, my Season 11 Finale Special or something.
Disclaimer: Eric Kripke, the WB and CW owns Supernatural. Now I won't come out of my godforsaken hole before you people treat the boys better and make awesome story arcs like last time.
"Things We Find in the Fire"
Castiel didn't know how long he stayed on the cold hard floor of the Bunker's library. He was still facing the doorway where Dean left, eyes out of focus and unseeing. The only thing he could see though, was his friend's blood-stained face above him, driving the angel blade to the space beside his head. The angel could still feel the aftermath of Dean's punches on his body but he didn't make a move to heal even the most minuscule of bruises. Castiel thought it was a fitting punishment for not being able to save Dean from the Mark but... he could feel parts of himself breaking, even the ones he didn't know he could have.
He knew he should be getting up soon - clean up the mess that the hunter made before Sam could see what his older brother had once again become, but the angel was still reeling from the fight and everything simply hurt. Still, he didn't want Sam to think that Dean was too far gone because Cas had faith in the older Winchester. He was hoping for the hunter's salvation, and hope was a powerful thing.
The angel's thoughts were interrupted when the door to the Bunker's entrance slammed shut, the creaking of metal hinges echoing and long heavy footsteps approaching the room he was in. For a ridiculous moment, he had the fearful thought of Dean coming back to finish the deed but then dismissed it.
It was just probably Sam, still looking for his older brother. Cas did call him that Dean was coming home but now, the older Winchester had gone to god-knows-where and the only thing left is a broken angel on their floor and the last remains of the Styne family, covering most of the interior in blood. In Castiel's point of view, the homecoming was a bit of a disaster.
"Oh God!" Sam exclaimed, breathless, as he paused to take in the bloody view from the doorway, frantic eyes landing on a particular trench-coated figure laying prone and unmoving among the circle of corpses. There was a book a few inches from Cas' face skewered by an angel blade. Sam felt his blood run cold.
He was by the angel's side in a flash, crouching low and scanning him for injuries. Castiel didn't disappoint. His friend looked as if he got beaten up six ways to Sunday. The hunter didn't want to know how much damage was under all that layer of clothing.
"Cas! Cas? Can you hear me?"
The blank expression on Cas' face worried the younger Winchester. He looked up again at the carnage and couldn't stop the bile rising from the back of his throat. Dean did this?
He felt Castiel stir below him. Sam carefully supported the back of his friend's neck, guiding him to a sitting position. Cas gingerly moved his head to Sam and groaned painfully. He squinted his eyes at the man, "Sam?"
The hunter let out a small breath of relief. "Yeah, Cas, it's me. What happened? Where's Dean?" Sam knew the questions probably rubbed salt to the wounds but he had to know. He was expecting a nasty story-telling but what he didn't expect was to hear a broken sound coming from the angel. Cas appeared surprised himself, quickly covering his mouth with the back of his armsleeve and looking at the hunter with wide eyes.
"Dean... Dean-" Castiel's voice was muffled so he took his hand away and tried to compose himself, "He's gone, Sam. I-I don't know where... This - this is all my fault, I should have stopped him. I-"
Sam clamped on the angel's shoulder, not hard enough to make another bruise but hard enough to stop him from rambling. He saw how much damage Dean did to Castiel, and he wasn't talking about the physical injuries. It was the mental trauma. The younger Winchester didn't know how much he could take watching his family fall apart.
"Shh. Stop talking, Cas. We need to take a look at those injuries," Sam said, already starting to undo Castiel's tie and determined to make the angel rest on one of their rooms in the Bunker. Cas stopped him from his ministrations with a shaking hand on his arm.
"It's okay, I'll heal myself. It will take a little longer than usual but I'll heal."
Castiel refused to look at him as the angel picked himself up from the floor, bones creaking and joints popping as he did so. There was a thickness to his voice and Sam couldn't resist trying to peek at Cas' face. What he saw there was one that'll forever haunt his dreams. Castiel's eyes were wet and shining, and there was no mistaking the light streak on his cheeks as nothing but tears.
Wasn't there a universal rule about not making an angel cry? He and Dean were on a first-class ticket ride down to hell.
Sam sighed at the mess the Stynes made on the library. Precious books and folders were strewn around, family pictures and personal belongings piled one over another and smelling of blood and gasoline. The hunter spied a particular dead body nearest to the pile and almost gagged. It was just a kid! Dean murdered a kid!
"Dean didn't need to kill him... I heard him beg for mercy but I was too late," Cas murmured, expression dark and bitterness tangible. Sam could taste the wrongness in the air. He looked at the angel. The wounds and bruises were already healed just as he said, his signature tan trench coat and dark blue suit now clean and pristine. Though the look in his face was anything but.
Sam decided to focus on something else besides the fact that his older brother was turning into a monster and that Castiel was nowhere near his old self. "Would you mind helping me move them out, Cas?"
Cas reached a hand to close the dead kid's still open eyes. They looked at him with terror and shock - blaming, accusing. "I'll get the sheets to wrap them with," the angel said, leaving the younger Winchester and not giving him a backwards glance.
After wrapping the three bodies in the white sheets that Castiel found somewhere inside the Bunker and burning them on a pyre outside, he and Sam retreated for the night. His human friend went to his room to catch a few hours of sleep (to Cas' insistence), if they wanted any chance to look for Dean. He himself should've slept along with Sam. The injuries he sustained and the amount of Grace he used to heal was taking a toll on his vessel, but the angel found himself coming back to the library and just kept searching for something he didn't know what to search for. In simple words, he was lost and he didn't know what to do about it.
Castiel gave up on thinking about other ways to free Dean from the Mark of Cain. He knew there were heavy repercussions if they went along with Sam's plan to use the Book of the Damned but he had two hands tied behind his back. And now, he was just irritated and annoyed at himself. How did he get here in the first place? Why had he become the empty shell of an angel when he was a glorious and holy entity for the past millennia? Where had his power and Grace all gone to now?
The angel knew the answer to that question and he just wished he could still be the same Castiel of the Heavenly Host, just so he could help his human friends, still. But current circumstances were far from ideal and he just felt so, very, useless.
The angel blade embedded on the book called to his attention. Cas separated the two items effortlessly and stared at his weapon. He contemplated about what it meant. What it meant when Dean didn't kill me then, he thought. It was heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Like those pictures thrown in a pile beneath his feet.
He picked them up, one with Bobby and the Winchesters smiling, the others with Mary and John, and little Sam and Dean. He gazed at them with drowning blue eyes and a sad little smile on his face. Castiel literally held Dean's whole world in his hands.
"Cas? What're you doing?... Oh." Sam stumbled in, wavy hair still ruffled from sleep and a coffee mug loosely held in one hand. He stared at the pictures then blinked. "I found those in Dean's room the other time when he left." When he became a demon.
"I didn't know he kept some of these. Hell, I didn't know he kept a lot of things. I mean, y'know he says crap about getting too sentimental and chick-flick moments and... it'd always end up with him doing them anyway," Sam snorted. "And now, I look at this place, these pictures,-" he slung an arm over Cas' shoulders, "-you. I see what we've been fighting for all these years. Why Dean never gave up and never gave in."
Castiel looked up at Sam, straight in the eye and said, "That's why we'll get him back, Sam. We're here for Dean. We will always be there for him."
The younger Winchester graced him with a subdued chuckle. "Damn straight. Now, I'm gonna try tracking my brother while you take a breather." Cas opened his mouth to refuse before getting interrupted. "I mean it, Cas. You look like you could use a bed. Go get one."
The angel nodded his head in defeat, turning away from Sam and looking for an empty room in the Bunker. He spotted a barely opened door and knew exactly whose room it was. Castiel knew humans didn't take kindly to invading their privacy but Dean wasn't there right now so technically, it wasn't private at all.
He didn't know what exactly compelled him to rifle through his friend's things but if he had to guess, it could've been Gabriel. He gazed at Dean's gun and knife collection and marveled at the different shapes and sizes. He read a few sentences from opened books, long forgotten and saw more pictures of Sam and Dean, and Bobby. Each one eliciting various complex emotions the angel would rather not delve into.
He also found John Winchester's journal. Castiel always had a fascination with the thing. Maybe because Dean always used to carry it on hunts in his dreams. The angel flipped through all of the pages, sometimes pausing at a rather interesting hunt then moving on. After the last page was flipped and Cas was about to close the journal, he spotted a single photograph taped at the back. Bet Dean had a good laugh at this, he thought, amused.
Cas peeled off the picture and looked at a sleeping angel in a tan trench coat atop a motel bed. This was probably taken after Anna became rogue and he was too injured to accompany the boys to their parents' house. He remembered how surprised he was when he survived and ended up in their motel room. Those were simpler times, as much as that sounded entirely crazy.
Cas turned the photograph in his hand and read the words scrawled behind. Oh, Dean. He smiled fondly, gazing at it for a minute then putting it back in place and returning John's journal on Dean's desk. He figured he should take the nap Sam already forced him into and slowly walked out of his friend's room, softly closing the door as he went.
"Year 2010/1978(?) Mr. Comatose here just went back in time and collapsed. Then he slept on my motel bed and I don't think he'd be getting up anytime soon. Didn't know angels could sleep."
-D.W.
THANK YOU FOR READING MY LOVELIES! PLEASE REVIEW/FAV/FAVORITE. SEE YOU NEXT TIME, CIAO ;)