Broken For Me
Summary:Dean and Sam beside Cas's bed as the angel recovers, and think about all that Cas has endured for the Winchesters. Spoilers for Season 11.
The phone on the bedside table said midnight. Dean shifted in his chair. Sam stretched. Neither of them took their eyes off the still figure lying in the bed.
They'd planned to look for Cas, once they'd verified Sam's cure worked, that everyone was safe who could be saved. And once they'd sent word out to the hunting community of both the disaster and cure.
Instead, they'd found the angel lying in the library, partially hidden from sight behind the giant pile of books in the main room. Found him covered in blood and wounds, hands bound, too weak to stand. Begging for help.
The angel had been delirious with pain, clearly in agony, but even though he'd begged for help, he'd almost fought them off when they knelt beside him. Before he'd passed out, he'd managed a garbled warning, that Rowena had spelled him with a curse that caused violence and blood-lust. He'd made it clear that he hadn't sought the brothers for help before because of the spell, too afraid that he would wind up attacking them, hurting them.
He'd begged them to restrain him, or even kill him, until finally Sam had gone to the dungeon, gotten an extra length of chain and bound it to the cuffs on Cas's wrists, just to calm him down. It was then and only then that the angel had allowed them to touch him, and he'd fallen unconscious not long after.
Just long enough to tell them what had happened. That he had been taken, that his wounds were the marks of torture. Torture by angels, by his own brothers.
Long enough for him to tell them that he was hated in Heaven, no longer considered a brother or an angel. That Hannah, the angel he had been closest to, had betrayed him and tried to trick him. Then refused to support his torture. Then died at the hands of his tormenters.
For Cas, being outcast and losing his friend was a far greater wound than any that marked his body.
He was awake long enough for them to see an all-too-familiar line of puncture wounds across his brow. On Samandriel, they were marks of interrogation. On Sam, marks of attempted salvation.
On Cas, it reminded them of a crown of thorns.
Once he'd passed out they'd laid him out in a room that had been subconsciously dubbed his, and Sam had hit the books.
An hour after that, Sam had dug up half a dozen cleansing and curse breaking rituals, and worked out the best and highest powered combination he could manage.
An hour after that, the spells had been cast. Neither of them knew what exactly had happened, but something had, because the magic had gone off like miniature fire-crackers, and then Cas had vomited blood all over the floor. Without regaining consciousness.
After consultation, they'd left the cuffs and chains, for Cas's peace of mind and safety, cleaned the angel up, and put him back to bed.
And now they were waiting, both of them watching the still form on the bed, waiting for him to wake.
They hadn't talked about it, trading meaningless reassurances and trivial comments, but Dean knew, from the expression on Sam's face, what his younger brother was thinking about. The same things he was.
How much more could Cas take? How much more of being Heaven's punching bag, of being tortured by his family? How much more suffering could he endure for them?
Dean remembered right before the Apocalypse. When Cas had come back from being 'recalled' back to Heaven. The complete change in behavior, in personality. But more than that, he remembered Cas in the Green Room, the pure fear in his eyes when Dean had asked him to help stop what Heaven had allowed to happen.
That wasn't fear of dying. That wasn't the type of fear that just appeared. There was only one thing he knew of that could produce that type of fear, especially in someone as tough as Cas.
Someone had broken him, and done it hard, done it Hell-style. He'd never asked the details, and Cas had never volunteered them. But he knew. And after what he'd seen as he cleaned Cas up, he could guess more details than he wanted to.
Sam remembered Cas's Fall, years ago. Trying to stop the Apocalypse. He hadn't thought much of it then, too busy wallowing in guilt and shame and self-flagellation. But he'd also seen Cas burning out his borrowed Grace. The angel's slow decline, the sleeping, the coughing, the terminally ill look about him. And he wondered.
Was that what Falling was like? That slow decline of Grace, like having a terminal illness sucking the life out of you? He'd had similar feelings while undergoing the trials, and it wasn't something he'd wish on anyone. Cas had never complained, not during the year long struggle against Lucifer and Michael's final battle, not while they'd been fighting Metatron, hunting a cure for Dean, dealing with rogue angels. In fact, Cas had been more upset when Sam didn't ask his help than when he did.
Two different times, he'd spent a year or longer dying slowly, his life worn away piece by piece, with no complaint.
Dean remembered when Cas had consumed the Purgatory souls, the Leviathan. He remembered Cas, sitting on the floor of that bloodstained laboratory, huddled inside his trench-coat, exhausted and in pain. Being torn apart from the inside out. And yet, all Cas had cared about was apologizing to him. Asking his forgiveness, promising to make amends.
At the time, and for a long time after, he'd been torn between anger and grief, and anger was easier to deal with. Anger he understood. Anger was a comforting burn under his skin. Grief felt like it would drown him. So he'd stayed angry at Cas's recklessness and his betrayal and his foolishness. Until Cas's madness had blunted the edges.
Until he'd had a chance to talk to Cas, during the long nights in Purgatory when it was Benny's turn to guard, and he and Cas sat together, close for mutual warmth. Until he'd finally heard the whole story from the angel, and realized the truth.
Cas had been fighting a war he could not win. He had put his existence and his honor and everything else on the line battling Raphael. And he had done it to protect the Earth, and the Winchesters. The agreement with Crowley, the search for Purgatory, had been an act of desperation.
Like saying yes to Michael. Like facing Death for the Horseman's ring. Like letting Sam say yes to Lucifer, to throw him in the Cage.
Cas had won the war, but it had cost him his relationship with them, his honor, his sanity. And in the end, he'd been torn apart.
For a long time afterward, Dean's nightmares had been haunted by the memory of Cas, standing before the portal muttering 'I'm sorry Dean'. The memory of Cas's soft 'I will redeem myself to you.'
The memory of Castiel convulsing, voice breaking, horror on his face as he fought to keep the Leviathans contained. His desperate, frantic cry for them to run.
Sam hadn't seen most of it, out of his head with hallucinations, and out of the lab. But Dean remembered. And he regretted that he hadn't listened to the angel before it had gone that far.
After having the Mark of Cain, taking it to stop Abaddon and Metatron, he understood far better the logic and cost of such acts of desperation.
Sam remembered when Cas had taken the Hell madness from him. Waking up from his perpetual Lucifer hallucinations to see Cas, alive and at his bedside. He remembered the relief that had filled him, until Cas had staggered back, anguish on his face, and he realized what had happened, what the angel had done to save him.
He remembered the sick churning in his stomach, when he understood that Cas, so newly recovered from amnesia, had sacrificed his own sanity to remove the nightmares that tormented him.
He remembered the nightmares he had for months afterward, of watching helplessly while Cas endured the visions and tortures that he himself had suffered through.
Cas had told him that taking the Hell insanity had actually saved him from the greater torment of his own guilt, but Sam had never been sure if that was true, or just what Cas believed in his madness. And even though Cas had said that, he had never quite lost the feelings of guilt, that he had been the reason Cas had suffered so much. Had been broken so badly.
Dean remembered returning from Purgatory. He'd thought for so long that he'd failed Cas. Then he'd been horrified when Cas had given him the truth, that Cas had deliberately stayed behind, for penance.
He remembered Cas in Crowley's stronghold, curled up and trembling against the wall, eyes wide and unseeing. He'd been too busy getting to Samandriel to do anything about it, but he remembered it. Remembered the blood seeping from Cas's eye, the stilted responses that he and Sam had agreed were suspicious. Remembered Cas's cold violence on the hunt for the angel tablet, and the fear that something was wrong with the angel.
He remembered Cas in the crypt. Tortured, terrified eyes, wiped away by blankness as Cas struck him, beat him black and blue. Then serenity, replaced by grief, endless grief, when Cas had reached out to heal him, then fled from him.
He'd taken refuge in anger, but after he met Naomi, he'd put it all together and realized what had been done to his best friend.
Mind control. Torture. Brainwashing. How much he had endured, Cas had never said, and they'd never really had time or energy to ask, what with Kevin and the trials, then Metatron's reappearance and the closing of Heaven.
It had been enough to give Cas flashbacks, something that before he would have said was impossible for the angel. And that was bad enough.
Dean had never gotten a chance to make it up to him. Or to apologize for giving him the cold shoulder when he'd turned up in the middle of the road, needing help.
Dean knew as well as anyone what torture and mind-altering abuse could do to a person. He'd broken in Hell, after all. And still, he hadn't accepted Cas's apologies. He'd been rough and brusque with the angel, when he hadn't been ignoring him.
In retrospect, no wonder Cas had gone with Metatron. No wonder he had been so easy to trick.
Which made it Dean's fault, in a way, that Cas had been taken captive, his throat cut and his Grace removed.
Cas had never blamed him, instead blaming himself for falling for Metatron's deceit.
That had never stopped Dean's regret, for what had happened to the angel. And to Cas as a human.
He knew Cas had been tortured twice, three times if one counted the injuries dealt by the Rit Zein. Killed once.
He'd seen what April and the Rit Zein had done to Cas. Cas had never told him what Malachai had done, beyond the one sentence over the phone. 'I...I was tortured.'
He wondered whether this had been better or worse than Malachai. If this was what Cas had suffered during his previous capture...he flinched away from the thought.
Sam remembered when Cas had been human. He hadn't known, of course, about the angel Gadreel. That it was Gadreel that had ordered Cas away from them.
What he did know was that it had taken a long time, while Cas was healing the last of his trial injuries, for Cas to relax.
Eventually, Cas had admitted that Dean had told him that Sam had been the one to demand he leave. That had been one of the larger reasons he'd had trouble forgiving his brother. That Dean had used him as the reason for kicking Cas out...he'd been furious for a long time, even though Cas had said he understood. Gadreel had forced Dean's hand, and Cas understood it and forgave the older Winchester.
It had taken Sam a while to feel the same way. Especially after he'd asked how Cas had gotten the borrowed Grace. The knowledge that Cas had been so desperate as to pray, and had been taken and tortured until he had stolen another angel's Grace to escape, had hit him hard.
Almost as hard as the memories of searching for a cure for the Mark, and how little he'd paid attention to Cas's frailty, as the Grace slowly burned out and destroyed him with it.
It was a miracle Cas had lived long enough to regain his own Grace, and Sam felt guilty that he hadn't been more help to the angel. But he'd treated Cas's suffering as more an inconvenience than anything. He'd been too wrapped up in saving Dean.
Dean remembered the day in the library of the Bunker, less than a month ago. The fury ignited by Charlie's murder and the Mark-induced haze of calm, uncaring violence.
He had beaten Cas bloody. It had only been later that he had realized that Cas had never hit him back, never drawn his blade. Cas had tried to stop him, but had refused to risk hurting him.
He had beaten the angel with a savagery that would have killed a human, and come within a breath of killing Cas with his own angel blade. And all because Cas was too loyal to let him surrender to the madness the Mark caused. Because Cas had cared for him too much to let him destroy himself, even if it meant being destroyed by him instead.
And seeing him like that again, bloody and pleading on the floor of the library, woke memories he didn't want to see, and a cold chill in his gut.
He'd never had time to apologize to the angel for what he had done.
He hoped the angel would wake up soon, so he could.
Sam remembered leaving Cas with Rowena at the warehouse. He'd been the one to tell Cas to make the spell happen, no matter what.
He had left Cas with a witch he knew was extremely dangerous. And saying 'no matter what'...it was his fault that Cas had gone to Crowley. His words that had put Cas in the position he'd been in.
His insistence on casting the spell had been what led to Cas's being enslaved by Rowena's spell. Led to the anguish that had led to the angel's prayer that had brought his siblings down upon him.
His fault the angel had been taken captive and tortured so brutally.
His fault Cas had suffered Rowena's spell, whatever it had done and still might be doing to him.
He'd never had a chance to apologize to Cas for how his demands had damaged his already fragile relationship with Dean.
He'd never had a chance to thank Cas for what he'd done, for all the help he'd given them, all he'd risked in pursuit of saving Dean. Including the jail-break in Heaven, which he knew had gotten Cas in trouble, led to his outcast state in Heaven. Probably been part of the reason for his punishment.
He hoped Cas would wake up soon so he could thank him. And so he could apologize, for what his demands had cost the angel.
***BFM***
The clock ticked over to 1am. Dean rose, stretched, went to the bathroom to splash water on his face while Sam watched over Cas.
Then Dean watched over the angel while Sam went to the bathroom, stretched, made them both coffee. Then both of them returned to their silent vigil.
Both watching, both waiting.
Both praying their angel would wake up soon, would be all right.
Both praying they would get a chance to apologize for all their transgressions, to thank him for all he had done for them.
Both praying they could make sure that Cas knew he was loved, was , no matter what Heaven said, he would always be an angel of the Lord to them. And he would always be part of their family.
Both praying that they could shield the angel from further torment. From further agony.
Both wondering how much more he could endure, and how they could ever repay the angel who had been broken for them.
Author's Note: Seeing the episodes, what Cas went through...well this just sort of wrote itself after Episode 2.