Author's note: This is a bad idea. Starting yet another in-progress fic with somewhere between seven and twelve already in flux. But alas, my muse has been overactive yet lacking in the follow-through. So what I did is typed out the whole damn thing, and didn't allow myself to post the first chapter 'til I was entirely finished. And let me tell you, that took more self-control than a dieter presented with a platter of their favorite variety of donuts. This is a rather short story, but I may decide to prolong it. We'll see.

Prologue

Cas paged through the behemoth manual in front of him, looking for the page he had stopped translating at. His penchant for languages hadn't dissipated after he fell from heaven like his other angelic powers had. To make himself feel useful, he had been translating book after book to keep himself busy and therefore not a danger to himself. Dean went on the occasional hunt, sure, but after hearing what had happened to Sam, Garth had assigned a dozen hunters in the immediate and not-so-immediate area. Therefore anything that required pulling in the big guns (which was never) the Winchesters could be recovered by then.

Cas's newly acquired anxiety flared when the hunter went out, even for groceries. He worried that Dean would get badly injured and call out to Cas as a reflex and he wouldn't be able to hear or come in his human body.

And, though Dean wasn't fully aware of it, he was tired. Not the kind of hangover-tired where a quick nap can help, or even the sort of jet lag-tired where after a week or two he would recover. He was exhausted, running on fumes. For the past eight or nine years, he had been sprinting what should have been a marathon, once his problems grew beyond a simple nomadic life of a hunt here or there. Come to think of it, his life had been altered the weekend he retrieved Sam from Stanford...

The Life had always been taxing, but after that it became sort of stretched out, malformed. The pace quickened as the plot thickened and souls were sold and wars were fought. He went from a park ranger to Batman, in a way.

He was running out of momentum just before another uphill climb. But Sam's illness and Cas's... recovery had given him the chance he needed to slow down.

Eleven months had passed since the respective third trials of Hell and Heaven failed, and Sam was entirely healed. The duo went hunting several times a month now, and Cas would never, ever admit how severe his mental health still was: the nightmares, the hallucinations, the gaps in memory, the depression, and the awful, unbearable worry that suffocated him when the hunter(s) were hunting.

So he buried himself in the library, equipped with Microsoft Word, a scanner (for the diagrams, charts and drawings), and a printer he had made his way through roughly seven books that the Men of Letters had set aside because they were unable to be translated.

He became engrossed in his work, keeping odd hours, forgetting to eat, losing track of days. Sometimes he would go on for weeks without leaving the bunker. Dean and, later, Sam would urge him to come eat with them, and he did, every once in a while.

But the books didn't tiptoe around him like he was a land mine about to go off. The books didn't look at him with pity in their eyes. The books were not burdened with his up-keeping, so he stayed in the library for the most part.

Now, he was concentrated on translating a book in Germanic Ewe about local spirit-like things that were known to come after travelers at night. The lore dated back thousands of years, passed down through tribes in modern-day Ghana and written when the first German colonists arrived and turned the language into a written one with influences of their own language mixed in.

He was translating a particularly nasty snarl of phrases when Dean knocked softly on the door, and he was too engrossed to hear him. Dean hesitated, carefully observing the once-angel before approaching. Cas was pale, but not sallow, and he was thinner then he had been when his vessel was maintained by his presence alone. His hair was longer, not by much, but enough so that it fell in his face on occasion, making him brush it back with his hand regularly, even when it was still neat, the habit ingrained in his muscles. His lips were chapped, and when he concentrated, his tongue stuck out slightly.

Now, he was sitting cross-legged on a leather wing-backed chair, hunched over his book with notebook open next to it. He startled violently when Dean began to speak.

"Cas?" Cas's head snapped up, blue eyes wide and alarmed, and his knife exposed before he even processed who it was.

"Oh. Dean," Cas said in recognition, regarding the knife in his hand with a sort of dissociative amusement.

"I see your reflexes are still sharp," Dean said seeing the perfect segue into his idea.

"I guess so," Cas remarked blankly, stretching, his back arched and arms extended upwards, reminding Dean of a cat.

Dean ran his tongue along the edges of his teeth, suddenly very self-conscious. Cas could bring home the gold medal for any and all competitions for 'piercing blue gaze' with no contest. He walked around to the back of the enormous desk, boat-like in the sea of library. He leaned against its surface, near Cas yet careful. Cas was so withdrawn sometimes that physical proximity sometimes alarmed him to the point of panic attacks, hysterics, or, at worst, a bipolar mania.

But Cas seemed to be in his own head today, eyes aware and calm as he waited for Dean to speak. He needs a shave, Dean thought, briefly forgetting his mission, instead opting to assess his surrogate brother's appearance and health. He was surprised at the lack of dark circles beneath his placid blue eyes; the first few months after he fell he had needed sleeping pills to aid in slumber due to his plaguing nightmares.

"You been taking care of yourself," Dean muttered, somewhere in between an inquiry and an observation.

"I seem to have retained... certain abilities along with my translating skills, one of them being that this body progresses slowly. I often forgo food for several days to no ill affect, the same with water, bathroom breaks, and sleep," Cas explained. "My muscles have not deteriorated and my nightmares are less often."

His voice was careful and calculated, that of a weathered physician evading the prying questions of an anxious family.

"Okay," Dean said eventually. "How you doing, you know, otherwise?"

Cas squinted at him, head turned.

"I mean, you okay? Mentally?" Dean realized with a pang of guilt that he hadn't been making sure Cas was getting better as often as he should have.

"My brain functions normally-"

"Nightmares, panic attacks, amnesia?" Dean interrupted, trying to show Cas what sort of mental-ness he meant.

Cas sat quietly for a few minutes, trying to grasp Dean's meaning and gathering answers he would be pleased with.

"I am much improved," he said, measured and careful. He wasn't on the brink of a mental breakdown all the time now, it was only about half the time.

"My nightmares have lessened in number." He was sleeping less, but the ratio of haunted dreams versus peaceful sleep remained nearly unchanged.

"I seem to be coming to terms with my anxiety." No, he simply had to man up and face it more as the Winchester brothers picked up the pace once again. And by face it, that meant he used negative coping methods like alcohol and overworking himself.

Dean regarded him carefully, but Cas's face retained its impassive gaze, no signs of any lies.

"Sam and I were talking."

Cas's heart plummeted. He had been waiting for this conversation, dreading it, hoping to prolong it as long as possible. He was a burden, heavy baggage, a whiny, needy kid in a grown-up world. He blinked rapidly, looking away, fighting the tightening in his throat that signaled coming tears.

"I'll go," he said, voice shaking, trying to sound brave. He loved the Winchesters dearly, but he was now an added weight rather than an auxiliary force. His mind ran through the few belongings he had: battered old coat, kept for the sake of nostalgia, or some twisted nostalgic parody. One of Dean's shirts that he had worn his first few human days and 'forgotten' to return. The minimal clothing he had reluctantly ordered online. His basic self-defense items, a couple of small guns and knives. His toothbrush, comb, razor, and towel. He would have to borrow one of the brothers' duffle bags to put the things in- no, borrowing meant an intent to return...

"You will?" Dean's face lit up as Cas was beginning to hyperventilate at the thought of his imminent abandonment. "Awesome! Sam said you would want to stick around a while longer, but I said you're more than ready. Get your stuff packed for departure tomorrow morning." Dean clapped his shoulder, but he didn't know his own strength and Cas lost his balance on the chair for a split second.

"Looking forward to it!" Dean called behind him as he left Cas alone to collect his thoughts in the suddenly cold library.

Cas shakily unfolded his legs, stunned and dizzy. It was one thing to be disowned, as it were, and entirely another to be met with such...eagerness from Dean.

He cradled his head in his hands, his face buried in his palms, as he began to sob silently.

You should have made yourself useful. You shouldn't have been contented to lurk in the Winchesters' home. You're such a huge burden to them; just look at Dean's excitement at your leaving. See how badly he wants you gone? He hates having you here, hates babysitting the thing that betrayed him. You have no use as a human, and he's finally kicking you out. You're a disappointment adding more to his burden. He never liked you, only put up with you 'cause you had powers. You should be sniveling at his feet, begging for forgiveness at your dependence, weighing them down, eating their food and taking up residence in their dwelling. You deserve a long life of homelessness, hunger, despair, and ennui. You're going to rot on the streets as the Winchester brothers rejoice.

The shouting in his head got louder and louder, reaching such a volume that Cas stood up abruptly, hands clamped over his ears, not caring as, in his frenzy, he knocked over the chair and displaced the books. He ran blindly to his bedroom, which was not really his in the traditional way, only a place that he slept in. He collapsed on the bed, curling into a small ball and rocking violently as the assault rambled on in his head.

Remember when Dean was your friend? When he loved you like a brother? When he looked in your eyes and called you family? Now you're nothing but an ugly pet goldfish, flushed away when it ceases to serve a purpose.

"Stop," he moaned as his breathing became difficult. Blood roared in his ears, driving the voices louder and louder.

You betrayed him. You betrayed his trust, after he had been nothing less than merciful towards you. You owe him everything and this is how you repay that debt? By loitering in his life like a tumor? Time to be cut away.

The voices engulfed him as he fell onto the floor, barely noting the change. He waited for the tides to ebb away, waves of shrieking torment clouding his awareness.

Remember, Castiel, when you were the strong one?

Eventually, Cas fell asleep.

He dreamt of orange lights streaking across the sky, blood covering his hands, trees thundering to the ground, their weight shuddering as they hit the frozen earth, drawn-out and resonating.