Lovely readers… I've finally returned (hopefully for good). So to celebrate, I uploaded a oneshot fic I wrote when I was bored and finally a new chapter of Figment here. It's short, I know, and I'm sorry not to do anything longer right now, but I promise you I'll get back to full speed soon! For now, I gift you all this chapter and hopefully it still is as good as you all remember Figment to be. Remember- always keep fighting. We'll get there together.

And as always, I do not own Supernatural or any of the characters from the show. They belong to Erik Kripke. I'm just…borrowing them.

The next days passed in a blur of middle-aged doctors promising 'it'll get better' and nurses too oblivious to Dean's drugged-up flirtations.

It was nowhere near comparable to hell, but it still sucked.

The drugs kept coming, keeping Dean sedated and locked in his head. It wasn't much of a prison, considering he spent most of his time sleeping fitfully. Nightmares of hell interrupted his peaceful slumber, always ending in strange black feathers and the sound of wings beating desperately.

After several days (or was it weeks?), Dean awoke from his haze to his room. He stood up and walked around the room, his legs shaky from disuse. It was small, nearly constricting, and plain. No distinctive features.

The window showed nothing either, just the backside of a park with a few children playing.

Dean huffed and flopped quietly back on his bed.

The events leading to his hospitalization played through his head, Sam punching him, Bobby not knowing him…

It was almost too much for him to bear.

Without his family, he was nothing. A shell of a man who had lived once, died, and crawled away from hell with his own two hands.

The life he led was nothing compared to his nightmares- blood-soaked and dark, remnants of his time in hell. Sometimes he lay on the rack, not dead but wishing for it. Other times he held the instruments of torture, inflicting pain that he felt. He didn't deserve it.

Nobody deserved hell like that.

His nightmares were soaked in the blood of innocents, always ending with the sounds of furiously flapping wings. His days were beige and desolate, covered up with hospital food and starched blankets.

As weeks passed, Dean began to question his life.

Was he really not okay? Was this the place for him? The grips he held on reality were slipping, and he could swear he had started to see things.

Winged things.

Whenever he thought he spotted them, he would always hear the sounds of beating wings like in his dreams, whatever was there slipping away from him.

Until the one time it wasn't quick enough.

The wings were barely visible in the morning-darkened room, black as pitch and long. But they were wings and Dean would swear they were real.

"Wait."

The wings tensed, fluttering slightly at the sound of Dean's voice.

"I shouldn't. It isn't my place."

The voice that responded was low and grumbly, and Dean had never heard a sound so sweet.

"Please. I've known about you for a while now. Who are you? Why are you here?"

The figure laughed.

"You don't ask about the most obvious thing first? How odd, Dean Winchester. I am Castiel. I am the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."

Dean sat up in bed, leaning unconsciously toward the figure-Castiel.

"Castiel? The hell kind of a name is that? And what the fuck do you mean by 'raised me from perdition'?"

Castiel's wings whipped around as he turned.

"Castiel is the name of an angel. I am an angel, you insolent mortal. And by 'raised from perdition', I mean that I am the one who pulled you from hell itself. Are those the answers you seek?"

Dean gulped softly.

An angel.

In the crazy house.

He laughed, soft at first but slowly gaining volume.

"Yep, I've lost it. I've lost my shit. An angel? Who do you think you are, huh? Angel my ass."

Castiel stepped forward, his wings flaring up and his eyes glowing a celestial blue.

"Do not make assumptions, Dean Winchester. I pulled you from hell; I can just as easily deliver you to Azazel again."

"Wait, no, please don't do that. I didn't mean to offend you. I… I just can't believe that an angel is standing in my room in the crazy house. I don't even believe in any of that shit."

Castiel stepped closer yet.

"That is precisely your problem, Dean. You possess no faith. You believe not in God, not in yourself, not in an angel of the Lord standing before you. And yet you kill what others do not know of, the monsters lurking in the shadows beyond their perception? One would think you would be able to believe in an angel."

Dean smiled in the slowly lightening room.

"I need time. I'm in the loony bin after all. I could be going insane."

Castiel smiled then, his eyes softening.

"You aren't insane, Dean. I promise you that."

Castiel vanished then, leaving Dean to wonder if the encounter was his subconscious showing him a kindness- or if an angel had dared visit a former prisoner of hell itself.