{A.N. Hey guys, here's chapter 4 already! This is like the fastest story I've ever written haha! Just keeps coming! I wanted to thank all of you for your lovely reviews, and here is some feedback for your feedback! CaptainAlias: yeah I love Crowley too, it's a tricky one trying to figure out what he'd be like with almost a conscience but I just went in the same direction as canon for it! Loving the conflict in this story too, there'll be lots more. Guest: thanks for reviewing! Here is more!}

Chapter 4: Unhealed Wounds & Unfounded Concerns

"They would do it every day. Go in there with a bit of food in the morning, just bread and water, I got the same thing. And then an hour later they'd just start tormenting him. It was worse than a Mad Men marathon. I mean, I love AMC, but I hate Betty Draper"-

"Enough with the television crap, Crowley, what did they do to him?" Dean asked from the front seat. He studied Cas's form in the rear-view mirror. His friend was slumped and the pieces of Dean's bandana tied around his wrists was already partly red. Cas had been unconscious for the better part of the last five hours. They were a couple hours from the Men of Letters and Dean hoped he stayed that way. He'd be easier to patch up if he was out cold.

"They tortured him is what they did!" Crowley replied in a stage-whisper. They could have been having a huge argument but all three of them would still keep their voices hushed so as not to disturb Cas. "It was all Abaddon. She is one hard-hearted bitch. She beat him, cut him, starved him, everything."

"Everything?" Dean asked tentatively. He looked at Crowley's face in the rear-view mirror then moved his gaze to the unconscious ex-angel.

"Well okay, not everything. His virtue's still intact I assume. But nevertheless, he barely got a moment's respite," Crowley said. His voice took on an annoyed tone as he added, "I mean, they practically ignored me!"

Dean exhaled slowly and looked over to Sam then back to the road. Thank god they were close to home. Sarcastic, one-step-ahead, demonic Crowley was bad enough. But almost-souled Crowley was almost intolerable when he was feeling his feelings.

"P.S. Where are you taking me?" Crowley asked, and Dean was happy to note his normally confident voice was tinged with worry.

"Ever heard of the Men of Letters?" Sam asked.

"Course I have, who hasn't? Oh, I forgot you two are complete morons," he said, with a laugh, sounding a little more like the old Crowley.

"Well," Sam continued, ignoring Crowley's comment, "turns out our grandfather was one. Our father was also meant to be one, but, well, Abaddon happened. But now, we're technically the only Men of Letters left and we have the key to their secret lair."

"I do love a secret lair, don't you?" Crowley grinned, directing that last part to the still-lifeless Castiel who, of course, didn't answer. "That's where we're going?"

"That's where we're going," Dean replied. "Now can you shut up?"

They reached the Men of Letters lair in record time which wouldn't be too hard considering they were travelling at one in the morning. When they got in, Sam gave Crowley a brief tour, told him if he broke anything he was dead and showed him the kitchen and bedroom that he could take over. They'd figure out what to do with Crowley later.

Dean gently roused Castiel who had since progressed from unconsciousness to sleep, and half-walked, half-carried him into the bedroom next door to Dean's. He managed to pry off the tattered remains of Cas's trenchcoat and suit jacket before dropping them in the trash can. The depressed look Cas sent his ruined clothes was enough to make Dean silently promise to find him replacements as soon as he was back on his feet. Castiel's tie was long gone and his shirt was covered in dirt and dried blood. Dean almost dreaded taking it off.

Cas was hardly lucid in his current state but he noticed Dean's apprehension. "It's…okay," he said, his words slightly slurred by exhaustion and pain. "I…I trust…you Dean."

Dean looked up and his hazel-green eyes met Castiel's otherworldly blue one – his right eye was still well and truly swollen shut – and he could see the pain and hurt and betrayal in there, but he could also see the trust, that inherent trust in Dean that Castiel seemed never to run out of. Dean took a deep breath and helped Castiel out of his shirt.

He didn't see the full extent of Castiel's injuries at first; he was too concerned with not jostling Cas's previously dislocated shoulder. When Dean finally dropped the torn shirt into the trash, along with the coat and jacket and turned around, his mouth betrayed him. Big time.

"Jesus Christ, Cas, why the hell didn't you say anything?" he said, louder than he meant to.

Cas flinched at his voice and looked down, his gaze trained on the carpet. "I'm sorry…" he whispered, his words shaking with involuntary fear.

Dean took control of himself and sat back down on the bed next to Cas, who cringed away again. Every time he did that it tortured Dean's heart. It physically hurt him to see his friend so afraid. "No, Cas, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have shouted like that," Dean said. He raised a hand to put on his friend's shoulder, a movement he'd done countless times to Sammy to comfort or reassure him, then thought better of it. "I just…what that bitch did to you…You should've said something. We could've patched you up then and there."

"I'm sorry Dean," Castiel repeated, softly.

"Stop saying it, Cas, you don't have to be sorry for this. I mean, there's a ton of things we all need to be sorry for, but this," Dean waved a hand in the direction of his friend's bloody, cut and bruised abdomen, "none of this was your fault. But let's fix it, huh."

Cas nodded and Dean set to work. They really had done a number on him. The ribs on his left side were so bruised there was hardly a patch of skin that wasn't discoloured. Four were definitely cracked and once Dean had finished tending to his other wounds he'd need to wrap Cas's ribs to protect them from further injury. The bullet wound from Crowley's anti-angel gun was still healing and had reopened and there were smaller knife wounds all over his chest. Dean cleaned them and stitched the bullet wound and the larger cuts. Then he moved onto Cas's back. He frowned at it, confused.

"What did she do to you, Cas?" he said touching one of the misshapen black blooms marring his otherwise perfect tanned skin.

"One of the demons got bored a couple days ago and whipped me with his belt. He said it was something his meatsuit's father had done and he thought it would be a good idea," Cas said clinically, as if he were talking about someone else entirely.

"How many times?" Dean asked, looking at Castiel's back. It was like a game, spot the unbruised skin. Where it wasn't black and blue there was an angry red welt or an open gash.

"I lost count at 37," Cas said softly.

Dean took a moment to let that comment sink in before he started on Cas's back, he needed to wait for his unbridled anger towards Abaddon to dissipate. He cleaned the open wounds and bandaged them and then started to wrap Cas's ribs. That was almost too much for Castiel to bear. He had stoically sat through all of the stinging antiseptic iodine and the stitches but his ribs agonised him so much he almost passed out when Dean did the first loop of gauze. After a couple more wraps, he grabbed Dean's hand.

"Please…Dean…it's too much," he gasped out between breaths. Cas's face was so pale, the dark bruises stood out dramatically and he hunched forward, an arm on his ribs.

"Cas, I need to do this," Dean said soothingly. "I know it hurts, me and Sammy, we've both been right where you are. Ribs hurt like a bitch, but I need to do this, otherwise you run the risk of breaking them. I'll be gentle, I promise, and after I'm done, I'll give you some pain meds, okay?"

Cas stared deep into Dean's eyes with his one unmarred one, trying desperately to ascertain why his friend would put him through such pain. Couldn't Dean see that he'd already suffered? Was this some sort of punishment? Retribution for being fooled by Metatron? How could he, Castiel, have possibly been able to take a different side in that matter?

He had Metatron, the scribe of God himself, in one corner, an angel who had been banished from Heaven, much like Castiel had, wanting supposedly to fix their home. And in the other corner there was Naomi, an angel who ran Heaven with an iron fist – and a drill – who had tortured him, mind-controlled him, tried to push him into killing Dean – the only friend he'd ever had. Who was he supposed to believe?

Was there no margin for error in Dean's eyes? It seemed every time Castiel did something for Dean he ended up in Dean's bad books. He was cut off from Heaven for helping the Winchesters, and was then shunned for not being able to heal Bobby Singer's legs. He stopped Raphael from restarting the Apocalypse and using the brothers as Lucifer and Michael's vessels, and was despised for having absorbed the souls from Purgatory in order to do it. He'd been sent to Purgatory along with Dean when they killed Dick Roman and was brought back by Naomi who'd brainwashed him and drilled into his eyes. Sure he'd managed to finally fight off her influence, but was then shot in the gut by Crowley in the process, his flagging Grace had dumped him in the middle of the cold highway, Dean had almost run him over, and still, he got the cold shoulder.

How could he ever possibly please Dean? Every which way he turned he failed in the older Winchester's estimation. Maybe that's why they hadn't come for him sooner. It had only been a week but Cas had been starting to think that they'd never come for him. That he was going to die in that room with Abaddon. And when Abaddon left and the demons only started giving Crowley food, he thought he was going to starve in there, alone and freezing. Maybe that was his penance. His punishment, handed down by Dean Winchester, was to starve and die in atonement for his sins.

"Cas? Cas, you with me?"

Dean's voice brought the former angel out of his thoughts and he looked up into Dean's face, a silent tear trickling down his face. He quickly dropped his head; he didn't want Dean to see him so weak. He didn't need another reason for Dean to hate him.

"Cas, hey, what's wrong?" Dean placed his hand on Cas's arm and Castiel flinched horribly. Dean swiftly withdrew his hand. "I'm sorry, Cas, what is it? Was it something I said?"

With his head still almost resting on his chest, Castiel murmured something in response that Dean couldn't hear. "What? I didn't catch that." he asked, gently.

"I…I thought you'd never…never come for me," Cas said, a little louder.

"Oh, Cas, no, why would you think that?" Dean said, his heart slowly breaking into jagged little pieces.

"I thought…I thought by leaving me…leaving me there…in that room, it was…you were…" Cas swallowed hard. He didn't know if he should even voice his concerns. Would it offend Dean? Would Dean send him back?

"I was what?" Dean pressed, quietly, his voice remaining calm and neutral.

"It was your…way of making me make amends…for what I'd done…everything I'd done," Cas finally continued. "That's…that's why I thought…you'd never come."

"Cas, how could you think that?" Dean's voice was still calm and soothing but his words turned angry in Castiel's exhausted mind. "Of course we'd come for you. You're family."

At that, Castiel looked up and met Dean's eyes. They were glassy and tears had left salty tracks running down his face. The hope clouded by fear in Cas's unmarked blue eye made Dean feel even worse.

"You really mean that?" Cas asked.

"Yeah, I really mean that, Cas," Dean replied. He wiped his eyes with the back of his shirtsleeve and swallowed the rest of his tears; he still had work to do. "Now, I need to finish wrapping your ribs. Do you think you can manage?"

Cas took a deep breath and nodded, a weight lifted from his shoulders. He took his hand off Dean's so that the older Winchester could resume wrapped the gauze around his excruciating injuries.

"Don't feel bad if you want to cry out, okay?" Dean said softly. Cas only nodded again and Dean started pulling the gauze around the other man's torso. Every time it tightened around the bruising on his left side, he felt Cas's breath hitch in pain. When he was winding the last few loops the unbearable hurt caused Cas to gasp. Finally Dean taped it down and Cas let out a trembling breath.

"Okay, that's done now, you alright?" Dean asked.

Cas nodded silently again, focusing on keeping his breathing even, any laboured breath would irritate his ribs he'd rapidly found out.

"We'll start on your face then," Dean continued. He grabbed a small towel and dipped the edge into an antiseptic and water-filled bowl and dabbed the bloody patch of hair at Cas's temple. The water in the bowl was soon red with blood but the cut had long ago started to clot and was already beginning to heal somewhat.

"Well, thank your lucky stars, you don't need stitches there," Dean said, trying to raise Cas's spirits a bit. It was no use though, the former angel was well entrenched in his current depressed state. Dean couldn't really argue with him, he'd been through Hell these last few days. Dean carefully wiped away the dried blood from Castiel's nose and mouth and grimaced. The bruises stood out even more starkly on Cas's face now that the dried blood was gone.

"There's nothing I can really do about those bruises," Dean said. "They all look a couple days old. Could've iced them right then and there, but I doubt those demons would've helped you out at all. We're just going to have to wait til they go down, alright?"

Cas just nodded again. His pain and exhaustion was catching up on him. He'd been surviving the last few days on little food and adrenaline and now he really needed to just sleep. It was an odd feeling for him. A very human feeling. He barely noticed Dean unwrapping the fabric from his wrists, cleaning the cuts and rope burns and re-wrapping them in clean bandages.

"Alright, just take these and then sleep it off for a while," Dean suggested. He handed two white tablets and a glass of water to Cas who promptly downed them. "Just sleep like that for now, it's going to hurt you too much to put a shirt on."

Cas wearily climbed into the bed with only a couple gasps and flinches from injuries bumped and knocked. Dean made sure the central heating would stay on in the room and then moved to the door, dimming the overhead light somewhat.

"Sam's feeling fine for the moment so he's going to stay up, but I'll be right next door sleeping if you need anything," Dean said.

"Dean?" came a rough voice from the bed.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"Anytime Cas, that's what family's for," Dean smiled, and closed the door over.

{A.N. Okay, there's your daily dose of Castiel hurt/comfort hope you liked! Review, review!}