Sleepless nights give you more chapters…
He tries sneaking into the medicine stash of the camp, but finds out he's right – the lock is changed for a much bigger, harder one to pick. And he's into much hurry to manage to work on it properly, however desperate he is he can't allow Dean to catch him there.
He also tears the cabin apart; looking for anything Dean might have missed, though he knows it's pretty much hopeless.
And he's right. Dean was thorough, leaving nothing. Cas finds something though, on the third drug free day, while tearing out everything in the closet.
Crumpled against the wall, he finds Jimmy's old trench coat all dirty and torn in places, now all wrinkly after the months in the closet. He pulls it out, feeling the familiar fabric in his hands.
~SPN~SPN~SPN~
He takes it off the first evening after moving to Camp Chitaqua, and hangs it over the back of a chair, as usual. He's gotten so used to taking it on and off during the last weeks, that he hardly thinks about it anymore.
The next morning, however, he just looks at it. So many memories are tied to that coat; he's worn it every day for over a year now. He bundles it up and throws it into the back of the closet.
That coat belonged to Castiel, the angel, not him. He's not that 'holy tax accountant' anymore. Hell, it didn't really even belong to Castiel; it belonged to Jimmy… who's now… Cas pushes all thoughts of Jimmy away. He doesn't know exactly whatever happened to Jimmy, or exactly when he stopped sensing him, and he's completely sure he doesn't want to know.
He slams the closet door shut; memories and thoughts just hurting too damn much.
~SPN~SPN~SPN~
He almost forgets how bad he feels physically as the memories wash over him, opening the deep, black hole that the drugs and now the withdrawal has been, at least partially, closing up.
He feels his stomach turn, but he hasn't eaten for two days and he ran out of booze again a few hours ago. He swallows hard and realizes he's sitting on the floor, without any idea of how it happened.
He clenches his fists, still holding the coat, not knowing what to do. There is no other object that is so strongly associated with his time as an angel. Of course Dean is also a reminder, but he's changed alongside Cas, whereas the coat is just the fucking same!
He clambers to his feet, grabs a lighter from a drawer and goes outside. He clears a spot in the snow and throws the coat down and spends the next minutes trying to get it to burn.
This time he can't push the thoughts of Jimmy away. What happened to him? Cas isn't sure if he felt him after he was resurrected, and if he did, it was only a brief flickering presence. And honestly Cas hopes he was gone after Raphael exploded them, because if he was somehow resurrected together with Cas, Cas really doesn't want to know what happened to him when the angels left. He doesn't believe that anybody knows what happens if an angel is possessing a vessel when they fall.
However, he doesn't believe there is anything of Jimmy left in him. Jimmy wouldn't do the things Cas does, that he's sure of.
He remembers Jimmy's face when he told Castiel to take him instead of Claire, how he begged for that fate to save his daughter. Cas is pretty sure that whatever he thought he signed up for wasn't this.
He sits on the ground with his arms around his knees, watching the coat burn and thinking about what might have happened to Jimmy.
Best-case scenario, Jimmy simply died along with Castiel at Chuck's house, and went to Heaven when Castiel was sent back to Earth. That's not too bad a fate, clearly better than what's probably going to happen to Cas when he eventually dies. He laughs bitterly at that thought. The formerly righteous, stick-up-the-ass angel, now a fallen, miserable, pathetic, human drug user, who's probably not going to Heaven when he dies.
The worse scenario for Jimmy though… is being resurrected along with Castiel, and when Cas' grace… disappeared, Jimmy was somehow pushed away into nothingness. Because since he didn't die, he can't go to Heaven, and a human body can only hold one human consciousness. And since Cas was the dominant presence when the angels left, Jimmy was the one that had to yield.
Exactly what happened to him, Cas hopes he'll never find out, in case it'd happen to be option number two.
Cas hugs himself, wondering however everything came to this. How he came to this. He wishes he were high. Or drunk, not just slightly tipsy, teetering on the edge of complete sobriety. But preferably high. Always preferably high.
Finally the trench coat is reduced to a heap of ash that's dancing in the wind, and it's started snowing again. Cas ignores it, despite not wearing a jacket, a little cold doesn't matter much, does it? He just hugs himself tighter, resting his head on his knees, staring at the grey and black heap that used to be the last connecting point between Castiel and Cas, and lets himself really feel the pain for a moment.
He doesn't notice he's crying until the tears are going cold on his cheeks. He ignores it, can't be bothered to do anything about it, it's all pointless anyway, isn't it?
He doesn't go back inside until he's shaking all over and his fingers and toes are going numb. Then he gets up, gives the ash pile hard kick so it scatters in the wind.
He wipes the tears off his face as he enters the cabin and is hit with the now all too familiar feeling of what am I supposed to do now? He has no drugs, no booze, he doesn't exactly feel up to finding Ellie or Linda or some of the other girls right now. He's not good at anything except maybe on the raids, and Dean won't let him come with now. He's just a pathetic, good-for-nothing piece of ex angel.
He slams his fist into the wall. If he'd still been an angel, he would have punched right through it, but now it just hurts like hell. He closes his eyes, savouring the pain for a moment, before he punches the wall again, and again, and again.
When he finally stops, he's crying again and his knuckles are bloody and he's pretty sure he's broken, or at least fractured some of them. And it hurts, oh God, it hurts, and the adrenaline is pushing the black hole away, just a little bit.
~SPN~SPN~SPN~
Dean bandages his hand, and when Cas opens his mouth to ask for painkillers, he gives him a look that probably would exorcise a demon on the spot. Then he offers Cas a swallow from the flask he's always carrying, and Cas accepts it, because it's better than nothing, right?
"How're you holding up?" Dean asks when he takes the flask back, and Cas glares at him. Dean sighs and leaves, leaving Cas to loathe and pity himself once again, and not know what the hell to do.
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