The low growl of wind sprang up again, bursting past him as if it was on a schedule towards warmer places, where grass didn't turn sparkling blue in the frost and most of the surrounding area wasn't bathed in shadow. He felt frozen and wet, but it was difficult to tell whether that was just the dirt ground's tricks, making it too cold to tell the difference. There was no place he could go. No one—not even a stranger was to be met. He curled even further inwards, hating to think about anything, or perceive of what had become his pitiful existence. But when one is cold, and hungry, and thirsty, and probably wet, and entirely incapable of sleeping away the pain, the only thing to do is to think. He tried counting sheep. He mulled over what he should be doing the next day, when he'd be able to see more than two inches in front of himself. He'd need to start looking for a different place to stay the night. At this point, it didn't matter where.
Yet, no matter what he did, Cas' thoughts had an uncontrollable tendency to drift towards happier times. Times when emotions didn't change from one minute to the next. Times when he didn't have to worry about so many human survival mechanics. Times… times, of course, when he was with Dean. As soon as the name returned to the forefront of his thoughts, there was a weird amount of bitterness attached, and he hated to feel such a way towards a friend. It was petty, that bitterness. His heart seemed to grasp the feeling and hold it tight, no matter how much he knew it was a stupid emotion to have right now. The sequence of events echoed through his mind like they had so many times in the past few weeks. Recounting things seemed to nullify the emotions. He still didn't have a good understanding of them—but he suspected he knew the cause. It was just such a… selfish, stupid thing, to feel bitter towards someone for your own mistakes.
Cas had a track record of looking to Dean for inspiration. While they could both learn a lot from each other, Cas had clouded memories of a thousand years back, and Dean had learned to make due with what little knowledge he possessed. The latter was much more useful in terms of adaptiveness. Heaven and Hell's collision—angels going rogue, good being not so good and bad being not so bad—it demanded that Cas adapt. Looking to Dean for guidance hadn't even occurred to him before he realized he was already many months down that rabbit hole. An inspiring figure? Certainly. But not really a man to be depended on. Dean was always there when you needed him—until you were at worst, and you never knew you were at your worst until he refused to help.
That night, at the bar, Dean had refused to help him.
It'd been a peaceful scene. Fairly dim lighting, and the background hum of dozens of other conversations, together with clinks and taps and laughs, all drowning out the haunting silence he'd been adjusting to. It was spacious, and warm. The waitresses appeared much better looking than he ever remembered humans being. Since Cas had been looking into another case of murder, he wore his FBI suit, quite crisp and fine-smelling. They were all improvements from his everyday life, which had managed to start deteriorating by the time this night came about. The money from his old job at the Gas'N'Sip was beginning to wear thin. Food was far more expensive than he'd first thought—and without knowing how to get a quick job while moving from place to place, Cas was stuck with a small amount of funds that shrank with each passing day.
But the bar was so quietly nice, so relaxing. Cas hadn't wanted to show how bad things became for him and risk ruining the mood. He avoided talking about money, where he was sleeping, and somehow, the way his stomach made complaints into the early hours of dawn. They didn't need to know how he found affordable food—that is, the free kind which is left half eaten in garbage cans on a particular day of the week. And Cas was really not inclined to mention the two other pairs of clothing he had beyond the suit. Those would have been his everyday clothes, already beginning to wear out while he was still a few quarters short from being able to use the laundromat. Sam and Dean saw only the FBI suit he had carefully maintained, never seeing his eyes reflect fears of the nights spent cold and wet and tired and reeking of every conceivable stench. He thought himself pretty stealthy in hiding it all. But, at the same time, no one had asked. Cas supposed that if they had brought up anything along those lines, he might have just broken down and cried.
But no. Sam appeared to be so glad to see Cas that his pale complexion and the new lankiness to his arms had gone overlooked. And Dean—even if he'd noticed, the Winchester ignored it with passionate amounts of obtusity. At the time, Cas had thought it would be going too far to explain his situation outright over friendly beers, and fought for self-control. They were buying him the drinks, spending their time with him when they could be doing other things—how could he interrupt this kind of dopey joy he'd been wishing for?
Well, perhaps it didn't go quite so smoothly, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Once in a while Dean would get uncomfortable, and he would let the subject be skipped over, if only to preserve the peace. But being the idiot that he was, he only asked a single thing while Sam stepped outside—and it was the wrong thing to ask. Dean wasn't willing to compromise anything when it came to his brother's wellbeing. Cas knew the case should have been pressed, an explanation given. He just hadn't been able to fathom asking someone to put aside so much after he had gotten himself into this position.
And this was exactly when his excitement and shame, resurrected from that day, morphed into the familiar bitterness that came with the future's wisdom.
Tonight was not unlike every other night he'd been surviving recently. A frost-ridden breeze sprang up in full force, fueled by the late fall air and barrelling by his "safe spot", only inches away from smacking him in the face. There'd been nowhere else to stop except for a worn-down gas station. A light hung by the front entrance, probably so that an ancient camera could discern something of the people who walked in. This stretch of road was mute and had no other building to boast of, which only allowed the wind to rush by with even greater force. "Shelter" for Cas would be the brick wall on the side of the deserted gas station. Dark. Riddled with untrimmed brush. Cold, but not as cold as the surrounding area. He scrunched against his sack for moral support more than anything else. This travelling bag, now a pitiful thing, always contained a couple Andrew Jacksons for emergency water and food. It had become almost an irrational fear of his to touch that money. The risk of losing it was far too great. And to spend it? That was such a stupidly awful idea that the suggestion rarely crossed his mind anymore, even while his stomach shrank in upon itself, and he found himself unable to smile or speak properly, his vision wavering from a lack of water. It was never food nor snack packets that he snuck out of stores with—just water bottles. Food, he could find elsewhere. Water was harder.
But what weighed on his conscience to a far greater degree was the cost of his FBI suit, almost never worn. It was the only thing he owned that was kept clean. He'd been so giddy when Sam and Dean showed up and hadn't caught him appearing as his normal brand of dirty and careless-looking clothes. That day with the investigation and drinks had seen him managing to shower in the public washroom of a local sports arena, borrow the gel of another early-riser, and throw on the clean suit. It was the greatest he'd felt in weeks. But… the suit was stolen. He'd told himself it needed to be done, so that he could look into angel killings and try to help. It was a miracle he hadn't been caught leaving the store with it.
The wrongfully-claimed suit sat in his bag, and his bag had just enough belongings to pass as a pillow, and he could still curl up below the thin blanket—and, and, he mustn't think of the gaping hole in his gut, a mouth arid and dry; nor of the sting of a back tilted at the wrong angle for far too long—or a wind rushing past him, with the edges of its icy grip tussling his greasy hair and stinging his frozen fingers. He needed—he wished for something else to carry his thoughts away from stuff like that… but the world had turned lonely and dark hours ago. The moon was hidden; there weren't enough shadows to differentiate one thing from the next. At the front of the gas station—an area he didn't dare turn too much to look at, knowing how the wind would spring up to meet him—there hung some sort of bulb, its light tinged with age. The reach of this pool of light only went so far before dust, picked up by the fierce winds, seemed to block out the rest. Cas was well beyond its illuminated edge. The wall blocked what little reach the light had. He wasn't able to make out anything beyond the dim shape of a sidewalk and the abyss that lay just past its edge. He thought he might get used to the solitude of living a poorly-funded human life, or just become accustomed to the cheap food and weird looks. This was his punishment, of course. He'd stayed in Purgatory to suffer it—but his family had rescued him… and all he'd done for them was sow more chaos.
But things continued to haunt him. The disgusted looks—the lack of people to talk to. He dreamt of the warm bunker and trustworthy Impala, the feeling of wings upon his back, and… Dean. It was always coming back to that, wasn't it?
Cas tried to shift a bit, but his muscles lit up with the cries of being cold. Maybe tonight was a bit different from other nights. It certainly felt colder. Without thinking, he'd taken the FBI suit from his bag with the plan of putting it on over his normal clothes, for the extra warmth. As soon as they were drawn out from the deepest reaches of his lightweight bag, a smell of beer and liquor and cologne and Dean and Sam hit him in the face. The scent was different from hearing the memories of songs Dean loved to play in his car; it was different from the sights his mind's eye created; its smell was so incredibly different from the other senses and all at once, without even knowing what had happened, or why he suddenly felt the way he did, a weird feeling boiled up from his chest to his throat. He coughed. At least, it seemed like he'd coughed, but it came with a sound—almost like whimpering. No air came to fill his lungs when he breathed in, a few hitches during his inhale making it nigh on impossible. Then, like a great dam finally crumbling, he had pulled his legs inwards and choked back strained cries of misery, unable to recognize the sounds coming out of his trembling frame as hot tears drenched his cheeks and neck. His nose became buried in the fabric of his suit, its old smells resurfacing memories he hadn't even been able to recount before, causing agony to bubble out in shudders.
And the night continued on as it always does, silent and cold.
OOO
This was the night Castiel learned what it meant to cry. It was also when he found out that, no matter how cathartic it was to let liquids pour from one's mouth and nose, it couldn't last forever. He was dirt-ridden and mentally exhausted. He was frigid. The night's chill had morphed his sobs into shivers, and he was so tired, so completely drained from it all. There might not have been a way out by this point. But he just wanted to feel warm. He wanted to feel safe.
His mind didn't even get to argue before Cas stood up on shaky feet and stepped into the dim yellow light, such a weird thing to do after trying to avoid detection for weeks in the hopes that he wouldn't be shooed away. His numb fingers slotted in the only change he had left—and then there it was. The sound of ringing from a beat-up payphone receiver pressed to his ear. It was all he had left.
"Hello?" The voice was tired, partly angry, probably annoyed—yet it was so nice to hear. Cas had wanted to ask Dean to start speaking—about anything, anything at all. Just something that Dean was able to ramble on about, a flow of sentences Cas could lose himself to and use to forget about the way the wind was now focused on him and his longer, uncombed hair that fell into his eyes. Sports, music, the next hunt they were focused on—his heart screamed for it all, and he'd learned not to humour it.
"Dean, I…" What did he need? Food, water—but it seemed so impossible to convey that he didn't have basic necessities. He needed someplace to stay for a night, he needed a bit of money to tie him over, he needed practical things, maybe bandages. Half of the things on his list were mantras, wish-lists he'd made and repeated to himself night after night. They were ingrained in him. But nothing of this sort came out of his mouth. "I—I—" His voice couldn't get beyond a whisper. He screamed his next words out, but a parched tongue and cold-shocked gasps kept them quiet. "I need you."
Dean's voice was more alert. "Cas?"
Yes, yes. He felt his chest ready to burst while his breathing became increasingly unsteady. Cas wanted to give in to the tears again so that his mind would blissfully fog over in raw emotion. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to remember better times. But he had to talk to Dean—he had to, and he could, because suddenly it seemed like Dean was finally listening. Hope began to stir his thoughts into motion again, but he was still a little slow to find words.
"Cas," Dean said again, more anxiously, "Where are you?"
Where was he? The angel glanced around, but there was nothing of note nearby. "I—I'm not sure."
"Are you… hurt? Or… or—"
"N-No." It was a broken answer, small and weak like a child's. The rest of his words were worse. He wasn't even sure if they were intelligible, but they came from someplace deep inside him, and the first broken words had a domino effect, like his breath hitching before the prior emotional collapse. "It's—It's cold, it's really cold, Dean. I don't know what to do anymore. I tried everything, Dean, I'm sorry—" His breathing wasn't right—"I'm sorry. Please. Please. There's nothing else I can do, and it's so cold. I didn't mean… I didn't… I screwed everything up, I know I have, I'm s-sorry, it's cold, and—and I want to come back…." A new gust of wind tore past him, forcing his hold on the phone to tighten, and his thought process to become more lost than it already was.
In his moment of silence, Dean's hurried voice picked up on the opposite end. "Just hang on, okay? I'm trying to trace your call. You gotta tell me where you are."
That was good. That was good, that meant Dean was coming. Cas tried to breathe past the hitching of his lungs and glanced around a bit more. "A-An Exxon gas station. I'm still… I didn't get very far from where we last met." Facts were much less complicated to convey, as he was coming to learn.
"Wyoming?"
Was it Wyoming? The only thing he could recall from the three's night out was the taste of beer, a good jittery feeling in his heart while the alcohol had smoothed away his stress.
"Doesn't matter. Just stay w..."
The rest of Dean's sentence was lost in the wind, as a particularly nasty gale sent shots of numbing pain running through his hands and fingers, and the phone flew from his grasp. It took a moment for his stinging digits to curl around the plastic and bring it back to his ear. By that point, an odd voice was speaking, saying something about more money. Dean continued on in his flustered tone, not seeming to have heard. "...sort it all out then, okay? Cas? Cas?"
His eyes were scanning every digital display on the payphone while speaking. "Dean, I think it wants more change." His tone was jumping octaves. He was so close—so close. Just this one little break, if only to sit in the Impala for a minute and drink something warm and put on some nice clothes… just one little break, after everything.
"Give it coins, then—they only need a few at a time."
"I don't HAVE any more!"
In the background, Sam's voice piped up, sounding worried at the tone Dean had developed—the elder brother's concern often sounded a lot like rage. From the quality of the other line, he must have put his hand over the phone to talk to Sam, but Cas had the pang of fear that with few precious seconds left in the call, it would end, and they'd be unable to find him. Maybe unwilling, if it was too much of a hassle. Because then there'd be another hunt, or some trouble the brothers would find themselves in, and Cas would be left alone again. Only, he wasn't sure he could take being alone anymore. He didn't even know if he could survive it.
Seconds. He had seconds. "Dean." It was a mumbled beg. "Please don't leave me."
Immediately, "I'm not goi—"
With a tone that was all too sudden, the connection was broken. Dean wasn't talking. The wind launched another furious attack, and it was all he could do to remain standing. His body begged him to sit down, shut up, stop hoping for what was never going to happen, to fall asleep. There wasn't much adrenaline left to go off of. With the little sense he still had, Cas fell onto his hands and knees to scour the frozen cement, looking past eyes so frigidly stung that they came to tears, hoping to find any amount of forgotten change. Change was always dropped around something like this. Always. He needed just a bit more money—then he could regain his semblance of balance and try to give Dean more details about his location. Thoughts weren't spent on what would be said; just that he needed to talk to Dean again, so that he knew someone would be coming—to make sure he wasn't completely forgotten, as useless and pitiful as he'd become.
The wind continued to fly past without pause. It teased him, knowing that there was only a single nickel near the payphone, and making sure he shivered all the while searching. The gas station's shop was closed. It was hard to tell whether they never opened at night, or if they hadn't opened in months. Cas wasn't too surprised, being stuck in the middle of nowhere; it was just disappointing. No, unfair. No—horribly, awfully stupid. Cas did everything he could think of to make the dilapidated payphone work, and nothing was successful. It only accepted easily-readable coins, and of coins or cards in general, he had zip. He was stuck once more, his only company consisting of the freezing wind and dark, starless sky. There would be no rescue. He couldn't swoop off elsewhere on his wings.
Cas crawled around on the numbing cement, cracked and dusty enough to shred his knees and palms raw. The pools of light no longer mattered to him as they often had. He didn't care if anyone saw his pathetic form, or if they had a disgusted look on their face, or they told him he had to leave—he wasn't going anywhere. He had nowhere else to go. There was only the payphone, beaten down by weather and time, offering no shelter, but only some kind of sick reassurance that if Dean decided to call the number back, he'd be huddled below to hear it. His bag was pressed between his stomach and legs, which were pulled close with his arms to hide the exposed kneecaps from the weather. His nose pressed into the cheap leather and articles of clothing. Everything at the top of his bag became wet, then stiffly cold as all the smells swirled around him—good memories torturing him in their unique sense of home. The burn in his heart lasted far longer once teased with how near he'd been to help. He lost himself in a fantasy where the phone was only metaphorical, and he awaited one of the brothers to pray for him, so that he'd have something to do, someplace to go, a direction to head towards. In reality, angels were waging war because of him, and he had probably interrupted the brothers from something world-threateningly important for a cause they'd never pursue. He was, after all, just some stupid, fallen angel—undeserving of divinity, incapable of survival. Huddled beneath a broken payphone with nothing but memories to his name—memories he loved, memories he hated, because they reminded him of happiness.
Under the cloak of night, the Impala purred with agitation, her wheels carrying a lone passenger down stretches of road many hours long. Dean fidgetted frequently, knowing how awful the weather must be and wondering if Cas had been forced to stay outside for any length of time. It was too damn cold to be doing that sort of thing. He frowned even deeper than before, replaying in his mind the call he'd randomly received, at the kind of hour nerdy people would say is "technically morning". It was night, it was December, and Cas was stuck somewhere in Wyoming. He hadn't hesitated to grab the car keys and translate his unusable adrenaline down to his foot, driving the Impala as hard as he was able to without risking getting caught for speeding. No bathroom breaks, no snacks. His only hope was that Cas didn't end up leaving the payphone he'd originally called at. They had no other way of finding him now, and by the sounds of it, they needed to find him immediately. Sam had yet to call him back about the call-tracing results. It was taking longer than he would've liked, but there were still a few hours to go before he reached Wyoming, and—surprise, surprise—payphones weren't the easiest thing in the world to track.
It was tempting to blame luck or fate for the fact that they couldn't track the call very easily, or to blame Ezekiel for prompting him to close off relations with Cas a second time, or even to blame Cas for not saying anything until it had gotten to this point. And he did—he blamed all three of them, even though his gut tried correcting him on the facts. Dean had neglected to give Cas any means of communication. Even just one of their old cells would have made this whole thing go by way more smoothly. Dean had chosen to push Cas away. As for not saying anything, Dean had hardly allowed him the chance in the first place.
Maybe he'd been waiting for things to return to "normal", holding out just a bit longer and a little bit longer, until Sam was well enough for Zeke to leave. But as time dragged on, he did nothing, choosing instead not to worry about the things that were most concerning. He owed it to Cas to help in whatever way he needed, even if it meant leaving Sam alone at the bunker for a few days while he got Cas situated in a motel somewhere.
His brother called back at some point, able to give him the coordinates but say little more than, "You'll probably know it when you see it, since I can't find a single other building around." The rest of the drive was silent. If he could have, he would've called the payphone back, and probably stayed on the line for the whole duration. But some payphones had purposefully removed the ability for people to call them. Another case of terrible luck. Oh, and another reason Dean was mentally kicking himself.
Dawn had broken a couple hours ago by the time he swerved into a beat-up parking lot, made of more holes than it was of driveable road. Early morning light cast a golden glow on an old gas station, with pumps that had no roofing overtop and a store whose windows were covered by dark tarps. At the front was a small structure—and if that was a payphone, he had no idea how Cas had gotten it to work in the first place. Beside the beat up collection of metal was another unmoving figure, this one in the shape of a ball. The engine was still running as Dean burst from the Impala and darted around towards the front of the store.
"Cas!" Dean cried, skidding on the warped cement and dropping down onto his knees. "Cas? Hey." It barely looked anything like Cas, what with his clothes faded and torn in areas all over, a blanket clutched between two stiff, blue hands, and a dilapidated rucksack peeking out around his neck from where he had curled inwards on himself. The ex-angel was littered by grime and sweat. His hair knotted in a thousand different directions. Dean was almost afraid to touch him, but after still getting no response, he shook Cas' shoulder a bit. "C'mon, man."
Eyes fluttered open, a small amount at a time, until Cas straightened his neck again and seemed to finally grasp that someone was crouched in front of him. Then, his gaze became the real bright blue he remembered. "Dean?" Cas mumbled in disbelief.
He smiled. Cas was still curled up into himself tightly, looking almost like a lost kid with those big, confused eyes, and though his throat was raspy and he looked to be frozen solid, he seemed okay. Well, okay to the point that they'd be able to make it to a motel to get him some food and a proper shower. He was glad Cas wasn't talking incoherently, and there were a thousand questions he wanted to ask. But before he could mention the warm car waiting for them both, Cas took the initiative and leapt forward to… to hug him. It was a weird embrace, especially given the fact that Cas seemed to have the heart, but not the strength. The weight Cas had lost recently was suddenly way too noticeable for Dean's liking. "Woah," was all that he could say for a minute as Cas clung to him. "It's, uh…" he chuckled a bit in awkwardness, not having expected anything but resentment, which would've been justified, "It hasn't been that long, has it?"
Finally, Cas pulled away, clutching his bag and blanket to his chest from where he sat hardly a foot from Dean. "It's felt like forever," he admitted, honesty radiating from his slim figure.
Dean just rolled his eyes at the emotional play, trying not to stare at Cas' condition. It… wasn't good, to say the least. He stood up and offered Cas a hand. It became obvious as soon as Cas tried to follow suit that he was hurting. Despite his protests, Dean carried his stuff, and half-carried him, back to Impala, which was purring much more happily now. It took them a full minute to walk over, with Cas not wanting to put much weight on Dean, but ending up having to because of the cold, lack of food, water—take your pick. Dean plopped down into the driver's seat to see Cas, relaxed on the passenger's side, his eyes cast downwards.
"You okay?"
It was a dumb question, but Cas humoured him. "I… I think I will be. Thank you."
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel a bit, recalling how hard it'd been to keep up with stuff like food expenses as kids, even when their dad would leave them some money before taking off. It always came up shy, and Dean had become much better at stealing away with chocolate bars and raisin packs than was probably healthy for boys. It still probably didn't compare to what Cas had endured, though. In the lingering silence he watched Cas hold his fingers up to the vents, which were blasting as much hot air as possible—like a guy who just discovered that fire exists. The only way for Dean to get his mind off of this stuff and start doing something productive was to go through the plan, so that's what he did. "Look, I'll rent a few nights at a nearby motel, we'll get you cleaned up and better dressed. Buy a couple pizzas. Or girls. Or both?"
Cas nodded, his mouth a rigid line. It was hard to tell if he was listening, or just appreciated the gesture of running something by him and didn't care about the choices either way. He thought he noticed Cas' eyes swelling. The ex-angel turned away too fast for him to get a good look. Dean eased onto the gas more gingerly than he could ever recall doing before, and led them into the main part of town, where he vowed to get the first decent motel available—costs be damned.
A/N:
My step-father actually worked as a manager for public recreational buildings and events. They let the homeless come in during the mornings while everything's getting set up, allowed them to use the showers and whatnot. Their conditions, and the stories that come out of being there in the mornings… awful. I feel so bad for them.
