TW: references to past sexual abuse, mental illness, and drug use.
The next day, Dean didn't answer his phone. Every time it vibrated, it was Castiel and from 7am on, Castiel called him 15 times and texted him at least 30 times. Each text message was some form of apology, laced with excuses about how he "sometimes was an angry drunk" or how he "never should drink liquor." He asked if Jo was okay every other text and asked if they hated him every fourth text.
Dean listened to his phone vibrate every 15 minutes and didn't respond because everything was an excuse. He was still livid and also not-so-secretly heartbroken. Dean didn't want to hear Castiel's mewling, crying voice because he wasn't ready to forgive him and he knew that voice would make him do so.
Around 3pm, Jo came to his apartment with the key she had made for herself. Dean was still in bed, the curtains drawn to prevent any sun from streaming in.
"Dean. Come on. You need to get out of bed." She said from the foot of his bed.
"I am not ready to get out of bed, dear Jo." He said, voice muffled by his pillow. "The man I thought I was falling in love with abused you."
"Dean, I am fine. I told you that at least 100 times last time. I can hold my own, especially against a drunken fairy Castiel's size. Don't be such a drama queen. You're not still in bed because you're concerned about my physical well-being." She said.
"Go away." He moaned.
"Dean, seriously, this is pathetic. You need to get up. You are not going to lie here all day and night and dwell on what happened last night. You have a genetics midterm on Monday and Charlie is worried about you. Most of all, I am fucking sick of your boyfriend calling me every five minutes." She said.
Jo bent over and ripped the blankets off him. Dean made a huge show of shivering, even though it wasn't that cold in his room. She bent over so she was looking directly at him.
"He's calling you?" He muttered.
"Yes, and he's calling Charlie too. We both have spoken to him. He was crying and bitching and we both said we were okay with him just to shut him up. Which, don't get me wrong, we're pissed, but it happens. I'm mostly surprised that he didn't send me flowers or buy me a car, with how apologetic he is." She said.
"I hate him." Dean said unconvincingly.
Jo just smirked.
"He can't stand it when people he likes are mad at him. He literally can't stand it. He goes catatonic. It's this whole fucked up thing." Dean added. "I'm surprised he was able to talk to you at all without dying on the spot."
"The fact that you know that is just another reason why you need to get out of your damn bed and fix this." Jo said.
"It's not mine to fix." Dean said sorrowfully. He felt so pathetic right now. He just wanted Jo to order him Chinese so they could lie in bed and watch Dr. Sexy MD.
Jo bent over and flicked him in the nose, hard. "I know it's not, you dumbass, but like it or not, this falls on you. You chose the crazy guy with attachment issues and what I think may be possible anger management issues, so it's on you, like it or not."
Dean groaned and sat up. "I hate you too." He said sorrowfully.
"Shut up and get dressed." She said, still smirking at him.
After a hot shower and sandwiches made by Jo, because she actually felt sorry for him and was the best friend ever, Dean texted Castiel and told him he was coming over. The response Dean received simply read Thank you.
Dean took a deep breath and reached over and knocked on Castiel's door. He heard some rustling and Castiel was there immediately.
One look at him and Dean knew that over the past 12 hours, Castiel had punished himself more than Dean, Charlie, or Jo ever could. His face was pale and his eyes were red and puffy. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before and he still reeked of tequila. Dean looked over his shoulder and saw that Castiel's living room was trashed. What disturbed Dean most was that his paintings were no longer on the wall.
"Cas." He said quietly. He stepped into the apartment and immediately wrapped Castiel in his arms.
Dean immediately forgave him.
Castiel melted into him, sniffling, not saying anything. Dean looked around the apartment to survey the damage. Sometime during the night, Castiel had ripped all of his movie posters off the wall and they were lying in shreds on the floor. There were clothes and shoes everywhere, as if he had pulled them from his closet and thrown them everywhere. There was a DVD player on the floor, the plastic cracked. Dean glanced into the kitchen. There was glass everywhere, broken plates and glasses, and the refrigerator hung open and the microwave was askew. An empty bottle of whiskey sat on the counter, the only glass item still intact, and Dean wasn't sure if Castiel had poured it out or drunk it. Dean was willing to bet it was the latter.
"I'm sorry." Castiel whimpered. "I'm so, so sorry. I didn't mean anything I said last night. Please don't hate me, Dean. I'm so sorry."
"Shh, Cas, it's okay. I forgive you. Come here. You are just fine. It's okay." He whispered, laying a soft kiss on his hairline.
Dean walked Cas to the bathroom and wordlessly undressed him and put him in the shower. He let Castiel wash himself, because although something in him had obviously broken last night, he was not an invalid. Dean shut the door and began cleaning up the mess in the apartment. He threw away the posters and cleaned up the glass, actually surprised Castiel had managed not to cut himself during his frenzy of destroying everything.
Dean went into the bedroom because he hadn't seen what had happened in there yet and he wasn't sure he wanted to see it. Just like the rest of the apartment, it was a mess. The bed was stripped bare and there were sheets and clothes everywhere. Dean opened the closet and found Castiel's paintings. He had taken a knife to them and shredded the canvas. Just like everything else in Castiel's apartment, they were destroyed.
Dean sighed and shut the closet door. He sat on the bed and blinked back tears.
"God fucking damnit, Cas." He whispered to himself. "Why do you hate yourself so much?"
The paintings had been so striking, obviously created with such passion and talent. Dean hadn't understood them, but he had loved them.
He heard the shower turn off and Dean shook himself off. He had dug through the clothes and found something clean. Castiel emerged from the bathroom shivering and wrapped in a towel. Dean silently handed him the clothes and looked away while he changed.
Castiel stood there, staring at his feet, looking completely ashamed.
Finally he said something. "You cleaned." He whispered.
"Yeah, Cas, I cleaned."
"Thanks, I guess. I should have been the one…" He started
Dean interrupted him. "Let's get out of here."
They walked out to the street, where Dean had parked the Impala.
"That's your car? It's beautiful." Castiel said softly.
"She's my baby." Dean said fondly, patting the hood.
They got into the car and drove. Dean put on some Zeppelin and they didn't talk. Castiel looked out the window, looking pensive, but less broken than he had when Dean had arrived at his apartment. They drove out past some cornfields and finally, Dean pulled into a park on the side of the road.
"I've never been here." Castiel said.
"This is my favorite spot in the area. It's just a little place, but if you walk up this hill, there's this huge fucking rock you can sit on, and you can actually see the ocean in the distance."
They hiked up the hill and Dean tried not to notice how hard Castiel was breathing. Dean tried not to think about how the huffs and puffs coming from his mouth reminded him of sex.
Finally, they got to Dean's rock. Dean climbed up, helping Castiel scrabble up behind him.
"See it?" He asked, pointing at the ocean.
Castiel nodded, but didn't say anything.
"So, Cas. I think we need to talk about what happened last night… and not just at the bar, but what happened at your apartment afterward." Dean said slowly.
"I can't." Castiel whimpered. "I don't want to discuss it with you, Dean."
"Cas, look, I told you about Sam. That is the most personal shit in my life. Literally no one knows about it except for my family and Jo. You owe me. Please, try to trust me with your personal shit too. You don't need to tell me all about your dark past, but I think I need to know what caused you to behave that way, so we can work with it." He said.
"You should just leave me." Castiel mumbled. "I'm no good to anyone."
Dean cringed and he wanted to run, tell Cas that it was over, but instead he just lazily draped his arm around Castiel's shoulders. He felt so small to Dean right now. He bent over and placed a small kiss on the top of Castiel's head, which smelled like salt and some kind of minty shampoo.
"Not gonna happen, Cas. I'm not leaving you, no matter how much you try to force me away. So come on, work with me."
Castiel relaxed against him. "Dean, I told you, I'm a freak."
Dean chuckled. "And I've told you, probably a thousand times now, you're not a freak. Believe me, I know freaks."
"My life… well, it has not been easy. Remember I said a lot of terrible things happened to me when I was a kid? Well, they did, and these things have stuck with me. They've fucked me up." Castiel said thickly, his voice on the verge of breaking.
"You don't need to tell me all about it. Just tell me why you were so upset last night." Dean said. "Cas, it was as if you were a different person. What happened? What did I do?"
"You wouldn't fuck me." He whispered. "I didn't think you wanted me anymore."
"Cas, I told you that I want you. I care about you. I'd love nothing more than to be with you, in every sense of the word. Why don't you believe me? Why did that make you so angry?"
"I just… I can't handle it. Rejection. It makes me feel like dying." Castiel murmured.
"But Cas, I wasn't rejecting you."
"Yes you were. That's what it felt like. I just wanted to make you happy and you wouldn't let me."
"You do make me happy. Come on, you know that."
"It didn't feel like that way last night. If you don't want to be with me physically, then why are you bothering at all?"
"There is more to you than that, Cas. I told you that the other night. I don't spend time with you just because I want to fuck you.I spend time with you because I care about you and I trust you." Dean said, trying to pull him even closer, just to show him that he was there, in every sense of the word, and that he wasn't going to leave him.
"You shouldn't be with someone like me. Bad things were done to me, and I've done bad things. You saw it, last night, I almost hurt Jo!" He said, his voice choked.
"Jo is fine. She is actually the one who got me to come over to your apartment. Jo loves you and so does Charlie. They're your friends, Cas. I care about you. That's why I'm here. I can't lose you, I just found you." Dean said, nuzzle
"Everyone leaves me. They use me up and they leave. So, I might as well give them what they need while they're around."
"I'm not going anywhere. I promise you. Why do you think I'm going to leave you once we have sex? Why do you think that's all you mean to me? Cas, that's not the case at all, baby, come on. Don't be ridiculous. What happened to you?" Dean said desperately.
"You don't want to know. You shouldn't be with someone like me. I'm damaged goods."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that? Come on, we can fix this. I want to fix it. Just tell me why, so I can start."
Castiel sat there for a moment, silent. They watched the ocean, so far away, but still almost close enough to touch. Dean was trying so hard to be there for him, trying so hard to understand why Castiel was clinging so tightly to him, while also pushing him away. Dean wanted to run toward the ocean, dive into the waves, which would cleanse him of Sam's disease, Castiel's pain, and his own constant need to escape.
"When I was 12, I ran away." Castiel said finally.. "I ran away from my foster home. I was living on the streets, Dean. You have to understand that. I had no other choice. I shouldn't have run away."
"Cas, you were 12. You were a kid." Dean said.
"It was the third one in less than a year. You don't know what that's like. They kept moving me because the foster parents didn't like me, or they had too many kids already, or because I didn't fit in at school. They kept moving me. I just wanted to be done with it."
"Oh, Cas." Dean whispered.
"I didn't last long, obviously. It was a little over a week before I got picked up by this guy. He called himself Bruno. He was a monster, but he took me in. I had a warm bed. I had food. There were others like me, mostly young girls. Bruno's rule was that we had to earn our keep. The first time he sent me out, he told me I had to prove my worth. This is when he started giving me heroin. He gave us all heroin." Castiel said, his voice finally breaking.
Dean didn't want to hear the rest, because he knew what was coming, but Castiel kept talking.
I asked him to relive this. This is what I wanted to know. Dean thought, biting his lip hard. In the distance the ocean roar and Dean wanted to be a thousand miles from where he was right now.
"He would shoot us up and make us work. I was the youngest of Bruno's kids, so the worst ones got me. The younger they liked us, the worse the experience was. They did awful things. I did terrible things. I was always high though, so it didn't matter. It didn't fucking matter if I was high. One time though, he didn't shoot me up and I knew what was happening. It finally hit me… what I was doing. So, I bit the guy. I fucking tore a chunk out of where it really counts." Castiel said, getting more of his ghastly story out in one rushed, broken breath.
"Oh my God, Cas." Dean whispered. He wrapped his arms around him and held the smaller man close. "God, Cas, baby, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry that happened to you."
His words meant nothing, because Castiel kept going.
"Bruno nearly killed me. He broke my elbow and kicked me so hard there was internal bleeding. He dumped me at a hospital. I stayed there for a long time, to detox obviously, and to make sure I hadn't caught anything. I was clean, but I was only with him for a month. I was lucky compared to some of the others." Castiel finished.
When the story was finally, thankfully over, Castiel's walls came down. He began to sob, hot tears running down his face, breath coming out in short gasps. He was practically hyperventilating and Dean had never witnessed this outpouring of emotion from anyone. Dean held him close to keep him from spinning away and losing himself completely.
Dean understood Castiel's reaction toward sex now. In Castiel's mind, sex was connected to survival, which was connected to hate, pain and loss. To survive, to remain in his "home," he'd been forced to do unimaginable things to sate the cruel and sick needs of others. He had endured the kind of torture that usually only frequent peoples' worst nightmares. Dean literally felt ill from just hearing the story. He couldn't imagine what it took for Castiel to simply with this memory from day to day. He had always suspected some kind of abuse, but he had never pictured it being so brutal. Dean felt such rage at the monster that had done this to Castiel, such anger at the men who had taken Castiel's innocence and childhood.
After about 15 minutes, Castiel had calmed down enough to talk.
"Dean?" He whispered.
"Castiel. Baby. You don't need to tell me anymore." He replied, kissing him softly on the cheek, half expecting Castiel to push him away.
"Since then, it's been a battle just to get through each day. All I can think about sometimes is what I can do to please. You can't please everyone though, and I've realized that it's easier to withdraw. I can't… I can't let people in. When I do, I can't handle it. I revert. I always fucking revert." He whispered.
"You don't need to explain it." Dean said, rubbing careful circles in Castiel's tense back.
Castiel nodded and smiled feebly. "Does it make sense now?"
"I think I get it." He said.
Dean understood everything now. Except now that he did, he wasn't sure he wanted to continue with what he had started with Castiel. It was just like his feelings about Sam, but they were happening with someone else. Dean stared at the ocean, longing for it, but he remained tethered to the rock, to the man sitting next to him.