I would like to thank all the readers following this fic
Thank you so much not only for me, the author, but for them, the victims behind the words
Thank you…
CHAPTER 13: LOST
Dean knew Leyla Fredges would be here this Monday morning. He left a post-it note on the lobby's whiteboard. It was huge and the name of all the staff members were on it and anyone could leave messages under their names.
Dean's note was saying "I need to talk to you, it's urgent. Dean Winchester."
He was not seeing her often and he never talked to her. Not that he didn't like her or didn't want to meet her, but they had very different schedules that were never matching.
She was always working when Dean was working too, and she was leaving when Dean was already gone for hours. She was spending all her afternoons behind the doors of the East quarter and Dean had access to this area only for a week on the mornings when she was always locked in her office or in the training room with patients.
He saw her a few times in the refectory for lunch but she was always absorbed by her files or talking to Mary or the nurses. She distractedly smiled at him a few times when she walked by him but she never seemed to pay any attention to him. She was polite but distant.
He asked about her around him. Before meeting her, he wanted to know if there was any chance she would help him even if he was a low and unknown staff member cleaning rooms. But for this, he would come at her as a simple visitor. They all agreed: Leyla was a very efficient occupational therapist even if the way she was working was often criticized by her colleagues. After all it was the case for all St Gerry Hall doctors, and Mary let them work the way they wanted even if she was keeping an eye on them.
A lot of doctors wanted to work in St Gerry for this particular reason: they could use new therapies, often with little medication because Mary hated to knock her patients out just to calm them. Her goal was for them to find a certain balance so they could live with their illness the most peaceful way they could.
She was secretly hoping a new revolutionary therapy would be created inside her hospital so she would raise enough money to give her patients everything they needed.
Leyla Fredges was working half-time in St Gerry Hall and half-time in St James Hospital in the pediatric department. She sacrificed her personal life over her job.
Dean woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. He would take his shifts in West quarter back today and he couldn't help but felt sad about it, but still he was happy to come back to the patients he met first when he arrived here. He was attached to them too.
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He was eating breakfast when a shadow appeared in front of him and he looked up.
"Good morning" Leyla smiled. "You wanted to talk to me?" she asked handing him the note he left.
He stood up to greet her clumsily.
"Hello."
She took a chair and sat down in front of him.
"We don't know each other very well, do we?"
She put a file on the table and laid her forearms on it.
"No we don't…" Dean confirmed.
"Alright so let me introduce myself to you: I'm Leyla Fredges and I'm the occupational therapist here in St Gerry Hall for almost five years."
"I'm Dean Winchester… rooms' cleaner for three weeks…" Dean smiled shaking her hand.
She frowned when she saw his bruised eyebrow.
"So what can I do for you, Dean?" she said in a more intimate way.
He pushed his plate away, not knowing how to start.
"Ummm… it's about one of the patients."
"Ok…" she sank in her chair.
"Mary Campbell gave me the authorization to visit him when I'm not working."
She looked at him but stayed quiet, and Dean felt more and more uncomfortable.
"His name is Castiel." He finally said.
"I know…"
"Why am I not surprised?" he joked.
"You succeeded where everybody has failed… me included." She sighed pushing the file in front of her.
He looked at her surprised by her confession.
"Beside Missouri, you're the only one who managed creating a contact with him… you more than her. It seems he's really attached to you."
"I am too… I mean attached to him." He mumbled "it scares me sometimes."
"It's a good thing… let's avoid impulsive relationships. It never ends well."
He didn't react.
"Why did you want to talk to me, Dean?"
He crossed his fingers on the table.
"I need you to help me find a way to communicate with him… I mean… the way to put words or moves on his emotions."
"What makes you think he wants to?"
"Everything… especially his look, the fact he accepted the book I gave him, the fact he made me understand he wanted me to go on visiting him. I just feel it inside me… I'm not saying I will be able to cure him, I think nobody can and there are some pains that can't be cured, but I'm convinced I can help him living a better life because I've been through this too… just not the same way."
He was twisting his fingers and Leyla was staring at him.
"I'm not a doctor and I have no degree for that, I'm afraid to mess up and to push him deeper in his own world that's why I need professional help from you."
"In general, occupational therapies take place in the training room or in some rare cases, like Castiel, in the patient's room… but what you're asking me here is almost to do my job."
"No, I'm just asking for help."
"I am truly sorry but I can't accept this… it's against professional ethic and it's not logic."
"Ethic? You all have that same stupid word in your mouth! And what logic?" Dean started to lose patience "There's absolutely no logic between those walls… none! All their logics are not logic to us, but here I know I can help Cas because I understand his logic, he just doesn't express it well and I wanna help him open up, I wanna help him live!"
"Ain't you afraid that you'll do worse while you open his Pandora's box?"
"… says a doctor." Dean laughed.
"That shelter he built for all those years…"
She searched for the right words, trying to avoid the medical terms for him to understand better.
"… That shelter is protecting him from the real world he's running from because he doesn't know anything about it and he's scared of it. And you… you want to make him cross the line between his shelter and the real world. Do you think he's armed enough to do deal with it? A few months are nothing after 30 years of abuse."
"He survived after all those years of terror and you're asking me if he's strong enough?"
"Exactly… he survived thanks to this shelter he created in his mind but you want to take it away from him… if he manage to do that and find nowhere to go after something from the real word aggressed him, we will lose him forever and I'm not talking only about his soul here."
"So what am I supposed to do? Leave him in mute mode forever locked in his precious shelter?" he raised his voice and realized he was going too far.
He sighed… "I'm sorry…"
"The true question here is: do you want him to get better for himself or for you?"
He suddenly looked up and stayed quiet for a while.
"He deserves a second chance. I want him to get better for him! I wanna share more than a damn look, I want him to live, to win this! I want him to know there are beautiful things out there, he needs to know there isn't only pain or beating, I want him to get the hell out of that room, I wanna bring him to the ocean, the forests, the mountains, the cities! I want him to see life as it is, I want him to realize there are good people on earth, not only dicks!"
He looked down.
"I want him to finally live his own life like anyone else." He insisted.
Leyla observed him and listened to him. Each word he said… each move he made… the tone of his voice…
"I think you deeply want to help Castiel even if I still think you're guided by your own experience even if you pretend you're not. You want to save him because you couldn't save your brother."
She saw him tense… Mary told her! He didn't say anything but his look was full of anger.
"You are sincerely attached to him and it's obvious there is reciprocity or we wouldn't be here right now… I wouldn't be here. I have to admit Mary and I were worried about this particular relationship you share."
"You can name it, you know? It's called friendship and the fact he's sick has absolutely no influence on it. I wanna help him because I'm his friend and he knows it. He trusted me enough to reach for me. He knew only darkness and I want to show him light, that same light I saw myself when I thought there was no hope left, but for this I need you. I need you to help me getting him out of his prison. I am begging you right now you understand? I can't do it alone."
She smiled and leaned on the table.
"I came today because the fact you wanted to talk to me intrigued me, even if I had a clue about what you wanted to talk about, and I listened, Dean. The fact you're asking my help before doing something on your own makes me think there is maybe a real opportunity for us to help Castiel… I will have to believe Missouri here: destiny seems to insist."
"Does that mean you're gonna help me?"
"Yes." She smiled… "But there are conditions."
"Oh damn it you too?" he leaned his back in his chair.
"You will come to see me after each visit and you'll have to report what's important about it. I'm not asking you to tell me everything you'll share with Castiel, but I have to know about his reactions about the solutions I'll propose you to try with him. It's the only way we can succeed… I have reports to make too, you know… we're a team. Are we good?"
"Of course… I would've reported it anyway." Dean nodded.
"Good." She stood up and took her file.
"I'll wait for you in my office at 3:30 pm. Don't be late."
"I won't be… thank you."
"You're welcome. Keep in mind you're in a hospital here, a place to cure people and every help is appreciated. Mary gives us this opportunity which is not the case in other psychiatric institutions… so let's try something."
"Thank you." Dean said again.
"See you soon, Dean." She took her file and left without looking back.
Dean finished his breakfast feeling happy and sad at the same time. He would not be able to visit him today but it didn't matter… Leyla Fredges accepted to help him, Mary gave him a chance and he was sure they could win this. It was just a matter of time and patience, and now that he knew even if he would lose his job he could still visit Castiel, he was full of hope.
Yes… they would succeed, they couldn't fail.
He took a break at 11 am and leaned against the Impala's hood. He looked at the third floor knowing Castiel was here observing him and he smiled.
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Castiel was staring at him, his forehead against the window, lost between images of the present and images of the past.
He arrived in St Gerry Hall a Thursday, Mary Campbell had him transferred and went with him the whole way. They had to sedate him because he refused to get out of his hospital room. Laid on the ambulance stretcher with this strange feeling to float between two dimensions, he met her smile and closed his eyes.
When he opened them he saw a white ceiling, and he was untied after days of captivity in St James Hospital: doctors there tied him up to the bed because of the panic attacks making him dangerous for them and for himself. He was knocking his head so hard on the walls and on the window he was always covered in blood.
He stayed several hours stretched out on his bed, eyes on the ceiling, and he finally got up and slowly, carefully went to the window. He looked out and saw a huge park… where was he?
Castiel thought he was dreaming at the time: he only saw those kinds of gardens and houses in books, a long time ago. It felt so unreal to him that he thought it really was a dream. All of this was just a part of his prison, a new kind of release, a reaction of his mind.
For months he lived in his St Gerry's room as it was just another part of his shelter, his world he created to run from the attic.
And one day, Missouri extended her hand to him. He tensed on his chair but she smiled and went on. He closed his eyes waiting for the slap that would break the walls of his kingdom bringing him to reality… he felt a soft caress instead… and he relaxed. For the first time in years he opened his eyes to look in hers.
It was a new sensation: gentleness. The softness of her fingers wiping milk from his lips… the softness of her eyes caressing his soul. He knew then that this prison wasn't one, but it was a new reality blooming in front of him… and he was terrorized about it like never before.
The outside wasn't only God's wrath? The beating and the abuse weren't all he could understand?
He wanted to raise his hands to touch her dark skin and feel the softness on his fingers too, he wanted to know how it was to feel someone else's skin other than the cold one of his torturer haunting his dreams… but was it worth it? It never lasted… everything always had been illusion… all of this couldn't be real or why God would've waited so long to give it to him?
Was he saved and pure now? Or was it just a break before the next hell? How to believe he was forgotten by all of those people for years? Was he so worthless for anyone from the outside to worry about his life and his future? Was he really an evil creature?
He wasn't ready to know and he wasn't ready to step out of his jail, so he sank back in his prison. No one could come and disturb him there because he created his own universe and nobody knew about it.
He was just looking at this black woman though, like a link between himself and the others, to not drown forever and hold to this tiny hope.
And Dean arrived… and he saw the same pain he had inside himself in this man's eyes. There was the same pain in his eyes but he was living and smiling like anyone… was it possible to survive this? Dean was the proof it was possible! He was talking, singing like his birds, and his eyes were attracting him out of his shelter.
But how to say he was scared because where he came from there was only violence and hate? How to say that he didn't know how to get out of his prison to try his world? How to make him see he didn't understand everything he said to him, because the words he used had no meaning to him? He never heard them before. How to say he didn't understand the weird warmth in his heart, this need to cry after so many years holding his tears? He couldn't even remember when was the last time he cried.
These walls… high white protections with a window opened to the light… these green eyes: an anchor avoiding him to drown in his fake reality.
Castiel was a lost soul hanging by a thread between two realities: his own one and theirs, but he knew he was sinking deeper and deeper. The reality he was running from was making him fall in abyss and he would not be able to get out of it.
The hell he lived in for 30 years was much heavier than a few people looking at him and four walls in a hospital.
He raised his hand and laid it flat on the window, his fingers spread. He tried to scratch the window, like he wanted to dig into those walls to open another prison.
He looked up at the sky and followed a couple of birds with his eyes…a blue reflection into the blue of his soul.
When he looked back in the yard Dean was gone.
Was it a nice dream? He didn't know what was real or not anymore. Where was each side of both realities? Was there a reality or was it just his imagination playing tricks? What if tomorrow he wakes up under his wood attic roof and on his cold floor again? What if tomorrow she comes back?
He panicked and ran under his bed curling up on the floor. He shut his eyes so tight he almost thought they would explode. He would not sleep to not wake up from this dream.
The door opened, footsteps resonated on the floor, and Castiel panicked even more, fear wrecking his guts.
The footsteps came closer and the human being kneeled… dark skin!
"Well… Castiel? Ain't it a little early to sleep?" she said smiling.
He desperately held her gaze. He hadn't looked at her that way since he arrived in St Gerry Hall.
"Castiel?" Missouri worried. "What's wrong?"
She frowned and sat on the floor facing him, her back leaned against the wall. He was not leaving her eyes, holding on to them like he would hold on to a life-belt.
She understood what was happening and stayed quiet. She wanted to hug him so bad to comfort him but she knew he would panic even more. At least she was by his side and she would bring him back no matter what.
He finally calmed down after a few minutes, she saw him relaxing and he looked away.
This is when she broke the silence: "Your dinner will be cold if you don't eat now… you come?" she said standing up.
She leaned her back against the wall and felt drained… she's read the distress in his eyes and it scared her. She silently prayed for Dean to succeed where everybody failed, because each panic attack was deeper and deeper. She feared that one day nobody would be here to give him a tender look to bring him back and stop him to fall.
Castiel needed to put words on his pain, his fears and his emotions.
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Dean rang and waited. Garth came to open with a big smile.
"Hi!"
"Hi!" he replied entering.
He couldn't help but looked at the second gate, the one leading to the long corridor, the one leading to his room. He thought he must be standing at the window in his white pajamas, barefoot as always and it made him smile. An idea came in his mind and he thought he would have to talk about it with Leyla… maybe.
He knocked, heard footsteps and the noise of the key unlocking the door, and she opened her office's door. He hesitated a short moment because he realized serious things were about to start and it scared him a little.
Leyla noticed it and invited him in.
"Please, come in, Dean."
He sat on the chair in front of her desk and observed the room: on the back wall there were pictures of Leyla with staff members, some others with patients painting or making pottery. Some were smiling and some were not even looking at the photo camera.
On a small storage unit there were dolls and puppets, and some drawings were hanging at the wall on the right. There were some beautiful pieces of art but also some disturbing ones and a few things he would call stains or doodles. It probably had meaning only for the "artists". The office was full of files and papers arranged in what seemed to be an organized mess.
She sat behind her desk and smiled.
"I've read Castiel's file again after our talk this morning."
She opened a drawer and put the file in front of her.
"How much do you know about him, Dean?"
He was a bit surprised by her question and swayed on his chair.
"Not much… I just know what I've read on the internet and what people told me… so not that much."
"That's not what I'm asking."
He tilted his head and looked at her confused.
"You mean you want to know what I learnt about him since we've met is that it?"
She smiled and he looked down at his hands.
"Well… I know he hears me and listens… he doesn't understand every word I say but at least he perceives the meaning of it. He doesn't talk but I don't why…" he paused a few seconds and smiled "I have the feeling he knows, or at least he once knew how to talk. He just doesn't want to anymore… or he can't anymore because someone forbade him to or because he's protecting himself with his silence. Anyway… he doesn't need words for me to see his pain, I can read it in his eyes and that's what chocked me the first time I met him… all that distress… this is how I realized he wasn't crazy but lost."
"Where does the reason end and where does madness begin? That is the question."
"You think he's crazy?" he looked up.
"Ugh! Crazy… I hate that word. We avoid pronouncing it between those walls, with good reason obviously." She stared at the file "I can't pronounce any diagnosis on him, no one can because he's a real puzzle, a unique case. It is obvious he's a psychiatric case but what can we say about him? As you noticed he could talk, we checked his vocal cords and nothing physical can stop him from talking so he probably just doesn't want to, but I believe all those years of silence damaged his ability to do it. Voice is an organ and like every organ it needs to be applied to work correctly. Castiel lost the necessity to use his voice so I think we will have to find another way to communicate with him… at least in the beginning."
She looked at Dean.
"You can't expect any miracle, and it will be a long… very long process. It can take months only for him to accept making an effort to open up. You will need a lot of patience. Do you think you can handle it? Are you ready to accept he eventually doesn't want to go out of his prison?"
"I have time… and I'll give him all the time he needs. I just want to be here for him and try to help him the best I can."
"Good." She smiled. "Let's talk about his reactions with you, alright?"
"What do you mean?"
"When and how does he look at you? What moves did he make? Anything can be useful…"
When he left Leyla's office he was drained and felt like it was too much for him. Wasn't it a mistake? He was not good with people and he always had trouble admitting his problems so why would he force Castiel to do it? How can he be sure he wasn't better in his own world rather than in the reality Dean wanted him to know so much? Who was he to judge what was good or bad for him?
He leaned his back against the wall and sighed deeply before taking the badge out of his back pocket. He looked at the gate leading to the corridor from where he could hear the screams and the moans of the patients resonating between the walls.
"What the hell am I doing?"
"Hello, Dean!"
He jumped: Missouri was here staring at him.
"Wow a little overwrought, are we?"
He looked down at the badge and Missouri followed his look.
"Is it because of Castiel?"
"I'm starting to think Mary was right."
"About…?"
"I don't think I can do it."
"Do what, Dean?"
He sighed… "Nothing."
"You're his chance and he's yours! Don't make things more complicated than they already are! Give both of you some time, let him come to you and don't force him to. That's how it always worked between you too. You act, he reacts."
"What if he doesn't come at all?"
"Then just be there for him. A tiny thing can make him fall forever, he lost his points of reference when he left his attic and I think he can't have new ones here that's why he's so lost."
"I'm nobody, Missouri… nobody. I have no family, no real friends because I don't know how to make friends, I'm suspicious about everything and everybody, I even lost the rage which made me stand up. I feel empty and this responsibility… this fucking connection messing with me… how could I save Castiel when I'm not even able to save myself?"
"You survived your own hell when your brother died… you're still here, you're alive and so is Castiel. You fought so hard for him you don't want to give up now, do you?"
"Thing is it's your job to save him from his hell… I have enough with my job already."
"So what am I supposed to say to Castiel tomorrow? Sorry he won't come… sorry but the book you hold on to is the last thing you'll have from Dean."
"Damn it will you leave me alone for God sake?" Dean screamed.
Garth was just walking by at that moment.
"Hey is everything ok here?" he asked seeing Dean's angry face and Missouri's frustrated one.
"No." She replied simply.
"Don't you dare judge me!" Dean shouted pointing her.
"You know what?" she started…
"Open the door right now please, Garth." Dean interrupted.
"You're scared to fail with him like you think you failed with your brother! But you have nothing to be blamed for, you did everything you could to help him, some people don't want to be saved!"
Dean ran out.
"Castiel wants to be saved! You know it and you've felt it! You're his only hope!" She screamed seeing him getting in the elevator.
"Dean!" she yelled.
"Missouri what the hell is happening to you? Have you heard yourself?"
She rubbed her face in her hands.
"God what did I just do?"
"You should ask to work in another area. Pull yourself together damn it! I don't recognize you anymore… I will start to believe Mary: you're way too attached to him."
"This has nothing to do about that, Garth" She looked at him sadly… "He had another panic attack… one of these days we will lose him forever." She sighed deeply.
"You just said it yourself, Missouri. Some people don't want to be saved."
She approached the gate and leaned her head on the bars.
"He held my gaze to stop falling, Garth… he doesn't want to die, he's just lost… so far."
Dean ran out of the mansion and took a deep breath, the afternoon was almost over. Missouri's words were still resonating in his mind.
"FUCK!" he yelled with all his guts.
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!" he shouted over and over again.
He looked up to the third floor with an angry look on his face, then he got in his car and left.
He was full of rage and horny…
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He went to drink in a few bars and ended at Lolita's a bit drunk. He chose two girls and they made him drive them in a cheap hotel they already went, then they climbed in the first floor.
Dean let them do, He was one of their regular clients and they knew his habits.
The blond one took his pants down smiling to her 'colleague' and rubbed his already hard penis. She stroked slowly before taking him in her mouth, and Dean exploded too fast just a few minutes later.
She stepped back letting the other woman do the rest.
He laid her down on the bed, took the rest of his clothes off and quickly removed hers too. She put a condom on his shaft and without waiting longer he brutally entered her while the blond one was covering his whole body with kisses staring at him. She also took her clothes off.
Once again he quickly came, grabbing her face and kissing her deeply without being gentle.
Surprisingly he didn't leave the room that night. He stretched out on the bed and let himself relax under the two girls' caresses.
And then it happened… one of the girls did something he would never have accepted before: she rode him and sank her eyes in his, she took his face between her hands and kissed him gently on his lips. It was a rare move for a prostitute… they never kiss on the lips, they never say it but everybody knows that.
She caressed his eyelids, his cheeks and his lips with her mouth and he opened his to let her tongue play with him. The brown-haired woman came closer and stocked his hair, almost as a mom would do to her son. She gently put another condom on him and looked her female friend making love to him.
He'd never had sex like that before… with gentle moves and paying attention to what they wanted from him. It was a whole new wave of sensations for him, he felt a weird warmth in the rhythm of his movements and was transported in an orgasm he's never experienced before. He closed his eyes tensing, and when he opened them he saw the girls smiling at him.
And suddenly he cried like a child, unable to hold the tears threatening for all those years.
They laid down next to him and cuddled before spending a few hours looking at him sleeping.
These night angels woke up the man that was hiding behind the beast.
End of chapter XIII