Chapter Text
His grace is burning out, and the wasteland it leaves inside him becomes an echo chamber for all the memories, all the fear and doubt and self-loathing he's collected over the years. Things said and done hound him on endless repeat until he's convinced they’ll break through his skin and fill the silence of the bunker.
His head is killing him, and he sits hunched over an open book, not really reading, just digging his fingers into his skull and praying nothing slips through the cracks.
“You okay, man?” Dean asks, and Cas is ashamed to admit it startles him. There used to be a time when no one could sneak up on him, least of all Dean Winchester. Cas didn’t even know he was in the room.
“He asked me what I am, now,” Cas says, because that memory is the loudest, before he realizes that isolated statement makes sense only to him. “Bartholomew. He asked me what I am.”
“And?”
“I told him I am nothing.”
Dean stares at Cas, then, brow furrowed, like he’s trying to decide what to say to that. Cas can imagine it perfectly, all the words churning about in Dean's head, can imagine him searching hopelessly for the right ones.
Cas wants to say: I told him I am nothing, and some days I fear that's what I am becoming and others I wish that's what I was. But he doesn't know how. He speaks every language that is or has been and he doesn't have the words.
Cas sighs. “I have a headache.”
Dean looks relieved at that, this admission of a concrete ache he knows how to handle. He brings Cas ibuprofen and a glass of water, and when Cas thanks him, Dean smiles.
Cas smiles back. One of them, at least, may as well believe this has solved the problem.
--
“What happened to him?” Dean asks, after several hours of almost comfortable silence. Cas looks at him quizzically. “Bartholomew,” Dean says, in response to the silent question.
Something churns inside Cas, somewhere deep beneath the surface, and he fights to keep his expression carefully neutral. “I killed him,” Cas says. He tries to feel okay about it, tries to make himself say: He was my enemy and it was justified.
But they were friends, once. Comrades in arms. These are both titles he still assigns to the Winchesters, and how can he justify rescinding one without the other, when the three of them have committed so many sins against one another, have traded them back and forth like casual conversation? Where does he draw the line?
“Oh,” Dean says, and does not ask how Cas feels. They both return to their reading.
Thank you, Cas thinks wryly.
--
It’s only later that night, when Cas is drunk, that he can’t stop himself from saying it.
“I watched you rake leaves,” he admits, and even before Dean processes his words enough to register his own incredulity, Cas know he's made a mistake. Dean has matched Cas shot for shot, but he realizes with mounting horror that Dean isn’t nearly as drunk as he is. He can’t stop himself, anyway.
“I watched you rake leaves. Who does that?” But Cas knows who does that in every story ever, thanks to that wonderful little gift from Metatron. He knows exactly who watches other people from the shadows. Stalkers. Serial killers. Complete and total weirdos. He’s the villain of this piece, and he’s going to die at the end. He would die even if he were the hero, he supposes. He just might have a better time getting there.
Dean is staring at him strangely, lips slightly parted. Out of the corner of his eye, Cas can see Sam glancing back and forth between the two of them, waiting for someone to say something before he decides whether or not to intervene.
“What,” Dean says. Cas feels suddenly ill.
“Okay,” Sam says, standing. “Let’s get you to bed.”
Sam helps Cas to his feet with surprising gentleness, and they leave Dean sitting there to contemplate the empty bottle of scotch.
Cas stumbles his way down the hall, consenting to let himself be half-carried by Sam. He doesn’t have the energy to push him away, to muster up the vitriol it would take to get Sam to let him crumple to the floor and leave him there. He’s done so much, made so many mistakes, playing god, pulling Sam out of hell only halfway, fighting, killing, lying, betraying. He doesn't understand why it should be such a big deal that he's human.
“Because it wasn’t your choice,” Sam says, and that’s when Cas realizes he's been thinking out loud.
Sam would know a thing or two about that, he supposes. About making mistakes, obviously -- the thing with Ruby, the thing with the demon blood, the whole damn apocalypse. But about the other thing, too, the thing where other people make your mistakes for you.
The way the corners of Sam’s mouth turn down, Cas knows he's been keeping inadequate control over his thoughts again. Sam's frown is so exaggerated that it would be comical if it weren’t so goddamn tragic. Here Cas is, not even all the way human yet and already managing to make a mess of it.
Sam pulls back the covers, helps Cas into bed. “It’s okay,” he says, so softly Cas can almost pretend he imagined it.
--
Cas stays in bed all that day, and the next day, and the next.
Apparently three days is how long it takes for Dean to get tired of people being layabouts, even though they have nothing they absolutely have to do, nowhere they have to be. “You gonna get up soon or what?” he asks, standing in the doorway. He had knocked in the cursory way human parents sometimes do, less a courtesy asking for permission, more warning that they’re entering shortly, invited or not. Dean had not been invited.
“No,” Cas says, not even bothering to roll over.
“Okay?” Dean says, affronted, asking for an explanation Cas doesn’t particularly feel he’s obligated to provide.
The truth is, though, he had been planning to get up. He had been planning to get up three days ago, actually. It’s just taken him this long to work up the motivation. He waits for a few more hours after that to make an appearance, though. He wants to make it clear he got up of his own volition, not as a result of Dean’s nagging.
When he shuffles into the library, he can tell from the way Sam and Dean immediately interrupt their conversation to look up at him that they’ve been talking about him. He may be newly human, but he isn’t stupid.
“Hey, Cas,” Sam says.
“Hey,” Dean echos. “Nice to see you up and about.” There’s not a hint of sarcasm in it, nothing like earlier. He sounds like he means it. He’s been thoroughly chastised by Sam in the interim, Cas is pretty sure. He’s not sure if the thought makes him grateful to Sam or just annoyed with him.
“Good morning,” Cas says, even though it’s partially a lie. He feels like shit. Sam and Dean smile at him like he’s just told a joke. He looks at the clock. It’s just after 8pm. Entirely a lie, then.
“Burgers for breakfast sound good?” Dean asks, but he’s already up and heading to the kitchen before anyone has a chance to respond. How nice, Cas thinks, that the human body’s nearly constant need for food provides such a convenient exit strategy.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam asks, once Dean is gone. Cas doesn’t know what all it encompasses, exactly, but he’s sure he doesn’t, regardless. He shakes his head, focusing on his hands folded on the table so he doesn’t have to see the sympathetic look Sam is probably giving him. “Okay,” Sam says, picking up a book to read, instead. Cas appreciates that, at least.
Dean reappears with homemade burgers and potato wedges. As they sit eating in silence that’s not exactly companionable and not exactly not, Cas thinks it’s pretty good, as far as apologies go. He thinks maybe he could be convinced to rethink his opinion on Sam giving Dean a talking to.
When they’re finished, Sam clears the table and takes the plates to go do the dishes.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Dean says, once Sam is out of earshot. The sentiment is nice enough, but mostly Cas wishes he agreed. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be in the bunker, exactly. He certainly doesn’t want to be somewhere else instead, not on earth or in heaven or any of the places in between. He simply doesn’t want to be, doesn’t want to exist at this exact moment because he’s so tired and it sounds like it would be so, so much easier to just...not. He’s in the first place he would choose to be if he had a choice, with his friends, his own room, his favorite food. He doesn’t understand why he’s not happy.
He’s glad someone wants him here, though, even if it’s not himself. Maybe that will be enough.
Cas nods, because Dean is looking at him like he expects some sort of answer. “Thank you,” Cas says. “And for the food,” he adds, so Dean can’t mistake his meaning.
“Yeah,” Dean says, just barely smiling, but smiling nonetheless. “Yeah, just, anything you need, just let me know.”
Cas thinks of three days spent in bed, of the way his neck and back and knees all ache in strange ways. “More pillows would be nice,” he says.
“Sure thing,” Dean says, and then his eyes light up. “And if you like pillows, just wait til you feel the memory foam.”
--
Sam and Dean start teaching Cas how to be a hunter. They don’t ask if he wants to be a hunter, if maybe he hasn’t had enough killing to last more than one lifetime. They just assume. Unsurprising, given it’s all they’ve ever known, but it tires him all the same.
So some days he does nothing, just lays in bed or sits on the couch or stares into space in the library, refusing to be roused, but other days, he learns.
He’ll never forget the feel of a blade in his hand, never unlearn how to wield one after millennia worth of memory that’s more than muscle deep. Dean brings him into this century, teaching him to make salt rounds and silver bullets, to load guns and fire them, to clean them down and put them back together again.
Dean narrates the lessons, mixes instructions with advice. Dean says, pour in exactly this much salt, and bring more than you think you’ll need for every hunt, bring salt rounds even if you think it’s a werewolf, bring silver bullets even if you think it’s a ghost, just in case, because you never know. He says, aim for the chest because it’s a bigger target than the head, especially when you’re moving or it’s moving, and when someone or something is aiming at you, turn sideways, crouch down, make yourself as small a target as possible, do your best to be invisible. He says, take good care of your weapons because it might be the difference between life and death, and always dress in layers no matter how hot it is so you always have something to peel off and press against a wound, because sometimes that’ll be all you have to stop the bleeding, because sometimes that might be the difference, too.
Sam teaches him to research. The online kind, that is, because the library Cas can handle. It’s hard to be led astray when everything available for perusal has already been curated by the Men of Letters, has been carefully vetted and organized and is just waiting to be read. With the internet, Cas learns, you have to be able to sort out the bullshit. There are sites with legitimate lore, but there are far more with urban legends, attention-seekers, flat-out lies.
There are other sites, too, ones that aren’t about monsters but are no less valuable. Sam teaches Cas how to use Google Maps, shows him YouTube and Wikipedia. He says, before you start a hunt, find out where all the hospitals in a town are, find out the first place you can run if something goes wrong. He says, sometimes your car will break down and sometimes you will break down and sometimes you can find out how to fix it step by step with a soothing voiceover. He says, sometimes you’ll need an escape from it all, and the internet can provide you with that, too. He says, here is the collective knowledge of humanity, right at your fingertips, in all of its glory and with all of its flaws and biases.
On the days Cas has the motivation to focus, they sit in the library for hours on end, Dean bringing them snacks, forcing them to take breaks for dinner. Cas tries to remember to thank him, to tell him the food is delicious, to make him feel appreciated. To make up for all the days where he doesn’t.
“You mean that stuff, right?” Sam asks him one day, when the noises coming from the kitchen assure him Dean is far out of earshot. Cas is inclined to be offended by the insinuation at first, but Sam doesn’t seem accusatory, just curious, maybe concerned.
“Of course,” he says, and tries not to sound annoyed.
It seems to be good enough for Sam. “All right,” he says. “Okay. Good. Just wanted to make sure, because, you know, it’s good for him to hear it. I think he needs to hear it, sometimes, you know?”
“Yes,” Cas says, quietly. “I know.”
After a while, Sam leaves Cas to his own devices, so he begins exploring on his own. That’s how he finds WebMD. Dean catches him looking at it, one day, hunched over Sam’s laptop, frowning at the screen.
“I think I have lupus,” Cas says, by which he means he typed “dry eyes, fatigue, joint pain, headaches, shortness of breath” into WebMD and WebMD suggested he might have, amongst about a hundred other things, lupus.
Dean rolls his eyes. “It’s not lupus,” he says. “It’s never lupus.”
Cas flicks a glance at Dean before looking back at the screen, scowling. “I get that reference. That was a running joke, Dean, and I don’t think this is funny. Also, that show is medically unsound, not to mention problematic in its portrayal of--”
Dean interrupts him with a dramatic sigh. “I know, Cas,” he says, as though he’s explaining something to a small child. As though Cas is overreacting. “But that WebMD shit will basically tell you you’re dying no matter what you plug into it. Aches, pains, all kinds of stuff you can’t explain...that shit just happens, sometimes.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is gentler. Placating. “You’re not dying, man, you’re just human.”
Cas does not particularly want to be placated. “If I’m human,” he says, “I’m dying by definition.” To his own surprise, he manages to say it more crankily than seriously, because he’s not really focusing on his own mortality today, not at this particular moment.
Dean rolls his eyes again. “Fine, but you’re not dying of lupus, I promise.” Cas hmphs his agreement. He doesn’t really think he has lupus. He just wanted to hear someone else tell him there’s nothing wrong with him, he supposes. As if hearing it would make him start to believe it.
There’s a lesson in all this, though, he knows, and the lesson is that WebMD is bullshit.