Trust Issues

Summary: Dean makes another reference to Cas's failure to trust them with the tablet when Cas asks him for help with the angel trials. Cas is tired, hurting, and pissed off. Result? He tells Dean the truth about what's been done to him. After all, after centuries of being screwed with, lied to, left in the cold and tortured, he thinks he's a little entitled to trust issues. Little insert scene in 'Sacrifice'.

Dean grabbed Cas's shoulder as the angel walked away from Kevin. "Hey. Hey. What the hell was that?" He gestured.

"I need that information. And I need it soon. I don't have time to listen to him whine." Castiel's jaw clenched. "Still, I know what the next trial is. We should go." He lifted his hand.

"Whoa. We're not going anywhere for a second. We still got time, so take a breath. Cause I ain't doing squat more for you until we have ourselves a little chat." Dean stepped back, out of Castiel's reach. "And fair warning, you try to mojo me out, the minute we land I will walk away straight."

Castiel dropped his hand. "Fine. Speak."

Dean sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Let me see if I understand what's going on. You found Metatron, he tells you about these trials to slam the gates of Heaven. And you just go off and start. You didn't think you might want to, I don't know, clue us in?"

"I..."

Dean interrupted him. "You didn't think we might be worried about where you disappeared to? We were looking for you man. Sam can barely keep on his own two feet, and he was worried about you. No idea where you went, or why. For all we knew, you might have been friggin' kidnapped or something."

"Sorry."

"Yeah. You keep saying that. But what I know is, I asked you to stay here and recover. Not go running off on some heavenly mission. I asked you to trust us, and you went MIA at the first opportunity, with an angel you barely know. And I know that you've seen what the trials are doing to Sam. You know how messed up this could make you, and you didn't even let us know so we could have your back if it was needed." Dean's shoulders were tense, eyes angry.

"I feel fine. And I came to you first when I needed help." Castiel swallowed hard, feeling anger and shame simmering inside him.

"Yeah, yeah. You feel fine. But that's not the point. Because you only come here when you're out of options. I can't trust you to help me with Sam, can't trust you to stay in one place for a few hours, hell, I can't even trust you to tell me when you get an idea that might help us fix this whole screwed up mess. Because with you, it's always going off on your own. Bottom line, you don't trust us to have your back, and you sure as hell don't give us a chance. But you want us to help you out, let you jump in the fire, trust you with the fate of Heaven and Earth. How the hell am I supposed to do that man?"

"Dean, I..." He clenched his jaw. "You...you make it sound so simple. But it isn't. You have no idea..."

"Yeah, fine. I get it. I have no idea."

Castiel clenched his fists. "I have apologized. I have tried to help you. I came to you when I needed assistance. I am trying to fix things. I don't know what else you want from me."

"How about an explanation, huh?" Dean stepped forward. "You go off, you pull all this crap, you show up bleeding. But it's like it never occurred to you that we could help you protect the tablet. That we could help you with these...angel trials, or whatever. I mean, I get that you wanna set things right, but it's not like they have a time limit or anything. You could have come to us, worked with us to figure out a game plan. But no. You just disappeared." Dean met his eyes, barely controlled fury in the hunter's gaze. "Tell me, Cas, what the fuck is it about us that, even after everything we've been through, with you and for you, and hell, because of you, that you won't even talk to us when something important is going on? Huh? Are we just that far beneath your notice? That pathetic to you or something?"

The words hit like a slap, and the anger burning through him intensified. "It's not...not like that. It's not...about you." He wasn't sure how to explain his logic, only that it was true.

"Then tell me what it is about." Dean met his gaze. "You give me a good explanation now, or so help me, I will banish your ass and take me and Kevin to an angel warded place so you can never find us." He shifted, settling into a fighting stance. "You know I will."

Anger writhed in him. "You don't understand..."

Dean's voice was quiet. "Last chance."

All of a sudden, he couldn't take it any more. The fury erupted through him, filling him until he no longer cared. He bit it back, then let the words he'd been wanting to say since Dean's first accusations flow from him.

"You say we're like family. Brothers. Do you even know what my family, in heaven, has done to me?" He met Dean's gaze, saw the shock in his eyes. "Two of my brothers have killed me. Do you have any idea what that feels like? Raphael was my elder, my teacher, and he destroyed me. And when that failed, he beat me, left me broken and bleeding on the ground as a demonstration, and told me he would humiliate me before the rest of Heaven. As part of a power play, to validate his position as the new God."

He could see the shock and dawning horror in Dean's eyes, but now that he had begun, he could not stop. "Gabriel was my brother, and he chained me against my will when I tried to help you. Anna was my sister. She betrayed me. Uriel was my brother, and my comrade-in-arms for centuries. He turned on me, let Alistair go, attempted to kill me."

He looked away from Dean as his anguish intensified. "God was supposed to keep order, to be our Father, our leader. But he abandoned us. And yet, despite the fact that he leaves us to deal with this mess, this chaos...still He will not let me rest in peace. I keep being brought back. To this. To problems I cannot solve, to death and bloodshed I have no wish to see or participate in. To siblings and superiors who do...unspeakable things."

"You talk about my disappearance with the tablet...I had just woken from what Naomi did. And you have no idea what kind of horror that was." His fists clenched and he closed his eyes, holding onto his power with all his might to avoid doing something he would regret. "She held me prisoner, wiped my memories. She made me...she made me lie to you. She made me kill. I killed Samandriel on her orders. He was a child, an innocent. She forced me to kill him for no other reason than the fact that he knew too much and was trying to warn me. He was still clinging to my hand for comfort, for protection, when I stabbed him, and I was helpless to stop it. Just as I was with the demon I killed in that house."

He looked at the hunter, wondering if Dean could see the rage and the guilt and the grief in his eyes. "She made me kill you a thousand times. When I struck you, I was screaming, fighting, begging... and completely helpless." He moved closer to the hunter, fighting the urge to seize him and yank him forward, or shove him against a wall. "Can you imagine what it's like, to look into the face of someone you love as a brother, and be forced to beat him so badly that he cowers from your touch when you try to help him?" That memory still haunted him, the way Dean had flinched when he had reached out to heal him.

He saw the painful realization in Dean's eyes, and turned away from it. The words continued to flow, all the bitter pain that had twisted and driven him in his time on the run.

"And now I know...I have been in that situation hundreds of times. Forced to commit atrocity after atrocity in the name of Heaven. Mind ripped open and stripped and reset every time I refused to spill innocent blood. Every time I tried to do the right thing instead of simply following orders. Tell me...how am I supposed to trust? With that in my head?"

Dean swallowed hard. "When you got dragged away that one time, when we were trying to stop Lucifer rising...that was what happened to you?"

"Most likely. I can't remember everything. But I remember what Naomi did to me. Can you imagine, what it would be like to have your sister, your leader, strap you down and smile while she drills into your skull and obliterates or alters whole sections of who you are? Again and again and again?" He stepped closer to the wide-eyed, ashen faced hunter. "Can you even begin to comprehend what that felt like? Can you imagine what it's like, to wonder what's real, and what's not, to be trying to do the right thing in a world like that? Can you imagine how it would feel, to contemplate asking for assistance, from anyone, for anything, after all of that? After everything?"

"No." Dean's voice was a quiet defeated shadow. "Cas, I..."

"And yet...I come here. To you. Perhaps I do not tell you every single thing I am doing. Perhaps I do tend to take to stand alone. Perhaps my communications skills are...lacking. But I come to you, when I need help. When I am wounded, when I am vulnerable, when I am lost. And still, you think I do not trust you. That I am...undependable." The anger began to fade, and he looked away, feeling drained.

"You never told us this."

"I didn't want to burden you with it. And I didn't want to think about it. There was nothing you could have done for me, save share my pain. And you have enough of your own. Besides...you and Sam had the trials to work on. I thought you would prefer to be...undistracted. I wouldn't have disturbed you, if the situation weren't as serious as it is." He shook his head, and blamed his human body for the way his voice wavered a little. "I just...want to fix things, Dean. To finish this. So that you and Sam can have peace. So that my home can be restored. I just want to set things right, after all the harm I've done, and to hurt as few people as possible. Is that so much to ask? Is it wrong of me, to want to spare the only two people in the entire history of creation that I trust, that I honestly consider family, a little pain? For once?"

Silence fell between them for several moments. Then a hand fell on his shoulder, warm and gentle. "It's not wrong. But it's not fair to us. Trust me, it hurts a whole lot worse when you find out your brother's suffering without you, when you see someone you care about getting hurt and realize you didn't even know he was in that bad a shape."

"I don't have much experience with that." He shook his head.

"Yeah, well...trust me, it sucks." Dean tugged on his shoulder, pulled him around to face him. "So...now that we've got all this crap sorted between us, what do you say we go catch us a cupid?"

Relief filled him, the warmth of camaraderie filling the void left by his dissipating anger. "It sounds like a good plan. Only..." He paused, feeling self-conscious and a little ashamed. "Dean...I'm sorry." Whether for everything he'd just said, or for everything that had come before, he had no idea.

"Yeah I know. And now that I understand a little better...I forgive you man." Dean's hand tightened on his shoulder. "Okay? I forgive you."

He nodded, sensing the sincerity of the hunter's words. "What about Sam?"

A small smile curled over Dean's face. "Sam forgave you a while ago. He's been after me to go easy on you, so I'm pretty sure you two are good."

Some weight he hadn't even really felt seemed to lift from his spirit. "Thank you." He suspected he was about to do something undignified, so he glanced at the clock. "We should go."

"Sure. Let's go."

He lifted his hand, placed it on Dean's shoulder. And they were gone.

Author's Note: I kinda feel like Dean really doesn't pay enough attention to the stuff that Cas goes through sometimes. I felt like he deserved to get chewed out and have it thrown in his face at least once, how bad things really get for his angel brother.