Chapter Text
“We’re getting close” Benny told them over his shoulder. It was the fifth time he had said that during the past twelve hours, and Dean was starting to get sick of it. He had been thrilled the first couple of times, skeptical at the third, annoyed at the fourth, and really annoyed at the fifth.
“Really?” The hunter was surprised by the sarcasm in his own voice. “I don’t see crap. What the hell is this escape hatch supposed to look like?”
“He doesn’t know” Cas grumbled behind Dean. He said it very matter-of-factly, not annoyed or angry about it. Dean, on the other hand, didn’t like to hear that. Over the past year (and yes, it had been a freaking year) Benny never thought about mentioning that he didn’t actually know how the damn thing even looked like? That seemed rather hard to believe.
“You drove me through the fire. Please tell me you know”. Benny ignored him and kept moving forward.
“It’s here”, he said, sounding confident enough about it. “They promised”.
“Oh, they? That’s comforting” Dean muttered. He was shocked this was the first time he was hearing about how scarce Benny’s information was. Granted, he never really asked how the vampire knew about the portal, but he always assumed it was something a little more solid than ‘they promised’.
Cas was the only one who seemed calm. He had been more silent than usual over the past months. Ever since the wraith incident. Dean was finding it harder and harder to read him, and he didn’t like that one bit. No matter how odd the angel’s behavior was, Dean had grown to understand him pretty well. And even when he couldn’t understand what was going on in Castiel’s head, at least he was always able to tell when something was wrong. Now? He wasn’t even sure about that.
But when Castiel spoke, he didn’t sound preoccupied. He sounded grounded, realistic: “Well,” he began, “even if it does exist…”
“Broken record, Cas”, Benny cut him off and quickened his pace, leaving Dean and Castiel behind. The vampire sounded as displeased about the whole thing as Dean felt. They had better be close, the hunter thought to himself, otherwise, they might kill each other out of annoyance.
Once Benny was far enough not to pay them any more attention, Cas closed the distance between himself and Dean. The hunter didn’t turn to face him, because he guessed what was coming. Cas had indeed sounded like a broken record over the past weeks. And the tune he was playing on repeat wasn’t one Dean enjoyed in the slightest.
“Dean,” Cas called, walking only a couple of steps behind him “It’s a human portal. There is no proof that an angel can pass…”
“Stow it, Cas”, Dean kept moving. He had no time for that. He hadn’t wanted to listen to it months ago, he didn’t want to listen to it now. “You’re coming, that’s final”.
“I’m just saying”, Cas reached his hand and grabbed Dean by the shoulder, forcing him to halt so that they were facing each other. Cas’s hold on Dean’s arm was gentle. Firm, but not angry, and when he locked his eyes (his ridiculously blue and intense eyes) on Dean, the hunter felt his heart skip a beat and instantly cursed himself for it. Not the right place, certainly not the right time. “If it doesn’t work…” Cas hesitated before continuing. His tone was serene. Dean held his breath, fearing the angel’s next words, but Cas simply said: “thank you. For everything.”
He sounded so tired as if there wasn’t a single spark of strength left in him. Dean swallowed. They were so close. Cas just had to hold on for a little bit longer and then they would be back home, and he could rest and let go of whatever it was that was eating him since they arrived at that place. He felt a very strong urge to hug Cas right there and then. Just pull him close, tell him it was going to be ok. Comfort him and tell him he would be able to rest very soon. He just had to hold on for a little bit longer. He didn’t do any of that. Instead, he held Cas’s gaze and said, as firmly and confidently as he could:
“Save the Hallmark. Ok? It’s gonna work”. It had to work. “Nobody gets left behind”. He trailed off before Cas could say anything that might make Dean lose his focus. Cas was a warrior of heaven, not a lost kitten. They were being hunted and if he let his guard down for a second because he wanted to cuddle Cas like a child, they wouldn’t make out of that place alive.
Besides, Dean wasn’t sure he trusted himself around Cas. Not after the wraith. The memory of the kiss was still fresh in his memory, and he hadn’t work through that yet. After the effect was gone, there had been other, more subtle episodes, like holding Cas’s hand, finding excuses to touch him in the arms or shoulders more frequently than it should be necessary (or normal), dozing off with his head resting on the angel’s shoulder, the slow movement of his breathing as soothing as the sound of the wind. He wanted to touch Cas, to keep him close, to feel his warmth and his presence. And they were in Purgatory. They were doomed already and there was no one close to judge, so why not? Why hold back? He wasn’t holding back with the killings – he felt a lot freer than he had in a very long time – why should he hold back when it came to Cas?
Still, it was too much, and Purgatory wasn’t the place to work through all that. Dean wasn’t even sure if he wanted to work through it, or simply ignore it, blame it on the venom, and never address it again. At first, he thought he could do that suppress it as he did with everything else, but for some reason, it wasn’t so simple anymore. It was as if a door he had fought a lot to keep hidden deep inside himself was finally open, tempting him to go through it. He wasn’t sure he would able to close it again.
‘We’ll have time to figure it out ’, Dean told himself. He caught up with Benny and turned to Cas, to see if the angel was still behind them. He was, of course. Lost somewhere deep in his thoughts. ‘We’re gonna get out and then we’ll deal with it”. Dean was surprised by realizing he was actually looking forward to figuring it out, whatever it was.
They walked for another hour in silence. Dean was angry at Benny for withholding information and for being so inexplicably certain about the proximity of the portal, but he wouldn’t say anything. Benny looked stressed enough without his help. He was also worried about Cas, who seemed more and more distant each time Dean checked on him from over his shoulder. They were at their limit and he knew it. The fact that they were – hypothetically – so close to getting out was making it worse, not better. It was as if they had swum across the ocean and now the sight of shore finally reminded them of how exhausted they were.
“Maybe you were lied to”, Cas pointed out. He was trying to help, not provoke. Not that it mattered at that point. “Maybe there is no seam”.
“I lie, I don’t get lied to”, Benny retorted, without turning back at them. “Aren’t you guys all about faith?”
Cas sighed. “Not particularly”, he said.
Dean glanced at him. They hadn’t talked about how Castiel felt about his faith in years, and the hunter was pretty damn sure being God and then going crazy for a while must have had some kind impact on the guy’s world views. The hunter felt his chest tightening. He knew the feeling of having your whole set of believes crumbling down right in front of you all too well. He knew how it felt to be betrayed by the ones who were supposed to love you, how it felt to lose faith. And it sucked.
He was about to tell Benny that maybe they should stop for a while when something suddenly caught his eye. A leaf rose from the ground and floated mid-air, as if held by an invisible hand, right before being sucked forward by a breeze that wasn’t there. The three of them followed its movement with their eyes and there it was, a flickering blue light that felt as if it was pulling everything around it like a black hole. Somehow Dean could feel it in his gut, the energy around that thing was calling out to him. Benny’s grim face lightened up immediately.
“Oh, ye of friggin little Faith”, he said, grinning at them. Dean didn’t react. He couldn’t believe it. After all that time, he couldn’t believe they had made it. And the feeling was so god damn intense he couldn’t even begin to organize his thoughts.
“What the hell?”, he muttered.
“There it is”, Cas said, in a very low voice. “It’s reacting to you”.
That snaped Dean out of whatever place his head had gone to. He raised his eyes and realized Benny was looking at him with a mixture of expectation and anxiety. Dean knew what the next step was. They had talked it over again and again for more than a month. Dean’s Latin was good enough and there was no secret to the spell. They could pull it off easily, but he knew Benny was nervous. He was too.
“Alright. Are you ready?” Dean pulled his knife and made a clean cut on his forearm. The sharp pain was very familiar, but that didn’t make it any less of a bitch. He turned to Benny “Just like we talked about”.
The vampire smiled while staring at the wound on Dean’s arm. He was trying to hide his uneasiness. It wasn’t necessary. Dean knew that if he had to put his soul into another dude’s arm he would be terrified as well. Benny grinned at him one last time before stepping forward. “Putting a lot of trust in you, brother”
“You earned it”, Dean assured him. Because it was true. Benny had earned every last bit of his trust. The vampire had put his own safety in jeopardy to protect Dean countless times over the past year. He had killed his own kind, he fought beside Dean and, most important of all, he had trusted Dean through every single step of the way. Yeah, Benny had earned his ride.
After the vampire cut his own flesh, he managed a smug smile at Dean. Confident as ever.
“I’ll see you on the other side”
Dean starts the incantation and observes while Benny is dragged into him. It looks weird, but it feels like shit. Having another soul slide into you it’s uncomfortable and invasive. It burns like hell and once it is all inside, it tingled and itched as if fire ants were biting him from the inside. As strange as it sounds, Dean imagined he could feel Benny. Not just feel something, but feel Benny inside him somehow. His friend was trying not to hurt him, Dean could tell, but a soul was still a heavy burden, even one that knew how to behave.
Once Benny seems settled enough, Dean turned to Cas, who had remained silent throughout the whole procedure. Dean wondered how he felt about seeing him taking in a soul inside his body if it triggered anything in Cas after what he’d been through. “Let’s go”, he tells the angel. Cas nods and they start moving towards the portal.
The seam was further away than Dean had originally thought, and it was also on high ground. Even though it was not a hard climb, Dean could feel himself dragging the pace. Benny didn’t burn anymore, just itched a little, but it was still heavy. Cas was a few steps behind him, and also seemed to move slower than usual. As they got higher, the woods around them became less dense and they could see Purgatory from above. The hunter held his breath. It was at the same time exactly what he expected and nothing like he would have dreamed. From above the rocks, it was like looking down on an infinite forest, that stretched on and on forever. There were no particularly high trees, all of them covered in the same light grayish atmosphere that tainted Purgatory as a whole. Even the sky, to which Dean had an unobstructed view now, lacked color. It was blue and there were barely any clouds, but still, it was lifeless and cold. They’d spent almost an entire year underneath that sky. It was almost impossible to imagine something different from that.
“Dean, wait”, Cas called behind him. There was a note of alarm in his voice that had Dean shivering before even turning to face the angel.
Before he could ask what was wrong, there was a massive impact on the ground a few steps in front of them. Dean covered his face but he knew exactly what it was. He cursed under his breath. Leviathan. They crashed the ground as two shapeless bodies of black goo but quickly started to take form. The first one took the shape of a bald man, the second, a blond woman, both dressed completely in black. Dean went straight for the man but was immediately struck down. He had somehow forgotten how strong the sons of bitches could be. Things happened way too fast and before Dean could even realize it he was rolling down the hill after being tossed by the bald leviathan.
He looked up and saw Cas getting beat up by both of the monsters at once. He was fighting back, but they managed to get him on the ground. Dean ran up the hill as fast he could. He saw when Cas pushed the woman away, but the man was still right onto him. Dean reached them just as the Leviathan was opening his dreadful mouth to attack Cas. Instinct took over him and before he knew it, the leviathan’s head was on the ground, a few feet away from his body. The woman took that opening and attacked them, but Cas was able to hold her down enough so that Dean could decapitate her just as he had done to her partner. The whole confrontation was over in a matter of seconds, but he felt every muscle in his body aching, asking for rest. Cas was kneeling on the ground beside one of the headless bodies. As much as Dean wanted to do the same, he knew there was no time.
“We gotta move!” He screamed, trying to make himself heard over the loud row that was coming from the top of the hill. He pulled Cas from the ground and held his shoulders until he was sure the angel could stand on his own. “The portal’s closing!”
The beam of light was right above them, and Dean could feel its pull. He ran as fast as he could towards it, which, granted, wasn’t very fast since he was also exhausted and hurting all over. Still, Cas fell behind him, dragging his pace the closer they got to the portal. When Dean finally reached the light and stepped inside it, he turned back and realized his friend had fallen a couple of feet away. Cas was struggling to pull himself up.
“Cas, damn it!” Dean stretched his arm towards Cas. He tried to get out of the portal, but his feet were already being sucked by some invisible force within it. It was like being inside a river with a violent current. There was no fighting it. “Come on!” He stretched even further and felt when Cas’s hand met his. Dean held it as tight as he possibly could. “I got you! Hold on!
But Cas was weighing down on him as if he’s not even trying to get up. Dean feels the angel being pulled in the opposite direction, feels their hands grasping for each other against the strength of that pull.
“Dean!” Cas screamed. His eyes looked desperate, blue and wide and so very human. He is scared, Dean realizes.
“Hold on!” He tells Cas again, putting every bit of strength he has left into holding the angel’s hand. Maybe he can’t pull him up, but he can hold on. Dean would never, ever, let go of Castiel’s hand.
I’ll never let go, he tells himself, never let go of him again. But no matter how much he repeated that to himself, he could feel Cas’s hand slipping away. The sound of the portal around him got louder and louder and the pressure around his body pulling him in got stronger. He could barely see anything that wasn’t the portal’s shining blue light. He couldn’t see Cas anymore and… suddenly he couldn’t feel Cas’s hand on his anymore.
“Dean!” He thought he heard the angel calling him again, but it was too far away. He was being swallowed by the portal, drowning in the blue light and the loud row. He wasn’t even sure if he was breathing or not until… until he was. Just like that, the light was gone, the sound was gone and there was grass beneath his fingers. Not purgatory grass, but green, moisty grass. And it was dark. Darkness like he hadn’t seen in almost a year. Nighttime, he realized, catching his breath. He was out.
Dean’s eyes lowered to his gaze to his now free hand, that rested beside his body, empty. That hand was intertwined with Cas’s just a second ago. He could still feel the angel’s grip, his weight pulling him down while Dean tried to pull him up. The hunter let his head fall heavily against the ground. Cas wasn’t there. After all that time, after all, they had been through, he didn’t get out. Dean wanted to scream or break something but his instincts told him to get up, to find out where he was, get to safety. He could fall apart afterward. Right now, he needed to focus.
Benny grew uneasy inside him, burning hot against his skin. It didn’t hurt at all, but Dean knew he had to get the vampire out of there, as soon as he could. One thing at a time, he reminded himself. Years and years of his father’s intense military logic took over him. Assess your situation, get to safety, make a plan. Everything else can wait. Cas can’t wait, said a voice inside his head, a voice he knew he could NOT pay attention to right now.
“Pull yourself together, Winchester”, he muttered to himself, getting on his feet. The air on his skin was chilly, which helped ground him to reality. He started walking through the woods, his heart beating as if he was still being chased, still in danger, and eventually heard something. Voices. Dean took a hold of his blade and walked as silently as he possibly could towards the sound.
It was coming from a tent, he realized. A camping tent. There was a young man outside of it, holding onto a flashlight and talking to another person still inside, who Dean couldn’t see. “It was a deer”, he heard the man saying. Such a normal picture it felt almost surreal. Dean’s heart jumped again. Normality felt very, very wrong. “I don’t know, it was like a deer or something”, the boy kept talking to the person inside the tent and clearly didn’t realized that Dean was getting closer. When he turned his flashlight back to the woods Dean was blinded by the white flash and cover his eyes. The man – who was more boy than man – screamed.
“Where am I?” Dean asked. Adrenaline was still flowing through his veins, but he tried not to scare the boy, which was probably impossible since he was covered in blood, dirt, and holding a very terrifying knife.
“What?” the boy managed to ask, his flashlight still pointed straight at Dean. Another sound came from the tent behind the young man and Dean’s free hand got a hold of his gun before he could even think about it. He had barely used it while in purgatory since the bullets were pretty harmless against monsters, but the instinct was still there. And after a year with no use, the thing still had at least four bullets left.
Who came out was a girl, dark-haired and absolutely terrified. She took protection behind her boyfriend and Dean realized neither of them looked like a threat. Still, he didn’t lower the gun. A lot of things didn’t look like a threat until they had already ripped your head out, and he wasn’t about to take any chances.
“Where’s the road?” he asked, more firmly this time.
“Twelve miles, that way”, the boy pointed it to him, but his hand was trembling. Dean probably looked like the stuff of nightmares. He allowed himself a quick look at the camp and found what he was looking for. A stuffed bag, the kind you fill with food, water, and whatever other nonsense tourists think it’s important to survive in the woods. Without lowering his gun, he knelt and grabbed the bag. He definitely needed it more than the young couple. Then he ran as fast as he could in the direction the boy had pointed him.
It was going to be hard adjusting. Not being in constant danger. Remembering that not every single person that steps in your way was a threat. It would take a while. And Cas wasn’t going to be there to help.
Not now, he reminded himself. Don’t think about him now. Benny shifted under his skin as if he agreed with that.
Dean kept running. He kept running until he found the road, and he kept running after that.
Four days later he said goodbye to Benny, and that hurt a lot more than he thought it would. After a year, he knew he would miss the son of a bitch a lot more than he would ever admit out loud. Benny was family now, even if neither of them ever said it. After they went their separate ways, Dean was finally alone. He couldn't crumble just yet. He still had to find Sam. But without Benny's burning energy underneath his skin it was harder to keep it together. Cas's absence was loud and impossible to ignore. And yet somehow he was able to push it down, store it away in some dark corner of his mind. Thinking about it would drive him insane and he knew it. Just as thinking about Cas's hand against his skin would, about his ridiculously blue eyes, about his soft smile, about his lips against Dean's...
Yeah, Purgatory was bloody. And Messy. Thirty-one flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties. Hell, most days had felt like 360-degree combat. But not all days, he thought to himself. Some things were easier over there.
No! He couldn't think about any of that. He had to find Sam, he had to find Kevin. He had to let Cas go. He had to. Otherwise... otherwise what was the point of getting out of Purgatory in the first place? His life was here. This was real. Sam was real and Cas? Cas was gone. Dean took a deep breath and moved forward. It was going to be a very, very long walk to Whitefish, Montana. And if he wanted to make it, he couldn't carry Cas's weight with him.