Chapter Text
Dean Winchester was going insane.
There were no hallucinations, visions of fear, not like the last time he thought his mind was slipping. After all, he was faced with enough real life terrors ever day, so many terrors that he was becoming desensitized to them all. Every monster had a familiar face and every swipe of his knife was identical.
He became aware of his growing insanity as he and Benny fruitlessly searched for Castiel, trekking though the endless expanse of dead trees and grass. They were careful; their eyes constantly watched for movement in the forest around them, and they noticed monsters around them before every single ambush. Dean caught a glimpse of a group of vampires and he silently signaled to Benny before switching into fighting mode, twisting around in a split second to behead the fanged creature that came up behind him. He decimated the next two like a well-oiled machine, chopping smoothly and rhythmically even as another leapt onto his back. Benny pulled the vampire off of him seconds later and Dean sent its head rolling to the ground at his companion’s feet.
“Friend of yours?” he chuckled, wiping sweat off his forehead, inadvertently streaking it with blood.
Benny merely jeered, revealing his pointy teeth as he tossed Dean a scrap of fabric which he used to mop his forehead and clean his hands. “I’d say it’s time for a rest, wouldn’t you?”
“Having trouble keeping up?” Dean wisecracked.
“No, but you could sure use a rest, brother. We’ve been going for a while now.”
Dean looked at him accusingly. “Is this about finding Cas again? Because it seems like every time we’re finally getting somewhere, you want to stop.”
“No, this is about keeping you sharp so you don’t get either of us killed. We ain’t gonna find your angel friend if we’re dead.”
“Well, it’s only been a few hours. I’ve still got a lot left in me before I need a break.”
“Dean…” The hunter turned around as Benny’s tone turned from frustrated to perplexed.
“What?”
“We’ve been going for two days now.”
“What? No,” he scoffed disbelievingly.
“It’s true. We haven’t stopped in fifty hours or so, brother. Don’t you remember getting chased by those Leviathans last night?”
Dean opened his mouth to argue, but his head spun. He was suddenly very confused. Two days? They’d been at it for two hours at the most, surely. Maybe Benny was wrong. Slowly, Dean raised his arm to check the date on his watch. He rubbed off a thick layer of mud and blinked at the digital face, blood running cold.
“Yeah,” he agreed, trying to keep any signs of distress out of his voice. “Sorry, dude; I’m just anxious to find him. I don’t like the thought of him out there on his own.”
Benny showed physical signs of relief. “I know you want to find your friend. We will find him. But you need to sleep.” He gazed upwards. “It’s getting dark. Now’s a good time to get a few hours.”
Dean nodded his consent numbly, stripping off his jacket. He rolled it into a messy ball of fabric and put it on the ground before lying down and using it as a pillow. Benny stood watch a few feet away.
Dean closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but the darkness was too dark and the stillness too still. He was flying, no, falling through the blackness. He reached upwards, praying he could grasp a hand, a rope, anything, but there was no one there, nothing to hold onto. He spiraled down and down, feeling nothing but the weight of his own body, the weight of his eyelids…
His eyes snapped open and stared at the starless sky.
He rolled onto his side, feeling the ground beneath him, knowing that this was real but not having any comfort from it. He strained to see in the limited light. Benny was still at his post. Dean looked at his watch and softly groaned. It had only been twenty minutes.
He rubbed his face and dropped his head back onto the rough fabric and the crunchy leaves. Cas, he prayed silently, can you hear me? I think… this is becoming harder to deal with all the time, man. I can’t do this much longer. You know it’s been ten months today? It’s been almost a year since I saw you. Sometimes I wonder if you’re even alive… but we keep picking up bits of a trail. It’s hard though, praying every night and never waking up with you here. I mean, if you could hear me, you’d come, right? But… it feels like you do and I don’t know why, but I’m sure that you can hear me. Just… don’t be hurt, okay? I hope there’s some other reason you can’t be here, not because you’re too injured to get to me.
Man, I can’t sleep. Funny how it’s pitch black and quiet and that actually bothers me. What I wouldn’t give for a flashlight or a phone or something. I’ve got my watch, but the battery is going fast, so I can’t keep the display on all the time. He paused, not sure what he was expecting. A sudden appearance from Cas after months of absence?
‘Night, Cas, he thought with a sigh, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. With that he closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep.
In the endless darkness, he saw a flash of tan speckled by a deep crimson.
He opened his eyes with a gasp. “Crap,” he mumbled looking at his watch again. It had been ten more minutes.
Well Cas, it looks like I’m not going to sleep anytime tonight, so I might as well tell you what’s going on. I met this guy, Benny…
He prayed all night.
* * *
From then and on, his sense of time only got worse. The days started blending together and he had to remind himself to look at the sky to remember what time of day it was. Quiet often, he wasn’t sure whether the passing time had been minutes or hours. There were no distinguishing factors to his days; he and Benny fought and joked and every second was a second that he missed Castiel desperately; every day was a day that he found fury and comfort in his vampiric acquaintance but yearned for his angelic companion. He increasingly checked his watch, feeling despair settle in his stomach each time he noticed a new scratch on the screen or the flickering of the numbers.
He spent a lot of time praying to Castiel now; that he was sure of. He was certain that it was one of the few things keeping him relatively sane. If he couldn’t keep track of time, he could at least keep track of his words.
Sometimes he thought he saw Castiel out of the corner of his eye. They weren’t truly hallucinations; it was his hopeful mind playing tricks on him when he wasn’t paying attention closely enough. He never saw a full face, but every now and then, he could swear he caught a glimpse of a rumpled trenchcoat passing by him, or a shock of dark hair behind a tree. When he turned, however, there was never anyone there.
Cas existed somewhere, he was sure of it. Each monster he interrogated gave more and more clues, and he finally felt that there was something to be hopeful for at the very least. There was a reason to keep going.
But nothing could compare to the feeling when he was given a landmark where Castiel had been spotted. Find the stream, he thought to himself. It was his life, his rhythm. It was the very essence of his being, his every breath, his purpose. Find the stream. Find the stream.
We’re going to find you, Cas, I promise.
* * *
Dean did not have words to describe the feeling he experienced as he followed the gentle trickling of water and saw a spot of tan in the distance through the trees. He blinked a few times, just to make sure what he was seeing was real, but Benny looked at him purposely and he knew it had to be.
He wanted to call out Castiel’s name as loudly as he possibly could, but his breath was hitched in his throat and his voice nonexistent from the overwhelming emotion flowing through him. It wasn’t until he was a short distance away that he found himself able to gruffly call the angel’s name.
“Cas!”
“Dean.” The hunter didn’t think he had ever appreciated the sound of his own name so much.
“Cas,” he repeated, softer this time with a light chuckle. Dean pulled Castiel into a tight embrace, spirits sinking only slightly at the angel’s lack of reciprocation. “Man, I missed you.” He took a step back. “Nice peach fuzz,” he complemented, surprised at his own honesty. He wondered if he was transferring his relief at finding his friend to these overly affectionate emotions. He decided it was okay either way. “Cas, I want you to meet someone. This is Benny.”
“Hola,” the vampire interjected.
Castiel was all business. “How did you find me?” he asked.
“The bloody way,” Dean said reluctantly. “You feeling okay?” he questioned vaguely, not wanting to offend him with questions of his mental health.
Castiel, however, was blunt as always. “You mean am I still—?” he made a swirly gesture by his ear.
“Yeah, if you wanna be on the nose about it, sure.”
“No, I’m perfectly sane,” the angel insisted, and Dean felt a sudden relief wash over him. “But then, ninety-four percent of psychotics think they're perfectly sane. So I guess we have to ask ourselves, 'what is sane?’”
“That’s a good question.”
“Why did you abandon Dean?” Benny interrupted the banter candidly.
“Dude—” Dean protested with a sinking feeling.
“The way I hear it, you two hit monster land, and hot wings here took off. I figure he owes you some backstory.”
“Look, we were surrounded, okay? Some freak jumped Cas. Obviously, he kicked its ass, right?” Dean defended.
“No,” said Cas ashamedly.
“What?” asked Dean, head spinning.
“I ran away.”
“You ran away?!”
“I had to,” Cas insisted.
Dean tried to ignore the hurt he was feeling, but it was too much to handle. “That's your excuse for leaving me with those gorilla-wolves? You bailed out and, what, went camping? I prayed to you, Cas, every night,” he confessed brokenly.
“I know.”
“You know and you didn’t… What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I am an angel in a land of abominations,” Cas replied simply. “There have been things hunting me from the moment we arrived.”
“Join the club!” growled Dean.
“These are not just monsters, Dean. They're Leviathan. I have a price on my head, and I've been trying to stay one step ahead of them, to – to keep them away from you. That's why I ran.” Dean felt a sudden rush of guilt, affection, and pity towards the angel. “Just leave me, please.”
Dean was prepared to protest, but Benny stepped in with, “Sounds like a plan. Let’s roll.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Dean interjected. “Cas, we're getting out of here. We're going home.”
“Dean, I can’t.”
“You can! Benny, tell him!”
“Purgatory has an escape hatch, but I got no idea if it's angel-friendly.”
Dean felt a surge of anger run through him. “We'll figure it out.” To Castiel he said more softly, “Cas, buddy, I need you. And if Leviathan want to take a shot at us, let ‘em. We ganked those bitches once before. We can do it again.”
Castiel protested again, but Dean said, “Let me bottom-line it for you. I'm not leaving here without you. Understand?”
The angel looked at the hunter pensively for a moment, but responded, “I understand.”
“Good,” said Dean, taking a cleansing breath. “Come on, buddy, let’s get going,” he said, clapping Cas on the shoulder. He gave the angel a smile. “Man, it’s good to have you back.”
“You too, Dean,” he responded, and Dean thought it might be the only fully honest thing Castiel had said so far.
Things weren’t looking good for them yet, but they were looking better.