Chapter Text
Dean expects it to be bad. How could it not be? It's been snowing on and off for three weeks, the locals tell him, and Dean can believe it. The snow is piled high on the sidewalks, houses half-buried. Electricity supplies and telephone connections are sketchy, the weight of snow felling power lines and clogging up roads. But Dean knows the area gets heavy snowfall every winter. This town should be able to take it.
The townsfolk say they weren't prepared. Dean thinks they're deluding themselves. When it comes to shit that shouldn't be happening, finding reasons; making excuses; that;s not an uncommon response. He's done it himself enough times.
In one of the local bars, huddled around the fire, when it's late and there's been a whole lot of beer, people talk.
"They're dead," one guy tells them in a low voice. "They're not coming back."
Sam leans forward conspiratorially. He's good at this kind of thing, so Dean sits back, takes a pull from his beer and lets his brother do his work. "Why'd you say that?" Sam asks.
"I've seen 'em." His eyes are glassy and afraid, and Dean thinks, Ghosts.
"Where?" Sam asks, and the guy looks out the window and up, towards the mountains to the north of town. The sun has long since set but Dean can still see them there; blue-tinged and sharp-looking and really fucking steep.
***
They're already high up, having come a long way on buried paths they keep losing track of, when Cas finally shows up. Dean's feet are starting to feel like dead weights. His fingers ache, even hidden away in thick gloves. He's fairly sure he's going blind from the constant glare from the white, endless snow fields. From the constant haze of snowfall. It's getting hard to tell where the sky meets the snow. It's getting hard to tell what's real and what's not.
Dean keeps Sam close, afraid to lose him in what's turning into a full-out blizzard.
And then, there's a tan trench coat decorating the blankness of the world, and Cas is walking easily alongside them despite the way his feet fall into thick snow with every step. The damn angel makes it look effortless. Dean feels cold just looking at Cas's bare hands. At the way snow catches in his hair, and falls on the skin of his face, melting there.
"You're late." Dean's voice is rough, miserable from the hours of trekking. He's thirsty, he realises. All this damn snow and he's thirsty.
"I joined you as quickly as I could," Cas replies, somehow sounding the same as ever. He doesn't even need to shout over the noise of the wind, which howls past Dean's ears and makes him shiver and pull his hat down further over his head. Dean can hear him just fine.
"Not very quickly," Dean gripes, because Sam called Cas four days ago and in that time some weather guy and his guide had joined the ranks of the missing. "This isn't just some regular hunt, Cas."
"Dean-" Sam warns, his voice muffled by the way his thick jacket is pulled up to his nose. Dean knows he's being an ass. He does. But he's tired and he's seen shit today he wishes he hadn't and he's fucking cold.
Dean gets it, too. He gets that Cas has more important shit to do up in Heaven or whatever, and that he's not Dean's personal angel on-call, but what's happening here is something big. This is summer in Colorado, with four feet of snow and minus fifteen degree temperatures. Dean doesn't know what can cause shit like that other than something really damned powerful.
"I know." Castiel has the grace to look regretful. He doesn't make any excuses, and he doesn't seem inclined to say any more, so Dean lets it go.
"We’ve got another hour’s walk until we get to the hunting lodge,” Dean tells him instead, wiping his hand with his face. The rough material of his glove scrapes painfully against his skin where its been exposed for too long. It's getting late, the sun starting to set; a lot later than Dean would’ve liked to be out in a snowstorm. Dean had never expected it to take him and Sam so long to make it to the lodge. There'd been snow, back in the town, but nothing like this.
Up here, deep in the mountains above the town of Estes Park, whatever is causing the freaky weather and the disappearances feels closer, more present, like at any second something is going to come out of the snowdrifts and kill them. Every step they take is heavier, more difficult, fighting against them.
And they've seen things; pale figures lingering in their peripheral vision but never quite there. They make no sound, and Dean's yet to see any of them move, but they're there. Watching. From the way Sam's head swivels to the side, following shapes in the snow, Dean knows his brother sees them too. It's reassuring. It's not just his imagination. It's not some trick of the light. Dean is not going crazy.
By silent agreement Sam and Dean have kept to the path, when they can find it, and tried to ignore the figures, knowing that it would be both useless and dangerous to try and get a good look at them.
Ghosts, Dean thinks. Maybe the missing townsfolk.
As soon as Cas appears the figures are gone, fizzle out like wisps from a candle, taking with them some of the creepiness and uneasiness of the past few hours, climbing and climbing and being followed and not seeing much of anything but shadows and haze. They haven't found any evidence of what's become of the missing people. The further they go though, the more Dean realises that anything they might've found would've long since been buried under snow. Maybe that's it. This is all just the ghosts of dead hikers, caught out by the crazy storms, lost and frozen. The way Dean's teeth chatter and his muscles burn he could easily believe it.
Except Dean's certain there's more to this than the ghosts of the dead. His instincts that tell him something bad is going on here.
"There were ghosts, before you came," Dean says, and Cas turns his gaze on Dean and almost looks like a ghost himself, his face colourless, and his eyes weirdly glassy and distant in the dimmed daylight.
Watching Cas stride alongside them, not showing any sign of being at all concerned with the heavy snowfall, or the driving wind, Dean thinks for the first time ever that he wouldn't mind some of those freaky angel powers for himself.
Cas looks away to the path ahead. Snow on snow. "Yes," he agrees.
"What do you think's going on here?" Sam asks, leaning over so they can hear him over the wind. Sam wraps his arms around himself, and Dean can see he's shivering underneath his heavy coat.
Cas doesn't answer for a long while, looking around slowly, purposefully, and Dean wonders what he sees.
Finally, he answers, "Something old."
Dean's going to ask for more, because that is not even slightly useful. And if he's talking at least he's not thinking about the biting cold and the pain in his hands and the muscles of his legs. But then Sam stumbles, going to his knees. The snow is so deep now it pretty much buries Sam's legs, his arms up to his elbows.
"Fuck." Sam is breathing hard, frowning, mouth set in a grimace. He's exhausted. Dean can relate.
Hooking an arm under Sam's elbow Dean hoists him up onto his feet because sitting around in several feet of snow is not going to do him any good. Against his side, Dean can feel how badly Sam is shaking and he doesn't like it at all.
He looks to Cas.
"I'll take you to the lodge," Cas says, and Dean's ridiculously glad that Cas isn't so oblivious he can't tell when humans have reached their limit. He wonders just how pathetic and wet and exhausted they must look to Cas. But whatever, Dean's not going to complain, because as much as he hates travel by angel, he hates being dead more.
There's relief in Sam's eyes. He relaxes into Dean's hold as he turns to Cas. "God, yes, please," Sam says. Then, realising what he's just said adds, "Um. Thanks."
They might not see that much of Cas anymore, but when he raises an eyebrow at Sam and it looks like amusement, Dean thinks that maybe Cas understands a lot more about messy human behaviour than Dean gives him credit for.
Then Cas extends his hands towards them, and Dean feels the familiar discomfort of angel transportation, and thinks that Cas could've at least remembered to warn them first.
***
The hunting lodge is about as cold and crappy as Dean expected, but it has walls and a roof so Dean's not going to bitch about it. His face prickles uncomfortably now that it's out of the wind. He can feel ice-cold water against his skin that makes him shiver. It's dark in the twilight, and Dean's hand automatically goes to the knife in his pocket.
"Cas," he hisses, his eyes trying to scan the room in the dim light, listening for any sounds of movement. It's difficult with his ears still ringing, or maybe more like buzzing. Static. Sam is at his back, tense and wary too. Dean can just about make out a table and chairs in the corner; the outline of a dirty-looking kitchenette; a cleaned-out fireplace with two ragged old armchairs in front of it. It's bare, smells of damp and decay, and feels a long time abandoned. "There could be anything in here," Dean says, annoyed because they've been dumped into a situation beyond their control, blind, and Cas doesn't look even vaguely concerned.
"I wouldn't have brought you to a place where there was any immediate danger," Cas tells him, and he sounds confused, like how could Dean even think he'd do something so reckless. It's a fair point, but his instincts still say something is up with this place. Like there are more ghosts, images of dead things, malicious things, just around the corner. It's that feeling Dean gets in those places where someone died a violent, early death. There's no smell of human remains though, nothing to indicate anyone's been there recently, just the old, musty smell of wet rags and stale air.
"You're sure?" Dean asks, because he can't shake the feeling that something is watching.
He waits for his eyes to become accustomed to the poor light and is glad when he can see Sam and Cas's faces.
Sam shifts his weight from one foot to another. He could just be trying to get his feet warm, or he could be as uncomfortable standing in this room as Dean is. His brother shoots him a look like he doesn't believe there's nothing here either.
Cas's eyes wander over the undecorated walls and the bare, wood floor. He frowns. "There is nothing here now."
"But there was?" Sam guesses.
"There was."
"That same old thing from before?" Dean questions.
Cas is uncomfortable too, on edge, and that can't be any kind of good. Even if he's sure there's nothing here, Dean doesn't feel like he'll be able to relax at all in this place.
There's a door on the other side of the room, and Dean moves towards it, finds a bedroom and a bathroom there. The room is dark where threadbare curtains are drawn across the windows, but Dean can make out the neatly made bed. Unslept in.
Behind him Cas says. "I believe so."
"Can you be more specific?" Dean demands, closing the door to the bedroom and returning to Cas's side.
"No," Cas replies, which is about what Dean expected. "I don't know everything, and I don't know what this is."
"There are twelve people missing," Sam tells him. Taking one last wary look around the room, Sam seems to decide the lodge is safe enough and shrugs out of his pack, goes over to check out the fireplace. The sun is setting fast now and they'll need the flashlights in their packs soon unless they can start a fire. There are no logs though. Nothing to burn except the ugly furniture.
"Not all of them were lost in the mountains," Sam continues. "The snow started a month ago. We can't find any evidence of anything, either natural or local legends, that might explain it." He's frowning at the fire grate accusingly and rubbing his hands on his thighs, trying to get warm. "Jesus. I wish I could take these boots off," he says.
"Stop bitching," Dean shoots back, even though he agrees. His feet are cold and soggy and uncomfortable. There's no way he's taking his boots off though, not when he feels like even the walls have the potential for evil. For trying to kill them. So far it's just been snow and wind and shadows and that just makes it worse; the not knowing what might be coming.
Cas walks right up to Sam and puts a hand on his shoulder and Dean watches as Sam shivers. He can tell Cas is doing something because Sam is looking down at Cas with something a little like awe.
"Many creatures," Cas tells them, "were displaced by the Apocalypse. Perhaps hiding from hunters, or from Lucifer, or from demons or angels, they tried to find new places."
"Or make new places for themselves?" Sam suggests. "Cas-"
"Yes," Cas cuts Sam off, lets his hand fall from Sam's shoulder and paces over to Dean.
"A supernatural refugee, huh?" Dean watches as Cas reaches out and holds onto his elbow, and then there's warmth flooding through him, spreading out from Cas's touch, up his arms and into his body.
"Yes," Cas says again, and Dean thinks there's an upward tilt to Cas's mouth which might just be a smile, and that it might be smug.
"That's a cool trick, Cas. Thanks," Sam is saying somewhere nearby. He's moving around the room, shaking out his arms like he's remembering how to move them again.
"It's not a trick," Cas tells them. Tells Dean. He's staring, and Dean wonders what it is, this heat passing through him, making him remember what it feels like to have limbs that don't ache and sting. Dean knows it's Cas. He can tell that much, because it's somehow familiar, like Cas's voice or his trench coat or his glare.
"What did you hope to achieve?" Cas asks, not looking away. He sounds more curious than anything. He doesn't blink. "Coming out here?"
"We heard reports of the ghosts," Sam replies. Dean can hear Sam shifting nervously. "Up by this lodge. It's where seven of the missing people were last seen. Seemed like the best place to start."
Cas nods. "There are no dead here. They were taken from this place."
"You know where to?" Dean asks. Cas still hasn't taken his hand away, or looked anywhere other than right back at Dean. It's been weeks since he saw Cas last, and Dean wonders if maybe Cas missed him. Them. He doesn't ask about Heaven or what's going on with Cas up there. He never asks, and Cas never offers.
"Further up the mountain." Then Cas looks towards the kitchenette, or more likely to something further away, beyond the walls of the lodge. "I know which way."
"We don't even know what it is," Sam points out.
"If Cas doesn't know then we're gonna find out till we meet it." When Dean looks over at Sam, his brother is giving him a strange look. "What?"
Sam raises his eyebrows and pointedly looks down at where Cas has a hand on his arm. "I'm older than you," Dean jokes. "I need more warming up."
"Uh huh," is the only reply he gets.
"Rest tonight," Cas says, not noticing at all that he's doing something weird. He never notices. "I will keep watch."
"You'll need to let go of Dean's arm, Cas," Sam teases, "If he's gonna sit down."
Cas looks down curiously at his own hand, and Dean sends Sam an annoyed forwn because seriously. It's not nice to tease the clueless angel. Even if he does it too. And just for a few moments, Dean realises, he's barely noticed the creeping cold and the tense, uneasy atmosphere.
Dean doesn't like it at all when Cas lets him go.
***
Dean's not sure what wakes him. It's quiet and all he can hear is Sam's breathing and the wind rattling the windows in their frames and the door creaking on its hinges like something's trying to get in.
Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Dean winces, his neck stiff from where he's fallen asleep slumped into one of the lodge's armchairs. The next things Dean notices is that Cas is nowhere to be seen. He thinks about calling out, but there's a chill to the room Dean doesn't think is just the cold. They'd laid down salt at the doors, so it can't be ghosts or demons, but Dean's been in this game long enough to know not all supernatural beings react to salt.
Dean holds himself still, just listening to the sounds of the room. They'd pulled the blankets from the bed and Dean can feel the scratchy wool against his neck and his hands. He's sure he can hear floor boards creaking, like someone's walking across them slowly, carefully, and Dean feels like he's four again and he can hear strangers in the house even when he knows there's no one there.
Dean's eyes snap open. It's pitch black in the room and Dean waits for his sight to adjust, keeping his breath even, not turning his head to just look. Eventually he can make out the outline of the fireplace and the shape of his pack close by. His knife is still in his pocket but the shotgun is somewhere beside Sam's chair. Dean wishes he'd brought his own but there's only so much you can carry up a mountain.
There's a banging on the door then that makes Dean jump. It's just the wind, he tells himself, but it's loud, and it doesn't stop. A ghost, maybe, trying to get in. Maybe Cas. But there're no angel wards up, nothing to keep him out, and since when has Cas bothered with doors. Or knocking. Unless something's got him. Unless he's in trouble.
Dean's moving towards the window before he even thinks about what he's doing, letting the blankets fall to the floor. Cas can take care of himself, Dean knows. Cas is powered up more than ever. He'd said he would watch over Dean and Sam as they slept though, and Dean knows Cas wouldn't have left without a damned good reason.
There's a weird feeling twisting up his insides and Dean doesn't know what this unease is. Why it's got him so wound up. Except that Dean has always relied on his instincts on hunts and he's not about to start ignoring them now. They're not wrong often.
At the window, Dean pushes aside the curtains cautiously and moonlight floods in, brighter than Dean expected.
He can see the path they'd dug out to open the lodge's door. There's no one there. It's a relief and concerning all at once, because there's still something not right here.
Sam hasn't woken up, and that's not right either.
Outside, all he can make out is snow, on the ground, still falling heavily, swept up in the strong winds reminding Dean of snow globes. Dean thinks he can make out patterns in the snow - human shapes - but it could be a trick of the light. Maybe his imagination.
Maybe he just can't see Cas, he thinks. The snowfall is so heavy maybe he just can't see him. The wind is so loud that maybe he can't hear him. It won't hurt, he tells himself, to open the door and check. The threshold is lined with salt, and if Cas is in trouble and Dean doesn't check it out he'll never be able to forgive himself. He's not so emotionally stunted as Sam thinks that he can't admit that he cares what happens to Cas. And yeah, he does get concerned when Cas is gone a long time in Heaven because if there's someone who knows just how little you can trust an angel it's Dean. Except for Cas, who Dean would trust one hell of a lot more than most humans. Cas knows what it's like- to be powerless and to be hopeless but still keep fighting- and he cared what happened to humanity even before that.
So, it's not a difficult decision to slide his way along the wall from the window to the door. He leaves the curtain open a fraction.
Dean's not sure why he's stepping so carefully, like he's afraid to trip over his own feet, or like he's trying to creep up on someone. If there is something outside it'll know Dean's there as soon as he opens the door. But it's habit, and Dean takes his time unlatching the door as quietly as he can, pulling it open slowly.
It's difficult, because the wind is pushing against him and for a second Dean is convinced someone, or something, is out there. It's not shoving though; more like a continuous weight. Nothing unnatural, Dean decides. Nothing forcing its way in.
He doesn't pull the door all the way open, just half-way. Peering out, there's nothing but the snowstorm no matter how hard he stares. It's kind of mesmerising; the patterns it makes; the way the glare burns weird shapes into his eyes. Even the bite of the cold against his face is kind of nice; refreshing after the mustiness of the lodge and its rotting furniture.
Dean can't look away, even though he knows he should. He feels his hand slip off the door and hears it's hinges scream and the wood bang against the side of the lodge, opened wide by the gale. Snow blows around him and Dean can feel the wetness of its touch against the skin of his face and the backs of his hands. Dean finds himself wanting more; wanting to feel the softness and the wetness of the snow on the ground against his arms and his neck. He's never wondered, before, what it would be like to walk in a snowstorm like this, without the weight of a jacket and the confining discomfort of heavy boots. He wants to know now.
It's easy to unzip his coat and push it off his arms. His sweater follows, then his shirt, until his chest is bared to the elements. It feels awesome, and Dean wants more.
His boots are more difficult, his hands clumsy undoing the laces like he's half asleep, but he gets them off. Pulls off his socks too.
He knows he's smiling when he steps carefully over the salt line, sighs at the way his feet sink into the snow, his toes burning pleasantly with the cold. Dean can't imagine why he minded this, before. Why he was afraid of it. There's a comfort in how the storm wraps him up in wind and snow, caresses him, and Dean walks out further into it.
Within the howling and the shifting and the crunch of ice under his feet Dean's sure he can hear something - someone - calling. Not urgently, but welcoming. Warming. Some part of Dean's mind tells him this is a bad idea. He shouldn't be here. That this is a stupid thing to be doing. That he should be afraid.
How though, Dean thinks, could he ever be afraid of something so gentle sounding, so all-loving?
He sees her then, smiling at him. She reminds Dean of his mother, and the pain and the longing of it urges him on. He walks faster, breaks into a run, and feels his lungs heaving with the effort. It doesn't hurt.
She watches Dean approach with kindness in her eyes and Dean can see that she's speaking even if he can't make out the words. She isn't far and it takes Dean hardly any time at all before he's standing before her, taking in her black hair and her pale face. She reaches out towards Dean with long fingers and for a second Dean wants to flinch away from the touch. It's cold, he thinks, except it's not.
Where her palms touch his cheeks it's only warm and alive and mostly Dean just feels kind of happy and tired. It's been a long time since he felt this content. This at peace. This sure. He wants to stay forever, in the quiet storm, with this woman who isn't his mother but could be. Dean thinks that he would like for Sam to be here with him, to share this too. And Cas, who doesn’t get out much. He should know what this feels like.
It's weird, but the memory of Sam and Cas bring cold and hunger. Anger. His face burns. He aches. It shouldn’t be like this, Dean thinks.
He remembers more; that Cas was missing, that Sam is back in the cabin sleeping when he shouldn't be. Dean remembers that they're looking for something. There were ghosts in the snow. There was something old in the storm, Cas said. On the mountain. People had disappeared.
Like him. Lost in the snow. And Dean thinks, what am I doing here? And he thinks, this is how it happened. Dean remembers then that he has a knife but, fuck, he can't feel his fingers at all and he can't move and his head hurts. He opens his eyes. He can't remember when he ever closed them.
The woman is still standing in front of him but now she's frowning and looking down at Dean like she's disappointed. Her hands are like ice against the sides of face and it's hard to breathe. She doesn't look human, Dean realises. He's been fucking tricked; called out like an idiot by some snow-siren-thing.
He's cold. He's so fucking cold.
Dean tries calling out, but his lips are dry and his throat is sore and all he can manage is a hoarse croak that there's no way Sam could hear even if he were standing only feet away. And Cas. Who the fuck knows where Cas is.
Maybe it's enough though, because out the corner of his eye, behind the creature, over her stark white arm and beyond her black hair, Dean sees that damn trench coat.
Cas is moving towards them with inhuman speed, the snow falling away from him, moving out of his way like it doesn't dare even touch him. It's about all Dean can do to keep his eyes open to watch. He doesn't get to see Cas like this much, when he's not even pretending to be human but is instead powerful and wrathful, and there's fury on his face that Dean can only remember seeing once before.
The woman- the creature- must feel him approaching because suddenly she turns towards Cas, but she doesn't let Dean go. She's killing him, Dean realises.
Her mouth opens and she screams. The sound is piercing, but it's no worse than angel-speak. Dean has no clue if it has any effect on Cas because he can't see him anymore; he's on the ground, wrapped up in snow that feels like silk, pale, deathly cold hands on his cheeks and black hair falling over his chest, the strands of it slicing across his skin like knives. Her eyes are white. Dean can't believe he didn't notice before. Didn't see. He doesn't know how he could ever have thought they were kind.
Then, he sees the beige arm of Cas's coat. Cas presses his hand to the creature's forehead and he can hear her snarling, but the stinging cold against the sides of his face tells Dean she still hasn't let go. It's kind of fascinating to watch as Cas tries wrenching the woman's head straight off her shoulders. She howls, but her grip on him doesn't falter. Cas puts his hands around her neck and squeezes, and that has no effect either. He speaks, voice low and edged with anger, and Dean recognises it as the language Cas always uses for spells, all stilted, clipped, cut-off sounds. Dean wonders at how he can't feel much of anything anymore except the press of fingers against his skull.
Cas glances at him then, and his eyes are wide. Dean thinks he can't have long left to live if Cas is looking at him like that. It definitely doesn't feel like he does. It's getting hard to keep his eyes open. To concentrate on following what's going on around him. He does hear Cas say, "Dean," though, or he thinks he does, because then Cas turns away, takes the creature's head in his hands - the same way she's holding Dean - and then the world turns to pain, like someone's reached down into him and is trying to extract his spine through his neck.
It goes on, and on, and it hurts so much and Dean can't see and he can't hear and he can't think and he's mostly just really fucking glad when everything stops.
***
The first thing Dean hears is Cas.
He's speaking fast. So fast Dean that can't understand what he's saying. It doesn't even really sound like him. Or at least, what Dean's come to think of as Cas's voice; Jimmy Novak's voice. It doesn't even sound much like English, and it's weird, Dean thinks, how he can recognise the words at all.
He's saying, "Dean is here," and he's saying, "He's here," and "It's empty," and "We'll get it back."
There are other words too. They're deeper. Further away. "Across the-", "Deploy-", and "I'm busy-"
Not talking to him then.
Dean tries to move, or at least open his eyes, but he can't do either and he thinks, fuck. The snow bitch. Maybe she's frozen him solid. Maybe he's in one of those comas where you can't wake up and all you get to do is lie there and listen to the world around you as everyone wonders if you're not already dead.
He can hear worry and fear in Sam's voice when he replies - to Cas, Dean guesses - "Is he okay? This is so screwed up, Cas."
Maybe he's dying. Maybe he is dead.
"I can hold him," he hears Cas say, which makes absolutely no sense and Dean is about ready to start panicking because he can't feel anything. He remembers this from when he was almost dead before, just a ghost, and the world became a thing beyond his reach. He can't do that again. Not when he's just gotten back his brother and his life. He tries shouting for Sam and he fights to pull muscles that just don't feel like they're there anymore.
He's struggling against nothing; fighting when there's nothing pushing back, and it's so fucking frustrating Dean fights harder. He won't give up. He won't.
Yeah, he's an idiot for falling for that witch's trick, but Cas was there. Cas would've saved him, Dean's sure of it. Then, Dean knows Cas is speaking to him when he says, in that not-English, unfamiliar-familiar voice, "Dean. Don't fight me."
"I'm not fighting you," Dean tries to say. There's no sound, but Cas must have heard it anyway because he replies, "You are. Stop it."
There's something weirdly comforting about the way Cas is ordering him around, like everything's normal.
"I can't feel anything," Dean tells him without saying anything. He wonders if Cas is reading his mind.
"I know," Cas says, and Dean is ridiculously relieved that at least someone seems to know what the fuck is going on here. "Be calm, Dean," Cas adds.
"Not helping, Cas." Dean is pissed, and there's still a creeping discomfort down his non-existent back like he's trapped. Like he'll never move again. "Why can't I feel anything?"
He hears Sam demand, "What's going on? Cas?"
"I am explaining," Cas says, and Dean can tell it's directed at them both. He's annoyed. Dean strains, tries to open his eyes or move his hands or breathe or something. He thinks he'd be gritting his teeth if he had any. It's like he's being pulled in a hundred different directions. Somewhere that Dean is pretty sure is not in his head he can hear other conversations Cas is having and he can't understand that at all. "Return to the-" he hears. "It's his decision." Cas sounds somewhere between regretful and vengeful when he says, "Kill them."
"What is that?" Dean asks. He doesn't try to speak. He's tired, but he doesn't ache. Of course he doesn't ache.
Cas is quiet for a long moment before he questions, "You can hear that?"
"Yeah," Dean says, and immediately the sound cuts out. Dean didn't realise how loud it was until it's gone. It's just more silence, like the loss of another sense in what is already maddening blankness. "The hell?"
"You shouldn't-" Cas starts, but cuts himself off, tries again. "Let me explain. Be calm. You're not dead and I won't allow you to be."
That, at least, is encouraging. He would nod, except he can't, so Dean agrees, "Okay," and tries to ignore the panic and tries not to notice that he has no touch or taste or smell or sight. He focuses instead on Cas's voice.
"The snow creature was trying to take your life," Cas explains, and yeah, Dean got that part already. "She had already taken too much, so this was the only course of action left to me."
Dean doesn't like the sound of that.
"What course of action?" he asks warily.
"She was trying to take your soul. I took it back."
"Took it back," Dean repeats. He has a bad feeling he knows where this is going.
"I have held your soul before. This is no different," Cas goes on. Not in English. Not in human, and now that he's concentrating Dean doesn't think the annoyance - the harried feeling - is his.
"Cas." He's not speaking with a voice. Just thought. "Where am I?"
"In me."
Under different circumstances Dean would've grinned at the phrase, teased Cas for it.
Right now he can't bring himself to see the funny side of this. "My body?"
"The snow creature has it," Cas tells him. He doesn't seem much concerned about that.
"And what the hell is she doing with it?"
"Taking its... energy."
"She's killing me and you're just standing here doing nothing?" Dean can feel the panic returning. "As such as I love being stuck inside you, Cas, I can't live like this!"
"You won't," Cas says, and it sounds like a promise. "It will take time. She will make it last. We'll get it back and I will return your soul to your body."
He makes it sound simple, like it's nothing, but Dean gets the feeling Cas is hiding something. A lot of somethings.
"You know what she is?" Dean demands, because he wants to know what the freaking hell has stolen his body. He wants to know that Cas knows how to kill the bitch.
The way Cas pauses before he answers does not do anything for Dean's confidence.
"She is a force of nature," Cas settles on. "A Lady of the Snow."
"So how do we deal with her?"
"She can't be killed," Cas tells him, and somehow what Cas knows bleeds into Dean's head - his head that isn't his head - and Dean can see that she's like water, or air, or Dean's love for the Impala. Eternal. Indestructible. A thing that just is.
"Then what can we do? We can't just let her keep on turning Colorado into a summertime ski resort."
"We can appease her," Cas says, then won't say anything further.
More stuff he's hiding, Dean realises.
Dean wonders what Sam is doing. If he already knows all of this. How long he's been out of it inside Cas's head.
It's only then that Dean really thinks about where he is. What he's inside.
Jimmy had said sharing mind-space with an angel was like being chained to a comet, but all Dean's had is blank space, Cas talking-not-talking, and some awareness of sound in his ears. In Cas's ears.
"You're not my vessel," Cas says, like he can read Dean's mind, which Dean's pretty certain he can now. That is not good. "It's different."
Dean thinks of Jimmy, and thinks about how he can't feel - hear, or see, or whatever - anything of him. This should be his body, so Dean guesses the poor guy must be in here somewhere. But there's nothing.
"Jimmy is gone," Cas says, and from the lack of anything Dean can feel around that statement he's not going to say anything more about that either.
Dean knows a sore point when he sees one.
And Cas has been replying to his thoughts. "Stop reading my mind, Cas."
"I can't hear you if I don't." Cas does at least sound vaguely apologetic.
"Fuck," Dean says. Thinks. And then because he knows Cas can hear everything he thinks, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."
"Please, Dean," Cas chides. He's not exactly comfortable with this either, Dean can tell, and it makes Dean feel perversely better.
Dean needs more than this, though. He's only human, and he'll go mad if he has to go on not-feeling for much longer. "I can hear. You need to let me see."
"I don't see like you do," Cas tries. But already Dean thinks he can make out light. Shapes maybe. It's all overlaid with colours and patterns that are all wrong, that make Dean's head hurt. Or his brain, or his soul, or whatever he is now.
"This is like a trip," Dean thinks. Says. He watches as the shapes sharpen and the world orders itself into something resembling the hunting lodge. Sam is standing in front of him. Cas. Them. He doesn't exactly know how he recognises Sam when Dean can't exactly make out the features of his face with Cas's vision, or the clothes he's wearing. It's more a feeling. A knowledge that the patterns and outlines he's seeing are Sam. "Shit." Dean wishes he could shake his head to clear it, but it's not his head.
When he looks at the furniture he sees the ghosts of forests and fields and the sun and water.
"It's memory," Cas explains.
"This is how you see?" Dean wonders at how he's not freaking out at this. He's in Cas and he hasn't got a body and he's seeing with angel eyes and the world is fucked up.
"The world is not fucked up," Cas tells him. "This is how it is."
And, oh yeah, Cas can hear every thought he has now.
"I can't," Cas says. "Or, more accurately, I won't. But I have seen all of you before."
Dean isn't sure if that was meant to be reassuring because it really isn't. Instead, Dean concentrates on Sam. Dean knows, because he can read the emotions coming off Sam like he'd read words from a book, that his brother is worried, fascinated, unsure, hopeful, and impatient.
"I'm trying to limit my sight to something you can understand." Cas says it like a confession. He doesn't know what he's doing, Dean realises. Cas is unsure.
"I can tell what you're feeling." Which is pretty cool, because if Cas can tell what Dean is thinking, it's only fair that he gets something back from Cas.
"Apparently," is Cas's reply. He's not happy about it. "There are still two hours until dawn," Cas says, and he's speaking to both Dean and Sam again. "We should rest until then."
It's so light, the world so full of colour, that it's weird to think that to human eyes it's still dark. Dean watches and listens as Sam agrees, gives Cas a long, considering look, and then settles himself back into the armchair. He lays the shotgun across his lap, his hand resting lightly over it. Through Cas's eyes, Dean knows that Sam is wide-awake and that he's cold. Dean remembers he can't feel anything.
"You don't want to feel as I do," Cas tells him, and his voice is sharp. Final.
He can see movement though, even if he can't feel it; Cas turning, moving lower. Sitting down, Dean guesses.
"You said 'we' need rest."
"Yes," Cas replies. He doesn't close his eyes but the colours and the light dim, turn unfocused. Again, there's that feeling that Cas is hiding something.
"You're not flying us angel-express out of here. What did she do to you?" He doesn't feel powerful, or strong, but weary and Dean guesses that isn't all him.
Cas pauses, and Dean considers trying to pry into Cas's thoughts somehow, but then he replies, "She drew out some of my life."
"Some?"
"There's a lot to take," Cas assures Dean, and it doesn't assure him at all.
"She took enough that you can't fly. Or teleport. Whatever it is you do."
He thinks Cas sighs. "I could try, but I won't risk it with your soul like this. The sacrifice was necessary. I'll be fine."
Dean's heard that phrase a thousand times and he doesn't trust it anymore inside an angel's head than he does anywhere else. And he's never, never liked the word sacrifice.
But he hears Cas say, "Rest," half an order, half a request, and Dean lets it go. For now.
At least, Dean thinks, there's no pain like this. There's no cold. And he doesn't have to worry about Cas leaving.
***
Watching the world through Cas's eyes in the light of day is blinding and confusing as hell. It takes Dean a long time to work out what he's seeing; what is ground and what is sky; what is his brother. He can see every snowflake and every movement of the wind. Worse, he knows what every movement will be.
The worst things of all are the ghosts.
Dean can see their lives and their deaths and when he looks at them he is infinitely sad in a way that Dean is sure isn't him or Cas. They're like bundles of memories, lost and empty of anything but misery and loneliness.
Dean wants to ask Cas not to look at them, but they could still be dangerous. Cas has pity for the ghosts, but also distrust.
The longer Dean is in Cas's head, or Grace, or wherever he is, the more he finds he can tell what Cas is feeling, and sometimes what he's thinking.
He sees conflict, and irritation at his own weakness, and so much freaking love it hurts for Dean to look at it. For him, for Sam, for the Earth and humanity, for his brothers and for God. Cas, Dean learns, doesn't much like the snow. He's used to clear skies and the sun. It's better for flying. Cas loves heights, and finds shoes uncomfortable.
It's all there and Cas doesn't seem to mind that Dean can see it.
"My brothers would know all this," Cas tells him, and that explains a lot about how Cas has no idea about personal space or privacy. He's never had any himself.
Somewhere around noon, and Dean knows it's noon because Cas knows, Dean starts to hear the other voices again. They're insistent, and getting louder, and Dean thinks Cas's control is slipping.
Cas is tired, and he wants to fly, but he refuses to even consider it whilst he's holding Dean's soul. It could tear Dean apart. It could mix them together in a way that Cas will never be able to undo. Dean sees it all in Cas's head and agrees that yeah, maybe flying isn't the greatest idea.
Cas snaps at the other voices, and tells them to go away, and Dean knows they hurt his head.
"That's angel radio," Dean realises.
"You can hear them again?" Cas sighs. "I apologise."
"No, it's cool," Dean tells him. Cas has already got enough shit to do without hiding parts of himself away as well. "Are they always this annoying?"
Dean thinks Cas laughs. "They are."
They don't talk about it again, because Dean can't think of anything else to say, and Cas doesn't seem inclined to tell him anything more. The background chattering goes on, and when Dean concentrates on it he can hear that it's not all directed at Cas, but it's conversations and arguments and promises between other angels whose names Cas knows. There are hundreds. Maybe thousands. It's creepy, but to Cas it's familiar and welcome and he missed it more than anything else when he was cut off. The silence was the worst thing of all.
Dean wishes he didn't know. He wishes he didn't know how much getting Cas to rebel had fucking hurt him.
"It was my decision," Cas says in reply to the thought. "I knew what would happen."
There was a lie in that, but Dean lets it go.
Inside Cas's head, listening to the sounds of his brothers and to the sway of Cas's thoughts, and trying to work out what he's seeing, Dean becomes aware of how cut off from the world he is like this. Closeted away, kept safe. He can't feel much of anything physical. It surprises him then when Sam stumbles over nothing. Cas catches his arm.
The amount of strange, unfamiliar information he's trying to work through is distracting Dean from the cold, dangerous terrain outside of Cas's head. It's snowing, heavier now than it had been the day before, and Dean sees rather than feels just how ice-cold and strong the winds have become. Sam is huddled in on himself, trying to bury his chin in the collar of his jacket. The skin of his face is burnt and sore, and he's shivering, getting dangerously cold.
Cas puts a hand on Sam's shoulder as he'd done the night before, and Dean sees warmth flooding into his body.
Sam sighs and straightens. "Shit. Thanks, Cas." Throwing Cas a half-hearted smile, he says, "I think I'm jealous of Dean right now. At least he's warm."
"He's neither warm nor cold," Cas tells Sam, and pulls Sam close to his side. "We must find somewhere for you to rest."
Cas stretches his senses, trying to locate some structure or natural shelter close by, and it's freaking weird because Dean can suddenly see the world as a map, lined with altitudes and paths and what life there is left. He can see something, in the distance, that Dean thinks is the snow-witch creature. Her presence is like an empty space, an absence seeping out around her, drawing the life out of everything she comes into contact with. They're headed towards it by the most direct route Cas can find with his freaky map-brain.
There's a couple lodges that Cas can make out, several miles away. One is larger, but more out of the way. He thinks it bears more chance of having heat.
"Does it have more chance of having people? Or electricity?" Dean asks.
Cas replies, "No. No, there are no other living humans on this mountain."
"Then go with the smaller place," Dean suggests. "It won't matter, and Sam needs to get out of this storm."
Dean didn't think it could, but the winds around them are getting stronger, and he wonders if they shouldn't have let Sam stay behind in the lodge.
"He would never have remained behind," Cas says, which is true enough. It's frustrating though, to watch Sam suffer and to not be able to do anything about it. To rely on Cas for everything.
"I won't let him come to harm," Cas assures him. There's a sting of hurt to the thought, like Cas doesn't think Dean trusts him.
It's bullshit. There's no one else living, save maybe Bobby, who Dean would trust Sam with more. "I know, Cas," he tells him. "I just feel useless like this." Without any body to call his own. Without even a voice.
"We will get you back." Cas sounds certain, same as he had the night before, but there's more of a strain to his thoughts now. Worn down, Dean realises.
Cas has still got his hands on Sam, keeping him warm, and somehow he's keeping the ghosts at a distance, and he's constantly ensuring they're on the correct path, that there are no dangers ahead. He's talking to his brothers too, and Dean can only hear half of that. Dean knows that Cas is keeping Dean walled up as best he can too, keeping him separate from a whole lot of Cas that Dean can't even begin to imagine. It's all taking energy, and now that Dean knows what to look for, he can see that the snow-bitch took more of Cas's strength than he'd admitted to.
"It wouldn't help you to know," Cas says, and Dean gets a feeling like he's shrugging it off. Not important. "I'm still strong enough for this."
Dean believes it, but he's starting to feel the wind and the wet snow against Cas's face, and he's getting the impression of fingers that are too large and stiff. He wonders if this is what it feels like when Cas's angel-juice slips away; no longer able to keep the physical nature of humanity at a distance, no longer able to stop annoying human concerns from overtaking his vessel. His body.
Dean knows Cas can hear his thoughts, but Cas holds his silence, and all Dean can feel is his discomfort.
***
By the time they reach the shelter Sam is shivering despite Cas repeatedly using his mojo to defreeze him. It's getting more and more difficult for Cas to do even that, Dean knows, but Cas says nothing to Sam.
The shelter is little more than a shack and there's nothing inside, but it's dry, even if it smells musky and rotten. Dean hasn't missed the fact that he can smell now. He thinks he can taste too; something cool and bitter. Of everything, Dean thinks that knowing what the inside of Cas's mouth tastes like is the most intimate thing he's felt so far. It makes him think of kissing and that leads to touch and that leads to sex, and Dean will not let himself think those things when Cas can see it all.
"It's human," Cas says, apparently trying to be helpful when Dean wishes he'd just pretend that Dean hadn't just been thinking about porn and how he hadn't gotten laid in months and how Dean hadn't slept with a guy in years.
Just in case Cas hadn't been able to tell how much Dean does not want to talk about this, he tells him, "Shut up."
Cas obliges, concentrates instead on helping Sam check their supplies. Cas is carrying Dean's pack but they've got limited food between them and nothing that'll help warm Sam up. Dean isn't sure it's such a great idea when Cas takes off his coat and wraps it around Sam's legs.
"I know you can feel this cold," Dean says.
"It won't kill me." There's a prickling pain in Cas's fingers and his feet, and Dean can tell he's directing the heat of his body inwards, keeping his body working efficiently. It's all energy Cas doesn't seem to have.
Dean would ask if Cas is sure he can't just take them away; get himself and Sam to safety because as much as Dean wants his body back he's not going to watch Cas and his brother die for it.
"You can't stay here forever," Cas says. "I can't keep you indefinitely."
If Dean had a mouth and breath he'd snort. "You make me sound like a pet."
Cas doesn't reply. He's serious, and Dean can see the futures Cas can see; where Dean is subsumed into Cas, broken apart until he is Cas. (Dean can think of worse fates.) He can see a future where Cas gives up Jimmy's body to Dean, and Dean can look on Cas's true form and hear his true voice with Jimmy's eyes and Jimmy's ears. (That would be pretty awesome, except where he and Sam never make it off the mountain alive.) There's a future where Cas tries to return summer, tries to banish the snow and the cold. (It kills him, and the snow-witch laughs.)
There's no future where Cas leaves them. Cas fights to keep Dean from seeing futures where Sam freezes to death in the snow, where Cas's brothers take the opportunity of his current weakness to come and cut his Grace out. Dean sees them anyway.
"You're quiet," Dean hears Sam say, and he sounds hoarse, tired, but close by.
"Dean is loud," Cas replies, and Sam laughs.
"Yeah," he agrees. "It can't be much fun having him inside you."
Dean's fairly sure Sam's finding this way too funny. He sees endless teasing in his future.
Cas says to Sam, "Dean believes you meant that to be innuendo."
Shit.
Sam laughs, and it's a good sound, even if it's a lot embarrassed, and Sam's teeth are chattering. "Um," is about all Sam manages to say.
And Dean is not thinking about Cas like that. Not here. Not ever. He ruthlessly suppresses the thought that Cas isn't bad looking, and that he's the best friend he's ever had, and maybe it would be cool to maybe touch him (when he has hands again) because fucking hell Cas can hear all of it.
Maybe Cas is distracted keeping Sam warm, sitting close beside him, arms pressed together, or maybe he's showing some never-before-seen discretion because Dean can't discern much of a reaction to the not-so-subtle images Dean can't seem to stop. This isn't the time, and it definitely isn't the place, even if Dean does wish, just a little, he could know what Cas would think about maybe doing that with him.
There's nothing like rejection though, and Dean wonders if Cas just doesn't know what to think about it because he's never actually done anything like that before.
In the real world, Cas is saying to Sam, "I think she's trying to kill you," and that gets Dean's attention.
Dean can feel Sam leaning heavily against Cas's arm. "She has no interest in you," Cas says. "Doing this, making ice and cold, is as simple as breathing for her."
"Why kill me? Why doesn't she want my life too, like she did Dean's?"
In Cas's head, Dean sees something that he thinks is memory, of places he's never seen and people he doesn't know. Some are dead, and some are living, and some of them are wearing stupid hats. There's deep snow. It buries housed with wide, tiled roofs, and Cas is looking down at the shrivelled, blue corpses of what was once a family. Except, Dean realises, it's not Cas looking down. This is the memory of another angel.
"She seeks out those with more years," Cas tells Sam.
"Dean's not that much older than me," Sam points out.
"Where the Lady of the Snow is concerned, his years in hell count."
Sam frowns, looking down at his gloved hands, rubbing them together. Dean knows that look.
Guilt.
Like any good Winchester, he changes the subject. "What are we going to do?" Sam asks. "We can't stay here forever."
Sam doesn't say, I'll die without you here, but both Cas and Dean hear it anyway. Even dampened through layers of angel, Dean can feel that the temperature is dropping fast. It's so cold now that breathing has become difficult. There's no way Sam isn't risking hypothermia sitting here.
"Rest a while," Cas says. "Eat, and drink. Then we will continue on."
Cas doesn't tell Sam that he doesn't know how to defeat the snow-witch. He doesn't tell Sam he's beginning to feel hunger and thirst too, and wants to lie down and sleep himself.
"There's a lot you don't tell us," Dean accuses.
Cas's silences are really starting to get old.
***
Sam sleeps and Cas never closes his eyes but the movement of his thoughts slow, and the voices of his brothers quiet to something almost soothing, like music in the background.
It doesn't make a difference that Dean hasn't got any muscles or limbs, he still aches from inaction. He's restless, but he tries to keep it to himself, not wanting to disturb Cas. Instead he watches with Cas's eyes, and listens with Cas's hearing, and learns that he can see outside the walls of the shack if he ignores the panels of wood and their lives. He can hear the sound of snow falling on snow, and he can sense that the sun is moving around the Earth somewhere above the thick, grey clouds that fill the sky. It's weird, but almost comforting.
Dean knows there are ghosts outside too, watching. With Cas resting, or whatever it is he's doing, something of his control slips and Dean can see them with more clarity. He can sense their anger and their hatred towards the living. They're cold. They only want to be warm, but they have no hope that they ever will be.
And as he rests, Cas is starting to feel the effects of the cold. He's started shivering, his breathing and his heart rate picking up. It doesn't help that he's given his coat and jacket to Sam. As soon as he's awake Dean is going to tell the idiot angel to put on the clothes in the pack he's carrying. Dean's jacket and sweater are in there. It's not like he's using them. Dean shies away from that thought, because he really doesn't want to think about what's happening to his body. If he'll even be able to go back to it once they find it.
It's then that there's a banging on the door that would make Dean jump if he had a body to move, and suddenly it’s like the night before all over again.
"Cas," Dean thinks. "Cas!"
He won't fall for that crap again. He won't let Sam or Cas either.
"I hear it," Cas says, sounding tired, but alert.
It's dark in the shelter where there's only one small window high up in the wall behind them, but with Cas's eyes Dean can see that Sam's awake and looking at him. Them.
"We salted the lines," Sam whispers, like it would make any difference. She knows they're here. She can smell their warmth.
"That will not keep her out for long," Cas says.
Cas stands up, and Dean doesn't miss the way his muscles protest the movement, aching and stiff from sitting for too long on the cold ground. He takes a knife from Dean's pack, and Dean doesn't like where he thinks this is going.
"Cas-" he says, warily.
To Cas's eyes, the knife blade is stained with the blood of hundreds of monsters and humans and animals. He can see them all die on its sharp edge. "There is no other way," he says, and draws the blade across his palm. It hurts, and Dean can feel the skin splitting open as the knife cuts through layers of muscle. He'd always thought that Cas didn't experience pain in the same way a human would, but somehow it's worse. This is feeling every single nerve that's cut, every inch of sharp blade pull at flesh, every torn blood vessel.
Dean can feel Cas's blood being pushed out of his body and as he watches it's red and isn't red. It is and isn't the blood of a human and an angel. It's life and it's Grace, curled together. A physical thing full of potential and oxygen and water and as it spills Dean feels ill because it's Cas draining himself of everything he is.
"It's just blood," he hears Cas tell him.
He wants to shout, "It isn't just blood. It fucking isn't," and is grimly satisfied when Cas recoils, able to hear it anyway.
"This will drive her away. It will save us. It will save Sam."
It's a low blow, because Cas has to know there's no way Dean can argue with that, so he settles for fuming, and is glad when it irritates Cas.
Cas paints symbols on the door Dean does and doesn't recognise. He reads (Cas writes), "Fuck off, bitch."
"That isn't what it says," Cas tells him, disapproving.
It might not be what it says, but it's what Dean understands. "I'm paraphrasing."
The lines of Cas's blood stretch like spider webs, reaching out across the walls, arching over them across the roof and down, spreading over the floor. Closing them in.
"What is this?" Dean asks, kind of awed by it. He can't look away, each thread shining a dulled silver, fragile but strong.
"Protection," Castiel replies, and the banging on the door stops abruptly when the threads meet and join on the other side of the room, completely enclosing them.
"How long will it last?" Sam asks. He's starting to trip over his sounds, his teeth clacking together so loudly it's getting difficult for him to speak. Cas knows Sam is too cold, and that they don't have long before it becomes a real problem. So Dean knows it too.
"Long enough," Cas answers vaguely, but he's thinking, "These wards could last for days. We will not."
"Cheery," Dean thinks.
To Sam, Cas says, "The sigil will drive the snow creature away. She will retreat to where she has made her home and this will give us time."
Time for what, Dean isn't sure, and neither is Cas.
"We will rest." Cas sits down next to Sam and wraps an arm around Sam's shoulders, pushing what heat he can spare into him. Blood still runs freely from Cas's palm so Cas curls his fingers into a fist. The pull of skin stings. "Another hour and then we continue on."
Leaning heavily against Cas's side, Sam nods.