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The land calls out to him, hums softly under his feet like someone tapping a drum beat on the sole of his shoes. Go. Go now. Go fast. Don’t wait. Don’t think. Dean looks over at Sam on the laptop, haggard and intent while trying to find their next break. They’ve been in this makeshift little shed Bobby built further out on the land for nearly a week. Their new ramshackle home base. They’re under wards — so many wards that Dean can’t remember them all, just where he shouldn’t tread.
“I gotta get some air,” he says, clearing his throat to iron out the emotion in his voice. “I’m taking the Impala.” Sam nods, gestures vaguely toward where Bobby keeps the hex bags by the door. Rolling his eyes, he pockets one as leaves, stepping carefully over the line of salt across the threshold. He can hear Bobby snoring even after he closes the door.
It’s louder outside — impossibly loud, his heart joining the percussive thump all around him. It feels like panic and adrenaline giving birth to some sort of speed-infused lovechild in his chest. He closes the door to the Impala behind him, rests his forehead against the steering wheel and tries to get a grip. It feels part panic attack, part caffeine high — but he cannot sit still, he needs go- go- go- get going now.
When the Impala rumbles to life below him, a little worse for the week of neglect; it doesn’t drown out the ambient noise of the world’s heartbeat in his ears. He’s going without knowing the place, even though he knows exactly the place. It’s like running on autopilot and it terrifies him.
It’s that lab, that fucking lab. Dean stops in front of the building, letting the engine idle as he stares at what used to be the lab.
What’s now a tree bursting out the center of the roof, building detritus surrounding where the trunk broke the roof, where a branch busted a window. The doors are flung open, and there are people gathered on the grass. People with lit candles, with rosaries and crosses and prayer rugs. He wants to tell them to find a better use of their time, but instead he stops the car, gets out, and walks into the building. Follows the trail of autumn leaves that blow through the halls on a breeze that doesn’t exist.
There’s the trunk of the tree, right where Castiel fell dead after giving up almost all those souls. The leaves make a sort of carpet, they crunch and slide underfoot, and Dean can’t look away, can barely hear over the hammering of his heart.
Castiel is leaning haggard against the trunk of the tree. He’s wan, naked, asleep with his head lolling to the side — but his chest rises and falls with each breath. He’s littered with large leaves, orange and red and brown as they rest in his lap and over his shoulders. Dean kneels close, reaches out to give Castiel one firm shake by the shoulder.
His eyes fly open, his breath a sharp and shuttering gasp as he flails frantically before his eyes focus on Dean. He blinks owlishly, and finally asks, “Did you — ?”
“No.” Dean bows his head, but the words I’m sorry are too hard to get out, too stubborn even in the face of his wildest dreams. “What — “
But Castiel tilts his head, looks at himself, touches the trunk of the tree before nodding slightly. His voice is hoarse from disuse. “This is where my grace fell. I was forced out and — ” He shivers, pulls his arms close to his chest.
“Your mojo is in there? Like Anna’s?”
“Yes,” Castiel says again. He reaches out to Dean, braces one hand flat against Dean’s chest like he’s feeling for an anchor. The hammering stops. The world seems to fall quiet, finally. The sudden peace is scarier than anything else. Castiel places the other hand on his own chest, then nods as though it settles something.
“You gonna tell me what the hell is going on this time? Are you something worse now? Because goddamn it, I cannot take one more — “
“I’m nothing,” Castiel says, quickly and quietly but not with remorse. “I was briefly a god, their god — and they believed. They came to the place I fell and believed. It doesn’t make me anything but alive.”
“You’re not — ” They don’t move for a long time, and finally Dean pulls himself away, pushes himself to his feet and feels for the knife strapped to one ankle. “C’mon, let’s get your mojo out of here and get you — "
“Let’s not.” Castiel tries to smile, but he just looks sick. “Let it rest. I’ll sustain myself.”
Dean nods, reaches out to help Castiel stand. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here, then. I’ve got your coat in the car.”