Chapter Text
Purgatory was bloody. Messy. Thirty-one flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties. Hell, most days felt like 360-degree combat.
That’s how Dean had described purgatory to Sam when he first came back from it. And it was an accurate description. Yes, most days did feel like 360-degree combat. But not all days. Sometimes there would be moments, few and far apart, where he, Benny, and Cass could stop. When by some miracle there was nothing after them, and they could just rest for a few hours. If they were lucky, these moments of peace would last almost an entire day. And they were not all bad. Sure, it was still dirty, and bloody and terrifying, but some of those memories had a certain sense of warmth.
The first time they caught a break, none of them could actually believe it. They had been fighting non-stop since they had found Cas, and couldn't let their guard down even after almost an hour without hearing or encountering anything. As they made their progress through the woods in peace, Benny started to slow their pace, until they eventually stopped at a clearing. The three of them were still on edge, arms at hand and looking over their shoulders constantly, but Dean was also so tired he didn't even question Benny's decision to stop.
The vampire was the first one to let go of his blade and sit down, getting as far as closing his eyes for a bit. Dean followed, although he did not let go of the blade he was caring nor closed his eyes, simply sat and relaxed his muscles for a second. Cas didn’t sit down at all. He was in full “guardian-angel” mode – back straight, sober expression and eyes clear and focused – and didn't seem willing to do anything other than keep watch over them. Dean was aware angel didn’t need sleep (neither of them did in purgatory, actually), but seeing Cas all tensed up like that was making him uneasy for some reason.
“Cas, come on dude. Sit down for a second, will you?” Cas lowered his eyes to him for a second but ignored the request completely. Dean took a deep, patient breath. “You will hear them if they come any closer and then we can carry on with our daily massacre, but I will go crazy if I don’t sit down and rest for like five minutes, you hear me?”
“When I wasn't carrying two monster magnets with me, I would catch a few peaceful days now and then.”, Benny grumbled. "Simpler times..."
"Hey, you chose to use the monster magnets as a free ride home, remember pal?" retorted Dean, turning his back to Cas and facing the vampire, who had laid his head against a fallen tree trunk.
"Oh, I'm not complaining, brother" Benny flashed him a cunning smile and pulled his cap over his eyes. His arms were crossed over his body, and he looked almost too relaxed, given their current situation. “Just saying Purgatory is a big place. I’m sure even with the two of you calling out for every single monster around us we might be able to catch a couple of hours of tranquility”.
“See?" Dean turned to Cas again and pointed at Benny. "Even Twilight here agrees”
“What do you mean by twilight?” asked the vampire, without raising the cap off his eyes. Dean sighed. Between the angel and the vampire who had been dead for decades, his pop culture references were probably a foreign dialect.
“My point is..." he continued, ignoring Benny's question. "You can rest for a moment, Cas”
“I don’t need rest, Dean”, the angel answered, in his usual flat tone. Since they had found him by the river, Dean had seen rare glimpses of emotion from Castiel. The angel seemed anxious, worried, and kind of sad, most of the time. But when he talked in this low, emotionless voice, he was more “angel of the lord” than anything else. It was not a bad thing, since the Castiel who watched bees and played twister wouldn’t be of much use right now, but it also worried Dean, because this Cas was much harder to read.
“Well, I do”, he finally answered, probably sounding as tired as he actually felt.
“Then I’ll watch over you”. Dean rolled his eyes. This argument was taking precious seconds away from their monster-free time.
“You can do this while sitting down, Cas”. Without thinking too much about it, Dean grabbed Cas by the sleeve and pulled him down. He was obviously not strong enough to actually pull the angel to the ground, but Cas sat, maybe as a sign of truce. He was still unquiet and tense, overall uncomfortable, but this was Cas. When wasn't he acting uncomfortable? When Dean had the angel sitting at his side, he let off a small sigh and petted Cas’s on the leg. “See? That wasn’t so hard”.
Cas gave him a look of utter annoyance, which Dean thought was very human of him, and turned back to stare at where they had come through like a guard dog. Dean figured that was the best he would get from Cas in terms of decompression, so he mirrored Benny and allowed himself to lie down, but kept his knife at hand. Since sleep wasn’t a physiological necessity in Purgatory, he had a hard time doing so. He could close his eyes and almost doze off for a few minutes but would eventually open them again and find himself staring at Cas’s back. The angel didn’t move a muscle.
Dean was relieved that Cas was lucid again, but there was still something wrong. He could feel it. Maybe the angel still felt guilty about the Leviathan and the casualties he caused during his brief time as God, or the damage he inflicted on Sam... Dean couldn’t blame him for not being able to get rid of that feeling. Cas had screwed up. Big time. But right now neither of them had the time nor the energy to unpack all of that baggage, so Dean made a mental note to talk to Cas about all of that when they got home and could sit somewhere quiet, just the two of them. Then maybe he could actually convince Cas that it hadn’t been his fault. Well, technically it had been, but the angel meant well at the time. He was only trying to help, and now that Sam was ok and the Leviathan were back in purgatory. That was all that mattered.
After some time of a much-appreciated silence, Benny turned his head to them and raised his hat from his eyes “So…", The vampire started, in an unusual conversation tone "What’s your story?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Dean raised his head and looked at him with his eyes wide open, genuinely shocked by the question. Their relationship was not based on personal questions, and that had come out of absolutely nowhere. He stared at Benny, but the vampire had lowered the cap over his eyes again
“I mean, I got the basics” Benny gesticulated vagally towards Dean and Cas. “Angel, hunter, Leviathan, blah blah blah. But how does a hunter become friends with an angel in the first place? I’m not religious or anything, but as far as I can tell, they are some powerful bastards. No offense, Castiel".
"None taken", Cas answered, sounding so distracted that Dean was surprised he had actually listened to what Benny had said. Though of course, Castiel was always listening to everything.
"Anyway, I've seen what those fuckers can do. But your angel over here?” Benny gave Cas a side look from underneath the cap. “He lets you pet him”
“I don’t pet him” Dean grouched, sounding more defensive than he actually intended to.
“You do pet me constantly since you found me here” Cas muttered, absentmindedly, and Dean had to resist the urge to turned around to kick him. “You didn’t use to do it as much, but here you…”
“Cas, shut up!” Dean averted, trying not to look directly at the angel. Benny didn’t even try to conceal his laughter.
“So... how did this happen?” Dean felt the urge to punch someone turning from Cas to Benny, but all he did was roll his eyes and ignore the vampire once again. They hadn’t had any backstory expositions until this point, and they weren’t about to start having them now.
“I raised him out of Hell” Cas answered before Dean could even think about something to change the subject. “And then he convinced me to betray Heaven”.
“And I assume you listened to him?” Benny looked more interested than he should, and Dean realized he was done with that whole conversation.
“Yes. I did”. Cas went silent after that, and thankfully, Benny didn’t ask anything else. It was better that way, Dean thought to himself. He didn’t plan on staying in Purgatory much longer, and the less he befriended the vampire, the better. Still, it was good to see Cas taking part in any form of normal interaction.
Unconsciously, Dean moved one hand to his shoulder, where there was a fading handprint on his skin. The mark Cas had left on him when he raised him from hell. God, how long was that? Four years now? The angel was so different back then, every inch of him a righteous soldier, extremely obnoxious and not very pleasant to be around. Nothing like the guy who had crashed the impala naked and covered in bees a few months back. Truth is, Dean secretly liked both versions of Cas: the warrior and the nutjob. But neither of them was his favorite. His favorite was the Castiel who had zapped him out of the green room after shoving Zacharia God knows where, the one who turned his back on heaven for him, who had thrown him against a wall and beaten the shit out of him when he thought about surrendering to Michael. The Castiel who had shown up at a very surprised prophet’s house and said: "We are making it up as we go”. Looking back on those memories, Dean decided that was the exact moment he realized just how much he liked Cas, and how thankful he was for having him by his side. Their relationship had gone through many ups and downs (mostly downs) over the past year, with the whole business with Crowly and souls, then with Sam... Dean suddenly realized he hadn’t told Cas how much he was grateful for having him back. Not properly, anyway.
At this point, however, he wasn’t even sure Cas would listen if he told him something like that. The angel’s head seemed to be miles away ever since they had found him by the river, and the truth is: after Dean convinced Cas to join him and Benny, they had barely spoken. Of course, it was difficult to have a real conversation when you’re too busy trying to survive every second of every day, so it wasn't exactly their fault. Still, there was too much left unsaid, as usual, and he didn't like that.
Even though nothing bad happened while they rested, the three of them remained cautious. After about thirty minutes of rest, Benny rose and told them to keep moving. They were still not being followed, but neither of them felt very comfortable just lying there, waiting for something to get to them. Still, they moved at a slower pace than usual, which was good after almost three months of running practically all the time.
At some point they had fallen into a comfortable formation – Benny at the front, guiding the way, Dean in the middle, and Cas behind them, guarding their backs – and unconsciously kept at that. All things considered, they made a decent team. Dean was used to fighting with someone else by his side ever since he could remember, and Benny and Cas did not let him down. Each of them was a skilled fighter on their own, and Cass and Dean had some practice fighting together. He wasn’t sure if Benny was used to fighting with a team or if the vampire was just a fast learner, but the three of them had quickly fallen into a comfortable dynamic, each knowing their place during a fight without much more than a glace from the other. He felt almost as comfortable fighting with them as he did with Sam. Almost.
Of course, he trusted Sam to guard his back as he would never trust another soul, not even Cas. When he had his brother with him, Dean didn't even glance over his shoulder during a fight, since he knew Sam was there guarding his rear. It wasn't something he allowed himself to do when fighting alongside other people.
With Benny and Cas, he would keep an eye on what was going on behind him, but mostly he would keep his focus on the enemy at hand and rely on the two of them to take care of the rest. It was not blind trust, like what he had with Sam, but it was pretty damn close. Cas was particularly useful against almost anything other than Leviathan, which meant he made up for the attention he drew by eviscerating almost everything he attracted. Benny would never admit it out loud, but Dean had a feeling he was not as annoyed by Cas's presence as he would like them to believe. Dean couldn’t blame him. Cas had that effect on people.
At that moment, walking calmly with one of them in front of him and the other at his back, Dean figured his situation was far from ideal, but it certainly could have been worse.