Work Text:
November 2 nd 1983 - undisclosed U.S. government facility
In a small room, nine monitors line a wall, each showing different hallways in grainy black-and-white images and switching between different cameras. The security guard on duty has his feet propped up on the desk and reads a newspaper instead of looking at the monitors. He doesn’t even notice the man with salt-and-pepper hair and beard running away down one of the white corridors in panic. Nor does he notice the flickering lights that seem to chase said man. The image on the monitor is grainy, but the fear on the man’s face is clear as he keeps checking over his shoulder to see if his chaser is closing in. The white lab coat is flapping behind him and when he turns around a corner, another monitor shows that he is close to the elevator. Before he can reach it though, he stumbles and falls - and before he can get up again, something grabs his ankle and drags him back around the corner.
The guard flips the page and takes a sip of his coffee without noticing the man’s lost battle.
A few miles away in the city of Lawrence, Kansas, Dean Winchester and his friends, Charlie Bradbury, Jo Harvelle, and Victor Henriksen, sit around the table in the basement of Dean’s parents’ house. On the table they have a map of a fictional land and all across the board, pieces of different species are sitting, waiting for their next move. Dean wears his handmaiden uniform, because even if he’s the game master this time, he loves making Charlie happy with this silly little getup and it’s their rule to always have the backup character at the table as well. They switch around who leads often enough and it just makes more sense for everyone to have a character to play.
Charlie sits to his left wearing her red cloak and crown along with the most excited grin on her face of the last ten hours.
“What do you want us to do, your Royal Highness?” Victor addresses Charlie by her character’s title, because they all know it is more fun this way. He wears his cardboard armor over his t-shirt and uses his guard voice.
“We shall walk through Arkhmoor and join forces with the fairies. Their forest is in danger of the Leviathans, too. So they should be willing to -”
Before she can finish her sentence, Mary calls down the stairs “Kids? You need to wrap it up. It’s late and you’ve been at it for ten hours.”
Not willing to risk it, none of them make a fuss. Dean helps them pack up, puts an extra lollipop in Charlie’s backpack, because he knows his friend has a sweet tooth, and then he walks them to the front of the house.
“Don’t get lost in the forest. The fairies might take you,” he jokes with them.
“As if,” Jo replies. “Arkhmoor is safe here. It’s boring. The most exciting thing that’s ever happened there was probably when they built the quarry behind our house.”
“You might be right about that,” Dean grins.
On her ride home, Jo rides through Arkhmoor. These woods are always a little frightening, but something feels different today, so when a humanoid figure appears in the middle of the road, Jo shrieks. Frightened, she ditches her bike on the side of the road. She can see her house already and hopes she’ll be safe there. Her mom keeps a sawed off shotgun in the closet and Jo knows how to use it.
Before she can get to it though, she gets caught and vanishes.
Dean and his friends meet the next day after each of them is interviewed by their parents if they know about Jo’s whereabouts. Since none of them know anything and the adults don’t seem to have a clue either, they decide to investigate on their own. Following the road through the forest they notice a few broken branches where Jo must have rushed through the slim pathway.
“Guys?” Charlie calls out to them from a little further ahead. When Dean and Victor catch up to her, Dean immediately knows why she called.
“Those look like devil’s fingers. I’ve never seen them in black though. They’re usually red and a lot smaller,” Dean tells them what he remembers from the book about fungi Sam made him read to him when the words were still a little too difficult for his little brother to understand.
“What are they doing here though?” Victor asks the million dollar question. When Dean and Charlie only shrug in response, the friends decide to look for further clues. With Jo’s home to their back, because there was just nothing more to find, they walk across the street passing by the spot where Jo’s bike must have been all night long before Ellen found it. There are more of those black devil’s fingers.
“It looks like something came from that direction. There is almost like a trail of those big egg shaped mushrooms. Some of them are as big as a fist and a lot of them already have those black tentacles sticking out,” Dean says.
He and the others follow the black mushrooms through the woods for a while. The further away from Jo’s house they get, the bigger the clusters of black eggs and sticky residue also get. A few times they spot other houses through openings between the trees, but nothing catches their interest — until a dark haired boy comes running through the trees from the direction of the diner. He crashes right into Dean because he was looking over his shoulder, as if he was trying to see if he was chased.
“Oof!” The air is knocked out of Dean as he hits the ground. The boy’s head turns to Dean and Dean locks eyes with the bluest blue he has ever seen before.
Before Dean can say anything else, the boy is back on his feet and ready to run again, but when he spots Victor and Charlie standing on either side, and Dean to his front with his hands raised in a non-threatening manner, the boy calms a little. His breathing is back to normal already and when he tilts his head to the side, Dean takes that as his cue to speak.
“I’m Dean and these are my friends, Victor and Charlie. What’s your name?” While Dean waits for an answer, he takes in the boy’s clothes — a hospital gown and no shoes. This seems like a bad idea on a good day and a horrible one in November. “You know what? Doesn’t matter now. We gotta get you some place warm first.”
Dean takes off his jacket and puts it around the boy. Charlie and Victor look around trying to find any sign of where he might have come from. Since there is not a single hint, they follow their friend and his foundling out of the woods.
Since it is already late when they make their way back home, Dean shows the boy the basement and hands him a bundle of his spare clothes.
“Thanks,” the boy tentatively replies.
When he starts undressing right in front of them, Charlie shrieks. “Wait, man. There’s a bathroom over there. You can change in there.”
Dean leads him to the door in a corner, but when he tries to close the door, the boy looks frightened and holds it open with his hand. Placatingly Dean raises his hands and suggests leaving it open just a bit and the kid agrees to this compromise.
As Dean returns to his friends, Charlie and Victor are wildly speculating already where a kid might have escaped from in this weather and getup. “He probably ran away from a mental hospital,” Victor says.
Charlie is much more into conspiratory theories though, so she counters, “Maybe he ran away from a secret lab where they experimented on him.”
“Who would experiment on kids?” Dean asks.
“The government,” Charlie replies nonplussed.
“The government? Do you even hear yourself, Charles?” Victor almost vibrates with suspicion. Before the argument goes any further, the bathroom door opens again and when the boy stands in the room looking lost, Dean waves him over to the sofa.“Do you feel better in real clothes now?” Victor inquires. The boy nods.
From upstairs, Mary yells, “Time to go home everyone. It’s late!” So Charlie and Victor wave goodbye before rushing up the stairs.
Dean stays on the couch with his new friend. “What’s your name?” he asks. Shyly the boy glances around, before pulling the sleeve of his sweater up enough to reveal a tattoo just above his wrist. “C45? What does this mean? And who the hell tattooed you?” His outburst scares the other boy and Dean takes a deep breath to calm himself. “I’m sorry. Let me start over. Is there a name I can call you? If not, I think the tattoo kinda looks like the letters C A S. The way the letter and numbers look together reminds me of the way Charlie sometimes likes to write down codes when she wants to be secretive. And I’d call you Cas if that’s okay with you?” When he gets a nod in response, Dean beams a smile at the dark haired boy. “Hiya Cas. I’m Dean, as you know by now. Since it’s already late, do you want to sleep on the sofa?”
Cas looks at him with his eyes wide open. “I - I don’t feel safe in the open. Bad people are after me!”
“Don’t worry. I have an idea.” Thinking on the spot is one of Dean’s strengths as his friends like to remind him and this is no exception. He grabs all the blankets and pillows he can find, and makes a fort with the table as the roof. The blankets shield the inside from views and the cushions make it as comfortable as the couch, if not more.
Astonished, Cas looks at it, as his hands glide over the top. “Thank you, Dean.”
“No problem, man. Go on, get in there. I’m gonna grab you a flashlight so you don’t have to sit in the dark and then we can talk some more, if you want. Or you can tell me to leave you alone so you can sleep. I swear I’m not gonna be offended.” The warm smile he shoots at Cas clearly works to melt away some of the nerves, because Cas cozies up in the fort in no time.
When Dean returns with the light, Cas asks him to stay just a little while longer, so Dean sits down next to him under the table.
The next morning Dean sneaks an extra pancake from breakfast down to Cas along with an apple and a PB and J.
“I didn’t know what you liked, so I brought you some of everything.”
Cas’s eyes roam over the display of food before he starts with the pancake. Just when he has swallowed the last bite of the apple, the basement door opens and from upstairs they can hear Charlie and Victor say, “Thank you for the pancakes Mrs. Winchester!”
They appear a few seconds later with a plate each and proudly hold their bounty out towards Cas like they were successful hunters bringing food to someone left behind.
Charlie is the first to notice the apple in Cas’s hand and when she deflates, her, “Oh man. And here I thought I was sneaky for getting your mom to give us some extra food,” makings the group giggle.
Dean takes it upon himself to introduce Cas to them, so they have a name to call him, and when Charlie asks why Cas, Dean makes Cas show the two his tattoo. Synchronized gasps from his friends tell him they think the same thing he did last night when he saw it the first time and when Charlie blurts, “Who would tattoo a kid?” he is certain.
Victor is still looking at the tattoo. “C45. Do you know what it means?”
Cas shakes his head. “Momma called me C when she talked to me. And nobody else ever spoke to me. I once heard her talk to another doctor about the clairvoyance project, but I have no idea what they meant by that.”
Charlie and Victor murmur “Momma?” at each other, and Dean latches onto that, because it is the least confusing bit of information in that whole sentence. “Who is this ‘Momma’? Is that your mom?”
“No. I just call her that. She’s a doctor at the facility. She makes me do mean things. But she’s the only one I have known all my life.”A shudder runs through him as if a bad memory resurfaced and when he speaks next, his voice sounds small and frightened. “She was trying to get me back to open another portal. But after the last time and what came through, I really don’t want to risk that anymore.”
“The last time?” Victor sounds suspicious.
Dean and Charlie flank Cas to show support, because his distress is clearly showing. “I don’t want to go back there. But they’re trying to catch me. Please don’t let them get me.” Watery eyes turn to Dean. Dean promises. Of course he does. What else can he do? He promises to fight for Cas’s safety with every ounce of strength he has.
After Cas calms down a little more, he starts talking about the facility. Cas is shaking.
“It’s okay, Cas. We’ll help you. Can you maybe help us, too? Our friend, Jo, is missing and nobody knows what happened to her or where she is.”
Blue eyes focus on Dean and the piercing gaze makes Dean feel more vulnerable than he ever felt before.“Your friend is in The Bad Place. The one I accidentally opened when Momma made me try to use my powers.”
The friends look at each other, having a whole conversation without exchanging a single word. All of this sounds like one of their comics and none of them believes any of it. But on the other hand there is no other explanation for the current events.
When Cas spots the Moondoor board still on the table, he walks over there and his finger points at the dark side. “That looks like The Bad Place.”
“Purgatory?” Dean is confused but at the same time it gives him hope to have a grasp at understanding of where Jo is.
“Is that what you call it? Purgatory - yeah. Sounds dark enough. What do you call this one?” He points at the figurine of the Leviathan. “It looks like one of the monsters from the bad place. They are hunting for your friend over there.” Charlie gasps at that and Cas turns to her. “Don’t worry. Your friend is actually really good at hiding and she found someone else over there who’s taking care of her right now.”
“None of this makes sense, Cas,” Victor interjects. “Why would someone be in Purgatory and why on Earth would monsters try to kill Jo?”
Dean can’t fault Vic for being upset at Cas about any of this, but at the same time, Cas has been nothing but forthcoming with all the help and information he had. From upstairs they can hear the phone ring and Mary picks up. A few moments later they overhear Mary saying, “The LaFitte boy went missing just like Jo.”
Dean looks at Charlie and Victor in disbelief. “Benny is a Quarterback. He’s not as easy to take as Jo. What’s going on here?”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Victor grumbles from his spot on the chair. He positioned himself as far from Cas as he could without it being too obvious. “Why do people suddenly go missing when he shows up? And what’s with all the weird mushrooms all over town?”
“Oh yeah, we meant to tell you: when we came here, we saw more of those weird devil’s fingers we spotted in the forest yesterday,” Charlie chimes in from next to Cas.
The boy’s eyes widen at the mention of the mushrooms. “Are they those egg-shaped things with the black tendrils sticking out?”
The group around him nods and Cas pulls his legs up to his chest, wraps his arms around his knees, and starts rocking back and forth slightly, mumbling under his breath.
Dean is the one to break him out of his stupor with a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Cas? Do you know what they are? And what do they mean?”
Cas lifts his head and focuses on Dean’s face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to do it, but I think it is my fault that your friend is missing and the evil things have left Purgatory. Those mushrooms are from that place. I saw them before, when Momma made me teleport the first time. They grow there when one of them dies. They also appeared all around the portal that accidentally opened up in the facility.”
Vic and Charlie interrupt him. “You’ve been to Purgatory before? How?”
Victor squints at Cas skeptically while Charlie blurts out “What powers do you have?”
Cas shrugs a little. “I’ve been able to sometimes hear people’s thoughts - or prayers. When Momma wanted an experiment to really work, I’d be able to hear her voice in my head. It freaked me out the first time to be honest, but it also warned me ahead of time when she was on her way just before my escape. ‘Let’s hope, C is still in his cell and will open the portal for us.’ Momma sounded excited but also nervous. I wanted so badly to be out of the place, that a split second later I was outside. I have no idea how I did it though.”
Charlie looks at him as if he’s grown a second head. “You can teleport? That’s so cool!”
“What else can you do?” Victor asks. “We’ve got mindreading and teleportation.”
Dean keeps his eyes on Cas instead of flattening Vic with a look like he wants to. “Cas? Do you have anything in your repertoire that could help us actually find Jo and get her back?”
“I think so, Dean. If we get close to where she is in Purgatory, I can try to pull her over here again. But I’d need some help with that. I’ve never done that without a sensory deprivation tank. And I really don’t want to go back to the lab to use theirs.”
“A what?” Victor and Dean say in unison.
“A sensory deprivation tank,” Charlie says. She turns to Cas and goes on “Would a bathtub or kiddie pool filled with saltwater work for that? Something we could put a big board over to remove visual stimulation?” Cas nods along.
So they make their way to the school since they are convinced that will be their best chance at an uninterrupted room on a Saturday. Along the way they pass by Jo’s house and Dean can see Christmas lights through a window. Ellen must have decorated early.
A line of emergency vehicles cuts them off at the next intersection.
“What’s going on there? Should we go check it out?” Victor asks the group.
“Nah. We gotta keep going. Can’t be Jo anyway. Cas is certain she’s in Purgatory and he has no reason to lie to us,” Dean replies.
“Sure. Because it’s more reasonable that another dimension exists than that our friend got into real trouble in the real world,” Victor spews at his friend. “I’m gonna go check it out, but you can keep going.”
Charlie looks torn between her friends. In the end though, she decides to go to the school with Dean and Cas. “Vic knows where to find us. I just hope he’s safe alone on his way through Arkhmoor.”
At the school, Charlie drags an old kiddie pool from a storage cupboard in the gym. “They used to use this as some kind of ball pit, I think. Let’s start filling it up.”
Half an hour later they have it filled enough so Cas will be able to float. “I found this in the janitor’s closet,” Victor comes in through the doors dragging a bag of salt behind him. “I’m sorry for doubting you, Cas.”
He holds his hand out in apology and Cas shakes it. “No harm done.”
“So? What happened?” Dean asks while he empties the salt into the water.
“The fire department had to help drag a body out of the quarry down behind the Harvelle’s house and people thought it was Jo. But as soon as Ellen saw it, she cried in relief telling everyone this couldn’t be her kid. I only caught a glimpse but I have to agree. That looked like someone tried to create a body to look like Jo, but only had the vaguest idea of how a human looked.” He shakes his whole body as he remembers the features. “All the proportions were off. And there were so many teeth.”
Cas blanches.
“Cas?” Charlie is over him in an instant. “Are you okay?”
“I - I’m so sorry! I’m sorry for bringing them into this realm.” Cas is full on sobbing now, sinking to the floor. “Momma forced me to contact the Leviathans. She was convinced she could trade with them and learn something from them.”
Dean kneels down before his new friend. “Hey. It’s not your fault. You’re a kid. Just like all of us. I have no idea what they did to you in that lab, but I hope they all pay for it!” He awkwardly hugs Cas and when the sobs slowly die down, the three of them get up off the ground again.
Victor stands there, watching a little embarrassed. “Cas? It’s not on you. Like Dean said, we don’t know half of what you went through. Do I wish we wouldn’t have to deal with monsters right now? You bet. But I’m glad we have you on our side. Because you’re the one who got them here and you’re the one with the power to send them back where they belong.”
In a blur, Charlie rushes to Vic to embrace him tightly. “I know how hard it is for you, and I’m proud I got to witness you like this,” she says, trying to whisper, but missing the mark by a mile in the empty gym.
Cas decides to break the awkward moment by getting undressed to his underwear and climbing into the pool. Dean looks at him encouragingly while he holds a mat to put over the top. “You got this, Cas. I believe in you!” With soft smiles they nod at each other and Dean closes the lid.
Inside the tank Cas is drifting. His mind needs to be empty first before he can focus on the place he needs to go. Unlike the last time, he now has a reason to actually do it. And to do it for something good. Momma - no, he needs to stop calling her that, she never behaved like that - Doctor Shurley only wanted to use it for bad things. She only wanted to use him for bad things. With his new friends, everything feels different. Especially with Dean. The boy seems to glow from inside. And Cas really likes it.
He shakes his head slightly. ‘This isn’t an empty mind,’ he reprimands himself.
After a few minutes of deep breathing he can feel his mind opening up. Now he is zoning in on the bad place. It helps him to focus on the positive energy of Dean’s friend. In such a dark place, any bit of light shines bright.
He can see her hiding in a makeshift fort under a table in some kind of classroom. There’s a boy with her that seems to be a few years older. That must be Benny. Before he can push a portal through to them to get them out, he feels himself being pulled back. Someone is pulling him out of the water and it takes him a few blinks before he realizes it’s Dean talking to him in a hushed voice.
“Sorry, Cas. Someone is on their way here. Vic was keeping watch out the window and saw a bunch of dark SUVs pull up in front of the school and people with guns jumped out.”
“Oh no. How did they find us?” Cas looks spooked.
“No idea,” Charlie whispers from her hiding spot behind the balls.
“There was a lady in a white doctor’s coat with a tight bun and a strange device in her hands,” Victor recalls.
“That’s Doctor Shurley! She’s the one who experimented on me.” Cas shows anger on his face for the first time and Dean can see a spark in his eyes that wasn’t there before. It’s almost like his eyes are glowing. But that doesn’t make any sense.
When the doors to the gym burst open, the kids flinch. They can hear high heels clicking on the floor and heavy boots stomping around the perimeter.
A voice that sounds sweet like a honeytrap calls out, “We know you’re here, C. Come out now and go home with me.”
Dean can feel Cas shaking next to him. But it doesn’t look like he’s afraid. The look he gives Dean before turning around is pure determination and holding back strength.
“No!” Cas’s voice booms through the whole gym. Dean peeks around the corner and sees Cas walking upright to face the armed people.
Doctor Shurley looks like she bit into a bitter lemon and her voice turns sour when she speaks next. “No? Who do you think you are? You are surrounded, and you will be coming with us!”
The air around Cas seems to vibrate and it almost looks like Cas has - wings? Next to him Dean can hear Charlie and Victor gasp, so it can’t be just his imagination. The gasp also runs around the armed guards who clearly didn’t expect this either. Only Doctor Shurley seems unfazed.
“What are you gonna do? Are you giving us a lightshow now?” she sneers.
In a gust of wind, Cas lifts up off the floor. His wings keep him afloat with steady beats and electricity seems to run through his whole body. Before anyone can move, a bolt of lightning moves from Cas through the crowd and all weapons fall to the ground as they melt into puddles.
Doctor Shurley nods impressed. “That’s a new one, C. Didn’t think you had it in you to surprise me anymore. I’m glad to see you prove me wrong. Now stop the games and come with us.”
Dean can see a glint in Cas’s eyes that tells him he still has some ace up his sleeve. So when he watches Cas land and the wings disappear again, he holds his breath to see what happens next. But before Cas can do anything else, the ground shakes and one of the walls seems to turn into liquid.
Cas knows what will happen now. He has seen this before. The wall stops reshaping and where it was just solid a few seconds ago, it now has a hole bigger than a door and the other side of it looks nothing like the gym locker room they came in through earlier.
The air on the other side seems almost gray and the borders of the portal are covered in tendrils of black devil’s fingers.
Through it walks a creature that looks human, but Cas knows that is more like a costume than its actual shape. And the voice it uses is nothing like the man it impersonates ever sounded like.
Doctor Shurley immediately starts talking to it as though they are old friends. “Hello Marv.” She raises her hand before the creature can reply. “I know that is not your name, but the body you’re mimicking was that of a colleague. So if it’s okay with you, I’ll call you that?”
The gray hair on the figure’s head wobbles in the air as it nods its agreement.
In his peripheral vision, Cas notices that the guards are slowly retreating and making their way towards the door. Before any of them can leave though, more Leviathans enter from there and start eating the guards.
Cas feels his stomach turn at the sight, but he knows he has to protect his friends. When he feels a hand on his bicep trying to hold him, he looks at Doctor Shurley in shock.
“You are not going anywhere,” she says sweetly. “You are my ticket out of here.”
“I don’t think so,” Cas replies. And when he pushes his hand against her forehead, she falls to the floor - still breathing but unable to make him a pawn in her games for any longer.
Dean watches in stunned silence as the doctor falls, but when he sees her chest still rising and falling, he knows she’s only sleeping. “Remind me to never make him mad,” he says to his friends.
While the Leviathans and guards are still fighting, Cas manages to run back to the group. A little out of breath he hugs them all. “I have never tried this before, but I need to get you all out of here.”
Dean can hear the flapping of wings and feels his head spin and his insides ready to burst. When he opens his eyes again, Charlie and Victor look at him with the same feeling of unease at the experience. “What - what was that, Cas?” Dean gulps air into his lungs as if he hasn’t taken a deep breath in minutes.
“Duh,” Charlie says from next to him. “He just teleported us out of trouble.”
A slight blush colors Cas’s cheeks. “Actually I flew you all out of there. Sorry for the unease. It’ll pass in a day.”
“Beats getting eaten,” Vic replies dryly.
The preteens chuckle at that.
Looking around, Dean realizes Cas flew them to the chemistry lab. “Uh - Cas? Is there a particular reason why you brought us here?”
“This looks like the less bleak version of the place Jo and Benny are hiding in Purgatory in. This will make it faster to get them out since I don’t have to shift locations, only dimensions.” He glances at the group. “Do you think you will be able to keep the room barricaded while I’m - doing that?”
Charlie chuckles. “You know you’re in smart company, right? Dean here doesn’t like to brag, but he’s very inventive when he wants something. I watched him build a radio once without any instructions and just using scrap pieces from the trash.”
Dean gently pushes Charlie for that before ruffling through her hair. “We’ll keep you safe, Cas. Just get Jo back.”
Cas sits down under the table he thinks might be the one Jo and Benny are under in Purgatory and starts meditating. Meanwhile Victor and Dean barricade the doors while Charlie rummages through the cupboards and takes out all the chemicals that look promising.
Dean looks out the windows every few seconds hoping nobody finds them. Minutes pass with nothing happening. From his spot, he has a clear view of Cas under the desk. It’s putting him in a trance watching Cas breathe so slow. With a flutter and a light breeze, Cas is suddenly gone. Before he is back though, Leviathans are at the doors. The wood doesn’t stand a chance and Victor takes his slingshot out of his pocket to start shooting rocks at them.
Charlie has a little more luck with her chemical approach. At the same time Charlie sprays a clear liquid at one of them, Victor shoots a crystal at another one. Both of them start to melt at the same time with terrible screeching filling the room. Dean is using a Bunsen burner to keep a third one away from his spot near Cas. A flutter of wings announces Cas's return and when Benny jumps up from under the table wielding a bone that looks more like a knife, Dean can feel relief washing over him. Jo and Cas also jump into action. It seems like Cas's power works like a magnet for the creatures because more keep coming.
When Dean gets knocked over by one of their enemies, Cas starts to glow. When the light reaches his fingertips, Dean and his friends can’t even keep looking at him because he is so bright. The Leviathans try to run, but before they can flee, Cas lets out a roar and they turn to dust.
Glad to no longer be fighting but worried, the kids huddle around Cas, who is unconscious on the floor. Dean wipes away a stray lock from his sweaty forehead and Cas’s eyes open up again. “Did it work? Did we win?”
“YOU won. Cas you are a badass.” The group cheers for him.
Benny looks around the room. “I hope they don’t plan on any classes for the next few weeks.”