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It’s the worst kind of deja vu, waking up in Purgatory with Cas nowhere to be seen. He’s had nightmares about this for years, ever since the last time. Ever since he couldn’t get Cas out. And now here he is again, with less than an hour until their way out expires and an angel who’s being hunted by Leviathans. Captured. Worse.
Dean is not leaving here without him. Not again. Even if that means he’s not leaving here at all.
You’d think he would have learned by now that fighting with Cas just gives the universe some sort of siren call that it’s time to separate them again, like Dean isn’t already miserable enough without the guilt that he might never get the chance to make it right. It seems like this happens every time. He never learns.
All he can do is pray.
He’s on his knees, begging for Cas to hear him—begging for Cas to be alive. Dean knows this place, knows better than to let his guard down, but worrying about whatever monsters could be lurking behind the trees feels infinitely less important than the feeble hope that Cas can hear his apology. His forgiveness.
“Well I never thought I’d see the day.”
The voice startles Dean onto his ass, back pressed against the tree as he stares up into familiar blue eyes.
Benny looks almost exactly the same as Dean remembers—same black coat and cap and button down shirt he’d been wearing the last time he’d seen him in that alleyway, though more wrinkled and torn than they’d been years ago. Just a touch more gray in his beard, deeper lines around his eyes that show the passage of time, but his lips quirk into the exact same grin that always made Dean feel like everything would be okay, and he would recognize that shade of blue anywhere—for awhile there, it had been the most color he’d seen.
“What the hell?” he can’t manage more than a whisper. “You’re—you’re not—”
“When I heard whispers about the human and the angel back in Purgatory, I thought they had to be mistaken,” Benny continues, extending a hand to help Dean up. Dean takes it instinctively, allowing Benny to pull him to his feet. The same instinct that has him leaning into the other hand that Benny brings to cup his cheek. “I thought, there’s absolutely no way my Dean would get himself stuck in here a second time. And then I thought that, actually, that does sound exactly like something you would do. So I had to come see for myself.”
“He told us—they said you were dead,” Dean frowns. “They said that some vamps—”
“Hey now, all that time we fought together, you think I can’t hold my own against a couple’a vamps?” he asks, tone lighter than Dean thinks this place deserves, but he sighs before continuing. “I did get caught up in a nasty scrape a while back,” he admits. “Had to go deep underground for a bit to keep more of ‘em off my tail. Let everyone think I was dead so they wouldn’t come after me. It’s been—different than before, that much is for sure.”
“I’m just so fucking glad to see you, man,” Dean exhales, pulling him into a tight hug and melting into it when Benny squeezes him back. The arms that wrap around him—one around his waist, the other cradling the back of his head—are familiar in a way that makes his insides flutter. He hasn’t felt that in months, ever since—
“And Cas?” Benny asks softly. “Is he here too?”
“He’s…” Dean lets out a shuddering breath, and he doesn’t know if his tears ever stopped after his prayer but he can feel the telltale click in the back of his throat that threatens to trap his words. “They got him,” he manages to choke out.
Benny, to his credit, is steady as ever, a rock for Dean to cling to in the storm that is his entire life. “Leviathans?” he guesses. Dean nods against his shoulder. “Evil sons of bitches.”
“Yeah,” Dean mumbles. He allows himself to sniffle one more time before taking a step back. Benny doesn’t let him go far, tangling their fingers together and squeezing as he composes himself.
“Well I suppose it really is just like old times,” Benny says, offering a comforting smile when Dean looks up at him. “Let’s go find our angel and get you back to safety.”
Our angel.
It squeezes in Dean’s chest. Once upon a time, Cas had just been the angel before he became known as Dean’s angel. After everything they went through together, he thinks it’s fitting for Benny to lay some claim to him too. God it’s been so long since Dean has seen them both alive at the same time. Maybe that’s his curse, he’s only allowed one or the other, because both of them would be more happiness than Dean deserves.
He can’t think about what that means for right now.
“We have our own portal this time,” Dean tells him. “Dumps us right back in our bunker instead of that field in Maine, and we know it works for angels. But it closes in—” he pulls his phone from his pocket with the hand not gripped in Benny’s to check the timer, “— fuck, twenty-five minutes. We have to…Benny, I can’t leave without him again, I just—”
“Hey, hey,” Benny stops him, gently stepping back into Dean’s space. The hand he puts on Dean’s shoulder grounds him just enough to keep him from spiraling. “We’re gonna find him, darlin’. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again. Okay?”
“Yeah,” Dean whispers, nods. “Okay.”
Benny doesn’t drop his hand as they begin to walk, Dean steering them in the vague direction of the rift.
“Things haven’t been too good between us lately,” Dean admits quietly after a few minutes of walking in silence.
“Trouble in paradise?”
“I just—a lot has happened, y’know? Our lives are, well, it’s fucking complicated even on the best of days, and we haven’t had one of those in forever, it feels like. We—” he exhales shakily, staring resolutely at the ground in front of him. “I was a dick. Like, worse than usual. And if something happened to him when he still thinks I’m mad at him…” He shakes his head. “I don’t think I’d be able to forgive myself.”
“He knows, Dean,” Benny murmurs. “After all this time, he knows.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have to know,” Dean snaps, then squeezes his eyes shut against the threatening wave of tears. “All of this has been—like I said, I was a dick. It’s my fault, and he was right, he shouldn’t have to be a punching bag for my shit. And it doesn’t matter if he knows if I never get to say it to him.”
He pulls his hand away from Benny to scrub at his eyes, striding a few paces ahead. “I prayed to him,” he adds. “Right before you found me. It feels like cheating, using prayer to say the things I’m too chickenshit to say to his face.”
“Now I’m no expert on this angel stuff,” Benny says carefully, and Dean jumps at the hands that settle on his hips before leaning into them, allowing the arms to wrap fully around his waist as warm breath hits his neck. It never even crosses his mind to be afraid of the position; he trusts Benny unconditionally. “And I don’t have nearly the history with this one as you do, but far as I know, prayer to them is just like having a conversation. He hears it just the same as if you were standing in front of him. It’s not a coward's way out, Deano. So cut yourself some slack. And give him a little more credit. He loves you. Let him.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he shouldn’t,” Dean grumbles.
“That’s not your call to make, darlin’,” Benny murmurs. “Should know that by now. We’re gonna love you no matter what.”
Dean closes his eyes and sighs shakily. It’s not safe here, he knows this. They need to keep moving, they need to get out, they need to find Cas…
And Benny’s supposed to be in hiding anyways, he’s too exposed here. Anyone could see them, find them, rip them apart, and Dean isn’t even watching for it, but he doesn’t care, because right now, he’s not in Purgatory. He’s in some random field in the middle of nowhere Louisiana with Benny holding him for the first time after they made it topside and desperately trying to assure him that it’s not his fault their trio had shrunk to two.
He needs to find Cas.
“Let’s go,” he says gruffly, wiping a few stray tears from his cheek before stepping out of Benny’s reach. “We don’t have time for this crap, we have to…”
“Find our angel,’ Benny finishes for him, understanding as ever. “I know.”
They’re silent as they walk, a few feet apart this time, and Dean’s hands are both secured around his gun instead of allowing himself any physical comfort. He can tell Benny wants to reach out again but decides against it and Dean is grateful that he doesn’t have to reject it directly.
He doesn’t know how long they’ve been walking—he refuses to check his timer again, doesn’t want to know how long they have until they’re trapped, because it doesn’t matter unless he finds Cas—when he hears movement from behind a tree to his left. Instinctively, he grips his gun tighter and prepares to aim, whipping to face the potential danger.
“Dean!”
It takes everything in him not to fall to his knees.
“Cas?” he barely recognizes his own voice as it chokes on the word. He blinks, blinks, blinks, waiting for the form sitting at the base of the tree to disappear. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s hallucinated Cas somewhere, even in less stressful circumstances than this. With all the monsters around them, surely there’s something around here with the power to fuck with him like that, like some sort of cruel—
“Well what did I tell you?” Benny grins, reaching down to help Cas to his feet while Dean’s brain reboots. “Told you we’d find him, just like we always do. Can’t get rid of him that easy.”
A little worse for the ware, blood drying around a gash on his forehead and a bit shaky on his feet, but he’s there and breathing and alive and Dean feels almost crazy with relief.
“You made it,” Cas rasps, stumbling a little as he rights himself. “And you…”
Dean doesn’t let him finish his sentence before pulling him into a hug, so tight that if Cas wasn’t an angel Dean would worry about cutting off his airflow.
“Fuck,” he whispers, pressing his face into Cas’s shoulder.
“Dean,” Cas murmurs again. He’s hugging back carefully, gently, like Dean is something precious cradled in his arms. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” Dean barks out a hysterical laugh, because Cas was gone. Cas was gone, Dean had been left in the middle of Purgatory by himself because Cas had been ambushed by an entire horde of monsters, and Cas has the fucking nerve to ask if Dean is okay. “What the hell happened, man?”
“They were after me, not you,” Cas explains. “I figured it would be safest to give myself up.”
“Yeah, well, don’t ever fucking do that again,” Dean replies, suddenly aware that he’s still clinging to Cas like a child while Benny hovers…somewhere nearby, probably. He squeezes one more time before taking a step back, and Cas’s arms drop to his sides. He tries not to miss the contact. “They take you to Eve?”
“Yeah. We were en route. I waited until I saw this.” He pulls a mangled-looking flower from inside his coat, just like the ones they’d seen in the field before. Dean thinks it’s perfect. “It got a little smushed,” Cas adds apologetically. “Once I had the blossom, I fought, caught them off guard. They fought back. I managed to get away.”
“You’re fucking amazing, Cas,” Dean can’t keep the awe from his voice. It’s been awhile since he’s really thought of Cas as amazing in the way that angels should be: powerful, fearsome, awe-inspiring. Because Cas on his own has proven time and time again to be all those things and more. Cas is just—Dean is amazed by him. Can’t believe he gets to know him. Can’t believe he gets to—if they get out of here. Cas is amazing.
“Well, they're still after me,” Cas replies. “We should hurry. We’re not far from the portal.”
“Wait,” Dean stops him, reaching out for his arm and whipping his head around until he sees Benny hovering just a few meters away, close enough to keep watch but just out of earshot to give them some semblance of privacy.
Dean thinks he loves him a little bit.
“Oh,” Cas frowns, tilting his head like he’s just noticed they’re not alone despite Benny being the first one to approach him a moment ago. “How are you…?”
“Alive?” Benny smirks, spreading his arms as if to show off his very not-dead form as he steps closer to them again. “C’mon, angel, you fought with me long enough to know there ain’t much around here that can keep me down. And I ain’t always had an angel and a hunter to back me up. Just had to get a little creative, is all.”
“Who among us hasn’t faked their own death,” Dean shrugs, and Cas rolls his eyes.
“Well it’s…it’s good to see you,” he says sincerely. “I know Dean was…I’m glad you’re okay.”
He shuffles his feet a bit, unsure of himself, and Dean thinks he gets it. It’s been…it’s been awhile, since it’s been the three of them together. When, after months of fighting together, looking after each other, comforting each other, developing the sort of bond that in Dean’s experience usually takes years, Cas had decided to throw it all away in some attempt at self-punishment and left Dean and Benny to pick up the pieces back on Earth.
Dean hadn’t had it in him. It had cost him Benny, in the end.
And this time…
“You too, Cas,” Benny replies. His steadiness has always carried them. Back at the beginning, when Dean had still been stung by Cas’s betrayal and Cas had been on the verge of bolting at any given moment, it had been Benny’s calming determination that kept them going. No matter how many times he and Cas had butt heads, Dean had been adamant that Cas came along and Benny had taken that seriously. Cas had become his just as much as he’d been Dean’s.
“Hey, you heard Cas,” Dean says. “We’re not far from the portal.” He holds Benny’s eyes, doing his best to convey the question without words. Come with us, he pleads. Don’t leave us again.
He knows it’s unfair to ask. He needs to ask anyway.
“Come with us,” Cas speaks the words that Dean doesn’t. “It’s not just a human portal this time, free passage for you and I, too. You could come home with us.”
“Dean,” Benny says sadly, even though Cas had been the one to say it out loud. His icy blue eyes stay locked on Dean’s, and in them Dean can see the hurt leftover from before. Some of it Dean knows couldn’t have been helped, just comes with the version of the world they’re all forced to live in. But some of it had been Dean’s fault. Just like with Cas, Dean had let him go. “You know why I—”
“We have a home now,” Dean interrupts him. “Everything’s changed. Good and evil, monsters, people, whatever…none of that means the same thing as it did before. Hell, one of our hunter buddies is a werewolf. Got a whole werewolf family and everything, lives off of cow hearts. Great guy. But the point is,” he sighs, wipes his hand on his pants, and reaches for Benny. Benny meets him halfway and joins their hands. Dean squeezes tight. “You can come home with us this time. You could stay this time.” He turns to Cas and reaches for him with his other hand. Cas is more hesitant when he accepts the contact, like he doesn’t think he’s earned it, somehow. Dean squeezes him too. “You too,” he says. “Cas, I—I need to say something.”
Understanding falls over Cas’s face and he squeezes back. “You don’t have to say it,” he replies. “I heard your prayer.”
“No, no, I do need to say it,” Dean protests. “Because you’re right, okay? You were right. I shouldn’t have let you go, I shouldn’t have…I was just angry, and being angry at you was easier than being angry at myself. Or at just…life in general. Because it’s been so ass lately, but it’s always so much worse without you. I need you, Cas. And I’m sorry I don’t say it enough. You shouldn’t have to just know these things, I’ve gotta just say it sometimes. No matter how stupid it sounds.”
“You’re hurting,” Cas says gently. “I know you are. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Just don’t…” Dean, embarrassingly, sniffles again, but neither of the others call him on it. “Don’t fucking leave again, okay? Either of you.” He turns to Benny, too. “You guys keep my head on right. I’m just—that’s why I was better here. We work better when we’re all together, and we need all hands on deck out there right now. So, please?”
Neither says anything for a moment, and Dean feels a bit awkward in the silence after such an outward display of emotion. He considers pulling back, stomping off to the portal that he can see flickering in the distance and letting whoever wants to follow him do so without another word, but he’s frozen in place. He glances nervously between the angel and the vampire that, for whatever reason, hold his incredibly fragile, incredibly human heart in their inhuman hands. Either of them could break him. They have before. He would let them, would probably deserve it at this point. He trusts them not to.
Cas is the first to speak up. “I’m not going anywhere, Dean,” he promises softly. “We’ve got work to do.”
Benny looks between the two of them, and Dean blames the time that they’ve spent apart as the reason why his expression is unreadable. Lips tugged just barely downward, head tilted in a way that reminds Dean of Cas in the most heartachingly endearing way as his eyes flicker back and forth. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Cas reach out. His free hand moves towards Benny’s, gently landing on his arm before Benny tangles their fingers together, too.
It must make a ridiculous sight, the three of them standing in the middle of the woods holding hands like they’re partaking in some sort of nature ritual. Not that anything that stumbles upon them here would stop and think about things like that before ripping them to shreds, which reminds Dean of the immense time crunch they’re under.
The portal ripples, highlighting the urgency. He hasn’t checked his timer recently. They could be out of time for all he knows.
“Well it sounds to me,” Benny drawls, and Dean jumps when he feels a hand squeeze his. “Like we’ve got work to do.”
Dean doesn’t hesitate using their joined hands to pull him into a hug, practically dragging Cas in with him. He’s only a little bit surprised when Cas wraps an arm around each of them, holding the three of them together as if they’ve always meant to fit like this. Dean thinks they have.
“I’m not gonna leave, darlin’,” Benny promises in a quiet murmur against Dean’s temple. Whether from the words or the contact, it makes Dean feel warm. “Long as you’ll have me, I think I’d like to stick around this time.”
He gives them just a moment before urgency wins out. Back in the real world, Sam is…somewhere. He needs them. They need to get back.
Dean is the one to break the embrace. He has to clutch his gun with both hands to keep himself from doing something stupid like reaching out again and wasting even more time that they don’t have with his stupid feelings.
“Right,” he nods, and something in his stomach swoops when he notes that Cas still has an arm around Benny’s shoulders. For the first time in what feels like years, he’s certain they’re making the right call. “Guess all that’s left is to get ourselves and that blossom back to the bunker so we can save my idiot brother from God.”
Benny shakes his head with a chuckle, because absolutely nothing about their lives sounds real. He doesn’t back down.
“Lead the way, chief,” he grins.
WIth one more nod, Dean turns towards the portal and steps forward.
He knows they’ll follow him.