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It was supposed to be another quick salt-and-burn hunt.
Sam had the inhabitants of a certain haunted log cabin handled—albeit it was a bit unfavourable that he had to give them ‘the talk’, it wasn’t anything that the brothers hadn't done before. Dean and Cas were making their way through the woods, leaving a long line of pinecones in their wake which the angel found extremely unnecessary. Still, Dean thought that it would not hurt to take safety precautions. Cas was the one who suggested pinecones anyways.
The gravestone of the cabin’s original owner popped out closer than they expected it to be. But of course, nothing ever passes easy in the life of a Winchester, or anybody that ever knew them. So instead of muddy, solid ground, there was a crater a few feet below them, home to an oversized lake.
“It’s gonna take a while to get around that,” Dean started, inspecting the body of water infested with water lilies and God’s green Earth. “Unless you wanna swim,” he joked.
Cas opened his mouth to say something, but Dean held a finger up before he got the chance to. “Don’t say it,” the hunter shook his head. “Do not say it. I know you’re gonna offer to do something stupid like jump down and swim there or hop on the lily pads. But, hell no.”
Cas smiled at him. “Actually, I was going to tell you that we should just find our way around the lake.” Dean did not know that angels could not really swim. Not in particular. Their true forms make it hard to do so, especially with the comically huge wings sticking out their backs. “It's best to take precautions.”
“Oh,” Dean pursed his lips. “Well then, we better get going before sundown. You know how things go bump in the night. They’re not really what we’re here for. Wouldn’t hurt to earn more kills, though.”
During simple times like these, Cas wished he still had the ability to fly. The job could get done much easier and quicker. But for now, he had no other choice but to trail behind Dean—hiking up the small hills of rock and dirt surrounding the terrain—in one monotonous, identical motion.
Well, technically, there was another choice. One that maybe included drowning and other possible fatal casualties. But if Dean didn’t push the idea, then Cas definitely wouldn't either.
Dean felt the ground loosen underneath him, pieces of rubble plummeting into the dark waters below. He made a face at the fissures on the ground and the unstable rocks they had no choice but to trek unless they wanted to waste any more precious time.
The damp forest left his boots begrimed, his hair tousled against the relentless howl of the wind. The last thing he needed is to get drenched in lake water on a late afternoon hunt like this.
He made a mental note to prepare himself just in case the soil gives in and leaves him to the vicious grasps of the lake.
He needed to warn Cas too, he thought, though the angel would probably just shrug it off and dismiss it as a feasible hindrance.
Before Dean could even turn towards his friend, he heard the tumbling of rugged debris, until eventually, a rapid splash subjugating the sound of a muted gasp.
“Cas?” Dean tilted his head, eyes scanning the area before eventually catching a glimpse of fierce ripples in the water.
He scoffed nervously, running a hand through his hair. “C’mon, man, you know that's not funny.”
The sun began to set overhead, and Dean was met with boisterous silence. He could have sworn he felt his heart get ruthlessly dropped like one does a weary pebble in a river when he did not receive even the slightest response.
“Dammit,” Dean growled. With a knit of his eyebrows, he shrugged off his sullied jacket, along with his beloved flannel, and made a dive for the freezing waters.
The first thing that unravelled in the back of Dean’s mind was how blinding the darkness was. The bottom of the lake seemed superficial—what he thought to be idle sand was, in fact, just murky nothingness.
The cold did not take kindly to his frantic form. He can feel the water jabbing at his skin like deviated icicles. And though he could feel winter itself unfurling in his body, there was only one word that echoed mercilessly in Dean's mind. Cas.
The hunter squinted his eyes, adjusting his sight in a way that let him ignore the shadows blocking his view. None of it intimidated Dean one bit, not with his angel still out there.
Dean swam further down, exhales calculated lest they both drown here and leave their lifeless, wrinkly corpses for Sam to find.
‘Can angels really not swim?’, he quietly asked the abyss. He stored the question away for later.
A silhouette made its way toward Dean’s paltry vision, vaguely floating downwards like a fisherman’s net cast into the vast ocean. He swore internally before reaching out towards the blurry figure. It was Cas, drifting off motionlessly as if there wasn't a shred of life in his body.
Dean’s hands landed on the lapels of the angel's coat. He heaved him upwards until his grasp was firm enough, praying the air inside his lungs could keep both of them breathing.
His eyes are closed, Dean thought, clenching his jaw. The damn trench coat was weighing them down and Cas’s eyes were closed. Dean's stomach swam inside his torso anxiously.
He was too pale. Lips fading into a subtle blue, knuckles turning plain white like the winter in Dean’s mind happened to be contagious.
The hunter kicked his legs strategically—nervousness never got him anywhere; he could worry later, raise questions later—until the sunbeams touched the tips of his fingers, illuminating the face of his fallen friend.
Cas still looked universes away from the planet of consciousness. Dean could only hold him tighter as they broke the surface.
Cas woke up feeling like his lungs were stuck in his throat, thoroughly choking him. It took a while to grasp that he was back on land once more, not that it had ever actually registered that he'd plummeted into the lake in the first place.
“That's it, that's it,” a hand was on his back, rubbing circles into it. “Take it easy. You're alright.”
Water escaped his mouth, sputtering onto the cold Earth and returning to where it had come from. Coughing scratched his throat raw, but at least it diverted his attention away from the fact that his swell organs felt a jolt away from imploding inside his vessel. These were things Cas would never experience as a celestial being. But water could render anyone, anything helpless.
When the bubbles invading his ears had finally left and waned into a dissonant ringing, Cas had realised just how much Dean was stumbling over his own sentences.
He set a hand over the hunter's, grimacing over the way Dean had mindlessly knelt on razor-sharp rocks, while he was a heap of soaked limbs on a wad of sleek stone.
“I'm fine, Dean,” Cas assured, though the words came out hoarse.
“Never do that again, you son of a bitch,” Dean said angrily, followed by a meeker “You scared the hell out of me.”
Cas’s gaze lingered on Dean’s dampened shirt, and his distraught expression. Maybe he deserved to know why a divine entity like him could easily fall defenseless under the pressure of..water. Pure, placid water.
Dean exhaled, muttering a string of curses beneath his ragged breath. “Cas, why didn't you tell me you can't swim? You know what, here's a better question for you. You're older than sin, man, and you're telling me you can't swim?”
“It's my wings,” Cas answered. The hunter could not see it, but resting on the ethereal plane were a pair of stupendous wings, darker than the loch itself, and they were completely waterlogged. “They're too heavy for me to even attempt to swim back to the surface. Angels aren't buoyant, Dean.”
Of course, Dean thought. Cas’s domain will always be the sky—not on land with mortals, and especially not in the water where nothing was as kind as it seemed. It was among the stars, with beings an unclean man like him couldn't dare imagine.
“That,” Dean raised an accusing finger at particularly no one. “Is just stupid. No. No, I don't like that. I really don't like that.” he shuddered dramatically, enough to mask how distressed he actually felt. “What happens if someone decides to throw you overboard from a ship in the middle of nowhere and I'm not around to pull your sorry ass back to dry land?”
Cas smiled at how big of a fuss the hunter was turning this situation into. “That won't happen. You're the only living human being that knows this, Dean.” Something playful dallied on his lips. “That makes you special.”
Dean felt heat rise up to his cheeks. He turned away from the angel, sparing himself the embarrassment the definite blush on his face would've given him. “Still,” he rasped, clearing his throat.
Silence whistled in the air between them. It was nearly night. Dean had almost forgotten they were on a hunt in the first place. “Well, come on,” he urged. “Don't wanna freeze to death out here, do you? Wait, could that happen? Could angels get hypothermia? You know what, don't answer that question.”
Cas chuckled at the nonsense being thrown his way. Who knew almost drowning could get Dean so flustered? He should do that more often, then.
Dean wraps his field jacket around his shoulders, letting his arm linger on the other's back longer than it needed to. Cas accepted it graciously, gritting his teeth when a gust of wind almost made him shiver.
Dean must have caught on, because he'd dumped his flannel on the angel's head, ruffling his hair that still had wayward strands dripping down the side of his neck. “Dry up,” he grunted. “You look like crap.”
“Dean, there is no need for this,” Cas tried to hand the flannel back. The hunter tossed it back at him.
Dean shook his head. “Keep it. At least for tonight.” He held out an arm. “Let's go.”
Cas knew there was no convincing the persistence of his friend. He accepted Dean's arm and was pulled to his feet.
Cas tilted his head when Dean continued to walk into the night with their hands still intertwined. He must have not noticed. So Cas did not protest.
He slumped against Dean, dragging his invisible wings behind him like dead weights. His feathers produced a slight drizzle that may have intensified when Dean’s already-dried fingers tightened around his clammy ones. (The hunter thought Cas’s hands were quite cold. He did his best to warm them up in the most aloof way he could.)
Dean pulled Cas closer until the icy-cold of the lake melted into the fuzzy warmth of the other's body.
They stayed away from the edge of the low precipice, sauntering further from the deep waters. They'll have to take this trip the long way. Salt-and-burn hunt be damned.