Down in the River

[coppermouth]

Title: Down in the River
Fandom:  Supernatural
Rating: T
Word Count: 4784
Characters/Pairings: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, OC Antagonist
Contains: Violence, Angst, Sentimentality
Summary: Alone in Purgatory and hunted by Leviathans, Castiel finds himself praying to the one person who can’t hear him. Set after 8x02. My undying gratitude goes to my beta, margo-kim.
AO3 Link here.


Castiel doesn’t remember when he stopped speaking to God.

Even after he lost his faith he still continued to pray-out of habit, out of spite, he wasn’t sure why. Sometimes they would slip out without thinking, sometimes he wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Other times he wanted more than anything to beg for help or forgiveness, but he gritted his teeth and held the words back until they dissolved into numbness. His prayers died slowly, like water drying up out of a creek; after a while he stopped having to force them down. By the time his hand slips out of Dean’s and he’s stranded alone in Purgatory, he has no faith to hold back.

The long days and nights of Purgatory have been obscenely silent, his link to the Host of Heaven shattered ever since he was dragged down into this pit. Before it had been like being bathed in dancing particles of light, a constant presence in his grace that said even if God had deserted him, his brothers and sisters had not. He’d even had Jimmy for a while, a constant presence at the back of his mind, but the man’s soul had escaped to Heaven long ago. Now there was nothing but a void, no physical voices besides the howls of creatures hunting him. No matter how hard he had worked to cut himself off from God, never before had he felt so truly alone.

He’s sitting on the banks of the river when he finds Dean’s name on his lips like it’s the only thing that belongs there.

“Dean.” He’s not sure why he says it, but the name alone feels incomplete. “I… I wish you were here.” He frowns then, because that’s a stupid thing to say.

“I suppose a more accurate statement would be that I wish I was with you,” he amends. “I would never have wanted you to stay in Purgatory with me. It’s enough to know that you’re safe. Or safer, at least.”

Dean makes no reply, but the river seems to enjoy the conversation. It’s not the same one Dean found him by, but it brings the memory back. Castiel stoops to wash the mud off his hands, feeling a little foolish. Dean can’t hear him. Castiel had best focus on surviving, or not surviving, whichever one Purgatory ends up deciding for him.

He tries to stay on the move, walking through the grey corridors of trees and the sunken gash of a creek bed. Everything in this place seems washed out and abandoned, never aging but ancient all the same. The rustle and growl of his pursuers is an almost constant backdrop to his surroundings.

Despite his best efforts he thinks about the Winchesters a lot. They’re a distraction, but a welcome one. As he’s driven into a sprint by the creatures hunting him, his breath dragging razorblades up his throat with every gasp, his mind flies to the leather seats of the Impala where he imagines Sam and Dean will be sitting right now. Before he had found the car slow and constraining, but with no strength to take to the air he finds he would welcome the purr of her engine and the safety of her roof.

A week later a Leviathan puts a blade in his stomach.

The creature leers into Castiel’s face, the teeth in his massive mouth gnashing hungrily. Castiel catches it by the throat with one hand as he fights the shock of pain travelling through his body. He shouldn’t need to breathe, but suddenly he finds he can’t.

“Why don’t you call for your boyfriend some more?” the creature hisses, twisting the knife with a vicious wrench. A howl of pain fights its way out of Castiel’s throat.

“It’s too bad he dumped you here so quickly,” the monster says conversationally, digging its fingers into Castiel’s hair to jerk his head up and display his neck appetizingly. “I would have loved to eat you both. Maybe a little of each at a time. Make you watch.” The last words have it leaning in, just inches away from Castiel’s flesh.

“Dean did not abandon me,” Castiel growls, forcing as much steel into his voice as he can manage, “and you will not speak of him this way.”

The creature laughs. “Or what? The worst you can do to me at this point is give me indigestion, angel. Knowing your boy, though, he’s fighting tooth and nail to break you out. And who knows? Maybe once I’ve snacked on the meager dregs of grace you have left, he’ll accidentally pull me out instead.” It leans into Castiel’s face with a gust of fetid air. “Do you want me to tell you what I’ll do to him before he dies?”

“He is not looking for me,” Castiel manages, fighting to ignore the tremble going through his arm. “And you will never get the chance to hurt him.”

Wrapping his fist around the hilt of the blade, he hauls it out of his stomach inch by inch. The Leviathan’s eyes widen with surprise as it struggles against Castiel’s new burst of strength, but the rough chunk of metal slides from his gut with a final shiver of agony. In a smooth motion Castiel twists it out of the Leviathan’s hand and arcs it through his neck. The creature is frozen in shock before its head tumbles off its shoulders with a soft thump.

“Take that, you son of a bitch,” Castiel spits, because it seems like something Dean would approve of. Then he passes out.

A few moments later the world ebbs back, finding Castiel lying in the leafy dirt with the snarls and hoots of Purgatory’s finest echoing over his head. He drags himself to his feet by the branch of a tree, inspecting the carnage around him. Most of the blood is his, but the Leviathan’s is pungent enough to draw the monsters like a dinner bell. It’s only a matter of time before the Leviathan’s body and head reanimate and reattach, and when that happens Castiel does not cherish the idea of being nearby.

The trees seem to come out of the ground at strange angles as Castiel stumbles past them, though whether that’s his flickering vision or the twisted scenery of Purgatory is beyond him. His eyes keep going dark without him closing them. It’s a new experience, and not one he enjoys. The calls of the hunters echo behind him go from eerie to ravenous in a heartbeat. Probably they scented his blood. He needs to find somewhere to hide, and fast. Being an angel, he does what comes naturally: he seeks higher ground. He climbs a tree.

Being closer to the sky makes him feel safer, even while he knows it’s not significantly closer to Heaven. There are just as many monsters above the ground as there are below, but if he has to die he’d rather not do it on the ground. He’s spent most of his existence as an angel; he has earned at least that.

His body is wedged into the crook of a tree, legs and arms tangling desperately around the trunks to try and keep him from falling. It’s little use. The strength in his body and grace is funneling into the pit in his stomach to try and keep him alive. If he can stay hidden for just a few hours, his grace will repair itself well enough to travel. Until then, he’s stuck in this tree like bait dangled over a pond.

Shifting his position awkwardly, Castiel manages to prop himself up in the nook of the tree with his back resting on the trunk. His limbs are so feeble he can hardly stop them from trembling. He wouldn’t have the strength to ward off a fly. Ridiculously, that puts a wry smile on his face.

“Baby in a trench coat,” he murmurs. “Looks like you had it right in the end, Dean.” Cas considers the fact that he might be slightly delirious, but he could almost swear he feels a gentle squeeze on his arm and a rough, familiar laugh in his ear. That almost hurts more than the hole in his stomach does, but he clings to the feeling. It’s enough to keep him conscious.

“I hope you’re not getting into too much trouble without me,” Castiel pants, pressing a hand to his stomach in the hopes of stopping the bleeding. Talking seems to help, seems to focus his mind and keep it from slipping away. “I’ve been there to save you for so long. You’ve probably gotten lazy.”

Castiel’s fingers start to feel numb and frozen. The cold knowledge that he can never see Dean again isn’t doing much to help. But talking like this is a small, desperate comfort that he needs more than anything right now. “I hope Sam is with you. I know he is. I also hope that he has the sense not to let you go looking for me. You know it’s bets this way.” He lets his head fall back against the trunk behind him.

“Still,” he laughs softly, “I suppose you’ll try anyways. You always were a stubborn ass. Just another thing that I miss about you.”

By some miracle the creatures of Purgatory are kept at bay. He talks to Dean through the night, until his stomach is a dull ache and he can make his way haltingly back to the ground. From then on he speaks to Dean almost every day.

He keeps telling himself that he’s got to stop, that these little one-sided conversations do nothing but distract him. He can’t afford to be distracted in a place like this. The Leviathans continue to dog his steps, one in particular a constant presence in the woods around him. Castiel has to become like Dean in the months before they found each other on the banks of that river, little more than a weapon with a single purpose. It’s been so long since Castiel has had a purpose that he can hardly remember what it’s like anymore. And so he prays.

It’s extremely foolish. At least when he spoke to God he could be relatively sure that someone could hear him, even if He chose not to listen. But he knows for a fact that Dean can’t hear him, and keeps talking all the same. There’s a lot for him to talk about. He’s lived for millennia, watched the fall of Rome and the building of the Great Wall, saplings growing into oak trees while generations swirl around them. He tells Dean about all of it. Castiel talks about hamburgers, about bees, about flying and how he thinks he could convince Dean to like it.

“I need you.” Castiel swallows, the words feeling heavy and thick. The same river flows beside him that witnessed those words the first time, months ago and from a different tongue. He remembers the way Dean’s face had refused to soften as he said them; a Winchester to the end. What Castiel offers up now is a distant echo, full of regret and incomplete. Because there’s something else hanging on the end of those words, something that Castiel should have been saying every day since Dean left. In a way, maybe he has. He says it now, and the words feel right. He says them a lot after that.

Castiel is torn out of Purgatory three months later.

The experience is anything but pleasant. Throughout most of the process he is certain that he’ll be destroyed. His grace is twisted and warped and compressed, tugged through the cracks from one dimension to another and dumped unceremoniously onto the floor of an old warehouse. Castiel’s first thought is that the air tastes like plastic wrap.

He’s kneeling in the middle of a circle of fire, his body slumped while he tries to remember how to operate it. Gradually he becomes aware of a voice shouting at him through the flames, a familiar voice, one that he’s heard plenty of times in the past months but never outside of his head. Castiel raises his head on a neck as brittle as glass, and looks Dean in the eye for the first time since what he thought would be his last. Sam stands close by his side, a book held in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Cas,” Dean yells, a sliver of reflected light clenched in his fist. An angel blade, Castiel realizes. He wonders briefly if it’s his.

“Castiel, if it’s really you in there, I need you to give me some kind of sign,” Dean says. “And if you’re not Cas, if you’re just hitching a ride or wearing his face, then you should probably know that that’s the stupidest decision you will ever die regretting.” Castiel can’t help but smile slightly at that. He’s glad that Dean is taking such precautions. It’s the smart thing to do. But now something is tugging Castiel deeper into himself, blackness welling up to dance in his vision as he fights to stay upright.

The doorway to Purgatory still rages behind him, ready to suck him straight back if the Winchesters aren’t convinced. Dean wants proof, something so intimate that only the real Castiel would know it. Castiel known Dean for years, familiarized himself with every nerve and fiber of his being, seen him at his worst and his greatest. What he says has to encapsulate all of that.

“Dean,” Castiel croaks. “…Hello.”

The floor of the warehouse rushes up to meet him before he can even cringe at how magnificently he failed the test. From far away he hears Dean swear, the sounds of footsteps coming closer and Sam’s shouts of protest. The heat around his body subsides, and a pair of firm hands haul him up by his shoulders. Castiel finds himself staring up into Dean’s face, his green eyes staring intensely into his. After a brief moment a huge grin breaks out across his face.

“Only you would be so stupid,” he laughs, pulling Castiel up into a hug that crushes the air from his lungs and could go on until the Sun swallows the Earth for all that he cares. He feels Sam kneel down beside him.

“Is he okay?” he asks, resting a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. Dean’s eyes flick down his body, searching for signs of injury under the mud and grime of Purgatory, finding none.

“I’m alright,” Castiel manages. “My grace is damaged, but intact. I merely require time to repair it.”

Sam nods, turning towards the void still tugging at Castiel’s back. “Let’s close it.”

“Be my guest.”

The voice is low and cruel, and it makes Castiel feel colder than space. He feels Dean tense, quickly pulling Castiel’s arm around his neck to haul him to his feet. Castiel doesn’t need to see the creature’s face to know who it is. It’s the same Leviathan who buried a knife in his stomach. The one who promised to kill them all in the most horrific way imaginable.

“Well, well, well,” it grins, taking leisurely, confident steps towards the trio. “We’ve got the whole gang here now, don’t we?” Dean pulls Castiel with him as they back away, and it’s all he can do to keep his feet supporting his own weight. Without Dean to hold him up he’d be as mobile as a sack of flour.

“Let me guess,” the Leviathan says, its eyes settling on Sam. “Younger brother, right?” Sam says nothing, his face tight. “Thought so. How fun. I’m guessing Dean here will scream extra loud if I sample a few bites of junior first.”

Sam makes a sudden movement, a string of Enochian rushing from his mouth.

“Wait, Sam!” Dean shouts, and the Leviathan laughs.

“Can’t close up shop now, Sammy boy,” the creature murmurs. “Where else are you going to put me?”

Castiel leans up to Dean’s ear. “I don’t suppose you brought any industrial strength cleaner, did you?” Dean says nothing, but his hand tightens on Castiel’s wrist. It’s not an affirmative.

“Ah, Dean,” the Leviathan sighs. “You really didn’t think this through. I have to say, after all the time your boy spent babbling about you in the dark, I expected to have at least some of a fight.”

Castiel tenses before he can help it. He had been ready to try and forget, to push those words down into himself until they dissolved away. The Leviathan knew that. It wasn’t going to let him.

“Oh, Cassy doesn’t want to talk about that,” it says, widening its eye theatrically. “What’s the matter, angel? Why don’t you tell Dean here about your little one-way conversations?”

Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the Leviathan, but Castiel can feel him stiffen.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he snaps, but there’s hesitation behind it.

The Leviathan shrugs, digging a finger into its teeth with an evil grin. “Oh, you should have heard him. Telling stories, laughing at old jokes, asking what you’re doing-would have driven me crazy if I hadn’t found it so pathetically funny. Oh, and that’s not the best part,” he laughs, the sound squeezing the air out of Castiel’s chest. He knows what’s coming.

“The best part was, you know what he said?” The creature can scarcely contain its glee. “Come on, guess!” Dean’s face remains stony. “That’s right, Dean-o!” it crows. “The big ‘ole ‘L’ word! Cassy here confessed his undying more-than-friendship more times than I can even count. Isn’t that just adorable?”

The feeling in the pit of Castiel’s stomach is worse than pain. It’s numbness, a void that spreads through his veins and turns his heart into a lump of stone. Dean’s face is a blank mask, so very close to Castiel’s own. He can feel Dean’s heart pounding through his clothing. More than anything he wishes Dean would push him away, let him crawl until he could walk until he could run, and then never stop until he never had to see that look on Dean Winchester’s face again.

The Leviathan takes a step closer, then another, and this time Dean doesn’t move away. The creature’s smile widens further than any mouth should go.

“What’s the matter, Winchester?” he sneers. “Not going to tell feathers here you feel the same way? Well, don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of time for that, and I hear that being eaten alive does wonders in loosening the tongue.” The creature comes to a stop right in front of them, sizing them up hungrily. “On second thought, maybe not that much time. I’m hungry.”

“I must warn you I’m a stringy bastard,” Dean snarls at the same time he dives to the side, dragging Castiel down with him. He hits the ground just in time to see Sam lunging in from the side with a wicked looking blade, slicing across the Leviathan’s neck in a beautiful arc. Dean scrambles to his feet before the head can reattach, grabbing it by the hair and flinging it into the churning door to Purgatory.

“Now, Sam!” he yells. As Sam completes the incantation there’s an electric crackle in the air, and with a final concussion of air and energy the crack in the word folds closed. The Leviathan’s body, which had been twitching and jerking on the floor, falls motionless as soon as the connection is severed. Dead, and this time permanently. The expanding pool of black blood is the last thing Castiel sees before he finally surrenders to oblivion.

Castiel wakes up in a shady motel room, the ceiling above him blotchy with old water stains and the bed beneath him smelling faintly of mildew. Dean and Sam are there. As the memory of their last encounter works its way into his brain, he almost wishes he had stayed unconscious.

They’re talking in low voices until Sam glances over and sees his eyes are open.

“Cas?” he says urgently, hurrying to his bedside.

Smiling is painful, but that doesn’t stop him. “Sam,” he says, his voice hoarse. “It is good to see you.”

Sam grins and squeezes his shoulder. “You too, buddy. You had us worried.”

Castiel frowns slightly. “You weren’t supposed to try and get me. What you did was incredibly dangerous and irresponsible. The walls between dimensions could have been shattered.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam says, a wry smile twisting his lips. “We figured it was worth it.” With a warm smile he reaches out to clasp Sam’s hand. For once he’s inclined to agree.

Castiel sits up with a wince. His muscles ache in complaint, but everything seems to be in working order.

“How long was I unconscious?” he asks, rolling his neck.

“A couple of days,” Dean says. He’s leaning against the far wall, his face dark and unreadable. He hasn’t moved since Castiel woke up. Castiel can’t look at him for long.

“We thought we should just let you sleep,” Sam continues, glancing between them apprehensively. “Figured you needed to recharge your angel batteries.”

“You were right to do so,” Castiel says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and tentatively putting his weight on them. The fact that he’s no longer facing Dean is merely an added bonus.

Sam steps forward, ready to catch him. “You sure you should be doing that?”

“My vessel is sufficiently healed,” Castiel says simply, ignoring the fact that a light breeze could probably bowl him over. He refuses to look weak in front of Dean, not after what had happened. Sam looks between Dean and Castiel for a long moment before coming to a decision.

“I uh, have to go,” he says, quickly standing up. “I have that thing I have to do.” Castiel glares daggers at Sam’s back as he goes, fighting the tide of panic surging up in his chest. The door closes behind him with a click that sounds all too final. It feels as if Castiel and Dean have been sealed in, and the air is running out.

Dean is silent for a long time.  He wanders closer to where Castiel is standing, stopping a few feet away so that he can stare directly into his eyes. When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet. “What the Leviathan said,” he says, meeting Castiel’s eye. “Was it true?”

In that moment Castiel knows he has a way out. One little lie, and all of this can go away. Just one tiny, harmless lie, and everything can be the way it’s supposed to.

“No,” he says breathlessly, amazed by how much that single syllable can hurt. “I believe that the creature was merely saying whatever it thought would most catch us off guard.”

“So it was lying.” Dean’s eyes bore into his own. After a moment, Castiel nods.

“Yes. It was lying.” And that’s it. Things can go back to their comfortable normal. Castiel can work on forgetting those long nights in Purgatory with nothing but his talks with Dean to make it to the morning. This time he’s had practice in repressing his faith. Maybe this time it will be easier.

Dean nods, a short, businesslike jerk.

“Well then. I guess we should go find Sammy.” Castiel lowers his eyes and nods, moving past Dean towards the door. He doesn’t get there. Dean grabs his arm as he goes by and spins him around to face him, holding Castiel only half a foot away. His eyes dart across his face, searching for something, and before Castiel can gather his breath enough to ask what Dean is doing he’s leaning forward to crush his lips against Castiel’s.

The kiss is intense, a mad scramble for something before it slips away from them both. By the time Castiel can collect himself enough to react it’s almost too late, he can already taste the thousand words of apology on Dean’s lips that he’ll stumble through when he breaks away. Castiel doesn’t give him the chance, digging his fingers into Dean’s hair and pulling him further into the kiss.

Dean makes a soft sound in the back of his throat that Castiel thinks might be better than anything he’s heard before. He’s new to this but learns fast as he tries to navigate the tangle of faces and limbs they’ve so quickly become. Dean’s hands dig into his back like they did that day so long ago when they met on the banks of the river in Purgatory; like as soon as he lets go, Cas will slip away. This time Cas doesn’t let him.

When Dean finally pulls back they’re both breathing hard, trembles shooting through Castiel’s frame that he’s only partly sure are from his weakened body. He doesn’t let Dean go far, his hand sliding down to the back of Dean’s neck to hold him a few inches away.

“It’s a good thing you’re such a bad liar, Cas,” Dean says huskily, a slow grin spreading across his face. Castiel smiles quietly in return.

“I didn’t think you would want this,” Castiel replies after a pause. Dean responds with a noise of such disgust that Castiel has no choice but to lean forward and kiss it out of him. He feels Dean laughing against his mouth and chases the sound with his lips. Dean responds with a swipe of tongue that sends a shiver running down Cas’s spine.

Breaking away a second time but keeping their foreheads pressed together, Dean grins softly.

“You know,” he says, “we could, uh…” his eyes wander to the bed before settling back on Castiel.

“Sam will be back soon,” Castiel murmurs, though his heart’s not really in it.

Dean sighs, reaching up to run his fingertips over the collar of Castiel’s shirt, subtly undoing a button so he can skim over the flesh just inside. Castiel’s breath catches in his throat, and Dean pulls away with a smug smile.

“You’re right,” Dean says. “We should wait. You’re in no shape for much of anything but a week of sleeping anyways.”

“You don’t mind?” Castiel has to admit that he’s staying upright by sheer force of will at the moment, but Dean didn’t have to know that.

Dean looks incredulous. “Cas, I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time. I can wait another night. Or you know, as long as you want,” he says, turning guilty. “I don’t mean to pressure you or anything. I guess you’re not exactly experienced with this stuff.”

Castiel’s response to that is to pull him into another rough kiss, pushing Dean so that his back is against the wall and digging his fingers through the fabric of his shirt. It’s sloppy and uncoordinated and Castiel doesn’t really have the strength to do what he wants, but by the end of it Dean’s breathing is short and fast, his pupils blown wide open.

“Alright, I take it back,” he says. “You’re not a total prude.”

Cas is too busy thinking about something Dean had said to respond to that with the contempt it deserves. “What did you mean, you’ve been wanting this for a long time?”

“Jesus Cas, I thought I couldn’t be much more obvious about it.”

Cas frowns. He’s starting to seriously regret honoring the agreement not to read either Winchester’s mind.

“Anyways,” Dean is saying. His fingers trail down the front of Castiel’s shirt like he’s confirming they’re both still here in this moment. “What do you want to do instead?”

Castiel lowers his eyes in thought. It doesn’t take long.

“I think I’d just like to talk,” he says. “It will be nice to grow accustomed to hearing you actually respond.” Dean grins broadly and walks him back to the bed, where Castiel sits down before his legs can decide to collapse. Dean pushes him back onto his pillow and crawls onto the side next to him, lying on his side to stare into Castiel’s face.

“This good?” he asks. Castiel doesn’t say that it’s the best thing he’s had in months.

“What about Sam?” he reminds him instead. Dean makes a face.

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep my hands to myself. Now, what do you want to talk about?”

As Castiel lies there listening to Dean’s voice for the first time in months, it strikes him that not much has actually changed. He is still cut off from the voices of the Host, and God remains missing or indifferent. But for the first time, Castiel realizes he doesn’t care. With Dean here beside him, he knows he isn’t alone.

Castiel looks up at him, a smile sealed onto his lips. “Anything. Just say anything.”