for theangel_cas
In a perfect universe...when Dean had turned around upon arriving in purgatory. He wouldn't have his back. He wasn't going to end up feeling hurt about it -- he didn't have time to register what was going on in his mind. Castiel was there one moment, gone the next. The creatures that lived among the woods of purgatory were already lingering around him and he...really had nothing to defend himself with. His gun perhaps. But he doubted he would find any bullets here. His knife he conveniently had tucked away would be go as pig-sticker but this monster-hell. Everything that he had killed. Everything that he had hunted down was here. It was easy for Dean to wrap his mind around the fact that he was the outnumbered one. That he was the one who could end up someone's meal ticket. He was used to that paranoia. He wasn't quite used to being backed up into the wall with no one beside him, that was the clicher.
It was about a week into being stuck in purgatory that he realized he was...running in circles. A couple of hours in and he had already made himself a weapon. Something more deadly than the pig-sticker he had tucked away but he still used it as back-up. Everything here wanted a taste of blood. Some didn't even think to resort to cannibalism when they heard talk there was a human sauntering around. He was a regular happy meal on legs. A week felt more like a year in his eyes. He didn't know when he slept. If he had slept. Finding places to hide when he could. Hunkering down out of sight. Dean had used mud and blood to take away the scent. It was easy for someone who knew how these things thought and hunted. If they didn't get too close to him, he didn't actually lash out and kill them. Unless it was easy pickings and their back was turned.
Then that made his life entirely easier than it should have been.
At this particular junction in his life, Dean had gotten it into his mind that hiding ground level when a certain nasty was trying to hunt him down got too close for comfort twice already. His strength dwindled daily. What sleep he managed to get was always shut off the moment he heard even the slightest noise. He wasn't going to be the least bit surprised if he survived. That's what he did. Through everything that he had gone through. Dean was going to survive...because there was no chance in Hell that he was going to end up some jackass's midnight snack. The hunter had taken to hiding the weapon he had made in his jacket before climbing (not really gracefully but quietly), up a tree. Enough to keep him hidden from whatever was below but allow him a good view of whatever was coming his way. In this place, it was always better to have the jump on other things as he remained close to the tree. Leaning against it with his weapon in hand.
He might have fallen asleep. He might not. If he had fallen asleep, it felt like only a couple of minutes. But it was really enough to keep him functioning when he heard someone moving below him. They hadn't noticed him yet. It was the perfect chance...
Dean got the drop on them -- literally and figuratively. The 'human' moving down the tree quietly and quickly until he was just a hop away before jumping down behind the thing, grabbing onto their shoulder and slamming them against the tree he had made his hide out for the evening before holding the make-shift hatchet to it's neck. Dean didn't even recognize that it was Castiel for a split second until he focused for a moment. "...fuc--Cas?" He shoved off of him, still holding the weapon in his hand tightly. "Where the hell have you been?"