A/N Thanks to Lizaredlion for the idea! This will be a multi-chapter fic and hopefully I can get power long enough to finish writing this :p
**DISCLAIMER** I do not own Supernatural, the characters, or the intellectual property of the writers and will not use them for capital gain.
"We'll be back for you," the leviathan that had stolen Castiel's body promised. It was using Castiel's voice, but Dean couldn't make the connection between Castiel and the leviathan imposters. Castiel's betrayal of Dean's trust was still too fresh, too raw, for Dean to process.
Blood, both red and black, was dripping down the angel's filthy trench coat. Jimmy Novak's body swayed under the pressure of so many souls. The vessel stumbled out of the decrepit building, leaving a trail of blood and filth in its wake.
Dean stared incredulously at the space where Castiel had stood moments earlier. He was in total shock. It pained Dean to know that Castiel was trapped with those hungry monsters, but his first priority was to regroup and recover, if only for a moment. He had to pick himself up and carry on to save Castiel.
They chased the leviathans to a nearby lake, but the chase was useless. They were too late to stop the leviathan from submerging beneath the murky waters of the lake, creating a vortex to suck Castiel down with them. Dean watched, helpless to stop it, as Castiel's beautiful vessel, the one he'd come to dreaming about every night for months disappeared.
Dean was staring, dumbfounded, at the lake, watching for signs that Castiel was going to rise up in all his angelic glory. He wanted Castiel tell him it was going to be alright, that they could kill these mother fuckers, that this was all part of the plan. But he saw nothing, no bubbles, no trench coat, nothing but the swirling black promise that the leviathan were going to come and reign their hell on the Earth.
"Ok, so he's gone," Dean said, trying to figure out what the next step was. Castiel was gone. Who was going to help their band of stubborn humans now?
"Yup, rest in peace, if that's in the cards," Bobby sincerely grumbled.
"Dumb son of a bitch," Dean said, lip quivering, trying to hold back the tears. Why did Castiel have to resort to this? Why couldn't he have just left it alone? Couldn't he have just trusted that Dean would help him take care of it?
"Well, he was friends with us, wasn't he? Can't get much dumber than that. Come on, those things'll be coming up for air soon," Bobby was determined to move on and not be caught in the shitstorm that was going to follow.
Sam, Dean, and Bobby ran from where they had witnessed the angel disappear into the lake, sirens wailing in the background.
They had no plan, no guide to help them through this battle. So they did the only thing they really knew how to - they hit the road, running from the past, and killing every monster in a 500 mile radius and then some.
Dean's thoughts would often stray to Castiel, trying to make sense of his deceit, but it all was just too painful for Dean to process. He would try to push it down, but bubbling to the surface they always came.
Dean would take the Impala and go for miles once he thought Sam and Bobby were asleep. He would drive, Metallica blasting so loud it drowned out Castiel's voice. Sam noticed, of course. He knew Dean wasn't sleeping and the Impala was permanently out of gas, so it wasn't hard to put two and two together.
Sam was worried about Dean. He even tried talking to him about Cas once, but Dean's walls were too high for Sam to breach, his defences around his despair too solid for anyone to get to. It was tearing Dean up inside, but he wasn't going to let anyone fix it. Nobody but Cas could ever get under his skin, and now that he was gone, well, it was just too much to deal with. Dean closed the doors, closed himself off from everyone, buried himself in his work, and let no one get too close to him, lest they get killed too. He was a man with no purpose, no goal for life; the most dangerous position he'd ever been in.
Castiel woke on the banks of the lake. He was wet and filthy, but he was free. The leviathan let him go. Castiel didn't know why or how, but they were gone. He was so sure he was going to die, leave his precious Earth behind, abandon the family he had made for himself, all in the name of saving the Earth from the wrath of his brothers. It was a sacrifice he was willing to make - right up until it came time to leave Dean. In that last moment between him opening the gate and letting the leviathan in, he looked back into the eyes of the human he'd fallen in love with, and he heart squeezed so tightly, he could barely breathe. He wanted to go back like it was his only mission in life. He wanted to grip Dean tightly and let the world come crashing down around them, but they would survive together, just the two of them for eternity. If everything else perished, Castiel would not have given it a second thought. It only was for a second, though.
Now he'd been given a second chance, a fighting chance to save his family, and he wasn't thinking about the family he'd spent centuries with. He had to find Dean.
Jimmy's body had been damaged massively. Castiel was too weak to heal his vessel, so he lay on the banks of the lake in agony, his whole being on fire. He couldn't move; the waves of pain encompassing his grace were too much for him to bear. He couldn't control his vessel; he couldn't scream or cry out for help, for Dean. He couldn't climb up the banks to solid ground. Castiel was stuck in limbo, between life and death, waiting to fall off the razor sharp edge of existence on which he was treading.
Dean started going on suicide missions just to feel something. After Castiel... he hadn't felt anything other than numb solidarity.
He attacked anything that went bump in the night. A whole vampire nest burned to the ground before he was done decapitating everything in sight. Packs of werewolves went missing when the Impala rolled into town. And Dean stopped caring about what he was killing, only that he was destroying everything, seeking revenge on his cold world.
Sam and Dean got wind of the leviathan chasing their scent every now and again. They didn't even know how to begin fighting them, and the few encounters they'd had were less than pleasant. So they decided to hide. They had been running from the law enforcement since they were kids, so changing licence plates, ID's, and credit cards wasn't problematic. It kept them hidden, kept them safe, but it made them impossible for even Bobby to trace their whereabouts.
Some kids found Castiel, and after a little screaming and panic at the sight of a bloody body washed up on the banks of the body of water they drank out of, an ambulance was called. Castiel could hear the worried voices, the sirens, and he could see the flashing lights and uniformed EMT's lifting his body into the ambulance, but nothing seemed to register. Castiel couldn't recognize what was happening any more than a blind canary could tell where he was flying.
Castiel slipped in and out of consciousness . His doctors kept calling him John Doe, but whenever Castiel tried to tell them otherwise, he ended up either blowing out window panes or not being able to say anything at all. He decided that he should just stay silent after the second time he'd lost control. He had never lost control of his powers before; not when he was a child, never when he fought with the garrison, not even when he thought the Winchester's lives were at stake. This was new ground for him, and he was going at it alone. He couldn't rely on his family, the garrison had either abandoned him or been obliterated. God was missing, and Castiel was starting to wonder if He really existed at all. The Winchesters were nowhere around, at least from what Castiel gathered, and it only made sense that they would hit the road at their first opportunity if they thought he was dead.
Castiel stayed in the hospital for weeks. He had a very poor perception of time but the second he finally gathered enough strength to blip out of the hospital, he abandoned the care humans and flew to a safe house, his home.
Well, to call it a proper home was an overstatement. It was an overgrown patch of heaven, one very rarely visited by anyone other than Castiel and Gabriel. Gabriel had been there when their Father had created Heaven and knew the ins-and-outs of it entirety. So when Gabriel brought shiny, new Castiel to this corner of Heaven, he knew that this is where home was going to be for Castiel. This is where Gabriel taught Castiel to use his seraph blade, the best ways to piss Michael off, how to fly, things Castiel would forever see Gobriel as his mentor for. Now that Gabriel was, well, wherever the hell Gabriel was, it was Castiel's alone.
The holy golden light that filled the skies in Heaven filtered through the canopy that towered far above Castiel's head and landed on the violently green grassy floor. A few rocks and felled trees scattered the ground, and Castiel collapsed on top of an outcropping. They didn't feel like rocks, but more like lumpy pillows. They were great for stargazing, or earth-gazing, depending on what Gabriel felt like that day, but right then and there, they served as a place for the lost angel to sleep.
"Dean, you're scaring me," Dean had come limping back to the grimy motel 6 where the Winchesters had recently taken up residency covered in so much blood, Sam couldn't distinguish where it ended and where it began. "You need to stop this."
"Stop what Sam?" Dean was angry at his brother for being too protective of him, "Stop hunting? I thought that's what we did. We hunt things and save people, since when did we take time off?" Dean shrugged off his filthy leather jacket which was torn to shreds, "We don't, Sammy. End of story."
"Dean, I get it. You're mad that Cas-"
"This has nothing to do with Cas, he was a stupid bastard and got what was coming," Dean said, but his heart wasn't into it. He collapsed into a rickety plastic chair to take off his muddy boots, wincing as a no doubt broken foot made its exit from the confides of Dean's shoe.
"I think it does, Dean. You'd never do this if he was still around."
"Like hell I wouldn't. This is our duty, we start the apocalypse, we end it. We unleash a shitstorm from purgatory and it's our job to shove their sorry asses back where they belong."
"Yeah but look at yourself, fighting all your battles on your own isn't going to do much good if you've broken every goddamn bone in your body."
"Dude, I'm fine."
"Ok, stand up."
Dean valiantly fell over.
Castiel awoke to the sounds of the angels. He'd forgotten what music they could make. The voices of the choirs of heaven rang throughout the entirety of Heaven, touching the souls of every being that inhabited it's plains. Castiel had heard the music throughout most of his lifetime, and the music changed from the lethargic to strikingly fierce to violently rebellious as his lifetime drifted from one phase to the next. But then he met Dean, and suddenly, the music became something like a Vivaldi piece. Bouncing and happy to destructively wild to passionate and amorous and back again. And Castiel loved it.
But now, all he could hear was sadness oozing from the angel's voices. He was trapped in Heaven. He had no power to restore himself yet, he was in agony, he was alone, and worst of all, the man he'd rebelled against heaven, against his own family for, thought him to be dead. Castiel fretted that Dean had died in his absence - that the monsters he'd released onto the Earth had gone and killed Dean. That would be a cruel joke for God to play on Castiel.
Castiel forced himself to sleep. He hated that all he could do was sit there and wait, but wait he was going to have to do. It was his only move.
Dean had six fractures and two broken bones, along with a torn tendon and three knife wounds traversing his torso. The doctors at the ER in the municipal hospital in nowheresville Iowa looked mildly impressed that one man could sustain so much injury but still hit on the nurses with abandon.
Sam made him stay in the hospital for 2 days before he signed him out. Dean was jumping out of his skin and four casts to get out of the "antiseptic-reeking pisshole" Sam had committed him to.
They found a remote ranch house that looked like it might fall over if the wind blew too quickly and hadn't seen another soul in a very long time. Sam insisted they stay in while Dean was on the mend. Dean wasn't allowed to leave the house without Sam's permission, but it was not like he could go very far anyway. The crutches and boot severely hindered his ability to get to the fridge, much less outside.
Bobby had left to take care of his own business in Sioux Falls. He called every now and again, but the Winchesters were on their own for the time being. No plan, no idea how to kill the leviathan, no guide to tell them they're being morons. Square one had never felt more homely.
