"Cas?" Dean feels like an idiot. He's not even sure Cas can hear him anymore. He keeps going anyway. "Cas, I dunno if you can hear me or not, but just in case you can…I'm coming for ya, okay? I don't know where you ran off to, but I'm looking for you and I'm gonna find you, and when I do…" He stops, swallows around the lump in his throat that makes him feel like he's being choked. "When I do, we're gonna find a way to go home."

He waits, but there's no rustle of wings, no gravelly voice saying hello. He closes his eyes and breathes through the panic, pushes down the fear and the loneliness and the constant, aching worry that Cas doesn't answer him because Cas can't answer him anymore. He's never been much for blind faith, but he has to believe his friend is alive if he wants to keep himself from going crazy.

"I promise, Cas," he whispers into the darkness pressing against his eyelids. "I'll find a way to take us home."

"You know, I'm still kinda mad at you." He says it so casually, like it really isn't a big deal. "I mean, I want to still be mad at you. You lied to me, you hurt Sam, you tried to become God. Man, the shit you pulled nearly ended the world. Again." He huffs a laugh that ends on a rueful sigh, scrubbing a hand over eyes that remain dry no matter how much they sting and burn hot with unshed tears.

"But you know…it's not like you're the first of us to screw that particular pooch. And all I can think about is you trying to hold everything together by yourself. Trying to keep your brothers from killing each other and restarting the Apocalypse. Watching your family die. Hey, I may think they're giant dicks with wings, but they're still your family, and no matter what stupid shit they pull, I know you still love 'em."

He's quiet for a moment. He hasn't run out of things to say; far from it. But he keeps hoping that in the silence he'll hear the sound of angel wings. He doesn't.

"Aw, Cas," he says finally. "I'm not still mad, not really. You fixed Sammy…and I know what that cost you, I do. I guess that's why you didn't tell me you were gonna do it. I bet you knew I'd run Sam's clock down to the last second lookin' for another way, and then you'd just have to do it anyway…and who knows what shape you'da been in then. Maybe Kevin's tablet thing wouldn't have woken you up."

He sighs again.

"I guess that's what I do…I'm so desperate to hold everything together, and in the end I just run out of time. I watch someone I was supposed to protect make the sacrifice play. I don't save anybody." He stops again, and this time it's not to listen for Cas's wings.

"You know…the funny thing…I keep thinkin' about it…if I'd just found another way. If I'd held on in Hell, if I hadn't broke and started this whole thing in the first place…Sammy would never've had all those memories of Hell to begin with. Fuck, if I'd just gone ahead and died like I was supposed to the first time around, maybe I'd be in Heaven. Maybe my dad never woulda gone to Hell. Maybe Sammy wouldn't have either."

A thought strikes him in the darkness, and he has to chuckle.

"'Course, most of your dickhead brothers would say it was always gonna happen like this, one way or another. Destiny, right?" He sighs.

"G'night, Cas."

"Castiel," Dean gasps out through gritted teeth, voice laced with pain. He's got both hands pressed to his stomach to stop the blood, but if the way his vision's blurring in and out is any indication, he's probably not doing a very good job. Already he feels cold, numb below the waist and dizzy beyond belief. All he really wants is to close his eyes and zone out for a minute, just rest. He fights through the drowsiness to call for his friend one more time.

"Cas…man, if you were ever gonna…put in a guest appearance…now…now would be good."

Dean does close his eyes then, lets himself sink into a semi-oblivion that's colored with regret. He didn't keep his promises; he never found Cas, and he's never going to get them both home, now. He wonders if he can even die here, or if he'll wake up regenerated like he used to do in Hell. He wonders if his soul can make it out once his body's been drained of life.

"Cas—" he breathes, and then he's spiraling. It's slow, oddly protracted, and Dean thinks idly that it doesn't usually take him this long to die. He thinks he hears birds, but there are no birds in Purgatory, and he thinks he feels warmth. Something in this darkness makes him smile in recognition and relief. A second before he completely loses consciousness Dean knows he's really dead, because abruptly, there's no more pain.

He wakes up gradually, slumped against the same tree and feeling well-rested for the first time since further back than he can remember. There's not even a crick in his neck. He looks down at himself to check his wound, and freezes.

His clothes are completely free of blood and dirt. The material of his t-shirt is unbroken, and when he lifts it up there isn't even a scar. The cuts and scrapes that were on his hands are gone, and when he tries to stand he realized he can feel his legs just fine. What he doesn't feel is the broken ankle that slowed him down and got him into that whole mess in the first place. Rolling up his pants leg, he sees that the mottled purple skin and swollen flesh is healed completely. Dean snaps to attention, peering alertly around him, searching the surrounding trees for a flash of pale color.

"Cas?" He calls the name quietly, not wanting to attract anything other than the angel himself. Because it has to be Cas, it has to be. Dean's never seen anything else put him back together quite like this.

"Cas!" He calls again, louder this time. "C'mon, man…you gonna just hit it and quit it, don't even stick around to say hi?"

There's no response, and Dean's shoulders sag a little where he stands, but his jaw is set. Determined.

"Fine, you loony bastard," he growls, annoyed. "You wanna play hide and seek? I'll play. I'm gonna find your ass, and then I'm gonna kick it. And then I'm gonna drag it home."

"Y'know, I've been thinkin'," Dean says to empty air, although he no longer believes for a second that no one is listening. "All this time I've been assuming you were lost, or maybe you couldn't hear me…but now I think maybe you don't wanna be found."

He waits, but there's nothing. He sighs.

"I guess I'd understand that," he says softly. "All that time I spent blaming you for the stupid things you did, but I never stopped to take stock of my own sins. And now don't get me wrong…you did pull some stupid shit. But…then you tried to clean it up. You did your best. You tried to tell me you were sorry."

Dean doesn't know when he turned into such a crier, but he's wiping away tears now. If there's one thing about this place he doesn't hate, it's the way all the unimportant bullshit just disappears. He's not afraid to cry; hell, most of the time he's too afraid not to. Never mind that most of the time he has to go from paralyzed with terror to hacking up some evil sonofabitch in point-zero-five seconds. Dean now has better things to spend his energy on than suppressing his emotions when there's no one there to see. Like saying his prayers.

"I never told you how sorry I was, Cas," he chokes finally. "And man, I am. I am so fucking sorry, I don't even…you needed me. You needed me and you didn't know you could come to me for help, and who's fucking fault was that? I saw how tired you were, how upset, how desperate. But I was so used to you being the one who could just…reach out a hand and fix anything. And I kept telling myself we had bigger problems down here than what a bunch of whiny dick angels were up to. I didn't even stop to think that every time I had a problem with my brother, you were right there to help me even if it meant going against everything you'd believed in for fucking centuries."

Dean has to stop and breathe for a moment, but it feels like a lance through his heart when he does. It's like someone has his chest in a vice grip, and he spends a few minutes gasping before he manages to catch his breath and go on.

"Whatever else you did afterward, that part's on me. You needed me and I wasn't there, so you did the best you could with all you thought you had, and it blew up. And I'm sorry. Cas, I'm so fucking sorry. Please…Cas, please, I have to find you. Don't keep runnin' from me, man. I just wanna get us outta here, okay? I just wanna go home. Maybe the two of us can find a way."

It takes weeks, but eventually Dean runs out of things to say. He doesn't stop praying, though, even if it's only a sentence. Sometimes he tells Cas stories about what Sam was like as a kid. Mostly he recounts whatever monsters he found and killed that day. He doesn't tell Cas he's questioning every single one of them to try and find out where he's hiding, just in case Cas really doesn't want Dean to find him.

He's determined to see the angel again, to know for certain he's okay, to say he's sorry and ask him to come home with him to his face. Even if he has no idea how they can get home, or whether it's even possible.

Then there's Benny, and a ray of hope, and Dean looks for Castiel harder than ever. Because there might really be a way out, and no matter what Benny's misgivings are, Dean's not leaving without his angel.

"Y'know…I never told you this, but you weren't just a hammer to me, either," Dean murmurs at the sky one night, after he and Benny have made camp and he's fairly sure the other man's already asleep. Funny thing about Purgatory, vampires sleep at night just like everybody else.

"I know we called you for help a lot, whenever we ran up against something that research and the right weapon couldn't fix…which was all the damn time. But that's not all you were to us…just in case that's what you thought. You're like family to me, Cas. Your last name might as well be Winchester as far as I'm concerned. I'd do anything for you, you know that? And I'm not gonna stop looking for you, not ever."

Castiel is crouched in the grass when it starts again, and he has never understood the human expression "mixed feelings" as well as he does whenever Dean prays to him. He wishes with every fiber of his being that the man would just give up on him, just stop, but he cherishes each prayer with a mingled sense of joy and relief, because they mean Dean's alive, he's okay. They mean he still cares.

Either that, or Castiel is crazier than he thought.

But no, he reminds himself, he answered one, and it was really Dean. He was really there, right there, flesh and blood—far too much blood—and Castiel healed him.

It could have all been a dream, a vicious little voice whispers in the back of his mind. You wanted to see him so badly that you dreamed you did. You even dreamed you were needed. Now you're dreaming that he misses you, that he's out there somewhere trying to find you. Dean Winchester has been dead for weeks.

No.

Castiel would know if Dean were dead. He doesn't know how, but he's sure. He would know.

Only now the man has started praying to him during the day, and Castiel can't take it. Every word sears through him like a hot knife, and everything he is longs to fly to wherever Dean is and comfort him, silence his guilt and his worry and take away his pain, reassure him and help him find them a way home. He resists each night, but just barely. He knows that finding Dean will only ensure that they both die faster.

Still, he's not sure that he'll be able to resist if Dean starts praying to him every day, too.

Suddenly, Castiel tenses. There are footsteps approaching through the leaves. Whatever it is, it made no attempt to sneak up on him. Which means it's probably very dangerous. Castiel tears himself away from the sound of Dean's voice still echoing in the air and stands, turns to see…

…Dean.

Author's Note: Inspired by the fanart that's in the cover picture done by spookifer on tumblr, as well as the tags added to it.