A/N 1: As promised, here is the sequel to In the Forests of the Night. You should probably read that first.
"So, uh…" he jerks his thumb towards the door. "I'm gonna go get food, you want anything?" The room is dark, except for the lamp on the desk, and the addressed party doesn't even look up.
"Grab me a burger." Dean doesn't thank Sam for offering, not that he'd ever expect it. But standing awkwardly in the doorway of a seedy motel, he feels a stab of irritation at the lack of acknowledgement. Or maybe it's guilt.
It had been several months since his brother and Castiel had disappeared as they took down the leviathan, leaving Sam feeling lost and abandoned as Crowley flashed him a smile that was entirely inappropriate for the situation. The mildly insane angel popped in and out of their lives in a seemingly random fashion already, so a sudden disappearance wouldn't have been unprecedented. Or, Sam had considered at the time, unwelcome. Their association with him had brought so much chaos and trouble that if he had vanished for at least a little while, it might have been welcome.
But Dean was gone too, and that had thrown the whole scenario from the realm of 'okay' directly into the center of 'not alright at all'. Interrogation of Crowley had gone nowhere (the demon had hightailed it as soon as it became clear Sam was not in the mood for his usual tricks) and research had done nothing. The fact of the matter was, short of making the weapon again and finding another leviathan to stab with it, or dying in a particularly bizarre fashion, Sam couldn't even find a way to get to purgatory, let alone get someone out of it. None of the biblical texts were at all relevant (most of them went on about repenting and becoming a better person to ascend to heaven, which sounded nice but probably applied more to dead people) and there wasn't much mention of it in the tomes that were oriented towards monster hunting. It seemed that no one had actually gotten out once they got in, and if anyone had they weren't the book-writing type.
It had been about a week of poring through books and calling up contacts night and day before Sam had silently sworn to himself that he was going to write a guide to all this crap if he survived to retirement. He owed it to the next person stupid enough to sign up for this.
Had he signed up for this? Born into it was more likely. A family curse (maybe a literal one) that he couldn't escape, because disaster was always nipping at his heels and tearing holes in his heart if he dared to stand still. But even when there wasn't a pressing disaster on their hands, like now, he had to keep hunting. For monsters and for his brother. He owed it to Dean, to everyone. By all rights, Sam shouldn't be here, he should be locked up in a cage with Lucifer, he should be batshit crazy instead of Cas, he should be dead.
But everyone had kept going, protecting him and helping him and making him owe them until he knew that he could never, ever give up until he was too old for this, and even then he'd be writing that damn book to help the next guy because he couldn't bear to let all these people who had given so much for him down.
And he had let Dean down.
Again.
His cell phone had vibrated on the desk next to him, as the night wore on and he stared blankly at the words as his eyes burned. Rubbing at them, he flipped the phone open to hear a voice he had begun to worry he'd never hear again, and even as Dean spoke he was standing up and walking out to the car. Knowing that he was driving to wherever he was without sleep and without stopping no matter how far.
Because goddammit, if he couldn't get him out of purgatory he was getting him as far away from it as he could, even if that was only a twenty-minute drive to a library, a piece of irony in itself because of all the places Dean could have gone Sam had no idea why a library was his first choice.
He didn't ask. Even now, more than a week since they were reunited, Sam is hesitating to question Dean and his choices because no matter what he is doing, it's not like Sam has ever made better ones. It's not like Sam has ever been this unselfish and helpful and has any sort of high ground, moral or rational.
He failed Dean again.
So if Dean is sitting awake trying to figure out a way to rescue Castiel, night after night, Sam won't say anything. He didn't give up on Dean, but he failed him anyway.
So Sam isn't going to tell Dean to give up on Cas. Because if he feels he owes it, somehow, to the angel, then maybe he's right.
And, he figures, Cas is pretty lucky.
Because Dean doesn't fail people.
Dean sits in the motel room, flipping through a dusty, leather-bound volume that has a promising section on the afterlife. It has given sound advice before, although mostly on other topics. But he prays that it can help them again, help him, with this.
He starts to think, please let this be the right book please before he remembers how ridiculous it is. Hoping won't change the words that are printed on the yellow-edged pages, and there is no higher deity to help him even if there were a way to rearrange the typewritten letters into something useful. Chapters on good deeds and crossroads demons that at other times would be his saving grace feel like a waste of ink as the number of pages in the section dwindle. Holy water, consecrated ground, come on come on as he turns the page to a section entitled Ghosts, Phantoms and Spirits, and he can almost feel his heart plummeting as yet another possibility vanishes into thin air.
Frustration and the permeating feeling of failure cause him to hurl the book across the room. Sam will probably have something to say about his treatment of the text, but Dean can't really bring himself to care at this point. Every second here is incalculable time in purgatory, and every time he turns a page Castiel could be taking another step, shoving a hideous monster away from him, letting out a ragged breath as blood soaked his coat…
No. He has to believe the angel is still alive, still moving, still surviving.
Otherwise he will have let Castiel go completely, and he can't do that. Not now that he's forgiven Cas for what he did to Sam. He'd tried so hard to put it right, too. Tried to regain Dean's trust, even once his mind was broken from trying to help Sam, he'd joined them in taking down Dick. Even if the mess was his fault, he'd given the last thing he had, broken newfound principles to take down the threat, and been thrown to purgatory with Dean for his troubles.
And then he had given everything again to send Dean home, confining himself to the forest that would forever haunt Dean's dreams. A self-imposed exile, Dean thinks, and then wonders where he'd heard the phrase. It applied itself to the situation, a foreign term, but growing more accurate the more time he spends considering it it.
Castiel might have been able to escape, but he didn't. He'd sent Dean through, assuring him that he no longer thought of himself as a monster. But even now Dean doubts the validity of that statement. Even as he said it, Castiel had stayed behind in the forest, a place for monsters and monsters alone.
Whatever he said, some part of Cas didn't think he was worth more than the beasts who preyed upon them, that he deserved to be hunted down and left to die.
Dean isn't about to let that happen.
Standing up slowly, wincing slightly at the cracking joints, he walks across the room and retrieves the fallen book. He sets it on the table, silently promising to look through again tomorrow, even though he knows it will be yet another exercise in futility.
Sam isn't back yet, and Dean steps outside to wait. His eyes sweep over the cars in the motel parking lot below him, the ones that fly down the highway farther away, the streetlights, the neon signs.
He turns his eyes upward to the sky, settling his gaze on the smattering of stars that can still be seen through the light pollution and the cloud cover.
Castiel will see these stars again. Dean will make sure of it.
Until then, Dean will just have to see them for him.
A/N 2: Not sure how I feel about the first chapter, so let me know what you think through reviews. I'm especially uncomfortable writing Sam, so tell me how this could be improved and what you hope to see later on. Thanks so much for reading!