It seems like it's been a long time since I just wrote a one shot, but this was one I had started a long time ago, and just found again LOL. It was my first shot at a Purgatory fic, which I had been wanting to try for a long time, so I hope you enjoy :)

Protect and Survive

A Supernatural Fanfic

Dean prided himself for not making too many stupid mistakes during his time in Purgatory. Surprisingly. In fact, if you took out the factor of all the things that wanted to eat his insides, the whole experience hadn't been the worst he'd ever had. Maybe barely made the top ten. He wouldn't exactly call Purgatory a vacation spot, but it hadn't been as bad as it could have been. He even had Benny, someone to watch his back.

Dean had counted it a miracle just finding the vampire who was willing to help him in the first place, but despite everything he had done up to that point, trying to stay alive, he had eventually made the stupid mistake of getting separated from his unexpected friend and as a result, ended up running for his life through the ever shadowed forest of Purgatory.

It had started off as actually not a terrible day—by Purgatory standards, which sadly could sometimes, even at the worst, be better than earth standards. Dean and Benny had actually found a shelter for the night, a small cave that was surprisingly unoccupied and they hunkered down there, tired and aching from another long day wandering aimlessly, still unable to track down Cas.

Dean could tell that Benny was getting tired of the search, even if he didn't say anything. He didn't really seem to understand why Dean needed to find Cas, and was probably only sticking around because he knew Dean was his only way out of that hellhole.

What Dean didn't understand was why Cas left in the first place. The angel had been right there beside him, and then he was gone and Dean was left running for his life from all manner of evil sons of bitches until he was able to climb a tree and wedge himself into the tallest branches he could where he hoped nothing would be able to reach him as he waited for the lowering dawn that was all the daylight Purgatory had to offer. But he had gotten better at avoiding the prolific dangers of Purgatory.

That was, until his bad luck finally seemed to catch up with him.

The black dogs had come while he was sitting in the cave alone. Benny had gone out to scout around and find some firewood—fires were a tossup in Purgatory; you they could attract unwanted attention but they could also keep other, sometimes worse things, away—and Dean was left to defend their small resting place like the animal he was becoming. He still hadn't quite wrapped his head around the ideal of Purgatory. He certainly didn't deny the fact that he could and would likely die there—he had been wounded enough times to know he bled just like everything else down there. But his body also seemed to be on hold. He didn't seem to ever need to eat, which was good because there wasn't much there to eat anyway except tree bark—he would kill for a bacon cheeseburger right about now. His hair or beard didn't grow either, and while he did sleep, he wasn't sure if he really needed that either, because it didn't make him feel any less exhausted; it just gave him a little bit of normalcy.

That being said there was still something about Purgatory that he was oddly attracted to. Maybe because he didn't have to think about anything but simply getting through each day and not getting gutted by whatever fugly came along. He had always liked the simplicity of hunting monsters. Hunting had been uncomplicated. You took out the bad guy, end of story. The past few years though, so many lines had been blurred, it wasn't just salt and burns and wendigos and werewolves anymore; demons and angels had gotten into the mix, then there had been the Apocalypse, and everything that followed. Purgatory was rough, and harsh, but at the same time felt oddly pure. There were none of the blurred lines like back on earth.

At least, not until Benny came along and surprised him. But Dean didn't regret their camaraderie at all. Like it or not, he needed someone to help him through this, and he liked Benny well enough; despite being a vamp, he was a pretty good guy. And as usual, when you cheated death with someone every day, you formed certain friendships that came with certain understandings, and because of that, Dean felt he could trust Benny not to fang him in his sleep or turn on him the second they got outside.

If they ever did get outside.

But before they thought of that, Dean needed to find his wayward angel. His relationship with Cas had been shaky at best the past year. In fact, he and Benny had been better friends in the short time he had known the vampire than he had been with Cas throughout the whole Leviathan ordeal. It wasn't that he really blamed the angel anymore, he had gotten over that, but now he didn't really know what to think. First Cas had gone on his Godstiel rampage, and then died, and came back with no memory before he healed Sam's wall and went to crazy town himself. And then, just when Dean thought they were getting back on track, the angel, who had always professed to be his guardian, had just left him within minutes of their arrival in Purgatory without a by your leave. Yeah, he was kinda pissed about that, but even more so, he just wanted to find Cas and make sure the idiot was all right. Before Cas had gone totally insane, and before Dean had known he was working with Crowley, he had told the angel that Cas was like a brother to him, and he still felt that way. Hell, he could only feel this mixed up and angry about family, right? If that wasn't proof enough that Cas belonged to his and Sam's small, busted family, then what was? And that was why he was determined to bring the idiot back home.

Benny had only been gone for about half an hour, when Dean's oversensitive ears picked up sounds of something approaching and it wasn't the vampire. His hand tightened around the hilt of his stone blade as he eased himself around the corner of the cave to see what was coming.

Black dogs. Great. They liked to come out after dark here, and they were always nasty and bad-tempered. Not that that was any different than anything else here, himself included.

He hoped they might just pass by the cave, but he heard them sniffing and cursed, as they came closer, preparing for a fight.

He readied himself in a crouch and before the first dog even peeked its snout into the shelter, he was launching himself at it, slashing at the ugly beast's throat with his weapon. That black dog went down with a gurgling yelp, but there were three more with it, and they were quickly surrounding Dean and he knew he was going to have to run if he had any hope of surviving this fight without someone at his back.

He backed away slowly first, knowing this was gonna be one hell of a chase when it got going, and as the black dogs snarled and slavered at him, trying to gauge his actions, he spun and sprinted off into the woods, with three huge black dogs on his tail, tearing up the forest ground cover with their huge claws.

He still didn't know his way around Purgatory like Benny did, but he was pretty sure that there was a river not too far from there, and that it might give him a chance to escape the dogs if he could cross it. If it wasn't too deep. But really, he would take drowning right now over getting torn apart by the black dogs. They were too akin to hellhounds for his liking.

He could hear the water rushing up ahead, an odd constant sound to break the typical stillness of Purgatory. He still hadn't quite gotten used to the silence of it. No crickets, no cicadas, no birds or squirrels. Even if there had been, they probably wouldn't have made noise anyway. Making noise got you killed in Purgatory.

He almost made it to the river. He could see it up ahead, glinting in the dull gloaming light. And then he tripped over a hidden root.

He crashed to his knees, one bashing against a rock and sending jolts of pain up his leg. His hands were scraped to shreds, but he forced himself upright, trying to regain his feet before the dogs were on him.

But it was already too late. One of the black dogs snarled, leaping with its powerful legs and launching at Dean's crouched form. The hunter ducked and rolled, allowing the dog to soar over him, but by that time the other two had caught up and were on him.

The first struck out, likely aiming for the heart beating in his chest, but he twisted at the last minute and it got his shoulder instead, raking him down to the elbow on his left arm. Dean cried out at the burning pain, and lashed out at the black dog with his weapon, catching it in the flank and making it yelp.

The first dog had recovered by then though and he spun just in time to see it leaping at him. He went down under its weight, feeling it crush the air from his chest, and then felt its claws gouge into the soft spot under his ribs on his right side. Screaming in pain, Dean got his blade up and slammed it up into the dog's belly, ripping viciously and spilling guts and gore onto the ground. The dog collapsed, and twitched the rest of its non-life away as Dean fought to get to his feet.

He was attacked by the other dog before he could get up though, huge jaws, clamping into his thigh and digging in.

Dean screamed, slashing at the thing's head, as it started to drag him. It felt like the jaws were a vice, about to crush his femur to powder. He could hardly see with the pain, screaming himself hoarse as he pictured the dog simply ripping his leg off at the joint before tearing the rest of him apart until he was nothing but bits of meat strewn through the forest floor along with every other creature that had the misfortune to die here.

But then he heard the dog that was biting him yelp. It released him and he sprawled on the ground, sobbing with pain, knowing he had to stop the bleeding, get away, and not sure what order to do those things in.

More yelps followed, as well as growls and snaps but Dean didn't care. He was dragging himself toward the river, before he pulled himself into the rushing water and allowed it to take him downstream, the quickest way out of there in his condition. He didn't even look back at his savior, as it was probably something worse that was willing to take on two black dogs for the honor of eating Dean's coveted human flesh.

The water was cold and worked to numb the pain, but he had lost so much blood that he was going into shock, and just staying afloat was proving to be too much for him to handle.

He finally came to rest against a tangle of tree branches, and had no strength to heave himself out so he just lay there and wondered how long it would be before he either bled out or something else found him and ate him.

Neither happened, though. He was drifting in and out of consciousness when he felt a presence, but he wasn't alarmed by it either, for some reason. It was familiar.

Hands gripped the back of his coat, dragging him backwards over the rocks in the river shallows to land in a sodden mess on the bank.

"Oh, Dean," someone was muttering, tugging at his clothes and pressing at his wounds. Dean could only muster a small grunt in protest. "Why did you have to do that? You could have drowned."

He figured it must be Benny. The vampire had probably come back to the cave and when he didn't see him, he tracked Dean to the place where he had been attacked, and then followed the river from there.

But yet, he was sure he had never seen Benny wear a tan trench coat.

Dean woke shivering violently. His body felt like it was on fire, some places burning unbearably, but yet he was cold. He could smell smoke and feel heat on his face, and he struggled against whatever it was restraining him, sure that something had caught him and was about to roast him alive.

"No, please, let me go," he whispered. He hated fire. His mom had died in a fire. Was he about to meet the same fate? And worse, probably eaten for supper?

"Dean, calm down," someone was saying gently, pressing down on his chest to keep him still.

"No, let go," Dean groaned.

"Dean, open your eyes, it's me, it's…it's Castiel."

The sad voice somehow got through his delirium and he forced his eyes to open. He saw the angel, filthy, gaunt, and with a small, sad smile on his lips.

"Cas?" he asked, sure he was hallucinating.

"Yes, Dean, go to sleep." A hand was rested on the top of his head, soothing, and Dean couldn't help his eyes closing.

He woke up off and on several times, each time in pain, sometimes so cold his teeth chattered, and sometimes so hot he felt like he was burning from the inside out. But every time he did, there was always someone there to soothe him back to sleep, and though he couldn't remember who that person was, he knew he was safe with them.

Finally, Dean opened his eyes blearily and was aware of more than just the pain in his body, even though that was definitely still there. It just seemed to have dulled to a constant throb instead of a burning agony.

His eyes eventually focused and he was able to take in his surroundings. He was in a half cave thing, sort of a cleft in some rocks that curved inward and created a shelter, shielded by several trees at the front. A small fire pit with glowing embers burned several feet away, and Dean saw his clothes tossed over a rock nearby. It was then that he realized that he was wearing only his boxers, even though he was covered by something—a filthy tan trench coat.

Recognition burst in his mind and he tried to sit up, but that was a very bad idea, because his body was not up to moving at all, so he fell back against the ground with a groan, shivering.

A footstep sounded nearby, and instinct took over as he searched for a weapon, not seeing anything within reach but several rocks way too large for him to move.

But his fears were unfounded because the intruder came into view and he saw it was his old friend, who, if he was being honest, he had kind of figured never to see again.

"You're awake." Cas' shoulders slumped with relief. "You are awake this time, correct? You're lucid?"

"Cas?" was all Dean could ask, surprised and incredibly glad to see his friend.

The angel furrowed his brow. "Dean, answer me, are you lucid?"

"Yeah, I—I guess," the hunter said, trying to shift onto his elbow, but Cas instantly crouched next to him and pushed him back down.

"Please try not to open your wounds again, it took me long enough to stop the bleeding. I didn't exactly have thread and needle."

Cas looked pretty rough. Oddly, he had grown a scruffy beard, and the hospital scrubs he was still wearing could hardly be recognized as the white they once were, but he also didn't seem to be insane anymore, which was something at least.

He had a handful of plants with him and he was working on tearing them up and grinding them in a bowl with a bit of water and a rock. Dean watched with interest, wanting to say a million things, but couldn't quite get any of them out. He supposed it was probably his current state of injury.

"I was surprised to find that there are actually plants here that can be used in healing," Cas commented as he created a green paste. "It's these you have to thank for your survival. Black dog saliva is notoriously high in bacteria and almost always festers. You already had a fever when I found you but I was able to ward off sepsis."

Dean didn't have the energy to protest as Cas carefully unfolded the trench coat from over top of him and began untying the strips of Dean's flannel that he must have torn up for bandages. Dean cautiously snuck a peek at the wound on his left arm that Cas was currently revealing and swallowed hard. It was pretty bad, but not as deep as it could have been. He then went on to uncover the wound in his side and the one in his leg. That one was the worst, the deep puncture wounds from the black dog's teeth creating a semi-circle from Dean's knee, half way to his hip. Each wound was red and puckered and would leave some nasty scars. He hissed as Cas gently eased the bandages off where they were sticking to his wounds.

"How long was I out?" Dean asked as Cas began to spread the green plant paste over the wounds. It stung at first but then actually made the wounds hurt less.

"About two days," Cas said, glancing over his shoulder as if realizing they were lucky they hadn't been found. "It has been…difficult keeping hidden. I had to take some of your blood and create false trails—washed what I could out of your clothes. Thankfully, the poultice I used seems to be masking the smell of your wounds, but even now I believe something is tracking you."

It was on the tip of Dean's tongue to ask Cas where the hell he had been for the past however long it had been since they got stuck down here, but he didn't have enough energy for that conversation just yet. Instead he asked, "Can I have some water?"

Cas took up a small wooden bowl of water and slipped a hand under Dean's head to raise it so he could drink. The water tasted surprisingly good and refreshing, and his throat felt less parched after several gulps. Dean lay back with his eyes closed afterward, weak as a drowned kitten. He knew he had lost a lot of blood, and even if Cas had stopped his wounds from going septic, he knew there was nothing he could have done about that. Cas finished re-bandaging his wounds with fresh strips of cloth and then gently tucked the trench coat back around him.

"Where've you been, man?" Dean asked, barely above a whisper, not even sure if he was actually asking Cas or if he were just wondering out loud.

There was a long pause as Cas exhaled softly. "It doesn't matter now. You should rest, Dean."

And because he was so tired and hurting, he didn't even have the heart to protest.

He didn't wake again until some indeterminate time later when Cas' hand clutching his good shoulder startled him. He jerked awake and groaned as his wounds protested the sudden movement. He was about to grumble when the angel's hand clapped over his mouth to keep him quiet. Dean gave him a questioning look instead.

"Something is out there," Cas informed him in a whisper. "Just stay still."

A branch cracked nearby and Dean instantly wished he had his weapon in his hand, vaguely wondering where the stone blade had gotten to after his fight with the dogs. Cas had his angel blade out, ready for whatever was to come. It was dark now, sometime in the middle of the night, and there was only the dull glow of the embers in the fireplace to give off any illumination.

Cas rose slowly to stand by the mouth of the cave, ready for whatever was coming, and a shadow appeared beyond the trees at the cave's mouth, slipping through the darkness.

Dean didn't get the chance to shout a warning before the thing launched itself from the darkness and tackled Cas into the ground with a snarl.

There was a brief vicious struggle, growling, and Cas' blade flashing in the firelight, before Dean recognized a voice.

"Ain't no one gonna cook and eat my friend, you bastard! We'll see how you like it!" Fangs flashed in the dull light and Dean forced himself up onto an elbow.

"Benny stop!" he cried before the vampire could sink his teeth into Cas' neck.

Cas' attacker looked up suddenly, giving the angel the chance to flip him onto his back and pin him with his blade to his throat.

"You know this creature, Dean?" Cas asked, unimpressed.

"Creature? Now that stings," Benny protested, trying to fight free as Dean spoke up.

"Benny, stop, that's Cas! Cas, that's Benny, he's been helping me."

"This is Cas?" Benny asked, looking the angel up and down judgingly. "No offence, chief, but he don't look all that angelic to me."

"Purgatory is hard on all of us," Cas said gruffly and sat back, yanking Benny up into a sitting position by the lapels of his coat. "You're the one who has been tracking us."

"I was just trying to find Dean," Benny said, holding up his hands calmly before he finally looked over at Dean himself. "Came back to the shelter and found you gone and a dead black dog. Then saw the blood and more dead dogs by the river. Took me a long time to pick up your trail again. You all right?"

"I'm not dead, but I got clawed up pretty good. Cas pulled me out of the river."

"Damn, chief," Benny whistled. "Well, as soon as you rest up, I guess we're out of here, now that we found your angel, right?"

Cas looked at Dean with a frown. "You found a way out?"

Dean nodded, already exhausted again. "Yeah, Benny says there's an outlet. A rift or something that goes topside."

"And you trust this vampire?" Cas asked, somewhat skeptical, casting another look at Benny.

"Yes," Dean said without hesitation. He still didn't know why, but he really did genuinely trust Benny.

"Dean, are you sure that's wise?"

"Hey now, I'm right here," Benny said sarcastically. "You know, I'm gonna go and find some firewood." He slipped off into the night. Cas watched him go before he turned back to Dean.

"What reason does he have to help you?"

Dean sighed. "He wants a ride up, that's all. But he's a good guy, Cas. Look, he's had more than one opportunity to turn on me. Sure, you can say that he only wants me to fulfill my promise, but he's had my back when he didn't have to and that means something in my book."

Cas looked like he wanted to protest further, but he simply pressed his lips together, seeming to come to some conclusion of his own and nodded. "Fine. If you trust him, then so will I. But about this way out…what is it, exactly?"

Dean shrugged his good shoulder. "Don't know. It's kind of just a thing everyone knows about. There's a couple places you can get in and out. Apparently though, they can only be used by humans since we aren't meant to be in here, which is why Benny needs me to help him out of here."

Cas looked pensive again. "And what do you get in return?"

"I got a guide and someone to watch my back; he's been helping me track you down." Dean couldn't help some of the bitterness that came into his voice. "It wasn't exactly easy when you just flew off to the four winds, Cas. I mean, I'm a tough son of a bitch, but I barely survived that first night here."

Cas' features hardened and he turned to stoke the fire, the orange glow casting shadows over his tense jaw. "I regret leaving you Dean, but you have to believe it was for your own good."

"My own good?" Dean demanded, pushing up on his elbow again despite the pain it caused. "Did you not just hear me, Cas? I almost died—about a million times!"

"It's…complicated."

"Friends don't just do that, Cas!" Dean cried, letting all the hurt and betrayal he had felt toward the angel out. "Man, you're like my brother! You think Sam would have left me? You think I would leave either you or him? I was dropped into a world of things that wanted to eat me alive without any weapons or any clue where to hide or how to survive here and I didn't even have anyone to watch my back and I didn't know whether you were alive and ignoring me or digesting in some monster's stomach."

Cas turned to him with a glare, eyes hard. "You have to understand that I did it for your own protection. You don't…"

"You know what, Cas? I don't want to hear it right now. I'm tired." And it wasn't really a lie. The argument had zapped his energy and he pulled the filthy trench coat further around him in the chill of night and turned onto his uninjured side, his back to Cas, not caring that his hip and shoulder dug into the hard ground.

He heard the angel sigh, and closed his eyes, listening as Benny came back with the firewood.

"So how many days you need for healing up, Dean?" the vampire asked as he tossed the wood down by the fire. Dean pretended to be asleep.

"It will be a few days," Cas replied for him.

Dean actually drifted off this time, mind in a turmoil over everything.

The fever came back, and Dean spent the next two days with shivers and aches, delirious for the most part. At some point, he heard Benny and Cas talking in low, urgent voices, and then felt himself being loaded onto some kind of sled and dragged for a long time while he drifted in and out of consciousness. Somewhere in his fever-muddled brain he knew they must be moving because they were in danger but he didn't really care, he just knew that eventually he was suddenly much more comfortable than he had been and had finally stopped moving. That was until someone started poking at his wounds. He tried to move his leg, but his knee felt so stiff and sensitive that it could barely bend. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that to be a bad thing.

"I thought you said the herbs would keep them from getting infected?" came a Southern drawl near Dean's head.

"I was hopeful, but was afraid it wouldn't matter for the bite wound," a gravelly voice replied. "It's the black dog saliva. There's nothing we can do now but drain the wounds and pack them with a poultice then hope for the best."

"I guess you know what you're doing."

Dean shivered as he felt whatever had been covering him lifted away, exposing his sweat-soaked body to the air, and then fingers prodding at the wound in his leg that seemed to be on fire. He groaned and tried to jerk away but was too weak to move even a little.

A hand came to rest on his face. "Dean? Are you awake?"

He grunted weakly, trying to open his eyes but they were too heavy. There was a sigh. "I'm afraid this won't be pleasant, Dean," the gravelly voice said, then, "Can you hold him down?"

Hands pressed into his shoulders, careful of his other wounds and one patted his chest. "Don't worry, chief, it will be over before you know it."

The pain in Dean's leg suddenly rocketed up from badly aching to agonizingly on fire. He screamed despite himself, thrashing against the person holding him down without much success, as they only pressed him down further.

"It's done," came the gravelly voice again, after what seemed like days, sounding almost as exhausted as Dean felt. His leg was still burning, and he was panting for breath. He felt someone take up a cool cloth and wipe the sweat from his face and chest. He shivered, but the act helped to soothe the fire in his veins and caused him to start drifting off again.

"I'm sorry, Dean," someone whispered above him, but if they had anything more to say, he didn't hear it because he fell once again into unconsciousness.

When he came to, he was finally lucid enough to recognize where he was and who was with him. He was in a different location from where he had woken up the first time with Cas, but this place was much more comfortable, the ground mostly piles of loam that cushioned his aching body, and there were hanging vines for shelter that also worked to disperse most of the smoke from the fire.

Cas was kneeling close by as he pulled leaves from several plants and put them into a bowl of steaming water, and Benny was sitting by the fire stirring something in a crude stone pot. Dean frowned as it smelled like something that wanted to be edible, though his stomach turned at the thought, because there was definitely something wrong with the scent as well. Something unfamiliar and not really pleasant. He scrunched his nose and moaned, trying to reach a hand up to rub at his eyes. He was covered with both Cas' and Benny's coats and he thought his head was propped on a pile of his own clothes. Either way, he was surprisingly comfortable.

Cas looked over instantly as he heard Dean stir and seemed relieved.

"Dean, you're awake, good," he said, and shifted so he was sitting at Dean's side, placing a hand on his forehead to check for fever. Dean wanted to bat it away but didn't have the strength for that.

Benny looked up and grinned. "Hey, chief! You're lookin' a little better. How about you try and get a little food into ya?"

"Not hungry," Dean mumbled halfheartedly.

"We thought it might be a good idea for you to eat, Dean," Cas told him gently. "You lost a lot of blood and you need to get your strength back."

Benny dished some of whatever he was cooking into a wooden bowl and came over to Dean. Cas propped the hunter up against his knees. Dean took one look at the lumpy substance and shook his head, trying to push the bowl away as Benny put it to his lips.

"Come on, just a few sips," the vampire coaxed.

Dean decided it was easier to just eat since he didn't have the strength to argue. He parted his lips and allowed some of the thick broth to slide into his mouth along with various unidentifiable chunks of some kind of meat that nearly made him choke. It was the toughest, gamiest thing he had ever put in his mouth.

"The hell is that?" he demanded hoarsely after forcing himself to swallow.

Benny grinned. "Why, that's my famous black dog gumbo."

Dean's stomach instantly rebelled and he lurched to one side so he wouldn't vomit on Cas. The angel gripped his shoulders tightly as he retched.

Benny sighed. "Maybe we should start with the herbal tea."

Several days later, Dean was finally feeling more himself and he sat on a rock at the opening of the cave, his jacket pulled tight around him, his bandages still lumpy beneath his clothes but his wounds were finally closed and no longer in danger of getting infected again. Cas' miracle poultice seemed to have done something for him at least.

The angel was behind him now, poking at the fire, and Benny was out looking for more wood and anything edible for Dean. The hunter wasn't exactly anticipating the results of that endeavor.

Dean shifted with only a small wince as the wound in his side pulled. "I think we should head out tomorrow," he said.

He heard Cas shift behind him as if he were looking up at the hunter now. "Are you certain you are well enough for that?"

"I can walk again. Kinda," Dean admitted with a vague shrug. "Either way, we can't stay here much longer. I can see you keeping a close eye on everything. You know something's coming, Cas." What Dean didn't say was that he was afraid the angel was going to try to bolt again since he was mostly recovered, and then he and Benny would have to waste that much more time tracking him down for a second time.

Castiel was quiet and Dean turned to see the angel giving him a withering glance before he turned back to the fire. "Dean, if you have something to say, say it."

Dean frowned at him. He had wanted to broach the subject of Cas leaving on multiple occasions but had been too weak to put much thought to it. Now, though…

"Okay, then," he said and leaned forward, wincing slightly. "Why the hell did you leave me? And I swear, if you say 'it's complicated' one more time…"

Cas sighed and finally graced Dean by actually turning to look at him. "You have to understand, Dean, that leaving you there was the last thing I wanted to do, but it was also the only way I could keep you safe."

Dean snorted. "You're joking, right? No offense, Cas, but the whole thing seems kind of counterproductive."

Cas narrowed his gaze, lips flattening. "Angels aren't meant to be here, Dean. I am a beacon to every monster that lives here and all of them want a chance to see what I taste like. I have no powers, I am as good as mortal here, and because of that, I knew I wouldn't even be able to protect you when they came, so I ran, hoping to give you the chance to do the same; hoping that I would be able to keep most of the monsters occupied, and I have. You don't even know half of what is down here, Dean."

Dean shifted uncomfortably on the rock. "But why not just tell me that? We could have figured something out. You didn't have to just leave without warning."

"Yes, I did, because I knew you would protest and while doing so, we would both have been killed," Cas told him, exasperation seeping into his voice. "The Leviathans, Dean, they have been hunting me since I got here. The one we knew as Dick Roman wants nothing more than to take his revenge on me for sending him back here, and he would gladly have you as well. I have somehow stayed one step ahead of them this whole time, but they are closing in and I'm going to have to get them off our trail soon."

"No," Dean spoke firmly. "Cas, you're coming with us. I'm not leaving here without you."

"Dean—"

"Stop," Dean shook his head. "I spent all this time looking for you when I could have gotten out and been home by now, but I didn't because you're family and I ain't leaving you behind."

"I can't go back!" Cas snapped suddenly, slamming his stick into the fire and creating a flurry of sparks that dissipated in the air. "Dean, I killed so many people, I decimated Heaven, the blood of my own brothers and sisters is on my hands. This is where I deserve to be. I may finally be able to atone for some of the bad I have done."

Dean watched his friend with a new understanding. So that was the real reason Cas was so hesitant to leave. He thought he belonged here. Well, that wasn't gonna happen. He remembered what Cas had said before about his resurrections being a punishment and felt a sick, angry pit form in his stomach.

"Cas, if you think any of that matters to me, after what I've done, then you're an dammed idiot. This isn't about penance, man. Wouldn't you feel better to face what you did instead of wallowing here in self-pity?"

"This isn't self-pity, Dean," Cas growled out.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Oh, isn't it? Trust me, man, I know it when I see it. Of all people, I know." He closed his eyes. "Cas, look. Back before all of this…blew up in our faces—literally—I told you you were like a brother to me. I meant that. And sure, it's been a rough ride, but all the worse things you did, you were under the influence of the Leviathans, it wasn't really you, Cas. I know you, and the Cas I know wouldn't have killed innocent people or angels just to prove a point."

Cas' fists clenched in his lap, shaking his head. "I just…wish I could go back. I made so many poor decisions."

"Haven't we all," Dean said wryly. "But, Cas, it doesn't mean you don't deserve a second chance. Maybe that's why you were brought back. Not to serve punishment, but to do something good."

Cas was silent for a long time, staring into the fire. Dean couldn't read him, but he saw the turmoil in his face. He didn't know how he was going to get through to his friend, only hoped that he could.

They both snapped to alertness as footsteps were heard approaching the camp, but Benny appeared with an armload of firewood, putting them at ease.

"So, Dean, think you'll be up for traveling tomorrow?" Benny asked the hunter. "Better not stay here too long."

Dean nodded and glanced over at Cas. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

Benny cast a sideways glace toward the angel himself. "What about you, halo? Think it's time to leave?"

Cas stared at the fire for a long moment before he finally turned toward the others, catching Dean's eye. "Yes, I do."

Relief flowed through Dean and a small smile pulled at his lips. "Good. I cannot wait to get back topside. You know how much I'd give for a hot shower and a hamburger right now?"

Benny chuckled. "We'll be sure to make that our first priority."

Dean sat back against the rock as he listened to Benny and Cas discuss their direction of travel. If all went well, they might be home in a few days.

Of course, when did anything go well for them?

Friday, I'm going to start posting my next multi-chapter fic, which will be a S7 kind of AU story featuring Crazy!Cas and Meg so please stop by and check that out ^_^ In the meantime, leave a review and let me know what you thought of this one!