See that? See how Cas isn’t looking Dean in the eye? It’s because he can’t. Try listening to the man you rebelled for, fell for, died many times over for, call out to you every single night. Try listening for his cries for help and pleas to know if you’re even alive or if he’s truly all alone. Try using every last ounce of self control you have not to return to his side and tell him that you never left him, that you were there protecting him all along. Try risking him hating you just so he’ll leave you behind and have an actual shot at getting out. Try doing all of that, and then tell me if you’d be able to look him in the eye when you tell him, “I know.”
and Dean probably told him stuff he would not tell him face to face
For sure. Things that he only had the courage to say because he knew there was no way Cas could hear him — if Cas could hear him then Cas would be there by his side. Cas would never just ignore him. But Cas heard everything. He heard everything and he still couldn’t go. But oh, how we wanted to.
Sometimes I wonder what Dean might have said — I mean he was stuck in Purgatory for a whole year and he prayed every night — he must have really opened up after the first month or so — though Dean Winchester will deny that until the day he died. I wonder if he sat there at night with his fingers laced together like a good Christian boy because he thought maybe that would make Cas hear him better? I wonder if he sat awake during those precious few hours of sleep while Benny took his turn on watch just to pray, even though after a year he knew the prayers were going unheard. But he would still keep looking. He could just feel that Cas wasn’t completely gone.
Still, the praying was a comfort even if Cas couldn’t hear. Sometimes he was sort of happy about that, because he started saying things that he could never let the angel know about. I think he got by imagining that Cas was right there in front of him, cocking his head like a curious little bird as Dean recounted the monsters he’d killed today and how he’d interrogated them for Cas’ whereabouts. Cas would shake his head and try to start chiding him for looking and not leaving as soon as he could, but Dean imagined he would silently stop the words tumbling out of Cas’ mouth by a shy brush of his lips and a tug on the collar of his dirty, ratty trenchcoat.
Cas would know about all of it. He would be able to feel the want and the desire and the longing in Dean, and in his own little dark corner of Purgatory he would wrap his coat a little tighter around himself; not out of chill but loneliness. A sad smile would creep across his lips as Dean finally muttered “Amen” and drifted off to sleep, and Cas could sense he was at rest, at least for a few precious hours. And then he would snap back to reality as he heard the twig break off in the distance and feel the overwhelming sensation of being watched, hunted. In an instant he would be on his feet and he would spirit himself away to another God-forsaken, lonely corner of this personal hell, as far away as possible from Dean. Just to keep him safe for at least one more night. That is, until tomorrow when Dean says “Cas, it’s me again,” and Cas will be right there listening to every word.
