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Dean has no idea where he is.
The sun is getting low in the sky and both Dean and his horse are getting tired. The sky is all pink and purple and orange, with streaks of dark grey in the distance. What's left of the day's sun is blinding and red, and the land is flat for miles around, most of it barren. That's why Dean thinks, at first, that it's some kind of mirage.
Some ways ahead, Dean sees water. He squeezes his eyes shut, shakes his head hard for a second. When he looks west again it's still there. So he presses his heels to Baby's flank, and leaves some slack in the reins as he murmurs and clicks to her to get moving.
It becomes clearer as they draw nearer that not only is there water ahead, it's an entire lake. It looks like heaven, glistening all the colours of the sky, stretching out towards the horizon. It ripples slightly here and there; there must be fish living beneath the surface. Dean slows Baby to a trot and then a walk as they approach the lake's edge.
It's shaping up to be a good end to the day: Dean will let Baby drink straight away, the poor girl definitely needs it. Then he'll get a drink himself, and then maybe it'll be late enough for them both to find some tree to sleep under, and come back to the lake in the morning for more water before trying once more to find their way back on track.
That's the plan. That is not what happens.
Baby stops at the edge of the lake and bends to drink with Dean still on her back, too thirsty to wait for him to dismount. This part, Dean expected. Par for the course when a man and his steed find themselves lost and without provisions on one of the hottest days of the year – he's never touching moonshine again. Dean looks off across the lake where the sun has now fully dipped below the horizon, waiting for Baby to drink her fill of the lake water.
It's when his mind starts to drift as he takes in the view that something must startle Baby something awful, and of course Dean doesn't have a firm hold on her when she rears up and tries to run away at the same time, bucking him straight into the lake.
It's unfathomably deep. Dean is wearing boots, and spurs, and chaps, and of course his trusty cattleman-crease Stetson. All of these things are a lot heavier when they're wet, and the lake water is colder than it has any right to be on a day this hot. Not to mention, Dean wasn't exactly expecting his beloved horse to throw him in a lake today.
That is all to say, Dean is struggling to resurface. He can swim alright, but he knows that doesn't preclude a man from drowning. And he starts to worry that that's what's going to happen here, that he'll die when even he doesn't know where he is. That his horse may well starve to death, and nobody will ever know what happened either of them. Dean's an optimist for sure.
Before the panic can fully set in, though, Dean feels strong arms wrap around his middle and haul him upwards. He's deposited on his back at the lake's edge, gasping for air as his back hits the ground, his Stetson landing beside him somewhere. After coughing a few times and quickly coming to terms with the fact that he's not dying right this second, and spotting Baby safely and calmly standing a few yards away, Dean looks up to see his saviour.
The man before him is the picture of classically handsome, with tiny shimmering streams of water running down his tan skin, converging and diverging at random. He looks back at Dean with wide blue eyes crinkled at the corners, and tilts his head slightly to one side like a curious dog. He keeps looking, blinking slightly, seemingly waiting for Dean to say something.
"Uh, what the hell, man? Where'd you even come from? You fall outta the sky or something?"
The man's slight frown deepens; not only does he not, apparently, get that Dean doesn't actually mean his last question literally, he also appears almost offended by it. After a moment, the man opens his mouth and responds in a voice that sears itself into Dean's gut like the drop of a rollercoaster, deep and decisive.
"No, human, I did not fall from the sky, that would be absurd. I live here. Where did you come from?"
Wait, human? This guy certainly looks like a regular joe, albeit a handsome one. Maybe he's just delusional, thinks he's some kind of alien folk? Dean decides to play along.
"Human? What the hell's that make you, then?"
Dean expects some kind of crazy rambling, X-Files regurgitated. Or he expects the man to correct him, say he misheard. Something like that. What he doesn't expect, is for the man to make a sort of expansive gesture down towards the water, and then to flop backwards and under the water.
Or for the end of his torso to lead not to pants of some kind, but a giant tail that flicks up into the air, glistening green and blue and silver scales going on for several feet, before a gigantic feathery-looking tail fin – totally deliberately – splashes water right in Dean's face.
Dean is wide-eyed and slack-jawed when the man – man? – resurfaces right-side-up, and this time there is a hint of amusement on his previously stony face.
"I'm a Mer. Or well, that's the closest word you humans have, though it implies I live in a sea or ocean. I live here. I am Castiel and this is my lake. And you're welcome, by the way. You know, for pulling you from certain death…"
That last part brings Dean back to reality, just a little. The man– the Mer– Castiel. He really isn't human, but more importantly, he saved Dean's life, rescued him when nobody else was there to do it.
"Thank you," he finally manages, still breathless from the whole ordeal. "Um, I'm Dean," he adds, basic manners kicking in. "And that's Baby, think you probably scared her earlier," he adds, tipping his head towards his horse. Castiel clearly doesn't have the same basic manners; he's still staring at Dean, making the most intense eye contact ever. Dean hears himself swallow.
He looks Castiel over again: where a man might have hair down his chest and abdomen and forearms, he realises that Castiel has tiny shimmering blue-green scales, sprinkled like freckles and thickening as they reach below the waist where his body goes from human to fish. It wasn't the water shimmering on him before, but his skin itself. Dean draws his eyes back up to his face, and Castiel is still looking back.
Dean figures the guy's people skills must be rusty – it's not like he would get much opportunity to talk to many humans out this way. Or maybe not to anyone at all? He seems to be alone, but what would Dean know, maybe he's got a mer-wife and two mer-kids at the bottom of the lake, with a perfectly manicured seaweed lawn. Curiosity gets the better of him.
"This is your lake, you said? Just you, or do you got some buddies down there laughin' at me?" He tries to play it off like a joke, but he should have known better. Castiel just stares at him and tilts his head questioningly again, like Dean is some kind of creature he's never seen before and he's trying to figure out what to do with him. Dean supposes that mustn't be far from the truth.
"It is 'just me' here, as you say," Castiel eventually responds. "Assuming you mean other Mer. But there are some other forms of life in this lake with me. The catfish are my favourite. Very mild flavour."
Dean baulks. "Flavour?! You eat them?"
Castiel looks slightly amused again, eyes crinkling slightly at the outer corners. "What did you suppose I eat, Dean? Human food? And where, do you think, I would procure such a thing, even if I wished to do so?"
The Mer actually looks a little downcast at the last sentence, though he seems to be trying to maintain a playful composure, and Dean realises that Castiel is right, he can't get human food, can't get anything that's not in the lake. Can't buy a beer. Can't ride a horse. Can't chat up a lady at a bar.
Must be lonely, he wants to say.
"So you've never had a hamburger, then," he says instead, and Castiel makes a non-committal noise in his throat. That, Dean can probably swing. Maybe. Dean has to actually figure out where he is, first. He debates himself for a brief moment on how embarrassing it is to ask Castiel where he is, but hey, they guy just pulled him out of a lake, so he probably can't humiliate himself any further.
"So, listen," Dean starts, pauses awkwardly for a few seconds. Makes a grimace-y face. "Wh– uh. Where are we, exactly? Or do you even know? Do you even know human places?" Dean is internally slamming his head against a brick wall at how well this conversation is going. Either he's right and the whole thing is pointless, or he's wrong and he's seriously condescending Castiel based on his, what, species?
Castiel bristles slightly; the latter then. Great. The Mer closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as if to steel himself, and then releases it with an almost meditative quality. Opening his eyes again, his gaze once again meets Dean's, all captivating shimmery blue.
"Dean," he says calmly. "You are not the only human I have met. I had the ability to change once, to walk on land and return to my lake as I pleased. This power was bestowed to me by a powerful amulet."
This is not the response Dean was expecting. He keeps looking at Castiel, though, waits for him to continue.
"Occasionally, a human will cross my path, such as yourself. Many years ago, I was discovered by a man whose vocation was in witchcraft. He gifted that amulet to me, but he was also the one to take it away. I know the human lands, but I have little desire to remember them when all I can think about is what I have lost."
Dean sits up straighter, his attention held completely. He hadn't even known that witches existed. But, more importantly, it sounds like this witch broke Castiel's heart, at least in some manner. "Why would he take your amulet away?" Dean whispers, heedless of Castiel's protest of not wishing to think of what he has lost. It's not ideal, but Dean really wants the full picture here, because despite knowing each other mere minutes, Dean has this strange desire to help Castiel, even befriend him. And hey, he's not difficult to look at either.
"He wished for me to stay on land forever, to never again have a tail. We were something akin to lovers, and he wanted me to choose him over the water, over my own body. When I declined to abandon myself so completely, he tore the amulet from me, said if I wouldn't do this to be with him, he didn't want me to be able to do it for anyone or anything else. And so I've been confined to my lake, ever since.
"This was not even my lake, before. I come from a much greater lake, and grew up amongst other Mer. But this was where I would come to be in the water when I was with him, pretending to be human. And he wished to take even this from me, my own little lake. It was the final straw."
Dean feels like he's going to cry, although Castiel tells this story with nothing more than a slightly sad look in his eyes. Dean cannot imagine the greed and cruelty of such a person as this witch. To want to take away such a part of somebody, make them live exactly as you wish, to strip them from their kin and their home, and eventually their very self, the selfishness and callousness is unfathomable.
"That's– that's a load of horse shit!" Dean finally manages. "If he cared about you he should never have done such selfish things! He could have taken turns visiting you at your home, rather than expecting you always to come to him, to make yourself more human, to make yourself less. You're– you're magnificent, Cas, for Christ's sake!"
Dean realises even as he speaks that he may be being somewhat dramatic, and he feels the tips of his ears warm, but Castiel is in fact looking at him with a soft, if slightly bemused smile.
"Cas?" the Mer questions. Shit, Dean had said that, he supposed. It just seemed to come naturally as a nickname, but still. "Sorry! Castiel," he amends, embarrassed.
"It's alright, I like it," Castiel– Cas replies. "My sister used to call me Cas. It's nice to hear it again." Dean is instantly curious but holds himself back from asking about Cas's family; after all, they've only just met. He doesn't want to upset the guy even further. So he directed the conversation back to what he reminds himself is a pretty important topic.
"So… where are we, then?" Dean asks again, knowing now that Cas actually does have an answer for him. Cas is quick to respond succinctly, "We are in the state of Texas."
"Shit, okay, good to know, because that's where I was yesterday – but I was hoping you could get a bit more specific?" Dean honestly isn't sure if Cas is messing with him or if he genuinely thinks Dean is the one who seemingly fell out of the sky into a strange land. Before he can worry about whether Cas actually knows more than that though, his resurfacing fears are assuaged; but new ones crop right up.
"The nearest town is Old Laskin. If you ride north," he gestures, in case Dean somehow doesn't know which way is north when he's just watched the sun go down, "you should make it there in an hour or so. It has been nice speaking with you Dean, I wish you well on your travels." Cas smiles weakly at him.
It feels to Dean at that moment like his heart has cracked clean down the middle. "Cas," he breathes, his voice barely crawling from his throat. "I'm not just leaving you here, man. Cas, I'm coming back, I swear, nobody should a ever left you here in the first place. I'm gonna figure something out."
Cas's expression doesn't improve: it's clear that he doesn't believe Dean. Dean wonders for an awful moment if others have come, if they've left again without a second thought. He forces himself to leave that thought behind, or at least shelve it for later. "I'm getting some food and a few hours sleep and then I'm coming back, Castiel, I swear it."
Caution to the wind and high on adrenaline at the prospect of being able to actually make a change, Dean chances leaning in and cupping Cas's face in his rough hand for a few seconds. "I'm coming back, Cas," he says again, grazing a calloused thumb across his wet cheek. "I'm getting you out of here." This time, Cas seems like he might be starting to believe him.
Dean finally gets to his feet, donning his Stetson. It, along with the rest of his clothes, are still extremely wet. But if Old Laskin is, as Cas says, only an hour's ride, he'll just have to tough it out till he gets there, and hope he can buy some dry clothes. Or at least get a fire going.
Dean tips his hat to Cas before turning and mounting Baby once more. They ride north, hard, or hard as one can soaking wet. True to Castiel's word, a town starts to take shape on the horizon within the hour. Dean doesn't have a plan, not in specifics, but he knows what lies ahead, food and rest for himself and Baby, and then the most important quest he could ever take on: save Cas.
The town of Old Laskin grows and opens ahead of him, and Dean rides on, wet and weathered and altogether worse for wear, but with more hope in his heart than he could have ever imagined before this fateful day. He might not quite be riding off into the sunset, but he has a purpose now, and he's already counting down the hours until he's back by Cas's side, with a plan to right a wrong that should have been righted long ago.