"Dean."
Dean groaned. The sound registered as his name but otherwise didn't cut through the comfortable haze of near-unconsciousness.
"Dean."
Again, more insistent, and a hand on his cheek to go along with it. Was it Dad? No, Dad had been gone for a while. And in any case he was pretty sure he was hard-wired to become alert at the sound of his dad's voice—none of that let me sleep another five minutes crap. No, if it had been Dad he'd've been up already, not laying here like…what was he doing? There had been something important going on. Cas had been… "Cas." He mumbled the word before opening his eyes, and felt an odd stab of disappointment when the fingers left his face.
"Don't move," Cas said.
Dean did open his eyes now. Cas was kneeling beside him and looking down at him with wide, concerned eyes. The angel looked oddly scruffy, unshaven, and had traded his trench coat ensemble for a sturdy jacket, jeans and boots like Dean's. "Don't move?" Out of sheer curiosity he tested his limbs, and swore as a jagged pain shot through his right leg, splintering out from somewhere below the knee. "Oh," he gasped. "Don't move." He lifted his head enough to see down his body, then let it fall back with a thump. His shin had a new joint in it, his right boot pointing away at a nauseating angle. This was just great.
Cas gave him a look like I told you so.
"Where's Sam?" Dean asked. The last he could remember he and Sam had been in a motel room, investigating a case. They'd left Cas in the bunker, glued to the TV as usual. Now they were…in the woods, somewhere, bright sunlight filtering through the trees. A steep cliff jutted up from the ground a few feet away. Dean struggled to push himself up on his elbows, not liking being on his back when things were clearly not under their control.
"I do not know," Cas said. His grim tone and the deeply sad expression that crossed his face sent an anxious jolt through Dean.
Still, he forced himself to remain, at the very least, outwardly calm. "Any idea where we are?"
Cas shook his head. "Unfortunately, no."
Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The sharp pinch in his chest that resulted told him he'd cracked ribs top of everything else. "You okay? Do you remember how we got here?" he asked Cas, forcing himself to focus on something other than the grinding ache in his leg or his worry for Sam. Just because Dean ended up in the middle of nowhere lost and hurt didn't mean Sam had too.
"Yes, Dean, of course I remember," Cas said, a different kind of worry flashing in his eyes.
Dean also noted how he completely failed to answer the first question, and gave him another once-over, which somehow only served to confuse him more. Lately, in the bunker, Cas had taken to seeming kind of scruffy and out of it most days—when he even turned off the TV long enough to make an appearance. Now, though, he had a good three days growth of beard, and there was dirt on his face and his hair looked slightly greasy, like it hadn't been washed. And, despite the urgency of their circumstances, there was something oddly calm about him. Like he didn't quite care. And since when had he started dressing like a hunter, anyway? Hell, it looked like he was wearing one of Dean's old jackets. Dean narrowed his eyes at it… it wasn't, no, it couldn't be.
"How, then?" Dean asked, trying to ignore the memories bubbling up in him of a Cas who'd looked and sounded just like this. Not to mention, who emitted the same faint odor of marijuana that Dean could smell now. It couldn't be. Him being in Zachariah's freaky universe again made even less sense than Cas borrowing his jacket.
Cas squinted at him slightly, as if trying to tell whether Dean was joking or not. "We were attempting to scope out this area for signs of demonic activity, or croats, when we were ambushed. We killed two demons but the third flung you off the ledge," he nods at the short cliff Dean had noticed earlier, "before I could finish her. You were knocked unconscious."
"Cas, I went to bed in a motel in Pennsylvania last night. Sam was in the other bed," Dean said, his heart beating faster as the possibility expanded around him. He couldn't be back here. "You were back at the bunker watching friggin' Star Trek reruns, which I know because you wouldn't stop texting me. What the hell are you talking about?"
Cas opened his mouth, then shut it. "You're not from here," he realized. "You're not my Dean."
"Damn right I'm not," Dean said, forcing down the panic trying to rise in his chest. He tried to sit up a little more but gave up with a wince. His lower leg was still throbbing viciously and he gripped his thigh, wishing he could do something about the pain so he could just think. But clearly he was as stuck with the pain as he was in this place. He gritted his teeth and said urgently, "This is the end of the world, isn't it. What Zachariah showed me when he wanted me to say yes to Michael, in the apocalypse. But that wasn't real. It didn't happen. We won."
"No, Dean, we didn't," Cas said slowly. "Sam said yes. Lucifer has overrun the world."
"What year is it?" Dean asked suddenly.
"It's 2013," Cas said.
Dean let his head thump back to the slightly damp, leaf-strewn ground. It was clearly early fall.
"What have you done with my Dean?" Cas asked sharply.
"What have I…" Dean attempted once more to sit up, if only to have a slightly better position while he defended himself. The slight movement jostled his leg and sent pain careening up through his lower les, freezing him for several seconds. "I didn't do anything, Cas," he gritted. "I just woke up here."
It occurred to him that, unless he'd traded places with the other Dean in midair, this had to be the other Dean's battered body as well. He raised his hand to his face and noted a few half-healed cuts on the knuckles he was pretty sure he hadn't had in Pennsylvania, and a long, messily-healed scar tracking from his palm and down into his shirt sleeve. Definitely not his body. Even the ribs, now that he thought about it, felt like an old injury.
He quelled a jolt of worry about where his body was now. Maybe he was just asleep, like he'd been last time, but what if the other Dean was riding his own meat suit around in some sort of crazy Freaky Friday swap? Considering his alter ego had been a friggin' psychopath, he sure hoped not.
"How did you get here?" Cas asked. "Where are you from?"
Dean huffed his frustration. "I don't know. But I'm from…" his brow furrowed as he tried to think of a way to describe it. "Another timeline, I guess. Back in my past, I ended up here when it was my future. Or a possible future. Only now, it's 2015 in my world, and I'm in your freaky-ass alternate universe a year before I got here the first time."
"I…see," Cas said haltingly, sounding like he didn't see at all. "In any case, Dean, or, alternate future Dean, we should return to the camp, and find a way to deal with this…situation," he made a vague gesture at Dean, as if he were the situation. "Though you may have to explain it to me again. I'm not as sharp on the uptake as I used to be."
He gave Dean a pale smile that made something in Dean want to shrivel up. He'd mostly managed to forget what a sad, drugged-out mess the alternate Cas had been. Hell, this Cas made his own Netflix-addicted angel seem like the epitome of mental health. Well, kind of.
Getting back to the camp made sense, though. Dean gritted his teeth. Somehow, the thought of getting up made the pain thrumming through his leg ratchet up another notch or ten. "Pretty sure I'm not going anywhere fast, buddy."
"Yes. I'm aware you're injured," Cas said, in the slightly pissy way he'd had, particularly when Dean had first known him, that implied Dean's human limitations were terribly inconvenient for him. Dean wondered vaguely if he'd broken his foot yet.
"How far to the camp?" Dean asked. Even if they didn't have any answers there, they'd at least have pain pills (as Cas was proof) and food—he realized suddenly that he was starving, as if he hadn't eaten in days.
"About a six-hour hike," Cas said, casting about and coming up with a few sticks. He dropped to one knee beside Dean, balancing himself against the ground with one fist, fine lines of pain appearing around his eyes as he did.
The grimace didn't escape Dean's notice. "Hey. You okay?"
"I told you, Dean, I'm fine," Cas said irritably, then shook his head. "No. I haven't told you. I told my Dean. We were both injured last week. It's healing. I'm fine. The drugs help considerably."
"What happened?"
Cas suppressed a sigh. "We were jumped on a mission in Kansas City for supplies. My shoulder was dislocated, but you put it back in before we left. I'm fine now."
"Yeah. Sure," Dean said. He knew from plenty of experience that a badly dislocated shoulder was good for weeks of pain and stiffness, even after it was popped back in place. He watched Cas's face, which remained carefully neutral as Cas cut away his pants leg to examine the break, and felt suddenly very tired. He wondered when the last time was that this Dean had slept, and guessed it was around the last time he'd eaten. He nodded toward his leg. "You sure you know what you're doing down there?"
At down there, Cas smirked, then let out a little snort of laughter. Dean decided, very consciously, not to touch that one with a ten foot pole.
"Yes, Dean," Cas said once he was done being amused. "This won't be the first bone I've set. Not even the first bone of yours. Perks of being an apocalypse survivor. Now, hold still if you can. I expect this will hurt very much."
And with that, Cas gave his leg a mighty wrench.
Dean screamed, the sound tearing out of him before he had a chance to think about not doing it. As the initial, pure agony of bone and nerve and torn flesh grating together died down, Dean realized, panting, that Cas had in fact popped the bone back into place and was splinting his shin with the sticks and strips of his own shirt. Dean clenched his teeth as Cas worked, his eyes squeezing shut as the pain built again, forming a hazy nucleus somewhere in his shin. As Cas started wrapping the bandages around—lifting up his leg ever so slightly he time he wrapped it around, Dean threw one arm over his eyes, the other gripping the soft soil and leaves for purchase.
"I'm finished," Cas said after an eternity. He'd rested a hand on Dean's shoulder.
Dean opened his eyes slowly, blinking against the light. His right shin was still throbbing with an ungodly intensity, but no longer had the loose, disturbing feeling of a bone flopping around without an anchor. He tested his leg carefully—carefully—and found that he could move it slightly without the pain overwhelming him like it had before. The weight of Cas's hand disappeared from his shoulder.
"Thanks," he grunted. Despite the chill, early autumn air he was covered in a sheen of sweat. He reached up to wipe his forehead, and when he dropped his arm Cas was peering intently at his face.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to carry you," Cas said, with a frustrated glance at his left shoulder. "But if you lean on me, I think we'll make it before nightfall. I would rather not leave you here. The demons could return before we were able to send a rescue party."
"Rather not be left here either," Dean decided. "Help me up."
Cas hesitated. "We can wait a few more minutes."
Bless his heart, Dean thought, he really sounded worried for him. Then he frowned slightly at his own brain's use of bless his heart. Being in agony sure did funny things to his thought process.
"I'm fine," he told Cas. "I mean, it ain't gonna be fun, but waiting's not gonna help that."
"Of course," Cas said. Still kneeling beside Dean, he shifted to snake one arm around Dean's chest under his arm. Dean grunted at his ribs shifted—definitely cracked, and half-healed—but let Cas heave him into a sitting position. His leg ground against the loamy forest floor with the movement and he had to suppress another groan.
"Dean?" Cas asked worriedly. He still had one arm wrapped around Dean, and the other hand resting gently on Dean's arm.
"Yeah," Dean said, all his concentration on not passing out.
"I'm going to stand up, now."
"Yeah."
Cas hesitated, then pulled Dean up in a surprisingly smooth moment. Dean clung to him, eyes screwing shut and jaw clenching in an effort to keep from screaming again. Somehow all the blood that had been in his head seemed to rush to his leg and making it throb harder, harder, harder. His stomach flipped over again and he sagged in Cas's grip. Cas held onto him with both arms, keeping Dean upright and pressed against his body to brace him.
It seemed to last forever, but nothing came up but a little bile. Definitely hadn't eaten in a few days. Dean spat onto the leaves, his ribs burning, his leg throbbing, and had to face the thought that maybe he wouldn't even make it two steps forward, let alone back to the camp.
Cas seemed to be thinking the same thing. "Are you sure about this, Dean?"
Cas's arms were still wrapped around him, holding him up. Dean leaned into Cas's arms, grateful for the support, the warmth, the comforting firmness of the embrace. Or…whatever it was. But Cas's face had a pinched look again and Dean realized with a pang of guilt that Cas's damaged shoulder had to be taking a lot of his weight. With that in mind, he forced his shaking knee to straighten so that he could stand upright.
"Sorry," he muttered, then spit again.
Cas's face, so close to his, softened with sympathy. "Are you all right?"
Dean nodded jerkily. "Yeah. Let's go."
"Put your arm over my shoulder," Cas said, then helped Dean maneuver it there.
"Sure—you're—okay?" Dean asked haltingly, glancing at Cas's injured shoulder, which now had Dean's forearm pressed against it.
"Yes," Cas said, his voice tinged with mixed frustration and fondness. "Stop worrying about me. You're as bad as… as my Dean."
It was the second time Cas had used the phrase and Dean couldn't help but ask, "Your Dean, huh?"
Cas didn't answer. "Can you try to walk?"
"What? Yeah," Dean said. Very, very tentatively, and leaning nearly all of his weight on Cas, he limped forward.
A starburst of pain exploded in his shin and he swore loudly enough to make Cas start. But the splint held and he was able to take another step, and another.
It was going to be a long six hours.
As they limped forward, however, he was glad for Cas's arm around him. There was a steadiness to him that Dean thought he hadn't really appreciated before. It wasn't that this Cas was particularly more steady than his own Cas—if anything, probably less so, considering the drugs, orgies, and God knew what else—but something told Dean that this Cas was really there for him. That no matter what happened, he'd be there supporting him.
He forced himself to focus on stepping over a snaggle of brush on the forest floor, and supposed that he was probably a little delirious. Really, there was no difference between this Cas and his Cas aside from the fact that his Cas's drug of choice involved the Starship Enterprise.
"Dean, may I ask you a question?" Cas said.
"Yeah," Dean said. He could feel Cas's fingers brushing against his stomach through his shirt where the angel's arm was wrapped around him, holding him up. It stirred something in him, and he realized that he'd never been this close to Cas before, for so long. Not pressed up against him, anyway, so that he could feel the warmth of Cas's muscular body through his jacket. He'd never really noticed the muscles, either. It made him feel safe and weirdly snug, so much so that it almost offset the grinding agony in his lower leg.
Almost.
He was definitely delirious.
"What is your world like?" Cas asked.
"What do you mean?" Dean countered, grateful to have something to distract him from the pain and the…other stuff. "I mean, it's less of a shithole than yours, obviously."
"Are you and Sam still hunting together?" Cas asked. "Are you with…me?"
He asked the last part so tentatively, turning his head and squinting worriedly at Dean, that Dean actually gave a snort of laughter. "Yeah, Cas," he said. "You and me and Sam, right now, we all live together in the bunker. Uh, not that you know what that is."
He felt Cas's ribcage expand against his as the angel inhaled, then sighed deeply. "I'm glad to hear that."
Something about his tone—wistful, equal parts sad and bitter—set off an alarm of sorts in Dean's head, but he couldn't quite place what it was blaring about. "Why? When did you and your Dean stop being so cozy with each other?"
He'd meant it as a turn of phrase, but Cas's expression crumpled. It was only for a microsecond before a still, emotionless mask slipped over it. "It has been…two years, now."
Then it clicked, and Dean actually stopped short. Cas wearing his jacket. Laughing at Do you know what you're doing down there?Referring to him as "his Dean." Asking if Cas was with him. Putting an actual date on the end of their being cozy with each other.
"Cas," Dean said, very slowly. Even the pounding in his leg seemed to recede at the realization, and he was very aware of Cas's arm around him, the closeness of his face, the . "Cas, were you and I…together together?"
Cas's brow furrowed. "Yes, Dean. Of course."
Dean wanted to sit down. Unfortunately, he couldn't do so without pulling Cas with him, so instead he stood there clinging to him and opened and closed his mouth uselessly for a few seconds. Cas's scent—gunpowder and pot and something earthier and more exotic—was nearly overwhelming.
"How together?" he managed finally.
"I believe we were…exclusive," Cas said, his expression darkening. "I never really got a hold of the human terms while we were together, and now it doesn't seem to matter much." He gave a short, humorless laugh. "I take it that you and my counterpart have been luckier than Dean and I?"
"No," Dean said, feeling dazed. "I mean, I don't know. We're not an…an item, or anything. We've never been."
"So…what happened in your world after Sam said yes to the devil?" Cas asked curiously.
"What?" Dean said. He was still trying to get used to the idea of him and Cas together. It was something he'd never really considered—not that he hadn't appreciated that Cas was a good looking guy, or had a few dreams he'd tried to sandblast from his memory the next morning. But that was normal, wasn't it?
"After Sam said yes to the Lucifer," Cas repeated, as if that would help. "What happened?"
"I…drove out to Stull Cemetary," Dean answered. "Lucifer beat my face in, then Sam jumped him into the cage. Why?"
"That's how you won," Cas said. It was his turn to sound utterly distant.
Dean felt something in his stomach drop. "Why? What'd you guys do?"
Cas's face relaxed into something that was neither a smile, nor a grimace, but some painful in-between. "You were distraught. I comforted you."
"Comforted me."
"Yes. In exactly the way you would think," Cas said impatiently, as if it were obvious. "I pointed out that it might be our last night on earth, and I told you that I did not wish to die a virgin but that I had no interest in returning to the brothel. When I offered myself to you, you accepted. Afterwards, I convinced you not to commit suicide by facing down Lucifer. That there would be lives here worth saving when it was all over."
Dean blinked, and felt his good knee buckling slowly. As he started sliding down to the ground, Cas followed, until they were both sitting on a low log. Somehow, the tables had turned, and the pain was the only thing grounding him at all.
"It didn't last, of course," Cas. "You were grieving, and angry, and I assume you resented me for keeping you from going to Sam in the end. Once you found out what he'd done."
"I don't believe this," Dean decided. He'd think he were sleeping, if the throbbing ache in his leg didn't keep reminding him of just how awake he was.
"I suppose you don't have to," Cas said, standing again. He rubbed his shoulder and winced before saying, "Let me help you up. We should try to reach the camp before nightfall."
Dean looked at his extended hand, and swallowed, the thought of being that close to Cas again sending an odd jolt through him. He felt a lot of things for Cas—his Cas—but he's always chalked the feelings up to a sense that Cas was family. But the other-universe himwas him, and they'd especially not been so different before the apocalypse had happened, except for the whole not talking to Sam thing. He wondered how much that had to do with it—and remembered how comfortable he'd been with Cas while Sam had taken his time off. How he'd laughed harder than he had in years. If it had been just him and Cas, together, for months…
"Dean?" Cas prompted.
"Yeah," Dean grunted. Unfortunately, as he saw it, there would be no getting around the fact that he couldn't walk without Cas's help, and that would mean being in close quarters for who knew how much longer.
He let Cas haul him up again. The rush of pain that followed was distracting enough, for a few minutes, but as it receded to being moderately manageable he couldn't keep from thinking. Cas's arm around him was solid and warm again, and he imagined being in Cas's embrace for other reasons. Imagined feeling Cas against him, warm and hard and strong, and found that he actually kind of liked the idea. It made sense, too, so much so that he wondered how he hadn't seen it before now. Of course he felt something for Cas. That happiness at having him around, at him being safe and okay and nearby, it was different than anything he'd felt before. Hell, he hadn't even felt that strongly about Lisa.
"Dean," Cas said after several minutes had passed, and Dean was back to stumbling dazedly as the pain in his leg eclipsed all else.
"Mm?" Dean mumbled.
"I'm sorry," Cas said. His face was pinched too, and Dean realized that he'd hooked his arm over Cas's shoulder in a way that had to be hell, though he didn't have the strength to do anything about it.
"For what?"
"I've made you uncomfortable," Cas said. "It hadn't occurred to me that you and I would never have been…together, in your world. I mean, just think about it. A perfect untouched world without a Croat in sight, Sam unpossessed, and we still don't get out happy ending. Ironic, isn't it?" He cracked another smile that just made Dean sad.
Dean couldn't think of anything to say in response, so he didn't say anything.
The hours dragged on. Before long, the agony of stepping down again and again on his broken leg subsumed all other thoughts, and Dean could focus on little but putting one foot in front of the other. The terrain had gotten rockier, and putting his foot down the wrong way on a shifting was good for an extra shock of pain each time. His world narrowed until there was only the ground in front of him, Cas's arm tight around him, and the sound of their breathing. It was getting darker and colder and his vision swam.
At some point, he felt the world shift, and realized that Cas had picked him up and slung him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.
"Don't," he muttered thickly.
"I'm not going to leave you here, Dean," Cas said, his voice thick with effort or pain or both.
"Shoulder," Dean pointed out weakly, as he watched the ground bouncing beneath him.
Cas snorted. "You don't understand, do you?"
Dean made a noncommittal noise, because he truly didn't.
"I would do anything for you, Dean," Cas said. "You, my Dean, it doesn't matter. And it's been that way since before you were you and I was me. Well, you know what I mean." There was a pause, where Cas seemed to be trying to put his thoughts in order.
Dean closed his eyes.
"I mean," Cas went on, his voice cutting through the buzzing that had filled Dean's ears, "I mean that, although I loved you while we were together, that is not when it started. And that is not where it ends. So this? This is nothing. There's not even much farther to go. …Dean? Dean?"
Dean realized, distantly, that he was finally passing out. The buzzing in his ears had become a steady roar, and he could barely even feel the jostling anymore. It was pretty nice, actually. Soon he wouldn't be able to feel anything at all.