Title: You, Me, Him, Him and Us.
Author: c00kie
Rating: R, for language.
Genre and/or Pairing: Dean/Cas
Spoilers: 5x04!
Warnings: None that I can think of.
Word Count: 686
Summary: A shippy look at 5x04 and how some of the scenes could have turned out.

"Tell me something only you and I know," future Dean orders and it only takes a moment for Dean to decide on something, the one thing he knows his future self never told anyone, because if he had, things would already be dramatically different.

"You're in love with Cas," he tells the other Dean.

He receives a glare. "Shut up," and it's all Dean needs to hear to know that he's struck a cord. "And I ain't talkin' about that stoned out hippy who's living with us, but the real Cas, the one with a stick up his ass, the one who comes and goes as he pleases and never answers a single question."

Dean finds himself being pulled up to his feet by his color and his face inches away from his own. "Shut the fuck up. That Cas is dead and it's bad enough I still have to see him everyday and it's bad enough that you're here, reminding him of how I used to be." he's let go and pushed away as the other Dean begins to walk out. When he gets the door, he stalls. "Cas is dead," his voice is colder than steel. "We killed him."

Dean doesn't have to turn around to know that he's being watched as he throws his weapons into his bag. "I thought you'd be hanging out with old me."

"And why would I do that?" Cas leans up against the doorway with a casualness that he should't have. "Don't tell me you're jealous of yourself."

"That's not me," Dean replies, pulling out his hip flask. He doesn't bother to offer any to Cas, knowing the other man has plenty of his own.

Cas laugh is bitter, hollow. "Don't I know it?"

"So, go," Dean's giving him permission, "go, be with me."

"Why, cause I like him and he likes me?" Cas walks further into Dean's cabin. "We both know that's not true. He doesn't like me anymore than you do."

Dean doesn't lie and say it isn't true.

"Don't get me wrong, I like you without the stick in your ass, but what happened to you?"

"You happened," Cas laughs. "I fell in love with you and I defied heaven for you and you..."

"Treated you like shit," Dean finishes.

"I was going to say used me, but that works too." and Cas gives him this unnatural smile that seems more grotesque than anything else.

"Do you ever tell me?"

"Countless times," he answers. "I told you yesterday as a matter of fact. Why do you think you weren't in Risa's cabin?"

Dean doesn't hide his confusion. "You're telling me that you and me?"

"Fucked like bunnies on speed, yes," and once again, Cas laughs. "I give, he takes, that's just the way we roll."

Finally, it ends on the side of the road and Deans' standing face to face with a man wearing a black suit and a tan trench coat, and his eyes are bright and clear and there doesn't seem to be any trace of absinthe or painkillers or anything else on him. It's Cas, or at least, it looks like Cas. "How do I know you're really you?"

A head tilts in confusion. "Who else would I be?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know," the hunter tells him, even though he suspects Cas already knows. If he knows anything about the angel, and he's pretty sure he does, Cas has already visited the future and seen the horror that awaits him. He remembers what the future Cas told him, about being in love, about him constantly taking, and he remembers what future him said, about Cas being dead because of him. If Dean knows anything at the moment, it's that he can't let either of those things happen.

He puts his hand on Cas's shoulder, and he see's blue eyes dart back and forth quickly between his hand and his eyes, questioning the touch but not backing away from it. "Don't ever change," and Cas's small, indulgent smile is all the taller man needs to step into Cas's personal space.

Tags: dean/castiel, fic, spn, writing gives me fuzzies