TITLE: Of Doomed Relationships And The Beauty Of AUs

CHARACTERS: Dean/Castiel

GENRE: Angst, Romance

SPOILERS: very very vague spoilers for the whole show

SUMMARY: The one where Dean ponders multiverses and I remind myself that technically, fanfiction is as real as canon. Just in a different way.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I read the beautiful Maybe In Another Universe, I Deserve You by Gaby Dunn yesterday and since everything makes me think of Destiel lately (and by "lately" I mean in the last year and a half) I had to write a version of it from Dean's POV. I don't know if I should say that I was inspired by Dunn's work or that I plain ripped it off. Oh, who am I kidding, this is totally a rip-off. My humble apologies to the author.

I've been thinkin' a lot about the multiverse theory lately. You ever heard of it, buddy? Yeah, you probably have. I always tease you 'cause you know so little about my world, but this is the kind of geeky stuff that makes you find the human race facinating. And you angels love alternate realities, don't you? Just look at that asshole Zachariah.

Anyway. According to this one philosopher, the universe we live in could be just one in an infinite array of possibilities. You follow me? It means there could be so much more than our reality. Endless other worlds we know nothing about. And here's the kicker: the possible universes, they aren't just foreign worlds - they're literally different versions of ours. Alternate realities. Which means there's still a me and you in each and every one of them. And there's a Sammy and a Kevin and a Bobby and yeah, even all your dick brothers. Can you imagine that?

You're probably wondering why the hell I'm pulling all this crap out of my ass right now. Life sucks enough as it is, why would anyone want to think there's other versions of us going through their own brand of misery?

... But, you know. Sometimes I like to think things aren't so bad in the other universes after all. I like to think there are worlds where Sam was never cursed and he can live the life he wanted with the girl he loves, where Mom got to see her sons grow up and never become monsters, where all the people I screwed over never met me. 'cause let's be real. There's no way this isn't one of the most depressing, fucked up realities out there. So maybe the other me's are better, happier persons. Maybe they have figured out what life is it that they want and they're living it, fuck whoever wants them to be someone else. If that's the case, well, I'm ready to bet each and every one of them found you.

You see now why I'm telling you all this? 'cause I know you and I, here and now – we will never be together. Hell, I probably came to terms with that before coming to terms with the fact that us being together is something that I want. There's just too much crap keeping us apart. But, see, I can't imagine a universe where I met you and didn't fall for you.

And this is where the theory comes into play. Because that's the beauty of parallel universes - there's even more possible worlds than reasons we can't be together. Which means there's infinite realities where all those stupid reasons don't mean squat and we're happy. Some are almost the same as ours, because truth is, some reasons keeping us apart are so dumb that if you alter the smallest detail they lose all their clout. They're the realities where I don't feel so fucking guilty about wanting something for myself, where you accept that your battles are mine too and we can fight them side by side, where you chose a female vessel and I wasn't too ashamed and afraid to explain to you why is it that you're always ready to give up everything for me and I need you with me, bad, even when you can't magic away all my problems. They're the realities that hurts the most to think about, 'cause even with the little differences they're still close enough to ours and it's so fucking painful to know if only one little detail were different we'd have what the other-yous and other-me's have. That we could hunt together and you'd want to ride shotgun for the whole trip even though you can fly and you'd know that when I make fun of you it's only because your ticked off face is adorable and we'd fuck hard and fast in the backseat to blow off the adrenaline after a hunt and make love in my bed in a bunker you've started to think of as home and when I woke up in the middle of the night after yet another nightmare you'd be there to hold me and tell me it's okay and we wouldn't be afraid to lose each other forever every time we have a fight and I'd sit on the hood of the car drinking a beer listening to you name all the stars and we'd never need to tell each other I love you or some other chick-flick crap because it'd be obvious and when finally the job becomes too much for me I could die in your arms knowing that my heaven will be filled with the memory of you. They're the realities that ache, the ones I can easily imagine myself in but I know I'll never get to live.

Then there's the realities where we're different people leading completely different lives. It's easier to think about them, fun even, 'cause the possibilities really are endless.

So maybe in another universe we met in high school and you gave me hope when I hated myself and I gave you the courage to turn your back on an abusive family. In another we're in the trenches together, rebels against some fucked-up regime. We're childhood friends meeting again after years apart and falling for each other all over again. Or I'm in desperate need of money and you of company. In some universes we're both human, in others we're both angels, and in others we're something else. We might have met in a coffee shop or somewhere super-weird like through a radio program or on some cheesy reality tv show. Maybe in some realities we get married and buy a house in the suburbs, and I actually fit in in that world for once. We go to barbecues and lean close to each other to talk, even closer than we do now, and all the housewives fall in love with you and I get impossibly jealous, but you always know how to reassure me. We have all the time to get to know each other's bodies and moods. We adopt a couple kids and bicker over their names because you think it's unfair that I get to name one after my father when you can't, and we look proudly at each other when they graduate and give each other strength when they're off to live their own lives. We get to grow old together, drinking on the porch and holding hands until the very last moments. Maybe in some realities we want nothing else than this, and we get to have it. And maybe in some others we live fast and reckless, never putting roots down, not daring to guess anything about where the next day will take us, sure only of the fact that we'll still be together.

Sometimes I'm jealous of the other me's, the ones who get to have you the way I never will. But in a way I guess it's fair, y'know? That if there's infinite universes, if I met you infinite times, there must be one time it didn't work out. Just one. And it's us, this me and this you, here and now. And yeah, it sucks to think that we had infinite chances and we ended up getting the one rigged game everyone was bound to lose. But if it's the price to pay for endless other me's and you's to be together, it's not too much of the universe to ask, right? Especially from us, who were trained to put everyone else's needs before our own.

So I'm okay with it, at least most of the time. Then some days you'll do something incredibly stupid for me, or almost die, or simply decide to go on a date with someone else or look at me in a certain way, and I'll be back whining to myself about the unfairness of it all. They're the days that I want to break everything I see, or go to a bar and flirt with the wrong girls and pick fights, or get oscenely drunk and call you and beg you to quit playing this game and come here and fuck me and fuck the universe.

Lucky for me, I got enough restraint to keep from doing any of this. I've come to terms with it, the two of us being apart, I tell myself. It's a small price to pay.

And, you know - if there's just one possible version of us that can defy the universe's rules and end up together in spite of it all, well... we both know it's you and me.