Title: Through Glass

Characters: Dean, Castiel

Rating: M (language)

Warnings: Character Death

Spoilers: Major spoilers for Season 1, minor spoilers up to Season 5 episode, 'The End'. The Carrigans from 'A Very Supernatural Christmas' are also mentioned.

Word Count: 2,534

Summary: Dean died in 2014 and Castiel watched over him until the lights faded from the eldest Winchester's eyes. He goes back in time to set right the wrongs and avert the apocalypse — and perhaps save Dean, and himself, along the way.

Author's Note: The summary is a bit...misleading, but please read. This is my first attempt at a fic like this, so I want honest opinions.

Oh, and so you aren't confused. This takes place (near the beginning) in 2014. Cas in an angel still in this 2014, but he's slowly loosing his powers, rather than loosing them abruptly as is in canon. So, he's still an angel, but with mannerisms resembling the ones seen in 'The End' as well as the early Season 4 Cas we all known and love .

Dean died in 2014.

It happened in a small town in Indiana. A town so small and insignificant, very few people ever had the words cross their lips in the entire lifetime. But this is where his Dean died; this is where his Dean could not be saved despite all the powers the people — the creatures around him had.

It was just before summer, not too long from his brother, Sam's, birthday when it happened. Not that his brother's birthday mattered any longer. Sam was dead — the only parts of him remaining was his body that housed Satan's unnatural being. There was no Sam and all his days left living were spent tracking the son of a bitch down and killing him. If only he had the gun.

And dodging the Croatian virus everywhere he went.

Dean died in 2014, but not in any way that he ever expected.

The aging hunter grew up with a motto in his head — saving people, hunting things — and it was always obvious that the hunter expected to go down for the last time battling a werewolf or a vampire that was just too damn strong for him despite his experience. Maybe it would be a djinn with a hallucination that was just too tempting, or perhaps a Succubus would finally catch onto his brainwaves. Either way, it would be a monster that would end his life. That...that Dean Winchester was always completely sure of.

He didn't die in a way that a hunter with an ego like his wanted to go out. There was no torture — no maiming.

Dean died in 2014, slowly — painfully.

He withered away in a tiny motel, alone and in more pain that imaginable. Sweat caked itself to the young man's body, plastering the cheap sheets to his ivory skin. His face was a mask of pure pain. There was no sign of his usual cockiness — there was no sight of Dean Winchester, hunter extraordinaire. There was only a pale shadow of the man once raised from perdition by an angel.

That angel stood by the Great Man's side as he died, unable to slow the progress of the strange disease— not Croatoan and unlike anything Castiel had ever seen before in all his years as an angel — that plagued the young mortal.

Castiel tried everything he could think of to cure Dean Winchester. Yet, there was nothing he could do, Castiel found himself unable to ease the pain or to taper it off even slightly. His powers, while not strong, were not weak. Logically, he should be able to cure the ghastly illness beseeched upon the dying man.

But he couldn't, no matter how desperate the young angel was. He could do nothing. Nothing significant. Nothing insignificant. Just...nothing.

Dean died in 2014, because there was nothing Castiel could do to save him.

Even when Dean took his last breath, he still didn't manage to go out quietly. The disease finally consumed him and the man screamed late into the night until the pain-filed pleas were cut off. To Castiel's surprise and horror, Dean's soul was completely obliterated that night. He could go to neither Heaven nor hell. He just ceased to exist.

Dean Winchester was no more.

It was clear then that this was no normal disease — it was a purposeful one, laid upon the only remaining Winchester as a threat — a warning gone horribly wrong, or perhaps horribly right — by the angels.

And two days later, Castiel manipulated history for the final time. He stepped over the boundary of time, desperately hoping that he wasn't killed because he was too weak — his grace too close to exhaustion to make the jump. He had to make it back.. For humanity.

For Dean.

(~) (~) (~)

Even though the Winchester brothers sincerely believed that time was a simple thing for an angel to change, it was not so. Only the most controlled angel with the most willpower over quite a bit of grace could accurately control time. Castiel was weak — delirious from being cut off from heaven and the loss of the last Winchester.

He appears in front of Dean Winchester on October 2nd, 2005, a few weeks prior to the day when Dean Winchester would set off to drag his brother away from Stanford and Jessica Moore. It could not happen again. Perhaps, he could stop all of it. The apocalypse — the deaths.

At the very least, he could hold off the fight for a few hundred more years. He knew things that not even Michael and Lucifer knew. He had the upper hand.

He could win, if he was subtle. If the other angel's caught a whiff of his interference...if the Castiel in this time figured it all out...

It was not a situation he had any wish to deal with.

"Fuck!"

Obscenities continued to stream out of Dean's mouth as he scrambled backwards on the bed, pulling a knife — silver, Castiel noted silently — from under his pillow. Within a blink of he eye, Dean was pulling the safety off one of his more...lethal pieces of weaponry and pointing it at the creature that had appeared before his bed.

Castiel cocked one of his eyebrows, amused beneath his stoic exterior. This Dean had yet to face a Demon, let alone an angel. "Neither of those weapons will work on me, Dean Winchester. Your attempts to kill me will be futile."

"Yeah?" He smirked, pulling his overly-cocky mask to the forefront, "Hey, don't take this wrong, but I don't trust your say-so, you motherfu—"

"Your mouth is vulgar." Something he knew already, yes, but it shut up the eldest Winchester for a few seconds, something he already desperately needed. He felt so weak — even weaker than before he attempted the time travel. He could still fell the lingering ache of the force he put his grace through, the tug of it away from his chest.

Listening the Dean Winchester, even if he did go back in time for the righteous man, was the last thing he wanted right in.

Truthfully, he hadn't even been trying to transport himself to Dean. He just was trying to hurl himself far enough back in time to make a difference.

Dean skillfully chucked the knife at Castiel, willingly giving up one of his weapons. He had silver bullets in the gun and pretty much any other ammo he could ever need in his pocket. Castiel tilted his head a bit, letting the blade hit him square in the chest. He stumbled back only a few inches before regaining his demeanor and pulling out the blade.

The wound healed instantly.

Dean narrowed his eyes, mistrust for the creature increasing by a tenfold, "What the fuck are you?"

"It is obvious you have yet to meet the Carrigans."

"The who?" Dean blinked a few times in confusion, trying to remember a Carrigan.

"It is unimportant." Castiel paced forward and Dean raised the gun again, "I though we already established that silver would not work on me, Winchester."

The grip on the weapon tightened, but his aim never faltered in the slightest, "How did you know it was silver?" The boy said, in an accusing tone.

"I did not. You only confirmed it. It is, after all, your hunting material of choice." Dean scowled, but Castiel wasn't sure if it was because he was tricked, or because an unknown creature seemed to know things about him that no creature should know.

"What the hell do you want?" He didn't make a habit of catering to the needs of evil, supernatural creatures, but damn it if he didn't just want to be left alone at theis point. He was so exhausted; he'd been chasing after his father's shadow for a few days and he was closer to finding the man than before he started looking.

He was sick of moronic witches, ghosts, and poltergeists getting in his way.

"I merely want to warn you. I have no wish to harm you."

The mortal snorted, "Well, that's a new one. Not wanting to harm me," His expression straightened out, "I call bullshit."

"Call it whatever you want. But if you get your brother to help you in the search for your father, both of you will die, as well as friends of yours and your father as well."

"Is that a threat?"

"Of course not. Merely a... warning." And then he was gone.

Sam Winchester sat up in bed, his shoulders stiff and his body poised for attack. By some miracle, Jessica merely mumbled beneath her breath and rolled over, her blonde hair cascading innocently over her bare shoulders. His first instinct is to reach for a weapon — instinct alone demands it, but habit enforces the demand. Then he remembers that the closest knife was in the next room, where he'd stashed it after Jessica found the dagger and demanded why it was hidden away in their bedroom earlier the day before. He hadn't had time to find a new hiding place yet.

A being — he cannot identify what — stands before the bed, expressionlessly staring at him. There's a flash of curiosity, but it's gone so fast Sam can't be positive if he say it at all. "What are you?"

The...things...lip twitched as though it was holding back a smile. Or perhaps a smirk."You are not the first to ask me that question tonight, Samuel."

"Okay, but I want an answer."

"You would not believe me, even if I was to tell you." Not even Castiel was sure of the words that came from his mouth. Sam was always the most believing of the two brothers and Castiel was well aware that Sam was still praying a a regular basis in this time. Hoping. "It is not necessary for you to know."

Sam looked as though he wanted to do anything but acquiesce to giving up the subject, but he just moved over to conceal the sleeping girl by his side from Castiel's direct viewing range. It was a useless endeavor, but Castiel kept his mouth shut. "Why are you here then. I've given up...hunting. I don't want anything to do with it anymore."

"I am not here to drag you back into your former lifestyle. In reality, it is quite the opposite."

"Really." It was said in disbelief, but Castiel nodded anyway.

"I understand the...mistrust you have towards me, but I assure you, I have no harm to hurt you or Jessica Moore. Nor do I have any ill intent towards hunters." Castiel met the youngest Winchester's —other than Adam, but the boy was a Milligan...legally— eyes and tried to convey his sincerity, but he was never much good at being human. Or emotions. Or sincerity.

"Then what do you want?"

"I want you to say no."

"Say...no?"

"Your brother will be here within the month to take you to find your father after he and Dean split up to hunt on their own."

"Dean's hunting alone?" He only remembered to lower his voice when he felt Jessica shift against his lower back, mumbling at him to go back to sleep. Both man and angel stood in silence for a few minutes until her breathing smoothed out again.

"Indeed, but I need you to say no. He will be convincing, but you cannot leave this apartment that night."

"Why?"

"Because if you leave, it will trigger a series of events that will lead to Dean's death within eight years time, yours several years before that, the deaths of your friends, your remaining family, and most of the existing world."

"You're talking millions of people."

"No, Samuel, I'm talking about billions of humans. It only takes a few months to wipe out most of the human population using the right methods."

Sam was quiet again, likely thinking over the logic of the situation in his head, variables and contingencies all laid out bare. "I don't even know if I can trust you."

"I understand," Castiel said quietly, "but can you afford to not trust me on this? I have seen what is to come. I do not desire the end of humanity."

"Okay," Sam murmured quietly, "Okay, I'll do it."

When Dean Winchester comes asking his brother for help, the youngest Winchester looked away from his brother and refuses, because it isn't his fight. He's tired of fighting a fight he never had any choice in he was done being his father's pawn.

Dean yelled at Sam for a long time and Sam yelled right back. It was the worst fight ever between them— Sam wondered whether a stranger's word was worth the hurt look his brother gave him after a particularly nasty comment.

Dean left, leaving behind a fury of dust in the wake of the impala's spinning tires. Jessica turned away from the window where she watched the entire fight, unsure whether or not she was happy for Sam. After a moment, she closed her eyes and waited for her boyfriend to climb the stairs back to where she was.

Sam stood, looking at the place where his brother had hurtled the last cutting words at him. He and Dean had never yelled at each other before — not like that. It was always Sam and their father who went for the throat in their verbal attacks.

Everything felt changed.

"It is worth it, Samuel. I promise." Sam ignored the man — the strange man with eyes too blue and a story about a future too unbearable to even think about — and went upstairs to find Jessica.

Dean never found their father. Not on his own. It wasn't until four years that he saw the man again, triumphant over killing the YED with a strange gun. Even then, Dean could never find it in himself to look at John in the same way again. Too much had happened. Too much could never be taken back. And Castiel watched from the sidelines as his own brothers angrily tried to figure out where their meticulous plans went wrong. The righteous man wasn't in his place — Hell.

And there was nothing they could do about it.

Castiel allowed himself a smile smile, but winced when it touched his lips. His chest — his grace — tugged mercilessly, but he forced his mind away from something so insignificant. He stood, watching the sunlight reflect off of the impala's side-view mirrors. He stepped forward, his fingers cold when he touched the smooth glass. He shivered.

(~) (~) (~)

In 2014, investigators were called to a small motel in the heart on Indiana to investigate a strange, ethereal light emitting from on the the windows. Inside, they find two bodies. The faces of the men were masks of pain and desperation. One of the men, dressed in a trench coat and a pristine tie, was smiling faintly, his hooded blue eyes staring at the ceiling, still gleaming with strange emotion.

Despair.

Pain.

Hope.

Dean died in 2014...and so did Castiel.

" How much is real? So much to question
An epidemic of the mannequins
Contaminating everything
When thought came from the heart
It never did right from the start
Just listen to the noises
(Null and void instead of voices)
Before you tell yourself
It's just a different scene
Remember it's just different from what you've seen . . ."

Through Glass by Stone Sour

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