For Tomorrow We Die, a supernatural fanfic

Title: For Tomorrow We Die
Author: llywela13
Rating/Genre/Characters: PG-13. Gen. Dean, Castiel
Warnings/Spoilers: 5.03 Free To Be You And Me
Wordcount: 6,513
Disclaimer: The characters and scenarios depicted herein are the property of various people who are not me. I am merely borrowing them, with no intent to defraud, and make no profit from this. The opening sequence is adapted directly from a transcript of the episode to set the stage for the remainder of the story to unfold. See if you can spot the point where I veer off the script.
Summary: Alternate scenes for episode 5.03. If this is Castiel's last night on earth, Dean thinks a night out might just be what they both need to take their minds off the Apocalypse, but finds it isn't so easy to shake off all thought of what lies ahead.
Author's Note: I really enjoyed episode 5.03, with the exception of just two scenes: the ones involving the brothel. I felt that those scenes were out of keeping with the rest of the episode, poor taste and extremely out of character for both Dean and Castiel. This is my attempt to explore how I think things might otherwise have played out.
Acknowledgements: With Thanks to my collaborator, galathea_snb, and to kilynn16 for the US beta.

For Tomorrow We Die

And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die.
Isaiah 22:13

He must've read his Dad's journal a thousand times already, could quote most of it if anyone asked. Still found himself reaching for it when he felt in need of guidance.

Right now? Guidance of any kind, gratefully accepted.

Of course, Dad had never tried to capture and interrogate an archangel, never even knew the things existed for real, so Dean already knew he wasn't going to find anything useful in the journal. Damned if he didn't find himself leafing through it anyway. There was a weird kind of comfort in flicking through those worn old pages, in deciphering Dad's crabbed handwriting – not that he would dream of saying so out loud.

Wasn't as if he had anything better to do, since Cas had vanished without a word.

Some things never changed. Same song, different verse – or new face, same old story. Whatever. He was over it already.

So obviously there was nothing in the journal about angels, either trapping them or otherwise. Dean flipped randomly to a passage related to a hunt he'd worked with Dad back in '01. Harpy. Read that instead and let it jog the memory loose. It felt good to remember how simple things had been back then.

Simpler, anyway.

He drifted across to the table by the window as he read, laid the journal down while he pulled a chair out, and then froze as he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. Cas, standing in a doorway that Dean knew damn well had been empty two seconds earlier.

Dean tried not to startle and knew that he had failed. Every goddamned time.

"Where've you been?" he snapped. You'd think even an angel could grasp the idea that working together meant talking through your ideas and options before making any decisions, not taking off alone to do whatever the hell you wanted without reference to anyone. It wasn't that hard, surely. So why was Dean the only one who seemed to understand?

"Jerusalem," Castiel intoned, as if that explained everything, and just stood there, staring randomly off into a corner of the room as if it held all the answers.

Dean did not let himself turn to see what the angel was looking at. There was nothing there.

"Oh, how was it?" he snipped.

"Arid," Castiel replied, stepping across to place the ancient-looking ewer he was holding on the table and pull out a chair to sit.

Dean eyed the jug skeptically. He could think of a number of possible reasons for an impromptu trip to Jerusalem…actually, no. He couldn't. But if he could, antique earthenware probably would not make the list. "What is that?" he dubiously asked.

"It's oil. It's very special. Very rare," said Castiel, now staring off into a different random corner of the room as he finally offered a crumb of actual information…although still not enough that Dean could follow his line of reasoning.

It reminded him of Sam, in uncomfortable ways, this not knowing what the other was thinking. They'd never been like that, him and Sam, until they were, and then when it was already too late he hadn't known how to fix it, how to bridge a divide that had become a chasm almost before they'd noticed. Still didn't, which was a thought his mind shied away from. With Castiel it was harder still, the angel's thought processes utterly impenetrable most of the time, and they'd never had that kind of understanding in the first place, not enough common ground to build on.

Rare, special oil? Special how? And why so important right now? Cas knew a ritual that would summon Raphael, he'd explained that much. What he hadn't bothered to share with Dean was the detail of what was involved – or what the hell he expected to happen next. Summoning was one thing. Containing the damn thing would be another matter entirely, and being in a room with a pissed off, smite-happy archangel that was not contained did not sound like Dean's idea of fun.

Fierce and absolute was how Castiel had once described archangels to him. Heaven's most terrifying weapon. If they were going to go up against one, it would be kinda nice to think they had an actual plan – one that he knew about before he was up to his neck in it, staring down the wrong end of a lightning strike. If Castiel had one, though, which presumably he did what with the oil-gathering mission to the Holy Land and all, he wasn't exactly falling over himself to share it.

There was nothing quite like going into battle unprepared.

"Great, we gonna trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?" Dean snarked, too impatient for answers to care that the almost painfully literal-minded Castiel tended to struggle with irony.

"No," said Castiel. Great. Very helpful.

It was like pulling teeth, trying to get Cas to communicate. Exasperated, Dean tried a different tack. "So, this ritual of yours, when's it gotta go down?" he asked.

"Sunrise." Apparently Castiel had lost the ability to put together a complete sentence.

Dean told himself to be patient. Cas was having a hard time with this whole cast-off-from-heaven thing, you didn't have to be a genius to see that; he could make allowances. But on the other hand, the angel's unwillingness to discuss his plan and reluctance to even make eye contact didn't exactly scream confidence, and that wasn't quite the morale boost Dean might've hoped for ahead of a mission like this.

"Tell me something," he said, thinking over the scant detail the angel had offered and feeling less comfortable by the minute with the picture it painted. "You keep saying we're going to trap this guy, but isn't that a bit like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?"

Cas was staring vaguely off into space again. "No, it's harder," he intoned.

Yeah, he was definitely not confident they were going to pull this off. At least he knew the plan beyond a vague 'trap an archangel', knew what it was they were going to be trying to pull off.

Dean wondered, sometimes, if Castiel simply forgot that everyone couldn't read minds like he could – couldn't just look into his eyes and know, just from that, what he was thinking.

Maybe that was why he was avoiding eye contact now, didn't want Dean to know just how screwed to hell they really were.

"Do we have any chance of surviving this?" Dean asked, straight out, beyond tired of beating around the bush trying to coax answers out of the angel.

Castiel finally looked him in the eye. "You do," he said.

Jesus. Still no usable intel on the how the fuck are we actually going to go about this front, but Castiel's attitude suddenly swam into sharp relief. He clearly had no such expectations for himself – didn't even sound as if he cared that much, either, which was more worrying.

Dean had pretty much figured that this was a do-or-die situation they were heading into, in spite of Castiel's assurance that being Michael's vessel meant he at least should be safe. But hearing the angel admit such absolute pessimism still came as a bit of a sucker punch. No wonder Cas was being so weird.

Weirder than normal, that was. He was always weird.

"So…odds are you're a dead man tomorrow."

"Yes."

Dean wasn't sure how he should react. Bloody death was a daily prospect for all of them – hello? Apocalypse – but this whole thing sounded pretty reckless to him, little more than suicide by archangel. They were outnumbered and outgunned as it was, big time, so even if it turned out Raphael did have information they could use, and even if they could persuade him to spill any of that information – two pretty big ifs right there – would that even begin to justify maybe losing one of the few allies they had in this war? He was a long way off being convinced this was anything more than an especially deadly wild goose chase. It was a lousy plan.

It was also the only plan they had.

Castiel wanted to do this, believed it was important, and Dean had promised his support. Too late to back out now – Cas would just go off and get himself killed without backup, and that would be that. But if Dean stuck with him, if it was true that the archangel would avoid harm to Michael's vessel, maybe he could use that to their advantage, could be that bullet shield for Castiel after all.

No way to predict until they got into it. Sunrise was still hours away. And Cas was already as freaked as Dean had seen him, in his own special way.

"Wow," he murmured. "Well, last night on earth. What are your plans?"

Stupid question, he realised at once. It was Castiel he was talking to, after all.

"I just thought I'd sit here quietly," the angel solemnly replied.

And if you asked a stupid question…

Dean let his eyes wander around the rundown interior of the derelict house they'd set up as mission HQ. He'd picked it because it was both abandoned and reasonably isolated, not for the décor. As the venue of anyone's possible last night of life, it was downright depressing.

"What, here?" He wrinkled his nose at the thought. "Dude, come on. You can't just stare at the walls all night."

Cas just looked at him, and yeah, he was right – he totally could. But Dean couldn't. And just because Cas could didn't mean that he should.

"Come on, man," Dean wheedled. "There's gotta be something you want to do. Something you never tried before. Anything?"

Castiel looked confused. "There are many things I have not directly experienced," he said.

"Pick one." Dean glanced at his watch. "We got almost eight hours to kill. We should make 'em count."

Wasn't as if he was gonna be getting any sleep anyway, knowing what sunrise would bring. No way he could just sit here all night thinking about it, watching Castiel's very particular brand of freaking out. They both needed to get the hell out of here, get their minds off the damn Apocalypse for a while.

Cas had that look on his face again, same one he'd worn outside the sheriff's office earlier, the look that said, I'm lost, what should I do? "We must be prepared for Raphael," he hesitantly began.

It was a good point. Dean was all for being prepared, but he'd tried that earlier and Cas had stonewalled him rather than explain the plan. There were only so many times he was prepared to run around that particular circle. "You got everything you need, right?" he asked.

"Yes." Predictably, Cas did not take the opportunity to elaborate.

"No last minute errands to run?"

"No."

Dean made a decision. "Great," he said. "Grab your coat."

Castiel frowned. "What?"

Dean had already spotted his obvious error there. "Never mind. You already got it on. Come on, let's go."

Castiel obediently stood up, still frowning. "Where are we going?"

"Out," Dean announced. "Last night on earth? Okay. We, my friend, are going to have some fun."

"Fun?" Castiel looked more confused than ever. Figured he wouldn't know what fun was. Dean decided his mission for the night would be to change that.

"That's right," he declared, hustling the angel toward the door. "I am going to teach you to have fun if it kills us both."

And if it did, at least they wouldn't have to face Raphael in the morning.

*****

They found their way to a bar.

Waterville remained uncharted territory for the most part – their mission focus had been pretty absolute since arriving just a few hours earlier, and although Dean had toured the length and breadth of the country during his life, this was one city he'd managed to miss up till now. He wasn't in much of a mood for in-depth exploration of the city's night life, if he was honest he'd mostly just wanted to get out of the house for a little while, and anyway, since the whole concept of kicking back and relaxing was alien to Castiel, he figured they should start small and maybe work up from there.

The place they found was local, lively enough to look promising, but not too crowded. It would do.

As they headed inside, Dean automatically ran tired eyes around the joint, noting all exits and checking out the patrons, just in case. Bunch of guys hanging around the pool table, slightly rowdier group near the dartboard, few couples tucked away at scattered tables, and the usual assortment at the bar. Pretty tame, in fact, and the general atmosphere read mellow. There were a couple chicks looked promising, if he'd been here on his own – even with Sam. Another night he'd maybe try his luck. Not this night, though.

If nothing else, he was pretty sure Cas would cramp his style.

Castiel was checking the place out as well, he noted, subjecting everyone and everything in there to that intensely penetrating scrutiny of his that Dean was glad not to have directed at him for once. He was also hanging back as if reluctant to enter a bar, blocking the door, and that was likely to cause comment if Dean didn't intervene.

"Come on, Cas," he urged. "Don't go gettin' a jelly belly on me now. Fun, remember. Stop thinking. Just…sit down and relax already."

Castiel silently complied, following Dean over to the bar and taking a seat, with an expectant air about him, as if he was just waiting to see what he might be called upon to do next. His first time at a bar, Dean reminded himself. Angels weren't much for socialising. They were breaking new ground, here, and Cas was looking to follow his lead.

Dean dropped wearily onto a stool of his own and tried to remember why he'd thought this might be a good idea. Then he thought of the drab walls back at the squat and Castiel's quiet confession that he didn't expect to survive this mission and ordered them a drink each.

Two beers arrived. Dean slid one along to Castiel, who studied it intently for a long moment before turning mildly bemused eyes toward him. "I do not require sustenance," he said, as if Dean didn't know that already.

"It isn't sustenance," Dean told him. "It's beer. Drink it."

He took a long pull on his own, savoring the dry, bitter edge to the flavor that hit all the right spots.

Instead of following his example, Castiel transferred his intense regard from the beer bottle before him to the one in Dean's hand. "You should not become inebriated before facing Raphael," he advised, and Dean felt a thrum of irritation surge through him.

"Wasn't planning to," he firmly stated, shooting a sharp glare in the angel's general direction. He would need all his wits about him come daybreak, he was only too aware of that, but he knew his limits, knew that a drink or two to take the edge off jangling nerves wouldn't hurt. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world to shift the kind of sobriety that came from knowing you had a date with an archangel at dawn. "Dude, have a little faith," he added, and a muscle in Castiel's cheek twitched, an almost imperceptible reaction, but Dean caught it.

Faith in general was something of a sore point these days, for them all.

Castiel's earnest gaze settled on Dean's face once more, solemn and unyielding and appraising, sizing him up and measuring him against the role the universe had somehow chosen to lay out for him, which…if there was a God – and Dean was pissed off just at the thought of it – he had one hell of a twisted sense of humour.

"I do," Castiel quietly said at last.

Dean wasn't sure what to do with that, felt the weight of expectation settling anew on his shoulders. He set his beer down and fixed his eyes on it, sat for a moment watching the way the light caught the bottle. There was a fluorescent bug zapper behind the bar, its reflection twisted and distorted in the glass. "Cas, why are we doing this?" he softly asked.

During the long pause that followed, the sounds of the bar continued to ring out around them. Clack of balls at the pool table, rattle of glasses behind the bar, someone's crap musical selection on the jukebox, background hum of conversation. Someone was laughing at a joke his buddy had told; raised voices off in another corner.

Along the bar, a tired-looking blonde nursing a beer of her own was looking in their direction. She caught Dean's eye, just for a second, and he inclined the bottle in his hand toward her as a gesture of hello, then set it down again, found himself studying it with an intensity Cas might be proud of. Read the label a couple times and then began picking at it with blunt fingernails, flicked a quick sideways glance in Castiel's direction to find him staring at his own drink.

"You wished to 'have fun'," Castiel eventually offered, without looking up. Dean could hear the air quotes falling into place around the words, and fuck, who the hell taught the angel to prevaricate?

"Not what I meant," he evenly stated, resisting the urge to add and you know it.

Castiel stared into his untouched beer a while longer, as if hoping he might find the words he needed written in there somewhere. "Raphael may have valuable information," he tentatively suggested, repeating the recruiting spiel he'd given Dean earlier. "This is a rare opportunity."

It had sounded reasonable enough before and still sounded reasonable enough now, at face value – except not, because as far as Dean could see, archangel gig aside, there was no reason Raphael should know any more about God's mysterious vanishing act than anyone else, and what Cas wasn't offering was any evidence to support the theory that he might. Even if all he said was if anyone knows anything it'll be Raphael 'cause God always told him everything, it would be a start.

He kept his mouth shut rather than argue, decided to play Cas at his own game instead, levelled the most searching gaze he could muster at the angel and waited, silent and expectant.

"I don't –" Castiel eventually faltered. "I do not know where else to look. It is…I hope…" His voice tailed off and he twisted the bottle in his hand around a couple times before completing the thought in a small, sad voice. "For a place to begin."

He looked, sounded as vulnerable as Dean had ever known him, completely adrift in this strange new world of fear and uncertainty. Dean knew that kind of desperate need for something to hang onto. Cast his mind back and he could taste it at the back of his throat as if it had never gone away, suffocating. He still thought this was a crap plan, and almost hated himself for thinking it because he had nothing better to offer in its place. If these were the lengths they had to go to just for a scrap of hope to keep them afloat, what chance did they have?

"Okay then." He let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding, knocked back another long draught of his beer and set the bottle down again, nodded. "I got your back."

Piercing eyes turned in his direction once more, staring right into him, through him. "Thank you," the angel earnestly said.

"Then when this is all done and the fat lady starts singing," Dean firmly added, uncomfortable that he'd let the conversation get so serious, so personal. So much for fun. "I want my damn necklace back. Okay?"

It felt all kinds of wrong, still, not having it, like he'd lost some kind of anchor, and he wasn't sure if that was because the necklace was gone or because Sam was gone, probably both, again shied away from examining the thought too closely. It didn't pay to think too hard about Sam gone and the reasons why, how long it might be before he saw his brother again and how he might feel when he did…if he ever did. That was another thought to avoid, painful in too many ways to acknowledge, a sudden surge of conflicting emotion that churned sourly in his stomach.

He nodded toward Castiel's untouched drink, suddenly anxious to change the subject and stop thinking, gruffed, "You're supposed to drink that, you know, not just stare at it. It's not an art project."

Castiel obliged him by taking a sip, and appeared supremely unimpressed. So much for his first taste of alcohol – clearly he was going to be the type that could sit nursing the same drink all night. Sam could be that way, too.

Sam again.

Dean picked up his beer, finished it and signalled the bartender for another. The blonde was looking over at them again and he took a moment to admire the tight fit of her sweater, thought about simpler days when he'd have gone over there and bought her a drink just to see where it led. When it wouldn't have mattered if all they did was flirt a little or if it led onto something more, because he'd have enjoyed the encounter either way, would have found pleasure just in her innocence of the evil that lurked out there, and the chance to be someone other than Dean Winchester for a while.

There was no escape from being Dean Winchester now, and he no longer had the energy to even pretend otherwise.

He should call Sam, he thought. Somewhere beneath his lingering anger and disappointment the abrupt loss of all contact with his brother nagged at the back of his mind like toothache, a constant sense of something missing that felt flat out wrong. If this went south, and it probably would, Sam deserved to at least know what had happened.

Just the thought of that conversation was exhausting, a minefield of ways they could both screw it up. No. Sam had gone off to iron his brain, or whatever, to sort himself out and get his head straight, and Dean had agreed with that decision, knew it was right for them both. It was too soon. If Dean wasn't ready – and he had to be honest with himself and admit that he wasn't, wanted to be but wasn't, dreaded the thought of seeing or speaking to his brother as much as he craved it – how could Sam be? If Dean told him about this…he didn't need that kind of pressure, not while he was recovering, or whatever the hell he was doing out there on his own.

"I should call Bobby," he mused aloud instead. "Tell him where we are, what we're doing. You know. Just in case."

Castiel turned and looked at him. "You fear for your life?" he frowned, and the thought of it seemed to trouble him. More than he already was. He'd taken pains earlier to assure Dean that he'd be safe, that Raphael wouldn't dare lay a feather on him, and Dean didn't know how to express his unease without it sounding like mistrust.

"I fear for all our lives, Cas," he sombrely said, and it was true. "Bobby'll want us to check in with him."

Castiel nodded gravely. "Very well," he said, and fell silent once more.

Not much for small talk, Castiel.

Dean sighed and swung around on his stool, rested his elbows on the sticky surface of the bar at his back as he eyed the pool table speculatively, idly weighing up possible pros and cons of maybe trying to teach Castiel to play, whether or not the entertainment value might outweigh the inevitable exasperation.

Far as he could tell, no one was even gambling over there. If he'd a mind to hustle himself a cash bonus, he'd either strike out or clean up, crowd like this.

Would Cas back his play? Or bust him? He couldn't predict, decided against finding out the hard way.

New song on the jukebox: more whiny modern crap. Fuck, this whole night was a bust. "You'd think a joint like this would have some decent tunes," he grumbled, swinging back around to knock back another quick swig of his beer.

Castiel tilted his head and frowned at him, confused, glanced around the bar as if trying to understand the source of his discontent.

"This music sucks," Dean sourly explained, nodding toward the jukebox.

Castiel tilted his head in the other direction and listened intently, maybe trying to distinguish between this and the music Dean'd had blasting out in the car for the drive from Pennsylvania to Maine. Dean thought he should maybe be a little affronted that the difference wasn't obvious but instead found that he was suddenly amused. Mostly just by the bewildered look on the angel's face.

"I guess it's all a little alien to you," he realised. Heavenly chorus probably not something even Led Zeppelin could compare with. Not that they'd want to.

"Indeed," Castiel distractedly agreed, still eyeing the jukebox with a degree of curiosity.

He didn't seem to have anything to add to that, drifted off into silence again as the jukebox continued to hold his attention, like maybe he hoped he might somehow solve the great jukebox conundrum if he just stared at the damn thing long enough.

Bored, Dean finished his second beer, glanced tiredly around the bar in the absence of anything more interesting to do and noticed that the blonde was looking over at them again.

No…she was looking at Cas, he realised when he tried to catch her eye, and almost laughed out loud at the thought of it. Batting way outside her league, there, if only she knew.

"Dude, that chick is checking you out," he couldn't resist informing his companion, just to see the look on his face, which was completely worth it.

Slow, suspicious incomprehension spread across the angel's confused face. Dean wondered if maybe the wind had changed and his face was stuck like that now, since he'd been wearing variations on the same expression most of the night.

Sam wouldn't have been able to stop himself glancing around to see what Dean was talking about, he reflected. Cas didn't, kept his focus on Dean, narrowed his eyes and asked, "what do you mean?" in a guarded voice, as if although he hadn't understood the reference – use of idiom maybe a bit too much for him – he suspected he was being mocked. Which, to be fair, he totally was. Kinda.

But not really, not completely, because it occurred to Dean that it might be just what the angel needed: the chance to spend some time talking to someone different, unconnected – someone who didn't know about Lucifer and the Apocalypse, Raphael or God's mysterious vanishing act and all the rest of it. It might even cheer him up a little.

"That woman," he explained. "Has been watching you…" he stopped himself saying 'drink', because Cas hadn't, amended the statement to, "sit here all night. You should buy her a drink, say hi."

Castiel's frown deepened, the angel completely nonplussed. "Why?"

"Because that's how it works," Dean teased, finally enjoying himself, almost, for the first time all night. "A guy and a girl meet at a bar. The guy buys the girl a drink, they chat, one thing leads to another and the world keeps turning."

Castiel blinked at him, solemn as a baby owl. "Dean," he said, very slowly, as if talking to an imbecile – must've been taking notes from Sam. "I am an angel."

"Yes, I know," Dean assured him. Angels didn't work like that, he already knew; the body was only borrowed…and he suddenly found himself thinking of Jimmy, wondered if he was even alive in there still, after Castiel's last run-in with Raphael. Tried to shake the thought off before it took hold. "But she doesn't. And she's interested. Least you could do is buy her a drink."

Castiel continued to look unconvinced and Dean felt tired, too tired to sustain that too brief spark of amusement and good humor, too tired to push, too tired to decide what either of them really needed. He stood up, pressed a few notes into the angel's hand.

"I'm gonna take a leak," he said. "Talk to her, don't talk to her – your call."

He found his way out back, stepped through worn double doors into the cool, quiet gloom beyond and basked in it, felt hoarded tension release just a little, with no one there to see, to expect. Took his time going about his business and then lingered, lurking in the quiet, shabby murk of the tiny passageway linking restroom to bar while he dialled Bobby's number.

There was no reply, so he left a message – just the basics, no details, since there was no point worrying the old man if he wasn't on the line to be reassured at the same time. To offer reassurance in turn.

Sliding his cell into a pocket, he took a moment to steady himself before heading back into the bar, then had just enough time to notice that the chick had stolen his seat rather than Cas moving to join her before she bounced to her feet and started hollering.

This time, there was nothing funny about the bafflement written all over Castiel's face, mingled now with dismay as he slid off his stool and backed away. Dean dived across the bar to rejoin him, turning his back on the woman's incoherent crazy stalker accusations to frantically demand, "The hell's going on?"

Castiel turned shocked and confused eyes upon him, stammered, "I don't know," and clearly didn't, and there was no time now to worry about it as a whole gang of drunken darts players descended on them, the blonde chick now in their midst, still yelling shrill indignation over whatever Cas had said to her – apparently not quite as alone here as she'd seemed.

Dean ducked a heavy right hook that was someone's opening sortie and countered with a swift jab in the region of the nearest kidney, followed it up with a hefty punch to the jaw. Didn't wait to see the guy go down, instead spun around to find Cas grappling with another drunk, angry hulk, the blonde chick egging this one on. Too late, he remembered that Cas had been crap in almost every fight he'd seen him in, and those had been against angels and demons, high stakes – no telling how he'd handle himself here, fighting just because a bunch of humans were drunk and angry and for no better reason than that. They hadn't fought together enough, didn't have the advantage he and Sam had of having trained together most of their lives.

It was too late to worry about that now. As he lunged across to help, Dean dodged another clumsy blow and came around swinging, kicked and punched his way past a couple guys that were too wasted to put up the fight they were so eager for. By then Cas seemed to have laid his guy out, while the bartender had a phone in his hand. Calling the cops. They had to get out of here.

They made a break for the door, slightly hampered by blundering, drunken efforts to prolong the fight by a few of the blonde chick's pals that were still standing, and all Dean could think was how ridiculous this was: an angel of the lord and the guy supposedly destined to destroy Lucifer and save the world, getting into a bar brawl over some chick.

Stupid. No, more than stupid. Not just this, the whole damn Apocalypse – his role in it, Sam's role in it, all of it, it was stupid.

If there was a God, he was laughing at them. And right now, Dean didn't blame him.

*****

By the time they spilled out of the bar and around the nearest corner, heading back to the Impala, Dean was laughing fit to burst. Couldn't have stopped if he tried, just doubled over and laughed until there were tears in his eyes over how absurd everything was, rested his hands on his thighs for support and wheezed.

Alongside him, Castiel bent over and tried to look at his face, as perplexed as he'd been all night, asked, "What's so funny?" and Dean couldn't answer that question, didn't have the words to explain why an angel of the lord getting run out of a bar was hilarious, why that was just the tip of the iceberg. Didn't dare look beyond the surface of his amusement to the deep well of desperation he could feel lurking right behind it, enough just to feel the bitter, jagged edge of hysteria in his laugh, striking the danger note.

"Oh, nothing." He threw a companiable arm around the angel's shoulders as he fought to get his breathing back under control, realised, "It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard."

He tried to remember when that might have been and was dismayed to find that he couldn't. He knew, he really did, that there'd been fun times on the road with Sam, even since Cas dragged him out of hell, before everything started to fall apart. But when he tried to think what those times were, he came up blank, could remember nothing but pain and despair, overwhelming and inescapable, a lifetime of it – more than a lifetime of it – and it hurt to think of it, God, it hurt, and suddenly he wasn't laughing any more.

"It's been more than a long time," he bleakly murmured as they reached the car. "Years." He couldn't allow himself to think about it, swiftly changed the subject. "The hell was all that about, Cas, what'd you say to her?"

"I don't know." Castiel's brow creased as he tried to understand what he'd done wrong, explained, "She wished to make her boyfriend jealous. He brought her here for a birthday celebration and then failed to speak with her all night, spent the time with his friends instead. She believes that he drinks too much, as her father did before abandoning his family, and fears it is because of her, but that is not true. Her father broke down because he hated his job at the post office, and –"

"She told you all that inside of two minutes?" Dean interrupted this narration of the chick's entire life history in disbelief.

The furrow in Castiel's brow deepened. "No," he said, and Dean suddenly understood. Fuck, no wonder she'd freaked.

"Cas," he wearily groaned. "Dude. You can't just go around reading peoples' minds. It's creepy."

Castiel stared at him, wearing much the same expression he'd worn when they had that little chat about personal space, as if he understood all the words he was hearing, individually, but the concept they were expressing was beyond him completely.

"It freaks people out," Dean continued with as much patience as he could muster. "If a stranger knows stuff about them. Private stuff. You have to not let them know that you know."

An exasperated look now crept across Castiel's face, a look that said he would dearly love to smack all of mankind's heads together for being so difficult. "I sought only to reassure her," he morosely insisted, and Dean had no doubt that was true, also suspected that the angel could no more stop himself reading the souls of the people he met than Dean could stop breathing.

He sighed. "I know. But next time a hot chick wants to talk to you, let her do the talking. Okay? Don't go telling her what her problems are – believe me, she already knows."

Castiel nodded and turned away, looking as tired and despondent as Dean felt.

Dean sighed again, wryly suspecting that when they were face to face with Raphael come sunrise he was going to regret not managing to get any sleep, could feel weariness seeping into every bone in his body. They were so not ready for this.

He turned to open the car door and glanced up again just in time to see Cas wandering off. There was a church across the street – the big, old-fashioned type – and the angel was heading for it as if drawn by a magnet.

Pushing the car door shut again, Dean followed.

Castiel got halfway up the stone steps and then stopped, gazed unhappily up at the locked doors for a long moment, then turned and sat down, stared off into space looking forlorn.

God's house and there was no one home. Said it all, really.

Dean stood looking at him for a little while, thinking mostly about how very screwed they probably were, and quietly asked, "How smart is Raphael?"

Cas didn't reply, flicked inscrutable side eyes in the general direction of Dean's boots.

"Yeah." Dean sat down alongside him. "That's what I figured. So we gotta be smarter."

And that wasn't in any way going to be a tall order. Course not. Piece of cake.

Castiel leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, angled his face toward Dean. "What do you propose?"

Dean thought about it for a moment, weighed what he knew against what he didn't and found again that available information fell frustratingly short. Cas had asked for his help and he intended to give it no matter what, but it wasn't the most comfortable feeling ever, going in so blind.

"Tell me about this special oil," he softly asked, leaned back and listened to the nighttime sounds of the streets around them, watched a street lamp flicker nearby while he waited to see if Cas would actually talk to him this time.

Castiel considered the question very carefully before replying. "You use a variety of tools to create traps for demons," he cautiously said, almost tasting the words, as if unsure how best to describe what he wanted to say. "You draw them – on floors, ceilings."

Dean nodded. "Paint. Sharpie. Hell, a penknife would do it, right surface. They don't work on angels, though."

"No," Castiel agreed, and then said, "The oil may be used to create such a trap for an angel."

And it was such a stupid, tiny detail, but it made all the difference. Finally, the pieces started to fall into place – at last Dean felt that he was starting to understand just what it was the angel was planning, thought maybe he could begin to predict how the confrontation might pan out, or at least how they needed to play it.

As long as they were both on the same page and stayed there, working together to make sure their plan was as tight as they could make it…maybe they might stand a chance after all.

"Well, okay then," he said, thinking hard as a variety of possibilities started to spring to mind. "We can work that."

~fin~