"So, you gonna start lying now like the rest of us?"

Castiel smiles, that special turn of his head still a habit. "Can't see much to stop me from it if I want, but I haven't had anything to lie about. Things are grim enough without half-truths flying around everywhere."

Dean nods. "Really, so then you don't mind me asking what you think is so great about me?"

Cas merely smirks. "Which one?"

Dean tosses his hands in the air. "Either, but since I've pretty much gathered all I want to know from the now me, what about the past me?"

Castiel's smile faded a bit, thoughts bubbling around in his brain. "Might wanna pick out a different topic, Dean."

"You once told me abstaining is a form of lying."

Castiel simply shrugged, not able to refute the statement. They sat in silence for a long stretch of road, with nothing except Dean's taillight ahead of them and another taillight behind on a nearly abandoned stretch of road. Dean tensed a little in the shoulders after a few hours when the amphetamines started to wear off and Castiel began shifting a hint to the right.

"Say, Cas, maybe I should driving for awhile."

"Why? I just need a bit of a pick-me-up. Grab the flask attached to the backseat."

Dean took a sniff of the scuffed silver container after plucking it from a pocket in the back. "What is this?"

"One of the benefits of being the love guru. Kind of a token of appreciation."

"Yeah? Which gong did you pop off?"

Dean switched hands when Cas grabbed for the flask. "You don't really wanna know. I don't need angel powers to sense that."

"Hey, lets do us both a favor and lay off of the sauce while you're driving. Your human liver can thank me later."

Cas chuckled. "I doubt I have a liver left. You really want to drive this piece of crap car? I remember you were rather particular about the Impala."

"Lets just get something else in ya."

Castiel's voice dripped with innuendo that Dean promptly ignored. "And what, pray tell, did you have in mind?"

"Got any fruit or granola bars are anything in here? Haven't really eaten yet myself. Zacharias wasn't too helpful on rations."

Cas chuckled to himself. "Good idea. Just root around a bit."

After a few minutes, Dean came up for air sniffing a strange smelling orange. "I think this ones gone rotten, Cas."

Castiel grabbed it from his hand and took a large bite, rind and all with a satisfying squish. "Nah. Its got too much vodka in there to be rotten. Rind's got the bitters, juice keeps me buzzed."

"Another admirer huh?"

Castiel simply shook his head. "See, now thats what makes you different from the now you. Now you would've had me toss it over and taken a bite. You're just gonna sit there and stew and wanna give me a lecture. Its kind of flattering, really."

"Flattering? You're picking your brain cells off one by one and you're calling me flattering when I basically whip ya with words? I thought you knew better than this, Cas."

"What are you gonna do? Tell dad?" Castiel took a second to savor the joke he had made. "No, because you probably feel the same way that I feel now. Wouldn't be any different if you were in my shoes."

Dean couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Cas, give me the damn orange. Now I don't know whats going on, but there is something more screwed up in this future than just Sammy being a meat suit for the devil. You wanna tell me why we both seem to be so intent on killing ourselves?"

"It didn't start out that way. But I couldn't stop you from torturing every other demon we ran across. This was before the mobs started goin' after hunters and the last good ones, you have to understand. Bobby and Chuck were still kinda safe. Still signs of higher life...." Castiel trailed off, his knuckles going white as he gripped the wheel tighter and tighter.

"Cas, you don't have to..." Dean tried hard to diffuse the bubble of hurt and hate coming up in Castiel's chest.

"No, you wanted to know. Pass me back that orange."

"I ain't gonna do that."

"Seriously, or the pills. Don't care which."

"You've had enough, Cas. I'm doing it for your own good. Sloppy and drunk never won a hunt."

Castiel sniffed, his knuckles no longer white from answering the questions but white from trying to keep his hands on the steering wheel. "If there were any chance for survival, I wouldn't be going. And I don't blame you, not really. Just been biding my time."

"Cas, man, what are you trying to tell me? You want to kill yourself with these drugs or on a hunt, man? You know how dangerous that thinking is? Maybe you'd better let me take the wheel."

Castiel tried to avoid that bizarre look of remorse he was seeing in Dean's eyes. He hadn't seen it since the morning after Sam. He hadn't seen it since the first night Dean had come home just drenched from that first torture, like he was reteaching himself, demoralizing himself in some ways. He called it thinking like the enemy. Castiel wretched in the grass because of it, that's the day when the pills started.

"There are some things about this time you just can't understand, Dean. I'm useless. No more angel mojo, I'm pretty much all thumbs with weapons. I keep people distracted on sex and bits of philosophy I picked up. I'm not half the man I was or half the man I could be. The day I stopped being your conscience was the day the world ended."

Dean sat in silence, trying to let Castiel process. "You see, I let you go to Detroit and I saw your face when you came back to the motel room. And every day I drink and smoke and bury myself in females because I knew then I would never stop what was about to happen."

"But I can stop it now that I know."

Castiel shook his head, fingers trembling on the wheel as he began thirsting for his pills. "You can't unless you give a nod to Michael and I don't even want you to do that. Just do me a favor and don't promise me you'll find away around this for both of us. I'm up to here with false hope."

Dean had an urge to put a hand on Castiel's shoulder. When Castiel didn't back away, Dean left it there. "Listen, man, I know I haven't done anything yet but I wanna say I'm sorry. I'll find a way to finish this without this crap of a future."

Cas let out a weak smile. "Thanks, Dean. See? This is what I miss. This is nice, when we do the angel on my shoulder thing-even if we're just little guppies in a freaking big pond."

Dean pulled his hand away, back into his lap where he had placed the orange absentmindedly. "I hear that."

Castiel smiled again, if only slightly. "I will miss that one night of sex we had though."