This Is The End, My Only Friend, The End
Castiel tipped a handful of pills out onto his tongue. He raked them to the back of his throat, downing them in a harsh dry-swallow.
Dean watched him apprehensively. The theory was that Dean should not come to any harm during his brief stay in this nightmare vision of the future - it was possible that none of this was real, anyway, and that Zachariah was just messing with him to get him to say yes to becoming Michael's vessel - but Dean didn't want to test that theory.
Castiel was driving, which was disturbing enough in itself. Dean wondered how long the angel had been without his wings, and how much experience he had in compensating for it. He doubted that popping pills - and taking his eyes off the road to do it - would help Cas' road skills.
Dean put a hand out for the pills.
"Let me see those."
Cas offered him the bottle without hesitation. "Ya want some?"
Dean took it from him and read the label. Cas cleared his throat absently.
"Amphetamines?" Dean asked.
"It's the perfect antidote to that absinth," Cas said.
Dean shrugged with quiet surprise and handed the pill bottle back to him.
"Don't get me wrong, Cas, I'm happy that the stick is out of your ass, but what's going on with the drugs and the orgies and the love-guru crap?"
Cas laughed to think that Dean didn't already know.
"What's so funny?"
Cas shook his head, unbelievably amused. "Dean," he said, "I'm not an angel anymore."
Dean gaped at him. "What?"
"Yeah," Cas elaborated, "I went mortal."
Dean stared at him, alarmed. "What do you mean? How?"
Castiel gazed thoughtfully through the windscreen. He honestly didn't know.
"I think it had something to do with the other angels leaving," he guessed, "but um, when they bailed, my mojo just kind of…" He made a rapid gesture of descent, accompanied by a soft sound like a bomb falling. "…drained away."
Castiel paused for a moment, lost in reverie. Dean watched him, struggling to understand how a powerful, driven, self-righteous servant of God could have been left behind to become an aimless junkie; left to suffer and die with the rest.
"Now," Cas resumed suddenly, "you know, I'm practically human. I mean, Dean, I'm all but useless. Last year, broke my foot -" he rolled his eyes at his own frailty, " - laid up for two months."
"Wow," Dean said, because he couldn't think of anything else.
"Yeah," Cas answered similarly.
"So," Dean said, gathering up his wits to make sense of what Cas had told him, "you're human." With his wits came his sparkle. "Welcome to the club!"
Cas nodded emphatically.
"Thank you. Except I used to belong to a much better club. I'm now powerless. I'm hapless. I'm hopeless." His mood seemed to shift from irony to anger with every syllable. "I mean, why the hell not burry myself in women and decadence, right? I mean, that's what decadence is for! Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out?"
Castiel grinned wider than ever, and if Dean didn't know him better, he would have believed it was the contented face of a man who had his short mortal life worked out to perfection.
"That's just how I roll," Cas reiterated for no reason in particular as the black road rolled out ahead of them.
Dean paused for a long, thoughtful moment, and then asked, "Since when?"
Castiel shot him his confused puppy dog look - at least that hadn't changed.
"The Cas I know wouldn't even pay a woman to have sex with him. Now you're lying to a whole flock of them to get them into bed?"
Cas tilted his head. "When did I lie?"
"All that B.S. about The Doors of Perception being open as long as their legs are," Dean said, as if Cas didn't know.
Cas nodded and smiled.
"I wasn't lying to them, Dean. I was telling them a fairytale to make them feel better. In fairytales, beautiful young women like them are always rescued by beautiful young men like us, and the evil-doers burn for their sins." He shrugged off the childish fantasy. "I just wanted them to feel like there was some other world to escape to, some hope of being rescued from all of this. Would you prefer it if I told them that they're all going to die, and that demons will dance in their blood?"
"You don't know that."
"Yes I do," Cas said darkly, "and so do you. Well," he clarified, "he does, anyway. The other you. This war was over the second that Lucifer took Sam. We all knew it. Now we're just walking around dead, waiting for a Croat or a demon or Lucifer himself to make it official." He grinned unexpectedly. "None of us are getting out of life alive, as they say."
"So what," Dean demanded, "you just gave up? You didn't even try to get Sam back?"
Castiel shook his head. "You misunderstand me, Dean. We've lost the war, but there are still a few battles we're willing to fight. Dean - the other Dean - is still willing to fight for Sam, and I'm still willing to fight for him. Even though he knows he'll lose…" Cas stared blankly through the road. "Even though I know I'll lose him…"
Castiel smiled again, but it was weak. He turned to Dean, and Dean could see the deep pain clouding his dark eyes. "False hope is better than no hope, don't you think?"
Dean shook his head, disbelieving and disappointed. "What happened to you, man? What happened to the Cas who had blind faith?"
"I told you," Cas groaned. "Life happened."
"Newsflash, Cas! You're not the only human being on the face of the Earth! What about me and Sam, huh? What about all the crap we've gone through trying to keep this crazy rock kicking? Do you think we don't want to just give up and give in to it all sometimes?"
"Sam did give in," Cas reminded him. "If he hasn't yet in your time, he soon will." Cas narrowed his eyes at the bright circles cast by the headlights in the darkness. "Then you'll know what it is to lose everything you care about, everything you believe in. Then you can judge me, Dean," he said bitterly. "And you will."
Dean closed his eyes, summoning the strength to reason with his frustrating friend. Not an easy task at the best of times, and this version of Cas was high.
"Cas, I am sorry that God screwed you over and that all your angel pals left you -"
"I'm not talking about God, Dean!" Cas yelled, bashing the heel of his palm on the wheel as punctuation. The car dipped a little. "I am over God! I'm talking about you!"
Dean sat rigid in his seat, half-expecting to be burned up by white-hot angelic wrath. Then he remembered Cas was impotent and relaxed a little.
Only a little. An angry junkie was still driving the car, and Dean was still riding in the death seat.
"I'm talking about having to stand by, day after day, and watch you tear yourself apart, knowing that there's not a damn thing I can do about it!"
Cas shouted this directly at Dean, either forgetting or not caring that this was not technically his Dean.
"Knowing I'm just another one of your problems!" he ploughed on. "Just another thing getting in your way!"
The car dipped again, and Dean gripped the rubber sill of the passenger-side window.
"Cas, I don't -" He changed tack. "I'm sure he doesn't think that. Just calm down," he suggested nervously. "Watch the road, huh?"
Cas grit his teeth behind his lips. He managed to stabilise the car, if not his mood.
"The way you were looking at me before," Cas lamented, "like you respected me, like you needed me, like you cared about what happens to me… Do you know how long it's been since he looked at me like that?"
Dean shook his head.
"Two years, Dean. Two years!"
Castiel's chest hitched, and for an awkward moment, Dean thought that Cas was going to cry.
"When Lucifer took Sam," Castiel explained, without tears, "there was nothing I could do. That's when you began to realise how useless I really was. I couldn't help you when you needed me the most."
That hurt him to remember, Dean could tell, but Cas pressed on.
"Not long after that, I started losing my powers." Cas narrowed his eyes in spite. "Eventually I became the pathetic waste of a vessel that you saw me for."
Dean felt strangely guilty. He hadn't done any of this, but he could totally see himself doing it.
"Sounds to me like Dean was just looking for someone to blame," Dean said.
"But it was my fault," Cas insisted. "All of it. I kept you from Sam. I made it easy for you. I used my power to help you to forget about him - to forget that you needed each other - because I thought that's what you wanted. By the time I realised my mistake, it was too late. Sam was gone."
Dean looked down, mourning the loss of his brother, a loss he hadn't suffered yet. A loss he would not suffer, if he could help it. If being the operative word.
"Okay," said Dean soberly. "So if that's true, if I - if he - really does blame you, then why does he keep you around? He doesn't exactly strike me as the forgiving type."
Cas shrugged. "I guess he feels sorry for me. Maybe even a little responsible for what I've become. When the other angels left Earth, I could've gone with them, but I didn't." Castiel gazed longingly into the darkness. "I couldn't leave him."
"Jeez, Cas," Dean squirmed, turning his attention to the nothingness outside his window, "you sound like you're in love with the guy."
Castiel smiled wistfully. "I am."
Dean's head snapped back to him. "Is that like hippie humour or something? Because it's not funny," he scolded.
Castiel shot him a slightly perverted grin, but the sorrow behind it told Dean that Cas wasn't joking.
Dean closed his eyes in revulsion. "Do I know about this?" he asked sternly.
Cas nodded. "Oh yes. Very well. You loved me too, once." He glanced at Dean, who looked horrified, and a smug look crept over his face. "Well, you still love me, Dean," Cas informed him. "I can sense that." He grinned mischievously. "As a friend, of course."
Dean was rigid and wide-eyed. "But you're not talking about 'friends', are you Cas?"
Cas' grin fell back into that wistful, distant smile again. Dean read its meaning clearly.
Dean's mind railed against the idea.
"Cas," he began sickly, "you two weren't… I mean, we weren't… were we?"
"You were very lonely without Sam."
"Sam's my brother!" Dean cried, shocked by Cas' poor excuse for an explanation. "You're telling me I tried to replace him with… with you?" He shook his head fervently. "That makes no sense, Cas. How high are you? "
"I could never replace Sam," Cas admitted, lost in his memories again. "He was everything to you."
"Sam is everything to me! But not like -" Dean balked. "Not like that! Ugh!"
He needed a scrubbing brush for his brain.
"And what about all the women, huh?" Dean pointed out. "My women? Your women? I am not gay, Cas! And from what I've seen here, I'm pretty sure you're not either!"
Cas narrowed his eyes at him. "You really are obsessed with labels, aren't you?"
Dean glared back at him, so not in the mood for semantics.
"No, Dean," Cas rolled his eyes at Dean's primitive insecurities, "we are not gay. The term 'free-love' has been thrown around, but it wasn't even like that in the beginning. It wasn't about sex at all."
Dean gagged a little, but Cas ignored him.
"Being apart from Sam was very painful for you," Cas said. "I healed you of that pain, and eventually I learned to replace it with pleasure."
"Ugh, come on, Cas!" Dean pressed his fingers to his eyes, as if that would help. "I don't need the details!"
"Oh please, Dean," Cas chided. "Who do you think taught me how to live this sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle? I needed you there to hold my hand." That perverted grin reappeared. "…And other parts of me."
Dean's eyes blazed with homophobic rage. "I swear to God, Cas, I will punch you in the face!"
Castiel laughed at him. "God's not here, man!" Cas recited this old bit like the faded stoner that he was.
Dean was reeling, struggling to comprehend how any of this could be happening, even in Zachariah's most twisted daydream.
"Ah," Cas sighed with satisfaction, "I've missed this. Just being able to talk to you."
"Yeah, well," Dean growled, "that's all we're doing, you got it?"
"That's all I want, Dean," Cas assured him. "That's all I've wanted for a long time."
Dean's glare softened a little, and he turned back to the window. He didn't want Cas to think that he was okay with any of this - he was not - but Castiel was so obviously broken that Dean found it hard to stay angry.