Title: took a turn into dead end street and lost our way (3/?)
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel pre-slash, 2014!Castiel, Sam
Rating: PG-13
Summary: For the Everlasting Birthday Prompt. Dean gets a strange call from Cas saying that he's stranded on the side of the road. When Dean gets there he finds a very confused and starting-to-get-the-shakes 2014 Cas. At first Dean thinks this was his chance to make up for his future self's screw ups, but it becomes clear this isn't just good luck: there's been a switch. And unless he can find a third option, Dean's facing a godawful choice: either he sends 2014!Cas back to certain death or he leaves "his" Cas stranded in a Croat-ridden wasteland, alone and at Lucifer's mercy.
Word Count: 1395
Total Word Count: 4385
Warnings: Character death.
Notes: Epilogue has already been written. Just have to figure out how to connect this and the ending.

Castiel ate like a street rat, a survivor from the wars – hunched over his food, tearing into it with a ravenous but practical sort of hunger that put filling his stomach several dozen ticks above enjoyment on the priority list. Dean was strongly reminded of Jimmy Novak, scarfing down his first post-Cass meal with the same desperate zeal – gone now, another victim of the apocalypse, the only remnants of him surfacing with Cass' obsessive taste for burgers. Or at least he hoped so. The poor guy had suffered enough without going through the end of the world – to say nothing of Cass' wild orgies –in the bargain.

"Slow down, Cass," Dean said after long moments in which he only stared, strangely fascinated at the sight of Cass eating, at Cass being human enough to need to. "You're going to give yourself heartburn." And that reminded him – Cass could get sick now, couldn't he? He had fallen asleep in the car. He had to eat, piss, shit – all the unpleasant necessities of human life and then some. For all of Cass' respect for free will, it was actually something of a bitch. Freedom to make your own choices, sure, don't forget the freedom to live – or die – with the consequences.

Chitaqua had been more a dream than a memory of something that had actually happened – his mind's way of handling his impossible trip down the rabbit hole. Every time he looked at Cass he had to fight not to reach out and just touch him, a solid reminder under his hands that he wasn't going crazy – or just wallow in his guilt. That one never went away, cosmic reset be damned; a constant, accusing weight against his back.

Cass did pause, but only to throw back a snarky reply. "Is that an order, fearless leader?"

Dean's hands clenched under the shelter of the table. He hated that title, like Cass was a subordinate and no longer the pretty good friend he had been. "I'm not your leader," he muttered. "Not anymore."

Cass lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "It's just a formality, Dean." His eyes caught Dean's in an even stare. "I'm still following you now, aren't I? Past, future, it doesn't matter."

"You're making a mistake." It hurt Dean to speak so baldly, to go digging places he would rather leave alone. But Cass deserved this; the chance to break things off, be his own person other than Dean Winchester's pet soldier and emotional punching bag. "I'm somebody who could drag you into a goddamned suicide mission 'cause it made tactical sense." He spit the last words out.

"I always knew what was going to happen," Castiel assured him with complete and utter blaséness, made all the more cruel by the shadows under his eyes and the empty sauce-stained wrappers around his elbows. "You'd sacrifice anything to end Lucifer. We all knew, we all accepted it. You were the kind of leader we needed. As long as you lived…"

The roiling in Dean's gut intensified. He realized that Castiel didn't know that future Dean – his actual, asshole leader – was dead, probably still lying there on the cold earth, neck snapped like a twig. It hadn't happened, it never would happen. But the scene was burned into his retinas as though by a red-hot brand. It was all for nothing, Cass. But he would sooner swallow poison before he said it aloud.

Castiel said, very softly, "Lucifer showed me his body."

Everything seemed to freeze. The colors grew over-bright, the sounds of eating and talking and laughing faded like a volume knob had been turned down. Dean's tongue was heavy with all the emotion sitting on top of it, every half-formed and ultimately meaningless word. Horror didn't even begin to describe the possible scenarios that his mind was churning out like a mass-production factory in a third world country.

"Don't worry," Castiel said. "He didn't hurt me badly. He was...merciful, as one brother to another." He let out a short, sharp laugh. "He wanted me to go back and spread the word. Shout it from the mountaintops, that kind of thing. My big brother always had a somewhat...grandiose sense of self." He smirked. "As well as a particularly innovative style of cruelty."

"I'm sorry, Cass," Dean said. He felt the inadequacy of the phrase deeply as it left his lips, but it was also nothing more than the truth in a handy two-word summary. He was sorry for too many sins. Cass was an anchor around his neck, a broken promise stabbing him in the face; Dean was abruptly reminded of opening the hood of the Impala not long after they had burned John Winchester's body, looking at all the broken parts and at a loss where to begin. The difference was that cars could, with a lot of money, time and effort, be fixed no matter how trashed they were; angels turned bitter, druggie humans were rather trickier in that department.

Castiel shrugged and finished off his fries. He was trembling, Dean noticed; his arm bumping against the polished tabletop and rippling the surface of the juice in Dean's glass. "It's okay, Dean." His eyes were clear and blue, warm and earnest and terrible; filled with that unwavering devotion, the one constant rock against which Cass had wrecked himself to pieces again and again. "You changed the future; it never happened. You have nothing to apologize for."

Dean fought against the pull of his gaze; the connection between them crawling like an electrical current over his skin. Don't look at me that way. He said, instead, "That's bullshit. I…"

They looked away from each other at the absurdly cheerful tinkle of the bell hung over the glass doors. Once again Castiel flinched, losing and regaining equilibrium between fractions of a second as Sam re-entered the diner. "Cass—uh, that is, past you—isn't picking up his phone," he said, worried. "I'd say it isn't a coincidence, what with who's sitting there." He jerked his chin at Castiel, who suddenly became very interested in the juice stain on his napkin.

"Knowing him, he's probably scuba-diving in the Marianna Trench," Dean said lightly to overcome his own concern. He had always thought Castiel's big Easter Egg hunt a time-sink of godly proportions, but never more than now. Damnit, Cass. If only he would stay near the people who would actually lift more than a cursory finger to help him...

Castiel stood up, shoving his chair back. "Need a piss," he muttered, and shoved his way to the back of the diner, ignoring the glares and curses he left in his wake, including Sam's call of "You shouldn't go alone!"

"I'll go," Dean said, retrieving his jacket. Before he can take more than a step, Sam grabbed him by the shoulder.

"He's hiding something," Sam said carefully. "Look—I know you feel—responsible—for him, but if our Cass is in trouble, we have to pry whatever he knows out of him if that's what it takes."

"He's Cass too," Dean insisted, growing angry. "You can't talk about him as though he's two different people—"

"The way you talk about your future self, he didn't give two shits about Cass," Sam argued. "He wasn't like you at all. Five years is a long time, Dean. Imagine five years straight of Apocalypse Now." He made a face. "Hell, I don't want to imagine my own horror story."

Dean said nothing.

"Just because our Cass still has his powers doesn't mean a little help wouldn't come in handy, Dean," Sam said, more gently.

"Is that all?" Dean said flatly. "'Cause if I get in there and find some asshole angel standing over his dead body..."

Sam gave him a shake. "You're hiding something from me too," he said pointedly. "Don't think I've missed all the grimacing and meaningful looks that's been passing between you guys. When all this is over, we're gonna have a long talk, starting with rule number one: No more secrets."

As if you're the expert, Dean almost said, until he remembered giving Sam Ruby's knife, telling him: "We keep each other human." And sharing everything, with nothing in between them to drive them apart, was how it begun.

Sam understood that better than anyone else.

"Okay," he promised, meaning it, and Sam let him go.

end part three