When Cas was able to see again, he was somewhere else. Again. He looked around himself and there was nobody there. Again. He was in some sort of office building, although it looked too chaotic to actually be something along those lines.
Cas sighed, exasperated with this game. Who was behind all of this? And why where they doing this to him? What did they want from him?
Right then and right now Cas decided that he wouldn't make it as easy for them has he'd been doing. He wasn't a defenceless human and he wasn't going to let whomever do whatever he wanted with him. He would so something, anything, that would at least tell him who was behind all of this. And then he could think of something to get him out of there, wherever "there" was.
Turning around, he started to walk towards one of what appeared to be a line of offices, when someone turned around the corner. Cas stopped dead in his tracks.
"Sam?" he asked.
The man, Sam, stopped too, but only eyed Cas inquisitively.
"Yeah?" he said, even though it sounded more like a question. "And who are you? Why do you know my name?"
Cas' shoulders slumped down and the glimpse of hope, or had it been relief, vanished again.
"It's me, Cas" he still tried his luck.
"Who?" Sam asked, obviously not recognising Cas.
„I am Castiel" Cas explained. "And who are you, if you are not Sam Winchester?"
Sam frowned.
"You just said it yourself, I am Sam Winchester" he stated as if it were an offense not to be Sam Winchester. "Samuel Winchester."
Finally, Cas gave up understanding anything. Balthazar hadn't known him, Dean hadn't known him, then he had recognised him and now Sam didn't recognise him either. What was wrong with everybody? Or was there something wrong with him?
But before he could decide on anything, another man came around the corner. One man, being escorted by two others.
"Dean!"
The man in the middle, who was being held by the other two and had his wrists cuffed, lifted his head and stared at Cas.
"Yeah, sweetie, that's me. Got a problem with that?"
Cas reeled back in surprise. Dean would never talk to him like that.
Dean, or the man who looked like Dean, noticed Cas' surprise.
"Not what you expected, he?" he said, winking at him. "Only looking, no touching."
Cas frowned, not understanding what Dean (the man who looked like Dean) meant. That got a guffawing laugh out of the man, which made Cas reel back even more.
The two men, which Cas now identified as policemen, pulled Dean to continue walking, and while they walked past Cas and Sam, the man who looked like Dean continuously stared at Cas hungrily.
Cas shivered.
"I'll be there in a minute" Sam said to the two policemen, and only then did Cas remember that there was someone standing beside him.
Sam was eying him curiously, and Cas shifted from one foot to the other, not comfortable under the other man's stare.
"So you know him" Sam stated, although Cas wasn't sure if he hadn't meant it as a question.
"Yes" he answered without thinking, then shook his head. "I mean, no. I thought so, but no. I do not know this man."
Sam's gaze was still on him, and Cas shifted nervously again.
"You sure?" Sam asked again.
Suddenly, Cas realised that Sam had to be a policemen too, if he was giving orders around here. He remembered how Sam and Dean always told him not to trust the police, or at least to lie to them as much as he could.
"Yes" he said, trying to get more confidence in his voice. "I do not know this man."
Sam seemed to accept that for the moment, because he started walking the way the men had taken Dean. Still, his gaze lingered a moment longer on Cas, but then he turned away and left.
Cas sighed in relief, even though he didn't know exactly why he had lied to Sam, who was probably not Sam either. He turned his head, looking for an exit. As he didn't find one, he just started walking in the opposite direction than Sam had.
He found the exit eventually and once on the streets he directed his steps towards the nearest bar.
20 minutes later he still sat there, coffee mug in front of him. He was trying to decide what to do, but his thoughts kept going back to Sam who wasn't Sam and Dean who wasn't Dean. Who were they?
And why had the Dean in the woods recognised him, even though he had definitely not been Dean?
"Hey" said a voice directly in front of him, and Cas' head shot up. "Cas, was it?"
Dean was sitting at Cas' table on the chair in front of him, his face mere inches from Cas.
Cas nodded absently, and Dean smiled.
"Sorry, didn't meant to scare you" he said, and he sounded more like the Dean Cas new.
Still, it wasn't the same man, Cas reminded himself. This Dean did not know him.
The not-Dean made a gesture with his hand towards one of the waitresses here and she came back with a mug of coffee for Dean.
"Do you come here often?" Cas asked because he didn't know anything else to say.
Dean smiled, but it wasn't the open smile that Cas enjoyed so much seeing on Dean's face. It was a sarcastic smile, a smile meant to hide what the stranger in front of him was feeling.
"Yeah, I do. You could say that I'm in the neighbourhood often" he said, winking again at Cas. That only added to Cas' confusion, and as Dean saw that he clarified: "The cops take me in every time something happens 50 miles from me. They think I have to do something with basically any criminal act in this area. And to be honest, most of the times they are right."
Dean was smiling again, but Cas was not so sure that that smile was true to what Dean was feeling. He decided to stay silent, not knowing anyway what he could have said.
"So" Dean said while letting his hands fall on the table, startling Cas from his thoughts. "How did you know my name?"
Cas had to think back to know what Dean was referring to. But then he realised: Dean didn't know him, so in Dean's logic Cas couldn't know him either. Cas tried to think of a way to explain to Dean what had happened that would make at least the faintest bit of sense to the other man.
He didn't come up with anything.
"I know you" he simply stated. "I realise that this makes no sense to you, but I am telling the truth" he told Dean.
He didn't expect Dean to believe him, but for some reason the other man just accepted what Cas had said. If he believed him was another matter, but Cas couldn't read anything from his face.
"Shouldn't you be in jail?" Cas asked to divert Dean's attention from the topic.
For a few moments, Dean just stared at him and Cas was pondering how he could have offended the other man, but then Dean burst out laughing.
Cas only stared at him, not understanding anything. Still, he waited patiently until Dean recovered from his laughing attack and calmed down.
"What is so funny?" he finally asked.
Dean just continued to grin at him and stated:
"Just because the police took me in doesn't mean I actually did it." A glint of mischief appeared on his face. "Even though this time I actually did."
Cas couldn't help himself but grin at the proud expression on Dean's face. The he turned serious again.
"I could tell the police" he said, more pensively as offensively.
Dean's grin didn't falter even for a second.
"Something tells me that you won't do that" he said, very sure about himself.
Cas thought about going to the police just to wipe that smug and self-sure smile off Dean's face, but then he remembered that he had more important matters to deal with.
"I have to go now" he said bluntly to Dean and laid some money on the table beside his coffee mug. He hoped it would be enough, he had never taken the time or interest to understand the humans way of paying for services.
Cas stood up but stopped walking as he saw Dean raising from his chair too. Then he dismissed it; Dean probably had to go somewhere too.
But as Dean was still trailing behind him as he left the bar, he finally turned around and faced him.
"Why are you following me?" he asked.
Dean shrugged his shoulders.
"To be honest, I don't know exactly. But you seem kinda nice and I have the feeling that I can help you by sticking around." Then for a second his façade slipped and Cas could see the insecurity flash in his eyes. "Do you mind?"
"Not at all."
As the blackness took over Cas' mind, he wasn't even surprised anymore.
So hello there again!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter :) Please tell me what you thought about it, it would mean the world to me.
So I got the next chapter typed out already, it just need some fixing. It should be up tomorrow or sunday, depending on when I remember to post it ;)
See you then if you'd like!