AN: Blanket references to season 6 episode 12. I haven't seen season 6 myself yet—I just know what happens in that one episode, and it was fun to add, so.

They're in a diner for breakfast. "We must keep to ourselves and try not to attract any attention," Castiel had said. Sam had given him a pointed look at the 'not attracting any attention part' and almost as if to prove his point, when they walked in nearly every female had turned to stare. Three hot guys? One with a larger than life presence and piercing blue eyes, the other with short honey brown hair, green eyes and kinda cute, the other a lanky six foot something. Dean shudders; he doesn't really want to think about what chicks find hot about his brother.

Sam sends Dean and Cas over to a booth while he goes to order and Dean gives his brother a withering glare at how transparent his plan to get the two of them together is.

Dean settles into the booth and Cas slides in opposite, feet brushing against his for a moment before they're gone. Things are awkward.

"So…?" Dean says in an effort to break the uncomfortable silence, it's nothing like the one last night.

Cas looks at him instead of out the window, an improvement in Dean's opinion, "Is there something on your mind Dean?"

Dean looks at him, then fiddles with the napkin. "You know exactly what I'm thinking most of the time. Why are you even asking me this?"

"Actually," Castiel corrects softly, "I don't. I know your exact location if you're within a certain distance of me and I can vaguely sense your intentions, but I just guess everything else."

Dean frowns because then that means that this relationship he has with Cas is real. It means that Cas knows him so well; he practically knows what he's thinking. It's not just sex and they really are into each other like Sam said.

Shit.

"What's it like?" Dean asks. "Being an angel," he clarifies after seeing Castiel's blank expression, "it's gotta be fun? Well, not fun, but there's go to be some perks, you know, like the mojo and the living forever—until someone kills you that is, but it's gotta be one of those rewarding careers like a firefighter, or a doctor, or a kindergarten teacher or…"

He looks up to see Castiel's expression has changed to one of slight amusement, "You know what? I'm just gonna stop talking right now."

Cas still doesn't say anything. His poker face is too good.

"You're enjoying this," Dean says accusingly.

Castiel smirks, "Maybe."

"So," Dean prompts as he flaps his hand to encourage Cas to share, genuinely curious, "you gonna explain or what?"

Castiel looks pensive for a moment, "It's not easy to articulate." Dean nods and he continues, using his hands to gesture, "It's so… vast and dynamic, for lack of better words."

Dean unconsciously leans in towards Cas. "And when we enter a vessel, we have to compress our entire essence into it. It's not painful, but it's incredibly uncomfortable at first. And our senses are so raw compared to yours. This world is intoxicating, overwhelming. Sometimes it can be a bit much."

"So why do you do it then?" Dean asks, tracing his fingers over the tines of his fork to avoid looking Cas in the eyes, "Not that I'm not glad you're here, but if it's so uncomfortable…"

"Don't you ever do things you don't want to do?" Castiel replies.

Dean wants to ask if his mother never told him it was rude to answer a question with a question, but Dean can't exactly talk since he eats yogurt with his fingers and spends inappropriately long on the Magic Fingers. He nods.

Castiel's hand is sneaky and reaches across the table to still Dean's hand, "You and I are more alike than you think then."

Sam joins them then, sliding into the booth next to his brother, and Dean snatches his hand away from Castiel's grasp. The poor guy looks kinda down.

"So Dean," Sam says and the tone alone makes Dean want to punch him for whatever he's about to say next, "how'd you sleep last night?"

Dean panics but then remembers that Sam thinks he slept in the Impala. "How do you think?"

Sam chuckles softly, "Yeah—you're kinda too old to sleep in the car now. Stiff neck or what?"

Dean nods and tilts his head from side to side like his neck actually hurts. "Tell me about it dude, I feel like crap."

"It's just weird that you weren't there this morning." Sam is a persistent little shit. No wonder he wanted to be lawyer.

"Yeah, um, I woke up early," Dean lies, "the light and the birds and your obnoxious voice."

Sam shrugs, "It's just not like you to be an early riser, you know."

"Look, whatever, dude," Dean says getting slightly wound up, "If you didn't weight four hundred pounds and snore as loud as a fricking jackhammer; I wouldn't wake up stiff."

Sam raises an eyebrow.

"With, an erm, stiff neck, I mean." Dean mutters, rubbing his neck for effect. In another life, he would have been a freaking amazing actor, "Anyway, Cas you never finished telling about being an angel."

Castiel looks slightly less miserable as he finishes his explanation and it surprises Dean that a simple rejection has such an effect on Castiel's mood—the angel is actually hopelessly in love with his other self. His present self. He makes a mental note to just avoid awkward hand holding if possible.

"I don't like this," Dean moans after all conversation has run out, "this sitting around doing fuck all when my soul's sitting out there in some bastard's living room."

"I doubt the person who has taken it has it in their living room," Castiel says ever literal, "The soul would have to be enclosed in either a container or by sigils, marks or incantations."

"And when it's released it would do what exactly?" Sam asks. "We never covered this yesterday."

"Please don't say it'll fly away into the wind and never be seen again." Dean mutters.

Castiel gives Dean an odd look, "It'd return to where it rightfully belongs. In your body."

"And there's no chance that there'd be two of me in here?"

Sam looks horrified, "Are you kidding? Two of you? That'd be a nightmare, dude. And can you imagine how bitchy you'd be? And which of you'd be in charge? The past one or the present one? 'Cos if it was the you from now you'd be all over Cas like-"

"Don't make me hurt you," Dean says warningly, about to punch his brother, but then the waitress brings their meals over and he figures that there are more important things to do. Especially when sausages are involved.

"The chance that such an event would happen is infinitesimally minute." Castiel says as he too begins to eat.

"Wait a minute," Dean says spearing a sausage and brandishing it at Castiel, "there is a chance that that could happen?"

Castiel, who has just eaten a mouthful of potato, nods.

"So you want to go ahead with it all the same and just think of what might happen to me as collateral damage?"

"No," Castiel says around the potato, much to Sam's disgust and Dean's amusement, "the probability of such an event happening is close to zero." He swallows, "You have to understand, Dean, that we cannot have your soul missing. It's too dangerous; it'd be too easy to..."

Sam interrupts smoothly over Castiel, "So have you done this kind of thing before?"

Dean's hunting honed instincts flicker. There's something they're not telling him.

"Yes and no," Castiel says, putting his fork down as he realizes that he won't be getting a chance to eat for a while, "people's souls have been removed from their body before; but it is such a rare event that there is not really much protocol."

Sam is intrigued, "You guys have protocol?"

"How else would we function efficiently?" Castiel pushes his food around on his plate looking forlorn at the lack of eating happening on his side of the booth, "There are many angles and we all have different duties."

Sam perks up, presumably to ask all about them, and Dean interrupts waving his hand around, "Down geek-boy; let the angel eat."

"What did you mean when you said yes and no when Sam asked you if this had happened before?" Dean asks, after Castiel has eaten more of his breakfast.

"Normally, when someone's soul is removed from their body, they become comatose. They can be controlled."

"I thought my soul, was just like, some floaty thing above my head."

"You are wrong," Castiel says, blunt as ever but not unkind, "it's not your soul that has been taken but you, your essence, your consciousness, your being. There isn't really a word for it in English."

"And my body pulled my soul from the past to compensate for my current missing soul?"

Castiel nods grimly, "That has never happened before. It is to some degree why this whole event has the Archangels on a high alert. It's just a sign that Dean's soul needs to be here and in his body at all costs."

Sam prompts, "The other part which has them so worried?"

"They can't locate his soul." Cas explains, "Normally they can be found and returned within a couple of hours but it has been about a day since this Dean has been here."

"And that means whoever's pulling the strings behind this shit is into some really powerful stuff." Dean says, eyes wide.

Castiel smiles at him. "And if we eliminate the possibility that present you was exaggerating when he complained about how long he was stuck in the future…"

Sam's eyes widen. "Fuck."

"What?" Dean says, "You two are pulling that bullshit again, you know?"

"We are so screwed," Sam says, pulling a face that means this shit is nasty, nasty! in an old southern accent.

Castiel seems resigned to the fact that he's spending the rest of his foreseeable career as an angel pulling these two out of shit and doesn't even blink, "Which is why we should go and see the Prophet."

Dean and Sam share a look. Going to see Chuck means going to see Becky. Dean's not sure he can handle this shit so early in the morning. Or if it's Becky-shaped—ever.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea for us to go and see Becky," Sam says carefully. Dean remembers how fond she is of him; he can't blame the kid.

"We're not going to see Becky," Castiel looks at Sam like he's clearly an idiot, "we're going to see Ellie."

"Ellie?" Dean repeats, "Is she like the hotter, younger version of Chuck?"

Sam elbows him and Cas's jaw tightens—almost imperceptibly, but Dean notices. At the back of his mind he wonders if he's a jerk on purpose; to try and illicit some kind of response from Castiel, like the boy in kindergarten who pulls on the little girl's hair.

"Logistically speaking, she is the best option we have," Cas continues like he hadn't even been interrupted, "and then we'll have to keep moving; those demons will be after you Dean and we can't-"

"Heard it all before," Dean says, desperately wishing Castiel would so much as look at him, "no drink, no sex, no demons."

Castiel raises an eyebrow, "I never said no sex." He scrapes the last bit of potato off his plate and slides out the booth, "I have some errands to attend to; I will meet you by the car in 25 minutes."

Dean's tempted to turn round to watch him walk out, but Sam would call him a girl and then he'd have to embarrass Sam by handing his ass to him in a fight. Dean figures, he's a better, kinder and brother than Sam could ever be, so refuses to let himself be an easy mark.

"Did he just proposition you?" Sam says, eyes wide, trying to look innocent and surprised instead of pleased like he's done Cupid a favor for the day.

Dean shakes his head, because it really is way too early for this shit.