Wow, sorry about the wait. College 'n shit. Anyway, here y'go.


- signs: poor -

Surrounded on all four sides by a wide expanse of dead vegetation and open plains, Cerebral, Indiana was exposed and yet very, very isolated. Driving through the brick roads was like stepping back in time. Nothing seemed like it belonged; there were children in the streets, but they weren't playing. There were adults sitting on the benches, but they weren't talking. It was like some kind of creepy horror movie- the kind where everyone died.

The nearest motel was at the very end of the town, and as luck would have it, looked like it had once been a cemetery. There were suspicious looking patches of dirt in the weeds and the perimeter was surrounded by one of those creepy three foot tall wrought iron fences. Dean dropped Sam off at the motel with instructions to get a room, 'or a coffin, or whatever these people sleep in', and do some more research on these Hell's Gates. Dean himself took the Impala and drove to the nearest bar.

Usually he didn't really care where he got his alcohol, so long as he got it, but there was something about 'The Wingman' that might have been a little bit too much for one tense alcoholic hunter to handle. The woman behind the bar was gazing off into the distance, her eyes fixed on some unknown figure, and it took Dean a couple of snaps to get her attention. "Hey. Hey, bartender. Hello? Anyone home?"

When she finally spoke, she did so without the slightest change in expression. Her eyes remained fixed on the wall behind him in a sort of intent daze. "May I get you something to drink, sir?" Her voice was unnaturally soft, and if this goddamn bar hadn't been so unnaturally quiet, he wouldn't have heard her.

He frowned and followed her line of vision to the back of the bar. There hung a sign that read the exact same words she had just spoken- 'May I get you something to drink, sir?' He blinked. Go figure.

"… yeah, a whiskey," he said, shaking his head.

Immune to his sarcasm, she drifted away into the back room, nearly knocking over a crate of some Puerto Rican rum on the way. Dean scoffed under his breath. He really didn't need this right now. All he wanted was a nice, cold, unobstructed drink and maybe a hot chick to drink it with. The bartender had a pretty face, but Dean had a feeling she wouldn't exactly fit his criteria of mental awareness.

Eventually, she came back with his drink and swayed her way back to another customer, and Dean was finally left in relative peace and quiet to nurse his alcohol and think. Drinking was the only time he could do it without inhibition. It left him loose enough to be at least somewhat honest with himself, but still unwilling to share his feelings with the outside world. Coming to terms with emotions wasn't exactly a Winchester trait- God only knew how Sam did it. If God even cared. Which, according to Cas, He probably didn't.

His fingers tightened around the cold glass in his hand as his thoughts turned to the angel. It wasn't like Dean took Cas for granted. He knew Cas had shit to deal with up in heaven. He knew he couldn't be there to assist him through every little problem. It sure would have helped, all... those... times... but Dean wasn't going to complain. Because he was a Winchester, and Winchesters didn't complain. Especially not about losing something they didn't deserve in the first place.

Only Cas wasn't just an advantage, or even just an ally. Everyone knew it. Literally, everyone. It was actually getting on Dean's nerves how many people seemed to care about what went on in his pants. Not that anything went on. But really. People never seemed to be able to mind their damn business.

But disregarding what did or didn't go on in Dean's pants, even Dean himself knew that these observations had to come from somewhere. Somewhere, locked deep, deep, deep in his mind, in a box labeled 'shit you will never think about thinking about', he knew that he saw Cas as family, but not in the same sense as Sam or Bobby or even Jo. He wanted to think of him as a brother, like Sam, but this wasn't the same. It was almost, his subconscious imagined, like how his father had felt about his mother.

But that thought rarely even made it to his conscious mind, and when it did, it was quickly stamped out by the bitter sting of alcohol. Dean liked where he and Cas were, constantly balancing on the line between 'we're family' and 'let's get nasty'. If things could just stay the same, he would never have to confront any of this. Not Cas, not Sam, not Crowley, not God, not even himself. Especially not himself.

The truth was, he really didn't take Cas for granted. He didn't express it well, but he knew exactly how much he needed Cas, and exactly how little he deserved him. Cas had always been the one thing that came with no strings attached, and while it had lasted, it was great. His own personal angel, for the man who had never believed in them. But he had always known things would change, because they always did. He just never figured it would be Cas who changed.

He remembered future Cas and devoted Cas and the Cas who had always kept an appointment no matter what was going on in heaven. "Don't ever change." For someone who fought the supernatural every day, he had never been particularly superstitious, but he was starting to believe in jinxes. Maybe if Dean hadn't spoken- had kept his sentiments to himself- just maybe all this wouldn't have happened.

This stone cold general, this soldier of heaven, wasn't the Cas he knew. Team Free Will was made up of a winged dictator, a guy back form the dead, and a broken alcoholic unable to keep up with the rate of change around him. They were a sorry bunch, if you could even call them a 'bunch' anymore. Of course, they had never exactly been a well-oiled machine, but in the end they scraped together all their nuts and bolts and made it work.

But now, there weren't even any nuts and bolts left. Everything had all fallen into the works and was clogging up the system. Nothing was working but everything was still changing, grinding together and leaving permanent scars in the metal. Nothing- no demons, no Kings of Hell, no heavenly civil wars- could change that.

But if there was one thing Dean knew, it was that there were always things that could make it worse.