Author's Note:

Thanks again for reading guys, hope you're enjoying it so far :) I also hope that this inspires some of you to go and read the stories I've referenced, the writing probably isn't the same since I've gotten better but still worth a look through. Anyways, please leave a review and thanks for all the favourites and follows. Lemme know what you think so far and if you have any ideas for monsters, I'd love to incorporate any of your ideas if I can :D

P.S. FPwoper and JR Granger: shhh.


Fragments of Memories

"Cas check it out!" Sam dropped onto the couch next to Castiel, a large binder in hand. Cas was a little perturbed by the sudden appearance of his new neighbour but he did well not to show it. He had, after all, been invited over for the tenth weekend in a row.

"What's up, Sam?" He asked before realizing that Sam was holding a photo album in hand. "Oh my god, is that-?"

"It is," Sam grinned wide as he opened it to the first picture of Dean, "Perfect for embarrassing your older brother with the guy he likes."

Cas' face lit up like a Christmas tree, cheeks burning like Sam had lit a fire under his chin. "He… he what?"

Sam didn't reply with more than turning the page and pointing out the next image, though Cas couldn't mistake that evil little brother grin for anything else. Sam's body shook a little when he attempted to hold back a cough, it was only a few seconds but it caught Castiel's attention.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, just catching a cold or something." Sam smiled, "I'll be fine."


Mainline

Castiel stepped through the portal last, a feeling a bit strange to go through a rift that someone else had made. He'd never had a partner, always did things alone, so when Dean opened their escape route he was hesitant to go through it, but only for a moment. "Not bad," He offered a smile and received on in return.

"Thanks," Dean took a moment to look around at the mainline again. "Feels like forever already since we were here…"

"Couldn't have been that long," Jet shrugged, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, "Though maybe you've got a point."

Dean looked down below the mainline's road into the void, there was still a world surrounded in darkness, the same one Castiel refused to let them go near. He wanted to ask about it again but knew that maybe it wasn't the best time to start an argument. He'd already pushed his luck with being the person Castiel remembered from magic training, he didn't need to mess with that too. "So… you guys said that the celestials disappeared, does that mean they're gone?"

"No," Cas shook his head and walked to Dean's side, "They left the immediate space they were in, that doesn't mean they're gone. They'll return to that space again, they always do. Though right now I'm not sure they'll answer us if we need them, so be careful."

"Doesn't matter," Sam grinned, "We've got a journal about some of the monsters we'll be fighting, maybe even a bit on the worlds we'll come across. We're set."

They had explained everything to Dean, including the journal being John's and having Sam's writing in it. The corrupted timeline and the celestials' last words to them; he couldn't make sense of it either and they'd all decided that dwelling on something they had no answers to was a waste of time when there were realities that needed them. Dean agreed with the 'move forward' plan, though it didn't stop the questions from bombarding them all. But no one had the answers to said questions so asking them would only induce more frustration and arguing and that was even more of a waste of time.

Instead they moved forward, Sam hoping to pick which world to go to, following the journal but he couldn't quite make out which one his other self had spoken about. "I guess maybe we just pick one?" He finally said, a little deflated.

"Yeah… but can I see something?" Jet asked as he snatched the journal from Sam's hands, the younger male ready to throw a fit but stifling it last second.

"What're you looking for, man?" Dean leaned over his friend's shoulder and peered at the pages. He didn't exactly recognize it to be Sam's writing but he trusted his brother's judgment all the same.

"The ending, maybe the other Sam wrote about what happened to corrupt the last timeline…" He murmured and it was possibly the smartest thing Dean had heard come from Jet's mouth. Granted Jet could be a hell of a motivational person when he wanted to but good and smart ideas rarely came out of the guy.

The other three waited a few seconds before Castiel was the first to lose patience, "Read it out loud Jet."

The oldest of the three brunettes glanced up from the journal for a second before going back to it, "Last entry doesn't look like the first ones, more of a diary kind of thing. 'I'm still not sure how to tell when a day goes by in here or if it does at all, regardless we've been waiting on the mainline road for ages. I still can't believe he did it, what were you thinking Dean? Did you just let go? Was it so hard to just keep going? Take the chance? I guess maybe it was for you. Cas hasn't woken up yet; I don't think he will… Maybe I'm just losing hope in this mess. The magic surge that went through him was strong; I think some of it passed to Jet and I too… Was that you, Dean? I don't know why I'm writing this down, either. Maybe I think you'll read this some day Dean, if you're still out there. I'm done with it. The entire mainline went out, the fires have gone and nothing is moving anymore, not even the void. We're stuck, that's it… Can't even ask any higher powers for help, they didn't come back after that, Dean. You were right, it killed them. I guess immortal wasn't something they told us they were either…'" Jet trailed off and skimmed to the bottom of the page.

"Is that it?" Sam asked after a few seconds of waiting.

"There's some smeared stuff, scribbled out, and at the end I can make out the words 'It's over."

Dean ran a hand into his hair, "Okay… so what did we get from that?"

"They… killed the holy beings?" Castiel answered hesitantly, "Or… the ones from their timeline?"

"But that doesn't make sense, why would they do that?" Sam shook his head, "No, I think something happened that resulted in their death. This is really starting to freak me out, guys…"

"Don't worry," Dean gripped Sam's shoulder and pulled him into a hug, something he felt they hadn't done enough lately. "I'm not going anywhere, I promised Cas and that means you too, alright? The Dean in the corrupted timeline left, by the sound of it. I won't."

Jet wanted to expression something about that, something about saying 'You can't promise that', or mentioning that they didn't know the circumstances of why the other Dean had left. Their counterparts sounded like they were almost exactly the same people, maybe even down to their backstories. If this Dean swore he'd never leave then the other one must have said the same thing. Instead he smiled and clapped his best friend on the back, "Let's get going, waiting here isn't going to figure anything else out."

Sam took the journal back from Jet; feeling like it was a bit of a victory despite the other male not really trying to hold onto it. "Jet's right, we should get going."

With that they chose a world that looked like it was in most need of help, Dean sent Sam and Jet in first, pausing for a moment to look at Castiel. "So, about all of this-"

Cas' cheeks were flushed as he leaned in and stole a kiss, "Later." He whispered before disappearing into the world portal. Dean smiled and touched his lips for a second, following his partner inside.


Fallout

Jet groaned, rubbing his hand over his head and sitting up from the rubble he'd so gracelessly hurdled into. "That could have been so much smoother." He muttered, looking around at his immediate surroundings. It reminded him instantly of the first world, post apocalyptic down to the slightest imperfection, maybe even better. The word wasteland came to mind as he slowly pulled himself up, seeing the desolation all around him.

And it wasn't just that there were destroyed buildings, there was no life anywhere, not even plants. In the last one there was greenery everywhere, like a monster had wreaked havoc or something, but this place looked like a nuke had gone off. Jet bitterly chuckled to himself, not too eager to find out if he were right.

He took a step to realize that what he was standing on wasn't a ground covered in a lot of garbage, it was a rooftop, and it wasn't particularly stable. He felt the surface give a little beneath his weight and heard the creak of what should be a decent structure. Jet moved to the edge of the building where the wall would at least add a little bit of stability, glancing down to see that he wasn't exactly close to the ground. It looked like he must have been on top of a mall or something because it was a straight drop to pavement below.

"Fucking perfect…" he growled to himself, at least a little relieved that he wasn't with just Sam again, he wasn't sure how he'd get out of that situation cleanly, let alone Dean's little brother. Though he wouldn't have minded one of the super powered priests to be there, Cas would probably just jump off the roof without a second thought. Dean would probably hesitate but it'd result in the same 'I'm superman and nothing hurts me' landing. Jet mentally cursed them both as he lowered himself over the edge, his foot catching and holding on a broken part of the wall. He grit his teeth and started fumbling his way down the decrepit building, finding that it being in pieces was more of a help than he thought it'd be.

The climb was straining but he made it down okay, dropping the last ten feet because there was absolutely nothing to hold onto. Jet rolled when he hit the ground and paused to curse a few times before moving to get to his feet. He heard the strangest sound; he might've thought it was a cow or something if he hadn't seen the thing. It looked like a sort of cow alright but it had two friggin' heads, had looked like it'd been skinned in some parts while the rest probably had a horrendous skin disease.

And it didn't look too happy to see him.

It charged, all 1600 pounds of it. Jet rushed to his feet but it didn't matter, the sound of heavy gunfire thundered and the mutated beast screeched before collapsing to the ground. Jet gasped out what was left in his lungs, his eyes opened wide and frantic as he stared at the thing that just about flattened him. "The fuck was that thing!?" He shouted as he turned his head, coming face to face with the barrel of what looked like a heavy artillery rifle.

"It was a Brahmin, you fuckin' idiot." Jet heard his own voice from the man standing above him and knew instantly he'd run into his counterpart in the world. He would have said something in return but the end of the rifle connected with his head seconds later, Jet couldn't exactly see straight. The second blow knocked him out cold.

"Son of a bitch… It's me…?" The conscious Jet muttered after tapping at the other's limp body with his boot. "What the fuck…"

"Don't know." His usually quiet comrade replied, Longshot's hand on his rifle casually ready to shoot the doppelganger if necessary.

"See, it's times like this that I wish we had some long-distance communications or something." Jet grumbled as he heft the cleaner, younger looking man onto his shoulder. "He even smells like soap. This is freaking weird."

The two walked to the road together before Longshot finally responded, "You remember what soap smells like?"


Dean looked around and smiled when he saw Sam standing next to him, at least he was with someone this time. "Well looks like it's you and me."

Sam smirked, "I guess. But… what are we looking at here? It's a mess."

"Yeah…" Dean wanted to cover his mouth, the place smelled awful and he really didn't want to know the source of it. "Looks like another apocalypse?"

"I'd say man-made this time. No demons or satan involved here…" Sam tried to take it all in, the ruins, the dusty rubble, destruction and pools of murky water.

"I wouldn't be so sure," It was Castiel's voice but it wasn't anywhere close to friendly, he sounded ready to kill. Dean was about to turn around when he felt the cold steel of a gun against the back of his head. "Don't."

"Cas? Hey, don't shoot."

"I've shot people who have groveled a lot more than that." Cas snarled, shoving the barrel harder against Dean's head. It was strange; the idea of a gun had never lost the feeling of terror that went with it. The thing could still kill, that was probably the part that was most frightening. "Who are you?"

"Dean, this is Sam."

"I mean really." The way he snapped out the words was vicious, like there was no form of a bluff involved.

Dean was about to answer again when the Castiel behind him grabbed his shoulder and roughly spun him around to stare him in the face. And did Dean ever stare. There was something radioactive about the blue in this Castiel's eyes, it was colder than he'd ever seen it and angrier than he thought they could get. "What happened to you?" He nearly whispered the question but Cas stepped back all the same. It was a strange thing to ask and normally worth being shot over but the way he'd said it, like he knew Cas was supposed to be something different, really struck home.

"You aren't Dean," Cas retorted without actually responding, "Where are you from? Did someone make you?"

"Another world," Sam answered first, turning around to look at the striking form of Castiel geared for a fight. He had a weapon strapped to each limb above and below a joint, several on his hips and larger rifles on his back. The question to be asked was 'how the hell can you carry that much without falling over?' But Sam refrained. Instead he did his best not to look at the things that might put a hole in his skull. "We're travellers, there are two others with us-"

"Travellers through other worlds?" Cas sneered, damn near mocking them. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me. Why the hell are you here?"

"There's something messing up your world," Dean spoken next, he wasn't quite used to Sam being the one to answer things, then again it'd been a while since it'd been just the two of them.

"You don't fucking say!?" Cas smacked Dean with the side of his rifle, "Tell me something I don't know, dipshit. Everything's messing this goddamn place up. So why are you here?"

"There's something bigger than your used to dealing with, something you can't touch, can't shoot, that's doing things that don't make any logical or scientific sense to anyone. Am I close? Or haven't you been the one to experience it yet?" Dean snarled back, tired of being shoved around by this guy. A Castiel or not he couldn't go around smacking him on the head with a gun, Dean wasn't just going to sit there and let him. "Judging by the distrust on your face I'd say you haven't seen it, which means we're either early or you're not important. Now stop aiming that gun at me and take us to where you and the others live."

The two stared at one another long and hard, Dean held strong and refused to back down against Castiel's glare. It was intense, felt like hours before the raider finally stepped back and let out a soft scoffing noise, "Alright, you've got some guts in you I suppose I could show you." He turned and started away, "Do anything stupid, and I mean anything, and I shoot you both. Understood?"

"Got it." Sam exhaled through the anxiety, shoving Dean's arm a little as he stood up.

"Yeah," Dean agreed begrudgingly, following after Castiel's lead. It was a little strange, this Cas was also wearing a trench coat but it was older, ratty and battle worn, and probably not magically hiding a combination weapon. "So you've been through a lot, huh?"

"Asking stupid questions counts as doing something stupid." Castiel called over his shoulder, which basically shut the Winchesters up as they trailed along behind him.

Dean figured calling the guy a bitch counted as stupid too so he kept it to himself.