Chapter 65.
Castiel nodded to the corridor of locked doors that shimmered in the room. "What do we do with all the locked doors?" he said.
Dean wished he hadn't asked. The existence of those doors made a clear statement that, however close they were, however deep their mutual trust, there were things each needed to keep from the other. "We locked 'em for a reason." he said, "I say we leave 'em locked until we're ready to deal with what's behind 'em."
"Do we even know what that is?" said Cas, "We don't even know which are yours and which are mine."
"I could make a good guess about some of the stuff behind mine, but I'd prefer not to." said Dean.
"Maybe, we could at least mark whose they are." said Cas.
"How do we do that?" said Dean.
"I don't know." Cas admitted, "Maybe if we go into the corridor, we can identify them."
"Okay, but anything comes out of there, we promise never to mention it again, right?"
"Right." said Cas, "I have as much to fear as you do."
They went into the corridor together, Dean brandishing his knife, Cas with his angel blade, though neither weapon seemed either useful or necessary.
At the first door, they stopped. Cas touched the sturdy wooden door with its iron studs. In his hand, a glowing key of pure light appeared. "I think that means this is mine." he said.
Dean went to the next one. No key appeared in his hand. "This one too?" he said, "Or can only angels open them?"
Cas went to it and the key appeared again. "Try another." he said, "I think we can only open our own."
Dean went to another door. As he came within reach of it, there was a key of light in his hand. He touched the wooden door. "How can we find out what's there?"
"I don't know." said Cas, "Maybe we can't without opening them."
"On some level, we have to know what we locked away." Dean listened at the door. No sound came from behind it. He focused his mind on making a brass plaque appear. Neat, copperplate writing appeared and formed the word, "Alistair" across the plaque. "Okay, we need more padlocks on this one." he said. Two more appeared.
Cas touched the second door. A piece of paper was suddenly nailed to it. Gothic handwriting scrawled the words, "Corrupted by Lucifer." Cas seemed pale and shaken.
Dean had reached the next door. A plaque appeared at his approach. "Sam dies." it said.
"We need to get out of here." he said, "These are supposed to stay locked forever.
"I agree." said Cas. He was staring at another piece of paper.
Dean went over to it and saw Claire's name. He took Cas's arm. "We're leaving this mess here." he said. "We should get back to the others anyway."
They left the corridor. Dean willed it to close and it disappeared. Cas was looking at him.
"What?" he said.
"You're able to label doors, transform rooms, light fires."
"You silenced the wall voices." said Dean.
"Briefly." said Cas.
"Point is, we're both pretty good at this."
"Put the door and window back." said Cas.
"Why? I thought we were leaving."
"It feels important. Okay, the stuff behind the doors is locked away for excellent reasons, but out there are our minds and they only seem dark and terrifying because we've been scared of hurting each other with them."
"We still are." said Dean, "Remember the cabin? You were as much a wreck as I was by the end of it."
"If the bad stuff is locked behind triple locks, how bad can the stuff out there be?" said Cas.
"My good stuff is pretty bad." said Dean.
"If I don't protect you, I'll lose you." said the walls.
"Pretty arrogant, to think an angel needs your protection."
"Pretty arrogant to think you still count as an angel." said Cas's voice from the walls.
"I won't lose you again." said Dean's wall voice.
"You lose everyone." said another Dean voice.
"Shut up!" said Dean, "Shut them up, Cas!"
Suddenly, they were in a vast stone hall with tapestries in rich colours on the walls. Down the centre of the hall, a shallow trench held a warming fire.
"We're not in Bobby's now." said Dean.
"No." said Cas, "We need to go." His voice shook.
"What's wrong?" said Dean.
"The tapestries. The scenes are from the Song of Solomon."
"Hey, maybe we're in Solomon's palace!" said Dean, "Didn't he have, like three hundred concubines?" He looked around hopefully.
"This isn't Solomon's palace." said Cas.
"Then what is it?"
"I fear it may be mine."
"I'm guessing you have no concubines."
"I have no palace."
"No, I thought you didn't. I feel you would have mentioned it at some point. Are you okay, Cas?"
"This is pure fantasy." said Cas.
"Everything here is."
"No, this is ... "
"This is the other kind of fantasy? The good kind?" said Dean. He could see Cas was getting more uneasy, even ashamed. They heard footsteps coming towards the arched opening at the end of the hall. He took Cas's arm. "Okay, we're leaving." They both knew whose footsteps they heard and it was clear that Cas did not want to meet her there.
