2008's Dean POV
"Dean, I understand you're angry…"
"Do you though?" I spit out at Castiel, hands gripped into fists at my sides. "Because from what I just saw, you weren't angry. Or sorry. You didn't seem to care at all about my baby brother being slipped a demon blood roofie or my mother burning to death on the ceiling!"
"That's not-"
"It is true. I feel what you feel, remember?" I don't want to deal with this, so I dodge the angel to head in the direction of the sleeping quarters where I'm hoping to find a Sam to yell at.
Now, a part of me realizes that the one who's using the dark side of the force and hiding it from me is eight years in the past—but I don't let that slow me down. My dad once sucker punched me when he found out a vampire that I thought was dead suddenly resurfaced two years later, so I figure it's parental prerogative.
Of course, I have to run straight into my uglier half on the way there.
"Woah, woah, where's the fire?" he asks, one hand propped up against my chest to stop my charge down the hallway.
I smack his arm away. "What the hell is wrong with you? All that crap you gave me about how you care about Sam just as much as I do, you just trust him more. Trust him? He's been playing with powers he got from Yellow Eyes and shacking up with Ruby!"
A flicker of something moves over his eyes—like the shadow of a fish moving under a lake—but then it's gone again. "Watch it," he warns me. "In case you haven't noticed, Sam is fine. The blood thing—I admit, wasn't pretty—and to be real, he goes through a lot worse. I'd give almost anything to stop him from having those memories. But you do realize that this info we're giving you—the power to change everything—might mean that he never winds up safe at the bunker at all?"
He looks down at me—and is he stuffin' his shoes or something? 'Cause we're the same damn height.
"Sam and I talked about it and we're the ones trusting you here," he continues. "To make sure he makes it to 2016 no matter what—even if that means letting him jump in the Pit all over again."
"The Pit?" He doesn't mean…
But the Other Dean is already shaking his head, "Never mind that yet. Cas'll get you up to speed."
"No," I grit my teeth hard enough that I can feel it in my jaw. "I want to hear it from you. Not Mr. AutoCorrect."
His forehead lines deepen. "You're pissy with Cas too? Is it about the bar thing—'cause I told you that wasn't—he doesn't—"
Nope, nope, nope. Not gotta think about that. About what it was like to just sit there, my stomach like that snake that eats itself as I watched my face make those faces at a freakin' male Angel of the Lord. Or how Cas's stupidly blue eyes went soft every time he did. Meanwhile, Sam and me were right there—cast in the roles of chopped liver.
"He was there, you know," I say instead. And it should scare me how much the almost-growl I make feels more natural against my throat than my regular voice. "Cas and some other douche angels went back and watched Azazael break into Sam's room. Watched Mom barge in. That's why they sent you on your little time travel journey.
"Obviously, Cas oversaw that too so that he could pop in and deliver his vague little hints. Of course, he couldn't just tell you that Mom was going to make a deal—so you could actually do something to stop it. Her death, the Apocalypse you keep on teasing like a bad movie trailer—none of it would have happened if he felt like being more helpful than a fortune cookie."
I can see that I've caught him off guard—and it's about time that he realizes that being older doesn't automatically mean he's wiser. Considering he's likely had hundreds more concussions than me, maybe he's lost a few brain cells. That would explain a lot.
And yet, just as I'm savoring this minor victory, he shakes his head. "Cas couldn't have done anything to stop it. Not really. I thought that I was the one who drew Azazael's eyes to Mom—but he was always after her—or after Sam, at least. If she hadn't made the deal then, he'd have gone after Dad some other time—and she would have made the same dumb Winchester choice that we all make."
"She didn't have to go into the nursery," I argue. "The angels could have stopped her—and then Azazael wouldn't have killed her."
For a minute, I try to picture it. What life would have been like if she'd stuck around. Dad might have stayed a mechanic. We'd have grown up in a house—had regular meals and friends. We would have gone to one school and maybe Sammy and me would have been typical, selfish teenagers—who, OK, probably wouldn't have been as close as we are now. And there'd probably be a lot more monsters in the world….
But Sam would have gotten to have a normal job. He might have still gone to Stanford and found Jess, and actually proposed to her. He'd have 2.5 kids, a dog, and a picket fence just like he always wanted.
And as for me…. Well, to be honest, it's kind of hard to see myself living the apple pie life. Maybe, in this alternative reality that I'm rapidly creating in my head, I'd run across Lisa and Ben. Yeah, I could be happy with them, I tell myself, even though a Dean Winchester who was never a hunter would never know Bobby or Jo or Ellen or…Cas.
I scowl at the wall, unwilling to admit out loud that I'd ended up disproving my own point. But the Other Dean seems to know anyway if his silence is any indication. I—he—always has too much to say.
But the anger inside me is still there and hot and it bothers me that my other self hasn't caught on to it yet.
"Even if Cas couldn't have done anything, he still should've wanted to," I insist. "But it didn't even occur to him to try. I was there…in his head. He thought that Mom should have known better than to make a deal with a demon. He thought that six-month-old Sammy was impure for something that wasn't close to being his fault. He thought…he thought that it was a shame that someone with a soul as bright as mine tarnished it by going to Hell for him."
"If I could interject," Cas's voice suddenly rumbles from behind me—and I jump a little.
"Gah! We need to get you a bell or something."
The Other Dean snorts, but he does seem to look at Cas with more caution than usual.
"I admit, I didn't always have the most generous thoughts in regards to Sam. I never hated him or despised him—but I did think he that he was…damaged goods, I guess is the best way to describe it. It's what all angels were told to think. To some extent, they also thought the same about you, Dean—but I…I knew better. I knew you. Not in the way I do now—where I know the words to your favorite Zeppelin songs and what you look like what you're lying—but I did know you were…well, righteous.
"And the more I put faith in you, the less I put faith in God—and the more I warmed up to Sam, whose soul I couldn't see as clearly right away." Cas pauses, "I would say I'd die for him, but I think I actually did that once."
"Twice if you count Raphael and Lucifer," the Other Dean adds from behind me.
Cas shrugs, dismissive.
"Regardless, I'm not going to apologize for not knowing how important he would become to my life. Not when I've done much worse things—to both you and Sam—that I truly am sorry for."
That should be enough for me. I mean, I get what he's saying and not too long ago, I thought he was a demon I was preparing to stab so it's not like I'm always good at judging people in the moment either. But the uneasiness won't leave me—and I realize that it was never so much about Sam as it was about Cas—and how weird it is to feel how protective he is of me in his memories.
The Other Dean doesn't know just how often he watched him, even from the very beginning. Or the reassignments he maneuvered himself out of to stay in his position at Dean's side—not understanding why he was so attached, striving not to be, but becoming so anyway.
People don't care about me like that. Sure, Sam would do a hella a lot for me—but not as much as I'd do for him. That's why he was fine not talking to me for two years when he was at Stanford while I missed having him shotgun every damn day. Why he became a Sith in the four months I was dead. And that's OK. People shouldn't feel that way about me…Not with the things I've done.
But Cas does somehow and…it's wrong. It's all kinds of wrong.
I nod at the Other Dean and Cas, hoping that communicates an I'm fine, we're good—but I don't stay to chat. Instead, I'm going to go to the kitchen, find some Jack and hope that when I'm drunk, I don't remember what it was like to have people under my knife on the rack.
