"Oh Hell no."
The words snapped out of Dean without his even really thinking them or consenting to say them, the earlier rage of the Angel dog now his own. Cass had just recently been so deeply and terribly violated by Lucifer that there weren't words for what he must have endured, had been so soundly beaten by the Angel of Hell, had fought so hard to put Satan back in the box from whence he'd come. The idea that Lucifer, any Lucifer, was even now walking free upon the Earth was completely intolerable, and the thought that he was within spell distance of Cass was even worse.
"Luke thought you might react this way," the Other Sam did not appear surprised, but more like his feelings were hurt, or that he was even offended on behalf of the Devil he called his Angel. His eyes flicked in Cass's direction, "Given the way your Angel reacted to the sound of his voice."
It took a brief second for that to sink into Dean's consciousness, and another second for him to make the translation that Luke was the nickname of this Other Lucifer.
The sound of Lucifer's voice must have been what provoked Cass into that earlier frenzy. In his cruel way, Lucifer had already traced evil fingers on the edges of still raw and bleeding wounds, touching upon Cass's consciousness with his power in a way that Dean could not protect his friend from.
Cass had concealed well the hurt this world's Lucifer had wrought upon him, but Dean had seen it under the surface, though Sam had understood it far better because he had spent time actually locked in the Cage with the Devil. But now Cass could not hide his feelings, his hurts showed themselves plainly even though he was no more given to complaining now than he had been before. And that was the cruelest of all, that he was not even permitted the dignity of pretending he was okay.
Perhaps in the face of this horror, or maybe at the touch of Dean's anger, Cass moved back, as far from the group as the leash that Dean held allowed. His eyes roved uneasily the empty air between men and Angels, focusing on nothing and settling nowhere. A new growl, higher pitched but very quiet, replaced the one from earlier.
"Lucifer is never touchin' Cass again. You hear me?" Dean snarled.
He didn't even know what the fix entailed, but if it involved Lucifer, it was guaranteed to be bad. Dealing with the Devil always got you screwed, and Dean had taken in enough details from the conversation to comprehened that this was undoubtedly some kind of deal and that it directly involved the Other Lucifer who, besides a set of wings seemingly twice the size of the Other Castiel's yet somehow able to fold just as neatly, looked exactly like the Lucifer Sam and Dean had collectively let out of the Cage.
"Dean," it was Sam, but it might as well have been the Other Sam as far as he was concerned.
"I said no!" Dean practically shouted.
He barely felt the tension on the leash as Cass leaned back, bracing against the dirt shoulder of the road with his paws, ears flat, head low, growl rising another octave in his throat.
"See?" the Other Dean grinned, "I knew you were lyin'. If that ain't Angel Mastery, I don't know what is. Though why you'd stoop to leashin' him is beyond me."
"That's because of what you did, you stupid son-of-a-bitch!" Dean practically shouted, "Cass knows it's for his own good, to protect him from himself," he remembered Crowley's words after he had erroneously kicked the Angel dog, "You think I could put that collar on him if he didn't let me?" Dean threw the end of the leash down, "Here, you try and take him anywhere with it," he regretted the challenge instantly, but he could not call the words back into his mouth, so he concluded, "I'll watch."
But he didn't get the chance, because Cass saw his, and took it.
Wheeling, Cass made a run for the lake, as though he intended to leap in and swim across. It was the straightest course away from Lucifer, if not the most practical, for a dog is virtually helpless in the water and, however fast he could swim, it would not be faster than the flap of an Angel's wings. In fact, he never reached the water specifically because of this.
"Luke, stop him!" the Other Sam cried, an edge of fear in his voice.
But how it sounded to Dean's ears was that, Dean had said No and Cass had run, and now the Other Sam now sought to use the Other Lucifer to quash the effort at resistance, taking by force that which was not given freely. That's how it Dean heard it. However, more importantly, he realized how Cass would react if Lucifer blocked his path.
"Wait!" Dean yelled, and ran to catch up.
The Angel was faster.
Visible wings or not, they could teleport just like the Angels of this world had been able to before the Fall, and the Other Lucifer planted himself right on the riverbank, between Cass and the water. Cass slid to a stop with a snarling flash of teeth, spun and started back the way he'd come.
More on reflex than anything like reason, Dean held his hands out, trying to pacify the Angel dog. He knew Cass was scared of Lucifer, realized he himself had contributed to that fear in this moment. Ducking to the side, Cass tried to go around Dean. Afraid that Cass's next few strides would see him into the road where he'd get hit by a car or worse, Dean reached for and caught the leash in his right hand. He realized his mistake a split-second too late. Driven now by the panic that Dean had pushed him into, Cass had only one way of defending himself against the attempt to curtail his headlong flight.
Faster than a blink, the collie's slim muzzle whipped around, the long canines slashing deep into flesh, the jaws closing forcefully. Dean didn't feel the pain of it in the instant, that would come later. But he sensed the severing of tendons, heard the snap of bones, felt a rush of heat as blood welled. The bite was released almost as soon as it had been secured, but the damage was done, and Dean dropped the leash, giving the frantic Angel dog the freedom he sought to achieve.
Having obtained freedom, Cass scrabbled briefly on slick lakeshore pebbles, found purchase and sprang away into the dark without a backward glance.
That was when the pain hit, "Son-of-a-bitch!"
Apparently stunned by the violence of one of his kind, the Other Lucifer froze where he was, his wings half-spread in preparation for another flight. If the Angels of his reality were really as nonviolent as claimed, his whole world probably felt like it had started spinning too fast to cope with. It was one thing to be told that Angels here were capable of violence, to know it intellectually. But quite another to see it in person, especially between what to the Other Lucifer looked like the Angel and its Master. By the time the Other Lucifer had recovered sufficiently to resume his pursuit, the Other Sam had held up a hand to stay him.
"Dean!" Sam shouted. He had started to follow Dean but been momentarily stopped when the Other Lucifer appeared at the lake's edge. Having overcome the brief paralysis of dread the sight inspired, Sam now arrived at Dean's side, "Let me see it. Dean, let me see."
Dean had hold of his bitten hand with his good hand to steady it, and it took everything in him to let Sam take a look at it. Cass had disappeared from sight by now, as had any interest anyone had in him.
In the meantime, the Other Castiel had issued a scandalized cry, and now flew directly to Dean's side, seeming to forget in the moment that this Dean was not his own. Before either Dean or Sam could object, the Other Castiel put his hand over Dean's. A pulse of light and faint ringing accompanied the act of healing, just as it did with the Angels of this reality. Dean felt better almost before he knew it, his brain still processing the signals of pain that had been sent to it.
The Other Castiel withdrew his hand and took a step back.
When Dean glared at him, the Other Castiel ruffled his feathers, "My apologies. That was a reflex. It won't happen again." He didn't sound particularly sorry.
"No," Dean said, still miffed about the situation, but not about the Other Castiel's most recent action, "It's okay. But it still don't make us even for what you did to Cass."
"Even?" the Other Castiel asked with flat curiosity, "I don't understand."
"Never mind," Dean said, gifting each member of the alternate reality squad with an annoyed look personally tailored to them, "Do you jackasses believe me now?"
If they needed more proof that Dean was no Angel Master than Cass fleeing and biting the hand that had fed him since this crazy train got rolling, Dean couldn't imagine what it would be.
"I don't get it," the Other Sam remarked, approaching them but looking off in the direction Cass had disappeared, "Why's he so afraid of Luke? Luke's harmless."
Mom had turned up at some point without Dean's noticing, and she eyed his hand from a distance, suspicious of the Angel's healing. Dean had already half-forgotten the injury. For one thing, he'd had it coming. For another, it was in the past already. Besides, it had come to him that he was responsible for what had just happened, and not only because he'd tried to lay hands on a panic-stricken dog that also happened to be a former warrior in God's Army.
It was easy to forget that Cass was a soldier, though he reminded them often enough. When he fought, there was a brutal efficiency to it. If it was possible for a kill to be clean, Cass's always were. His history had taught him to kill, and do it quickly. Yet so often he wore the persona of a bumbling but well-meaning person who by all rights should have abhorred violence that it was possible to convince yourself that it was true. In his way, Cass did hate violence, and everything that necessitated it. But he knew the purpose of it, and took to it when he felt it necessary with no evidence of hesitation or reluctance of any kind. The shift was always jarring.
But that was not why he had bitten Dean. In fact, there wasn't a reason for it, not really. Dean had seen it in his eyes. Dean had grabbed him, and Cass had reacted without a thought in that collie brain he'd been saddled with. The vacancy in the dark eyes, the total absence of anything remotely resembling his friend underneath all that canine-based fight or flight response, was far more unnerving than the damage that had been done to Dean's hand.
Dean was losing his best friend, a precious piece of his pitifully small family. Time was running out, and he had been presented with only one solution. And he'd said No, as if he had any right to make that decision. Without anyone needing to tell him, Dean understood that it was his own actions that had set Cass to flight. As Cass lost his grip on who he was, he'd started relying more and more on Dean. Dean's own revulsion of the Other Lucifer, in fact that whole alternate reality crew, had been read by Cass as a cue to fear them. The dropping of the leash might as well have been a command to flee. Everything in Dean's manner and voice had told Cass how to react, what to do, and Cass had done exactly as he'd been instructed, as though he had already completed the transition and become fully dog in mind.
Sam was answering his counterpart, oblivious of Dean's mental turmoil, "He's not…" he halted, decided to say it differently, "It's not your Lucifer. The Lucifer in this reality… he's pretty bad."
"He's the Devil," Dean interjected sharply, "You know what the Devil is, right?"
The silence that followed was negative.
Dean sighed, in no mood to explain further, "Never mind," he turned to Sam and deposited the keys of the Impala in his brother's hand, just in case he might need them, "Stay here."
"Where are you going?" Sam asked.
"I'm goin' to find Cass," Dean replied.
"Dean," Mom said with a shake of her head, "Cass just bit you. He may not even recognize you."
"Yeah, and last time he went rabid, he beat the crap out of you. The only thing that stopped him was Rowena. Otherwise he would've…" Sam broke off the reminder, knowing he didn't want to say aloud the end of that sentence any more than Dean wanted to hear it, and instead concluded somewhat lamely, "At least let me come with you."
"No," Dean exclaimed, resisting the urge to repeat what he'd said then for the benefit of the newcomers. Instead he repeated, quietly but firmly, "No. Too many people will only spook him. I'll find him, and I'll bring him back," he shifted his gaze from Sam to the Other Lucifer, doing the best to keep open hostility out of his tone, "And then you are gonna fix this."