Tracking Cass proved to be fairly easy.
Rather than run out onto the road after breaking away from Dean, Cass had marked a new course that ran parallel to it. In the moist dirt, the paw prints were plain to see. At one point, in plunging through a bush, the leash had gotten caught, and Cass had thrashed until the collar slipped over his head (so much for that supposed safety line), leaving only the claw marks in the earth and a few tufts of fur in the bush's outer twigs as evidence of the brief, violent struggle. Then he had continued on.
Dean left the collar and leash where they were. He would not need them. At least, he hoped he wouldn't. He hoped there was enough left of the real Cass to hear him, to understand him, even though he had failed to understand Cass when it had mattered.
Nothing had required Cass to give those alternate reality jokers his location. Even if that Other Lucifer was just like the one in this universe, as far as Dean knew there was no way to actually force an Angel to comply via Angel Radio, even if you were an Archangel. And that meant the Other Lucifer… Luke… had managed to somehow persuade Cass to tell him where they were. It was the only way those from the other world could have found them.
Sam and Dean were warded against Angels. Cass had once warded himself as well, albeit not so thoroughly as he had the Winchester brothers. As far as Dean knew, Cass had never seen fit to remove that tattoo, though he surely could have. Or maybe it was more appropriate to say that he simply hadn't gotten around to it. Things had been pretty busy since the Fall, one way or another, and Cass had spent much of that time hunted and hated by the entirety (or at least the vast majority) of his race.
Dean supposed that carrying Lucifer hadn't earned Cass any brownie points in Heaven either. True, Cass had managed to help put the Devil back in the box, and his reasons for submitting himself to Lucifer were noble and selfless, but Heaven probably blamed him for letting Lucifer escape to begin with, as though a mere Seraph had any chance of standing up to an Archangel, let alone Amara, who had ultimately torn Lucifer from Castiel's body. Besides, they had no high ground on that score; the Angels had decided to board up Heaven and "die with dignity" when their little smiting party hadn't done the trick on the Darkness. At least Cass had kept trying.
Whatever. The point was, this time, Cass had surrendered. And based on what Other Sam said, Dean inferred that Cass had known what the plan was. Which meant, in his own mind, Cass had decided to let Luke fix him. The only thing that had changed between now and then?
Dean had said No.
Which left Cass with nothing but to run, to accept that he'd drown in that damned dog-psyche he was developing. Given the current state of affairs, Dean was less rattled to have that much power over Cass than by the fact he hadn't even noticed that he had it, and had abused that power in the same breath as he declared Cass to be a Free Angel.
Dammit!
As had happened so often before, Dean had let anger take control of him, and had run his mouth before he'd considered the consequences. Only Sam had ever been able to take him at his worst, usually sensing somehow it wasn't personal... or maybe just not purposeful. Admittedly, sometimes they'd split up for days or weeks after a fight, having to take time to cool down. But they always managed to sort it out and put the team back together, little the worse for the sometimes literal combat.
But other people got hurt, and stayed hurt.
Cass was a prime example. The very existence of Angels had immediately rubbed Dean the wrong way. It made him feel small and helpless, and outraged. He'd taken it out on Cass the first chance he got. Of course, back then, it wasn't clear if Cass had any feelings to hurt. Maybe he hadn't. Maybe learning to feel was part of what broke him apart after the Apocalypse. At the very least, learning how to be free after however many eons must've been tough.
Naturally, Dean hadn't given the time of day to that kind of thing, being busy with his own problems. And so it had continued over the years, Dean losing himself to the anger that always, always burned under the surface, taking it out on anyone and sometimes everyone who happened to be around.
And Cass, he didn't even have to be around to get scalded by all that anger. All Dean had to do was pray. He'd delivered uncounted abusive diatribes that way, unearned wrathful tirades that Cass had never mentioned, much less demanded apology or recompense for.
So now Dean had to chase down a Lassie-dog, and hope there was enough of the Angel left inside to understand, hope his own anger stayed in check long enough for him to persuade Cass to put aside the fear, to come back willingly, to let Luke fix him. Assuming that was still on the table.
Cass didn't appear to have any concept of where he was going now, just so long as nothing stopped him or got in his way. But he didn't leave the road either, and a seven-mile run brought him into the dusty town of Bunker Hill, which couldn't have had a population of more than a hundred.
The night had reached its full depth well before Dean made his way into Bunker Hill. The air was frigid, and the wind gusted severely. He'd thought about going back for Baby, but something told him he'd never find Cass if he did. He'd also thought about praying, but he'd sort of given that up in favor of cellphones, and anyway he wasn't sure Cass would understand what was happening if Dean called out that way.
It didn't occur to him that this was the most natural way for Angels to communicate, and would therefore probably be the last Angelic thing to go. In fact, even with his Grace stolen, Cass had still been able to pick up Angel Radio. But, from Dean's perspective, that whole Angel Radio thing looked difficult and uncomfortable and certainly on the human end of prayer there was no feedback at all, so it was almost instinctive for Dean to view it as something that the last fragments of Cass left in that collie would be unable to cope with at this point.
Nothing in town seemed alive. Small towns like this weren't big on partying all night long. Everything had probably shut down by six or eight o'clock. The streets were empty. The buildings were dark. If a tumbleweed had rolled by to increase the ghost town effect, Dean wouldn't have been surprised.
"Okay, Cass, where the hell are you going?" Dean wondered aloud.
The answer, when he found it, shouldn't have surprised him. But it did.
It looked like a church made of brick, with the whole pitched roof and tall, narrow windows and little round white door aesthetic. A sign out front said it was a museum of some description. But the collie lying at the top of the steps, tail hanging down, slender head resting on white paws, told the truth. To him, in fact to any Angel or Demon, it did not matter what sign was hung out front or what humans sought to use it for, it was still and always would be first and foremost a church.
Despite everything that Heaven and Angels and God had done to him, had demanded of him without explanation or excuse, all the corruption and all the lies and all the… well, everything… Heaven was still home to Cass. And this was as close as the wounded Seraph, the mortally bound creature with no more than a sliver of Angelic essence left, could get to that much longed for and very missed home.
"Lassie, Come Home," Dean muttered to himself, though it wasn't funny and he wasn't entirely sure that he'd meant it to be when he said it, "I'll be damned."
Hearing his voice, the collie head lifted to regard him benignly. In the dark, Dean couldn't really see the dog's eyes, but he could feel them watching him. The eyes followed him as he approached, but the collie didn't rise or so much as twitch the brush tail. The dog's stillness made it feel like Dean wasn't even there, that he had no physical presence here at the church steps. The eyes saw him, but the body did not react. Dean wasn't sure if that was reassuring or not. It certainly wasn't dog behavior… but was it Cass either? He didn't know. He felt that he should have been able to tell. But he couldn't.
"Nice spot," Dean said conversationally, easing up to sit on the step just below the porch on which the dog was lying. He looked out at the flat town, with its military heritage on full display in the uninspired, boxy architecture, "You can see just about everything from here, can't you?"
Dean didn't expect an answer, nor did he receive one. The only thing he got was the sense of waiting, patient listening, the kind Cass did when he wasn't sure where Dean was going with a particular thought. He tried to be reassured. A dog would try to lick his face now, wouldn't it? Or maybe just put its head back down and ignore him because it didn't know what he was saying. But Cass… he always listened, even when he didn't… or couldn't… answer.
"Look, Sam and I… we're never, ever gonna say Yes to Lucifer. Any Lucifer. You know that," Dean began, "But this ain't our decision to make," he looked sidelong at the collie, searching for signs of comprehension, "You had already made that call. I had no right to make you change it, especially when it must've been…" he exhaled heavily, "Hell, I can't even imagine what it took to make that decision," he looked at the sky for inspiration, shivered when a blast of wind hit him in the face, "Especially since it feels like one you already made once… and paid like hell for. Are still payin' for, I suppose."
The canine head tilted, and one ear half-turned back almost quizzically.
"All I'm sayin' is… it's your life. If you want to live the rest of it as a dog, so be it. But... if you think you can trust that Angel-" he couldn't bring himself to seriously use the words 'trust' and 'Lucifer' in the same sentence, "-to put you back the way you were… I got no right to stop you. Besides," he offered a grin he didn't feel, attempting levity that didn't want to be there, "You and I both know this life we lead, it ain't much for man or Angel… but it's no life at all for a dog."
He fell silent. What else was there for him to say about it?
When he'd looked up at the sky, Dean had realized it was even later than he'd been aware of. Or earlier, depending on how you felt about it. The stars had disappeared, exchanged for the grim slate gray of the sky before sunrise. How late had they been drinking beers? How long had it taken him to get here? When had he lost his sense of time? He supposed it didn't matter.
In the silence that followed, the sun did its thing, and into Dean's mind flashed all the times he'd been sure he'd never live to see it do that again. Colors arrived slowly but surely, the same as they had since the first dawn, yet it seemed to him that the novelty would never be lost. The stark surroundings served only to amplify the brilliance of the sunrise. One thing about the life Hunters led, they learned to appreciate just making it through one more day.
Or they died. One of those.
Looking at the collie, Dean was struck suddenly by the vibrancy of the color in the dog's fur, the rich mahogany, strands of gold, and pure snow-white. Up to now he had seen the dog without really seeing, noticed the long muzzle without noticing the elegance of it, seen the dark of the eyes without seeing their expressive depth. At first, he'd been too busy seeing a monster beneath the lustrous coat, and then later he'd been too busy being scared for his friend and furious at the indignity of what those bastards had made of Cass to really see what that Other Castiel had actually done.
With a guilty start, Dean recognized that it was beautiful, like art, only the kind he found himself able to appreciate. He felt guilty not because he'd failed to notice the beauty, but because he noticed it now, when he knew the heinous price of it, not only in this reality, but what was intended because of the inner workings of that other one.
A beautiful dog, like a well-cooked steak on a plate.
He wondered how many people had eaten dogs, never thinking about nor realizing that those dogs might well have been people (or Angels) once. It was a convenient way to hide cannibalism. And, Dean decided, a convenient way to get around the "no murdering" rule those Angels were supposedly bound by. He decided that making a man into a dog with the thought that someone would eat him later was no different from shooting that same man in the gut and letting him bleed out slow. This was no less wicked, no more kind. In fact, he found the notion more appalling than half the things monsters did in this reality.
At least the monsters here were honest. You could trust a vampire to drink blood, a werewolf to consume hearts, a ghost to go vengeful, a Demon to possess and manipulate and torment. But with these otherworldly dicks, you couldn't trust anything, not even that a dog was a dog. They had exposed Angels on invisible leashes, and they turned folks into walking snacks on a whim, excusing it by saying that it wasn't murder, like somehow that made it okay. The thought turned his stomach, or maybe that was the night empty of sleep and full of beer.
Dean had to bite his tongue not to say what he was thinking. This was Cass's choice, not his. No matter how he felt about it, the reality… this reality… was there was no other option. Yes or No. That simple. That direct. Nothing more to it than that.
Yeah right.
The unmistakable sound of the Impala's engine brought Dean out of thought, and he turned to watch Baby slowly purr up the street and park next to the sidewalk in front of the museum-church. Sam was at the wheel. He cut the engine and got out.
"Luke said I should come get you," Sam said, sounding just a little baffled, "Though I don't even know how he knew you were here."
Dean looked at Cass, who was slowly getting to his feet after having lain still so long in the cold.
He turned back to Sam and said, "I do."