I Am Not Such As I Was

There was a knocking that awoke Dean from his all-encompassing sleep. He groaned, not wanting to get up. The warm body beside him shifted, filling Dean with half-heated memories of the night before. Dean over Castiel, legs spread as he took his thick cock. The ratting of the bed and banging against the wall had been incessant, loud, but Dean, with embarrassment, had been louder. Castiel was just too good, even if his friend—boyfriend—whatever the hell he was — thought otherwise.

"Dean," Castiel rasped out, voice filled with layered exhaustion.

"Uuunnnggghhh…" Dean forced out.

He wanted to sleep, and if he couldn't do that there were much more enjoyable things he could do in a bed. When it came to Cas, Dean had an eager mouth.

He'd sucked him last night, listening to his moans, and then—

The knocking came again.

"Chief!"

Dean lifted his head up, and then rolled over, exclaiming, "Alright, alright! I'm coming." He forced aside his arousal, which was unpleasant. Couldn't he have something good to start his day with?

Boots thumped away off the porch, leaving Dean be for now, giving him the time he needed to get himself ready to face the day.

God, what would the problem be today? It was always something. They were just barely scraping by to survive, him and his people at Camp Chitaqua. Life wasn't something any of them seemed to look forward to anymore, yet for some reason they kept going. Maybe it was all they knew how to do.

Dean pulled himself out of bed, and started slipping on his clothes from the day before. They were dirty, hadn't been washed in a few days. He'd still have to wait. Camp Chitaqua had a communal laundry day, and it was only one day a week so as to not waste water. At least it didn't have to be rationed as much as their food, which was surely running out by now just before the harvest came in. It'd be a hard winter. Dean would have to send out more scavenging parties, and hunters too.

When he was just about finished getting dressed and had his gun holstered to his thigh he leaned over and whacked Castiel's arm.

"Get up," he said.

Dean was slipping an arm into his army green jacket now. And he finished shrugging it on. Castiel didn't move.

"Five more minutes," he pleaded.

"Come on, angel."

"Don't call me that," Castiel growled, seeming more awake now.

Dean just paused, saying nothing, and he flipped his collar up. There was grief inside Cas. Sometimes Dean would poke at it, not truly meaning to. He and Castiel had grown so close since Detroit, but still not quite close enough. Castiel liked to have his drugs and orgies, and Dean got along with a few women in the camp quite well. And even after fights about Castiel's drug addiction, about everything, anything, they would eventually come back to each other.

The night before had been one of those nights.

Dean wondered how long it would last.

"Well, people need to see you up and about," Dean told him.

Castiel rolled over onto his back, but dramatically laid an arm across his eyes, as if trying to block out the light.

"Why?"

"Because you, you give people hope. Chuck, too."

"I'm nothing, Dean," he argued. "And Chuck's nothing now too, with the angels gone, with God…" He paused, swallowing roughly.

Then eventually he sighed and sat up, and he scrambled for the pill bottle he'd left on Dean's bedside table.

An irritated growl rose from Dean's chest, but he let him be for now. Rome wasn't built in a day, and saving Castiel would surely wouldn't either. But Dean was resolved to save him. He just had to, after all the times he'd saved him, after he'd raised him from perdition.

The knocking came again.

"Yeah, be right there!"

Dean pat Cas on the shoulder, leaving behind his naked form and the messy sheets as he climbed down the ladder. He dropped to the dusty wooden floor, and then he went and left the cabin. It was a dreary day, the sky promising rain later, and the sun was low in the sky. Still early. But the sun wouldn't get very high as it was. They were in the early days of fall, but it was fall just the same. It'd be getting cold soon, and people would start getting antsy to keep warm. Either they'd band closer together as they tended to, or Dean would have to keep them from tearing at each other. But that was another problem. Today he was supposed to go out into a quarantine zone. The camp doctor had requested a live Croat. It was dangerous as shit, but she was convinced she could start finding a cure.

Dean didn't believe it.

Still, he was going to kill two birds with one stone. He needed a demon, so he was going to get one. But capturing the enemy had gotten very hard to accomplish. Most things were hard to accomplish these days.

There was no hope, yet still they kept going.

Jackson, one of the guard, was on the porch, waiting for Dean. His eyes were wide, urgent, and he fingered the gun in the holster at his hip.

Dean put a hand on his arm, a silent command for him to steady himself.

The guard did so, and then they started walking.

"So what's going on?" Dean asked.

"Scouts came back fifteen minutes ago."

"Croats?" Dean asked.

"Military."

"Fuck," he swore. "How far out?"

"Scouts had to rush back here, but from over the ridge to the west they probably saw out about twenty miles. I'd say we have an hour, maybe more, maybe less."

Though it was early the camp was already starting to bustle, the survivors of the Apocalypse going about chores, and their assigned jobs, all with weapons close at hand. The farmers would be going out to the fields, tending to the crop, and there was at least one engineer and one mechanic in the camp. Technology wasn't something they had since the cell towers had been down for about five years now, but they worked on weapons, vehicles, communications. Chuck, the former Prophet of the Lord, was walking about with his clipboard that seemed glued to his hand.

Where there wasn't lifeless dirt, there was overgrown grass, weeds. Nature was trying to creep in on them. Dean had decided to let it. Easier to hide that way.

He stopped by a large bale of water that they used for the day's supply, taken from the river nearby by workers before the sun had risen. And he gazed out, watching his people. They were slumped over in their work, forlorn, faces dirtied.

"Maybe less?" he questioned.

Jackson just started mumbling, and raised his hand, but lowered it, seemingly resisting the urge to run it through his cropped black hair. Dean cut him off, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

Dean left Jackson behind, shaking his head. There was a hint of red in his vision, anger brewing. What the fuck did the U.S. army want with his camp?

It took a couple of minutes to round up the various heads of the camp, but Castiel, now high, was ready to go. Risa was glaring at him, and Dean did his best to ignore her tense stare, and the way she stroked the barrel of her assault rifle. Chuck was there as well. They had settled down in the dining room in his cabin. Cas had his feet up on the table, eyes glazed and almost shining, just not caring. Risa refused to sit down, but Chuck had taken a seat as well. Dean stood, after years of this, knowing that a leader had to be above his people, even those he trusted.

Jackson had been called into the meeting as well.

The cabin was still intact, but certain parts of it were broken, unusable, falling apart. The dining room was just dingy, dirty, old, and Dean didn't have the time or will to fix it up now that he had taken it over. Life in the Apocalypse didn't give you time to make things nice.

It just took and it took and it took.

A map was spread out over the table, and Dean said, "Alright, Jackson, show us where the scouts saw the grunts coming in.

He pointed at a section west of the camp. It wasn't a straight line towards them, so there was the slight chance that they would go around.

But still, they were too close to comfort. And the camp was well outside a quarantine zone last time Dean had checked. They were always updating their data, mapping the spread of the Croatoan virus, where the Croats lived.

Camp Chitaqua was as safe as could be.

At least, for now.

And the military wasn't necessarily an enemy, but they weren't kind either. It was the government and the military that had destroyed cities, killed innocent civilians in an attempt to stop the spread of the Croatoan virus.

What a load of good that did them.

The few dealings Dean had had with what was left of the army were rough, abrasive. They didn't like that Dean was a leader and had his own people with weapons. Maybe the general had gotten worried, had heard that the Camp Chitaqua population had taken in more survivors recently.

But an uprising was the last thing to fear in this hellhole.

Maybe it was just an inspection. Sometimes the army did that, checked on survivors. They didn't help much. It was more of an excuse to show their power, to make them feel better in a world where they didn't have control.

"Alright, so we sound the alarm?" Castiel asked.

Dean shook his head. "No, nothing big and loud. I don't want to freak our people out. It's the last thing they need. But we certainly need to be ready."

He went over to a desk and came back over with another map, laying it out on the table. The map was of Camp Chitaqua, written over in Dean's own scratchy handwriting, where he'd labeled various buildings, the fields, defenses.

"Alright," he began, pointing out various places where fences had been erected and walls had been hastily build, "we need two guards on each position here, west. And I know the army looks like they're coming from north-west, but those bastards are slippery, so we'll set up guards on the northern and southern borders of the camp. This isn't an attack, but we have to be prepared. They sure ain't friendly."

"And what of everyone else?" Risa asked. "The people who don't fight?"

"Round 'em up, tell 'em to get inside."

They all nodded.

"Chuck, weapons," he demanded.

Chuck took out that stupid clipboard of his (at least it kept him organized).

"We still have a store of guns, pistols, rifles, a few shotguns. Artillery's running low, but Frey's working on it with Morgan."

"And distribution?"

"Uh…" he flipped through pages. "Each of our people has at least one weapon."

"Okay, good. But tell them to hide them, and lock up the weapons store. And Cas, you get the food locked up. If there's any chance that this could be a raid, I don't want to take it. With winter coming in a few weeks we need everything we can get. And call back the hunters and farmers. I don't want our people wandering about."

Castiel leaned forward over the map, lips pursed, frowning.

"Maybe they know about Dr. Fisher, what she's trying to do."

Dean gave Jackson a wary look, and then shot a warning glance at Castiel.

"Dr. Fisher's got her own work, and we all sure as hell know she ain't one for talking," he said. Mostly everyone in the room knew what she was trying to do, but Jackson didn't. Dean wished he'd dismissed him earlier. "Alright, let's go, let's get to work."

With that everyone broke, and they headed out, save for Castiel, who was still staring at the map.

"Cas, what is it?" Dean asked, sitting on the table beside him. Castiel casually put a hand to Dean's thigh, stroking it as he thought. Dean shifted closer at the pleasant sensation, clenched his jaw against the pleased humming noise that wanted to leave him.

"Maybe the virus is spreading."

"Our reports say we're safe."

"Okay, then if not the virus, what about the demons?"

Dean shook his head. "Can't be. Everyone here's charmed or tatted."

"But is the army?"

That dropped a heavy stone into Dean's stomach, and ripples of dread spread out as it sunk to the bottom.

"Can't be," he said. "It's been five years. If they're still here, they must know what they're doing."

Castiel gave Dean a smile of appraisal. "Not as well as you."

Dean raised his eyebrows, understanding what kind of mood Castiel was in.

"Oh, you're just fishing for me to kiss you or something."

Castiel shrugged. "You do have a nice mouth."

"Well, we can do all that later. Right now we got work to do."

"And what will you be doing?" Castiel asked, standing, running his hands over Dean's thighs.

Dean breathed deeply as the former angel closed in on his personal space. Dean wanted to lean in, but he wasn't sure he liked Castiel when he was like this. High. It had to have a hand in his decisions, including his decisions to act like he loved Dean.

"I'm gonna take a jeep out, inspect the western wall." Dean sighed. "God, this wasn't what I had planned for today."

"Nothing you can do," Castiel said.

Dean agreed, "Nothing I can do."

Castiel stole a kiss, his lips wet and warm, and then Dean pushed him aside, getting off the table.

"Work. Now."

"Yes, sir."

That was when Dean's stomach rumbled with hunger.

God, all this before breakfast.

Bolstering up the defenses took longer than Dean wanted it to, and his inspection had led to some guard changes. He put Jackson at the head of the entrance to the camp, trusting him with such a weighty job. But the guy he'd replaced, not so much. Dean had him go to the south. The army was in a north-west line, so the south was the least likely place they would head to.

Somewhere in between all that he'd gotten a ladle-full of water, and he'd eaten something for breakfast. Dean couldn't even say what he'd eaten. It'd just been some sort of mashed vegetables with broth. God, he wanted fries, chips. But the days of all that, of taking from restaurants and supermarkets, of hoarding, was gone. Everything had been eaten or it'd gone bad.

Dean's people were quiet, apprehensive, but he walked about, making sure he was in plain view. He needed to let them see that he was in charge, that they were safe with him, and he wasn't afraid.

Hell, he was afraid. He was afraid every day. And every day was a depressing drag, ever since Detroit. There'd be spikes of adrenaline, anger, hurt, but there was just a heavy, dark cloud hanging over him, like the grime that had taken over the rest of civilization.

The army came, the tank rolling in, a lieutenant at the head of the line in a field uniform and vest armor. And Dean's members on the guard that had met them were in teams on either side. Good, they knew this might not just be a casual visit.

Dean met them, weapon holstered. He wanted to give the idea that they were friendly — which they were if things went smoothly — but he wasn't about to show that he was weak. A lot of the people left were cockroaches. They buried under refuse, they did all they could for themselves. And if you were weak, then too bad. They'd get you.

"What can I do for you, Lieutenant?" Dean asked, copying his stance as he came forward, hands clasped behind his back, back straight, chin held high.

The lieutenant glanced around, and his other men came. There could be forty-four men to a platoon. Dean counted a mere sixteen. They were dirtied, bloodied, weary, which put him on edge. Desperate people did crazy things sometimes.

"Dean Winchester, is it?"

"Yes, sir," he said, hating that he had to show deference. This was his territory, not some bastard's who'd probably joined the military because he thought shooting people in the head was cool.

Dean knew, obviously, that not all military personnel were like that. A spare few were. But the ones that had survived… maybe they had it in them.

"Mr. Winchester—"

"Chief," Dean corrected.

The lieutenant paused, gaping at him.

"What?"

"Chief, sir," he responded. "I lead this camp, and I'm its chief. I think it's only fair if you call me my rank if I call you yours… Lieutenant."

He cleared his throat. "Yes."

The lieutenant was looking around, taking everything in. Taking it in too much.

"Look, my men and I, we went through a quarantine zone, tried clearing it out. Things got rough. Lost over half my platoon. What's left— well, you can see for yourself. We're not doing good."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

Dean kept his voice calm, steady, even as he bristled inside.

"You're the only settlement we could make it to. Two men died on the way here." Dean nodded, showing reverence. "We were wondering if you could shelter us for a couple nights, just until we get back on our feet and can move on down south."

Dean contemplated him for a bit. The lieutenant was sizing him up.

"I gotta be honest, Lieutenant…"

"Rogers," he provided.

"Rogers," Dean went on. "Lieutenant Rogers, it's getting colder. Growing season's about done, animals are going into hiding. Food stores are gonna get bare."

"I understand."

"Then what can you give me for taking resources from my people?"

"Protection."

Dean gave a smirk, and put a hand on his pistol, and then eyed all the guards with guns.

"I think we're good."

"Chief, I'm making this as a request, but I can turn it into an order."

"Then it was never a request in the first place," Dean told him.

They stared at each other, eyes cold.

"Three nights," Dean eventually said after some thought. "Our people will be at half-rations, yours too. We got a doctor in the camp. Why you don't you settle in and get your injured men to her? Come with me, I can show you where you'll be staying."

Dean put his hand out, palm flat and moved his arm down, a gesture to his guards to be at ease. After a few tense seconds they complied.

"Tank stays out of my camp," Dean ordered to the lieutenant as he started marching off, expecting the man to follow him. "Keep it on the outskirts, or you're gone."

"Respectfully, sir, if we have a tank, I think you'd be the ones who would be gone if it came to anything unpleasant."

Dean bit back a reply, but raised his arm, whistled, and people broke up, coming from their houses, knowing they were safe for now. Dean wouldn't let them be in any danger.

They surrounded him, and he said, "Alright, this here is Lieutenant Rogers. We'll be hosting his platoon for a few nights. I need all of you to be on your best behavior. We're at half-rations for now."

Complaining broke out, and Dean repeated, voice steel, "Half-rations."

The murmuring and complaints stopped.

"That'll be all. Now back to work," Dean told them.

They immediately listened, although they shuffled with discontent.

Dean could understand. Trauma was hard, the scary shit was hard, but when you got right down to it, nothing was as hard as being hungry, so hungry that your stomach felt like it was trying to eat itself and that you'd do anything to get food. Your whole world became that.

Half-rations for a few days wouldn't bring them to that, but the rations were already small, so there'd be a lot of people struggling. Dean wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Fisher ended up having patients soon complaining of symptoms of hypotension, and similar effects to hypoglycemia.

Dean showed the lieutenant where he'd be staying, up in a house by the barn. The barn usually housed their vehicles, but Dean could have them moved out and covered with tarp to make room. The men would stay in the barn.

Once they settled in, Dean gave Risa the job of watching them, but discreetly. He didn't need trouble, and showing that he didn't trust them could cause that.

Dean was making his way back up to his cabin when Castiel joined him at his side.

"So, the day's mission?" he asked.

Dean went inside his cabin, immediately going to the room below the loft where he kept his weapons. He started arming up, and Castiel had followed him. The not-angel picked at his dirtied and baggy clothing, surely a tick from whatever he'd taken.

Dean loaded his gun, grabbed the demon-killing knife and held it up in the weak light to inspect its sharpness. It needed some sharpening, so he got out a whetstone and took a seat on a storage chest.

"Gonna find a demon today. And the doc needs a Croat."

"Dean, you can't keep going out."

"I can and I will."

"There'll be a time when you don't come back."

The steel scraped against the stone, sparks glittering in the dim shadows. Castiel drew closer, and Dean inhaled deeply with content at his sturdy presence. But even then, there was that dissonance. Did Cas not realize Dean had to do this?

"And maybe that's true," Dean relented. But then he went on to argue, "But that doesn't mean I just sit behind and let the world go to crap. We know the demons are moving the Colt. If we get one, torture him—"

Castiel started laughing, interrupting Dean.

You think that's funny?

Castiel let out a long exhale, eyes looking skyward, a loopy smile on his face. He settled down on the chest with Dean.

"Years ago I needed you to torture Alistair, and you fought me. And now, you just go do it, huh? Just torture."

"Not like you're volunteering."

Castiel chuckled.

Dean rolled his eyes in annoyance, and perhaps he ran the knife over the whetstone with too much force that time, a quiet screech sounding off.

"I just wish this wasn't you, Dean," Castiel admitted.

He held the knife up now, studying the blade, finding it adequate.

"Well, I don't really have a choice about that, do I?"

"God wanted us to think we had choices, free will," Castiel said. "You had me believing it for so long. But we're really just this, aren't we? The traumatized, pathetic survivors of the Apocalypse."

"Who are you calling pathetic?" Dean challenged.

Castiel relented with a sigh.

"Let me go with you," he urged.

"No, I'm taking Colby and Springer."

"Dean, you know you need more than three people if you're going into a quarantined area."

"We don't have to go into quarantine, at least not right away. There's a horde of demons out farther south, but not in the quarantine zone. My guess is the army can't clear 'em. So we'll head there. And if we're lucky, maybe a Croat broke through. Would sure as hell make our job easier."

Dean got up, grabbed his bag he'd packed for the mission, and Castiel still went with him. God, Dean wasn't going to be able to get rid of him. But he would still try, if only to keep him safe.

"You know the demons and Croats are equally dangerous," Cas argued.

Dean stopped when he got to the bottom of the steps on his cabin, and Castiel stood at the top. An angel, above him, like it was supposed to be, but the angels were gone, Castiel's Grace had waned. His wings had just dissipated, and with it, Dean was sure half of him had gone too.

"Fine, you want to come, then you better not take anymore pills or sniff any funny powders till we leave. Got that?"

Castiel nodded.

As Dean spoke, Chuck had been walking by, and Dean instructed, pointing back to Cas, "Keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't take anything."

"Got it, boss."

"We roll out in fifteen," Dean informed Cas.

And then he went to get Colby and Springer.

Both were just about ready to go, and they were packing up the jeep.

"We need a cover on this," Dean said, looking up at the sky. The clouds had only darkened. "Rain's coming."

His orders were listened to, and then when the time came to move out, they were ready. Dean drove, Castiel sitting beside him, leg thumping up and down. Colby and Jack talked amongst themselves in the back. Dean heard some laughter, maybe from an attempt at a joke, at light-heartedness. But how deeply they truly felt it, Dean didn't know, but he figured its reach was short.

"Stop that," Dean told Cas who continued moving his leg up and down.

"Dean."

In that one word he knew what Castiel meant.

This was hard for him, not having more of whatever the hell he took. But that shit was poison, and he couldn't have Cas like that. Right now wasn't a time for a detox, but he didn't need him chugging pills when he was out near quarantine. There'd been plenty of people they'd lost in camp to addiction, some of them purposefully overdosing. Others had just gotten high, and then wandered out, maybe hoping a Croat would kill them. After the first ones had been turned into Croats and came back to the camp, Dean had had them shot. And any others who tried to dissent were kept in a holding cell for a day while they talked it out.

"Look, I need you as you for this," Dean said, putting a hand on Cas' leg to try and steady him.

"You know I'm not me."

"Would you quit it with the self-deprecation today?"

"Sorry, one of my many moods now that I'm human. I wonder what it'll be tomorrow. Maybe repressed guilt."

"We all got a case of that, buddy."

"Some more than most," Castiel responded, pointedly looking at Dean.

Dean tried to ignore his look. This wasn't something he wanted to talk about: his failure to say yes to Michael. When the time had come he hadn't done it, and he'd lost Sam, and the world had turned into this post-apocalyptic shitshow.

And then he'd tried saying yes.

But no one had been there to listen.

Humanity was left to deal with Lucifer on their own.

And deal with Lucifer they would, even though Dean was stabbed as he remembered his face. Sam.

He had to kill Sam. That's what it was at the end of the day, not just killing Lucifer, but killing his baby brother.

The jeep trundled along the path, the road as uneven and rocky as Dean's thoughts. Tiny patters of rain started up on the canvas roof of the jeep. It was good canvas though, military. Dean had gotten the jeep from one of the abandoned bases — even with the army still around, there were a few that were deserted, too close to hot zones.

Rain fell.

And Dean thought about having to kill Sam. Not even holding onto Castiel was enough to stop his pain.

At the end of the day, it was about them, about two brothers who God wanted to kill each other. That's the way it was.

And in Dean's face, it wasn't Lucifer's haughty, pleased expression he pictured getting a bullet between the eyes. It was Sam's tearful, pleading gaze.

But it was what he had to do.

Sam was gone.

And Dean wasn't who he was.

He was the Apocalypse now.

They all were.

The dirt turned to thick mud, pulling at the strong wheels, and the world was damp and dreary. Even Castiel seemed like a faraway thing, Dean's head already turning towards the mission.

The mission, that's what the day was about.

He had to keep his thoughts to one day, and every day there was something new. Like the U.S. fucking army showing up on his doorstep.

"Dean, it'll be okay," Castiel assured.

They both knew he was lying.

Off to battle.