Dean stays in the bathroom for quite a while, long enough that the sky is getting seriously light by the time he comes back out. He stands in the bedroom door like he's waiting for the firing squad and says, "OK, let's say I believe this."
"Define 'this'," Misha says, making sure his voice stays calm.
Dean makes a disgusted face, but Misha's tired of being the only person in these conversations who actually says what he means, so he doesn't let Dean off the hook. "That...that Cas is working with Crowley and something bad's going to happen to him," Dean says; he stops there, but Misha's pretty sure he can read the rest of that sentence in Dean's face.
"OK," Misha agrees. "Let's say you believe that." He's leaning against the wall at the head of the bed and he waves one hand at the expanse of free mattress. "Come on, sit down." After a second, Dean does, crossing the floor slowly and sitting perched on the edge uncomfortably. His shoulders are hunched and he's looking straight ahead.
"What am I supposed to do?" he says at last, like the words are being physically dragged out of him. "Cas doesn't trust me anymore, man. Hiding something this big is proof of that."
Misha tries not to sigh. Dean's a black-and-white kind of guy, and this whole deal is in shades of gray. "Look," he says. "I could give you a big speech here, but I'm not going to. Castiel got into this for reasons he thought were good, and it might turn out that he's right—that it's the only way to deal with Raphael. But maybe with some help he can come up with another way. That's all."
"If I tell him I know," Dean says, "what's he gonna do?"
"I'm honestly not certain," Misha says, and Dean's face crumples in on itself a little more. "I think it depends a lot on how you tell him. Yelling at him won't go well, I can tell you that much. It'll just make him dig in his heels. He's a stubborn bastard."
"Yeah," Dean says, almost managing a smile. "Me too."
Misha lets the silence sit between them for a little while before he says, "None of it was because he doesn't trust you, Dean."
"That's crap," Dean says, but his heart isn't in it.
Misha says, "Either you believe I know what I'm talking about or you don't."
"OK," Dean says after a pause. "So what do I do?"
Misha shrugs. "You tell him you know about Crowley. You get him to fill you and Bobby and Sam in, because I guarantee you there are details I don't have, or don't understand. And once that show's on the road, you get him somewhere alone and you kiss him. Once he gets over being surprised…well, you might have to talk him through it after all, but I think you can manage."
Dean turns his head for the first time during this conversation, eyebrows up in mild surprise. "Seriously? You think me and Cas getting together is as important as whatever your bad thing is?"
Misha makes a vague What're you gonna do? gesture and says, "If it's really bad? You're the one who promised him he wouldn't die a virgin." It's out of his mouth before he thinks about it—not something that happens to him often, and his less-than-tactful stream of consciousness is the big reason he trained himself out of talking without thinking—and Dean goes rigid.
Misha is trying desperately to come up with an apology more detailed than Oh my God I'm such a jerk when Dean gasps in a breath and starts laughing helplessly. Misha watches for a few seconds and then says, "I think we should have breakfast." Dean nods, still laughing.
It's a decent hour of the morning by the time they're done eating, so Dean calls Sam. From the half of the conversation Misha can hear, Sam is still in bed and not willing to be teased about it. They agree to meet up and go stake out the set before Dean goes a step too far ("If I can get up so can you, Sammy. He's got this thing he does with his—") and Sam hangs up on him.
It's about then that Misha discovers Dean intends him to stay away from the set. At first he's mostly amused, but then he realizes he's a little pissed about it.
"I'm sorry," he says, after the third go-round of Dean telling him he has to stay home, "did you think this was negotiable? I am going to be there when Jared and Jensen get back, and that's final." Especially Jensen. Who the hell knows what's been happening to him? It's unlikely he'll be physically hurt, but Misha wants to see him as soon as possible, because a day and a half of the wrong body language is starting to get to him—it's just so obvious every damn time Dean moves that this is not Jensen.
"Come on," Dean says, sounding like he's holding on to irritation with both hands. His easy lean against the counter has turned tense. "We know Virgil will kill people to get to where he's going. You don't want to be there when bullets start flying."
"That's assuming the cops haven't found him," Misha points out. "And there'll be fewer people there than there were in the script; he probably won't have to shoot anyone."
"Doesn't matter," Dean says. "You're the one who said he'd kill you just because, man."
"So skip Virgil's bus," Misha says. "You talked to Castiel, he'll pull you back if you miss it." He hates to say it—it's only five or six extra hours, but that could be a very long time in the Winchesters' world.
Dean gives him a level look and says, "We have to get back as soon as we can. You don't want to leave your guys there any more than me and Sam want to stick around here. I mean, no offense, but this place..."
"Yeah, I know," Misha says, and runs his hands through his hair. "Look, I just can't sit here. I'd rather duck Virgil than have to wait for the phone to ring, OK?"
Dean starts to snap and reins it in, but the words that come out aren't agreement. "You're a civilian," he says stubbornly. "That means it's my job to keep you out of the line of fire."
"I'm a civilian, not a child," Misha says, his voice starting to go tight. "I can choose to take this risk."
"I'm not letting you, damn it."
Misha lays his hands flat on the kitchen table and says evenly, "You don't get to let me, Dean. I'm not your brother, and I am not Castiel. So you've got two choices: you can deal, or you can not. But either way, I'm going."
Dean stares at him. Misha meets his eyes, knowing exactly what Dean's seeing: Cas being stubborn. "I'm not letting you," Dean says again. Apparently Misha's more pissed than he thought, too, because his next words emerge completely without filter. "One more time, you don't get to let me! I have covered for you, helped you out, bled for you, hell I even got you off, and your insane overprotectiveness might be endearing on screen but no." He shoves back from the table and stalks around it, pushing into Dean's space in a way that feels terribly familiar. "You cannot push me around, and if you're going to tell me I'm not smart enough to duck when necessary you can keep your opinions to yourself." He grits the last few words out around his teeth, which strikes him as odd because usually he'd shout, and then he takes in Dean's expression and realizes what he did.
He takes a step back, closes his eyes, opens them again, and says, "And also you should show me some respect. Wow, and I just got done saying I'm not Castiel. I'm sorry. But I'm still going."
Dean sighs heavily. "Yeah, no problem. I'm used to it." In his pause, Misha hears a lot of things Dean will never allow himself to say out loud about Castiel, and the strains on a friendship, and Dean's perpetual conviction that he's not good enough. "I just don't want you to get killed because of our problems, OK? This stuff isn't even from your dimension or whatever."
"In the script, Virgil doesn't make it back with you guys," Misha points out. "He could be lurking around here for a long time. I think it's safe to say I'm involved, and I don't think going to the set is going to make it worse."
From the look on Dean's face he doesn't agree, but he doesn't protest either.
It's a little bit of backtracking to get to Jared's place from the apartment, but since Misha's the one who knows his way around he drives. Dean is clearly not in any mood for talking, which Sam clearly picks up on right away. Fortunately, however, Sam is willing to ignore it and engage in minor planning, which Dean studiously does not participate in.
It all boils down to "stake out the motel set Virgil came through on". Misha's kind of charmed by how easy it is to make plans when you have prophecy to go on. (Though it makes him wonder if that means the current writing team is collectively God? A question to be pondered later, perhaps. And scarier than the concept of God!Kripke, in its own way.) They stop at a grocery store to fortify themselves with drinks and snacks and sandwiches, and proceed to the studio. If the guard on the gate is surprised to see them—or, indeed, if he recognizes them at all—he hides it well; they stash Misha's car near his trailer and set out to make camp.
Once they're settled, with a good view of the set but not on any of the approaches to it, Misha pulls out his phone, to discover that his Twitter tag has absolutely exploded. Apparently news of Virgil's visit got out into the wild with some distortions, and there's a sizeable contingent of amigos who have begun mourning in earnest.
mishacollins: I have always wanted to say this. mishacollins: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.
It takes literally seconds for the replies to start coming in. After the first few Misha mutes his phone and condenses the situation into tweets. He wraps it up with "Sam scared him away with the Colt. It was awesome. Then we talked to cops a lot, not so awesome. :("
The replies to his recap are interesting—everyone expresses suitable excitement and relief, but they're about evenly divided between people wondering why he's calling them Sam and Dean rather than Jared and Jensen, and people who simply accept the character names and move on.
He's trying not to be drawn into a morass of congratulations on his still-breathing status when his attention is caught by Sam saying, "We're not even brothers here, man," and he glances up from his phone in time to catch Dean burying his reaction under, "All right, then."
"Not like your life sucks here either," Sam says, and does not look at Misha so deliberately that he might as well be staring.
Dean does look, then looks away when he realizes Misha is trying not to smile, and says, "What, and be an actor? Not exactly my MO, Sam." Sam meets Misha's eyes and they mutually shrug. Dean catches the byplay but ignores it loftily.
Truth be told, Misha's relieved; it hasn't escaped him that Sam and Dean's lives are difficult and dangerous, and he wouldn't really blame either of them for wanting to trade up a little—and it doesn't help that Dean especially doesn't think of Jared or Jensen as real. On the other hand, his friends are stuck in those difficult, dangerous Winchester lives, and for all his artificial familiarity with them, the hunters aren't actually his friends. Given time they could be—and they will be, if they're stuck here—but at the moment he just wants Jared and Jensen back.
Time drags. They play poker, using M&Ms as chips—this is why Misha bought the biggest bag he could find. Misha cleans them both out, having the unfair advantage of knowing how to read their faces when they still get surprised to see him look anything other than impassive. When poker wanes—in part because Dean keeps eating the M&Ms—they turn to just talking.
It's mid-afternoon when there's a muffled, distant noise of a soundstage door banging open. Dean and Sam both sit up straight, then get to their feet, and Misha follows, feeling his heartbeat start to pick up.
"Guess the cops didn't get him," Dean says quietly, looking unsurprised. Misha wonders with a pang who Virgil hurt, killed, to get in touch with Raphael. Giving his description to the police had been the right call, but Misha has an obscure feeling that he should have been more Castiel-like.
"OK," Sam says. "I'll go for the key to make it look good. We've got to make sure he goes back with us, though, no matter what." Dean nods.
For a second they all stand there, and then Misha says, "Fine, I'll start. Sam," he says, and turns to him, offering a hand. Sam takes it, looking a little surprised. "It was good to meet you. Make sure your brother doesn't chicken out, OK?"
"Chicken out about what?" Sam asks, over Dean's subdued sputter of protest. Misha grins at him and says, "Castiel." Sam's eyebrows go up, but then he grins back and says, "Got it. Nice knowing you, man."
Misha drops Sam's hand and turns to Dean, trying to decide what to say. And, coming up with nothing, he grabs Dean by the shoulders and pulls him in to kiss him, briefly but thoroughly. Dean goes with it, which is gratifying, but he pulls back and says, "We don't have time. Remember you promised to stay over here." Misha nods. He has no desire to end up in the Winchesters' world, if for no other reason than he thinks poor Jimmy Novak's body has had quite enough people in it already.
"No holy fire circles," he says. "Just talk to him, for once in your life, OK?" Dean hesitates, nods, and then looks over at Sam. Just like that, nothing but Virgil is important.
Dean and Sam move quietly away, fading quickly into the half-light of the soundstage. For a minute nothing happens. Misha can hardly hear over the pounding of his own heart and then, on the other side of the fake motel window, he catches the sounds of a fight, Sam barking Hey and the sounds of fists on flesh. "Dean, got it!" Sam yells, but Misha almost misses it because suddenly, in the middle of one of the candy-glass windowpanes, there's a red glow that settles into a round sigil.
He can feel it from where he stands, fifty feet away, pulling at him, and he takes an involuntary step back. The pull is insistent, but weak. Misha's breath catches in his throat as the sigil suddenly flashes, and then bodies come hurtling through the window to land stunningly hard on their backs. The sigil fades, and with it the pulling, and he breaks into a run to their sides, sinking to his knees to put his hands on what he desperately hopes are Jensen's shoulders.
"Jen," he says urgently, and the man shakes his head and opens his eyes.
"Misha," he says. "Oh, Mish, thank God." Misha helps Jensen sit up enough that they can get their arms around each other, and they stay that way for a long time.