Disclaimer: I don't own SPN.
So the canon timeline seems to have discrepancies, since the rego for Baby in 'As Time Goes By' is for 2013 (the year the episode aired), but there are two 'intermittent' years that don't seem to be accounted for: the year between seasons 5 and 6, where Sam was in Hell, and the one between seasons 7 and 8, when Dean and Cas were in Purgatory. I'm accounting for those and adding two years to this timeline, so this is set in 2015, not 2013. I only bring this up because of Dean mentioning how long he's known Cas for.
And sorry about the late update, just had a long work day!
Thanks to Dragonsrule18, EruthiadwenGreenleaf, dean-winchester-is-our-king and L. Thestrup for your reviews :)
Calling on an 'expert' involves heading to the nearest crossroads armed with cans of spray paint and the ingredients to summon a crossroads demon. As he and Sam spray a Devil's Trap on the ground, Dean can't help but remember the first time he'd summoned one of these fuckers – all the way back when they were just naïve little boys and were still relatively innocent to the ways of demons. He had been so tempted to take the demon up on her offer of resurrecting John…but then an innocent man would have died. A selfish man, yeah, but it's not like Dean has any room to judge Evan Hudson. Not after selling his own soul for Sam and only getting a tenth of Evan's deal. And besides, John would have kicked his ass so thoroughly for choosing him over an innocent civilian that Dean probably would've asked the demons to take him to Hell early. John Winchester had been a great man, but a shitty father. And it's taken years for Dean to even begin to admit to himself that his role model hadn't been such a good role model after all.
God, that feels like a lifetime ago. They hadn't even known of the existence of angels back then. It's kind of hard to believe that in the literally millions of years that Castiel had existed, it had only taken six and a half years of knowing Dean for him to fall in nearly every way possible, short of actually becoming human. When Dean thinks about this too much, it boggles him and he starts to sort of see why Castiel fell in love with him. Castiel has been cut off from his family and home for his choices and though Dean feels conceited for thinking this, it's really no wonder that Castiel had latched on to him and that they have a more profound bond. While Dean does wish that Castiel had chosen someone less fucked-up to fall for, a small, selfish part of him is thrilled that Castiel wants him and no one else. It makes him feel special. After all, if an angel of the Lord – albeit a rather non-conventional, rebellious one (but then, where had Castiel learned that in the first place?) – wants him, then he must not be that horrible of a person.
"Dean?"
Realising that Sam has been staring at him, Dean shakes his head to clear his thoughts.
"Yeah?"
"The trap's been done for like five minutes. Are you okay?"
"Fine," Dean says brusquely.
"Dean –"
"Can we just summon the son of a bitch already?"
Dean turns away from Sam to prepare the summoning box. He's acutely aware of Sam's eyes practically boring into his back but he forces himself not to turn around and fall into the trap of having to actually talk about his thoughts and feelings. Despite his allergy to talking about this crap, he's been ensnared by Sam and those earnest 'I just want to help' puppy dog eyes before, and he's not keen to get pinned again.
"Dean, just talk –"
Dean cuts him off with a finger stab.
"I'm gonna have to stop you right there. We've got a demon to summon, so we don't have time to deal with your mushy feelings crap."
He revels in the indignant look on Sam's face as he digs a hole and buries the box in the ground. When he stands up and turns around, the crossroads demon has already appeared, wearing the body of a hot young guy with dark hair and pale eyes. Dean desperately tries to ignore the striking similarities to Castiel but, judging by the look on Sam's face, he doesn't really do a good job.
"Winchesters," the demon greets coolly, his eyes flashing red. Dean raises his eyebrows.
"What happened to the hot chicks?"
"Like you don't know," the demon says derisively. Dean's stomach does a weird twist. "Now I'm out of here."
"Maybe not," Sam says, an eyebrow raised. When the demon looks down and sees the Devil's Trap he's standing in, the look on his face almost makes Dean want to laugh.
Almost.
From there, it's easy to slap inhibiting handcuffs on the demon and bundle him into the Impala to take him somewhere secluded to interrogate. When they finally do find an abandoned building, Sam goes on ahead to paint a quick Devil's Trap and then Dean yanks the demon out of the car and into the building. They force the demon into a chair inside the Devil's Trap, then tie him to it and turn to take out their tools.
"Start talkin'," Dean says, brandishing a flask of holy water.
"I got nothin' to say," the demon says with a bored shrug. Dean narrows his eyes.
"Oh, I think you do. We wanna know how to sneak into Hell. Slippery little bastard like yourself should know, we're thinkin'."
"I ain't talking."
It takes a full two hours for them to wear the demon down enough for him to start talking – and even then, he still resists.
"Bite me," he snarks. In response, Dean gives an almost feral grin.
"How about another owie?" he says and then dumps half a flask of holy water on the demon, who screams in pain. Dean's vividly reminded of the time that dickbag Uriel had forced him to torture Alastair, while Castiel had stood by sadly and said that he wished Dean didn't have to do it. How dismissively had he been treated then, when he was blindly obeying them and was part of the family? And now that he's actually doing his own thing and got his own free will, how much contempt and loathing are they slinging at him? It breaks Dean's heart to think of what Castiel must be going through, while Dean can't do anything except torture fucking demons and try to close the gates of Hell, like that's way more important than saving his maybe-more-than-best-friend.
After a little more torture, the demon finally caves in and tells them that for a price, they can be smuggled anywhere by a rogue reaper – Hell, Heaven, the Veil, anywhere.
"Now kill me," the demon pleads. "Please, man. Better than if Crowley gets his hands on me."
They do kill the demon eventually, after squeezing every last drop of information they can out of him. As the knife slides home, Dean desperately tries to remind himself that this isn't Castiel, no matter how much the meat suit looks like him – but all he can see is his more-than-best-friend, slumped over dead with blood trickling out of his mouth, and his insides are suddenly gripped with a deathly fear for Castiel.
It doesn't take long for them to track down the rogue reaper that the crossroads demon had told them about. He's leaning against a cab, newspaper in hand, and he looks up as Sam and Dean approach. Dean isn't sure whether the reaper recognises them as the Winchesters or not, because his dark eyes give away nothing.
"Ajay," Dean says. "Need to talk to you for a sec."
Now Ajay's eyes register mild surprise. He folds up his newspaper and removes his Bluetooth headset.
"You know my name," he says. Sam nods.
"And what you do. We wanna do business."
Ajay raises his eyebrows.
"But you are mortal. Flesh and blood."
"Yeah, but if we wanted to cross the border into Hell –"
"Visitor's pass," Dean chimes in.
"No one wants to get into Hell," Ajay scoffs.
"But can a coyote like you get in?" Sam says. Ajay shrugs nonchalantly.
"It's possible. But I have special skills. It will be pricey."
Dean eyes him with distrust. From his experience, pricey can be as mild as a couple thousand dollars, or as much as a soul. He's not sure which pricey Ajay is talking about.
"How pricey?" he says.
"You two are resourceful. One day, you will owe me a favour."
"You say that like you know us," Sam says slowly.
"Of course. You're the Winchesters."
"Sorry, have we met?" Dean says abruptly. It could just be their reputation among the monsters as to how Ajay knows them, but Dean's not sure. Ajay sounds too…familiar with them.
"I am the reaper who took Bobby Singer to Hell," Ajay says. That triggers a reaction of surprise in both Sam and Dean.
"Bobby in Hell?" Sam exclaims. "We burned his bones! Once we did that, it was over. End of story."
"Not necessarily," Ajay says unhelpfully. Dean shakes his head in denial.
"No, no, no," he says. "See, Bobby was on the good side of things, and good guys go to the penthouse."
"Usually," Ajay concedes. "Depends on who you know, what palms get greased. If you're on the King of Hell's no-fly list, no way you cruise the friendly skies."
Dean's blood is starting to boil. They'd thought that Bobby was happily tucked away in Heaven, and yet he's been down in Hell this whole time! And now they have to cooperate with the fucker who'd sent him there in order to get the place closed down! If they weren't doing this for the whole world, Dean would be tempted to bury an angel blade up Ajay's ass…but at least with this bit of information, they know who they have to save from Hell. Much as he hates to admit it, Dean's glad that Sam will just have to rescue Bobby instead of spending days touring the Pit, searching for someone who's innocent.
"Okay, let's do this," he says. "How much for two tickets down and three back?"
But Sam pulls him aside and insists that he has to do it alone, that he has to do all of the trials solo. Dean hates to concede, but Sam is Determined and when Sam is Determined, nothing will stop him. When they return to Ajay, the reaper promises to have Sam back in twenty four hours and then they turn to face a graffitied door…and they're gone.
With nothing to do now, Dean decides that he should get back to see how Kevin's doing. He stops on the way to get some food (making sure to remember pie for himself) and when he makes it to the house boat, he sees that Kevin has gone even crazier than usual and has taken to hiding in the closet. The poor kid's thoroughly convinced that Crowley's gotten into his head and no matter how much Dean insists that he'd know if Crowley was there, Kevin isn't buying it. He comes out only to grab the whole tray of food and have a near-breakdown over how he just wants everything to end and for him to be able to go back to his normal life, then retreats back into the closet. It isn't until he locks the door that Dean realises that Kevin took all of the food. Including his pie.
"That's my pie," he says mournfully. The universe really is against him if he can't even have his pie! Still hungry, he decides to fry up some bacon and eggs and that's when Kevin comes out to drop a freaking bombshell: he went out and hid the tablet.
"You got rid of it?" Dean bursts out.
"Temporarily!" Kevin says. "I hid it!"
"What? Where?"
"If I tell you where, it's not hidden, is it?"
"Kevin, tell me where the damn tablet is, or I swear to you –"
Kevin just retreats back into the closet and shuts the door.
"Kevin!"
"Kids," a female voice sighs. Dean jumps and whirls around, tugging his gun out, and finds himself confronted by a woman with auburn hair tied back in a neat bun and dressed in an expensive-looking grey suit. He can instantly tell she's an angel by the aura of 'I'm better than you, bow to me, filthy human' she gives off, no matter how sympathetic her smile is.
"So cute when they're little," the angel continues. "Then they turn into teenagers and the party's over. We haven't been formally introduced, Dean. My name is Naomi."
She holds out a hand to shake. Dean, however, is rooted to the spot. Naomi. Naomi. The Naomi who had been brainwashing Castiel and forced him to kill Samandriel and nearly kill Dean. The Naomi who had send Esper and Ion to hunt him down. The Naomi who had more than likely kidnapped Castiel the minute he left the bunker. He can barely think through the red haze in his mind.
"I know who you are," Dean spits. "And I know what you did to Cas when he got out of Purgatory."
"After I rescued him from Purgatory, you mean. At the cost of many angels' lives."
"Okay, cut the crap, lady." Dean is so mad that he's shaking and it's all he can do to not punch her across the face already. "Where's Cas? What the hell have you done with him?"
"I brought him home," Naomi says with a smile. "He's back with his brothers and sisters now. But the problem is, the angel tablet is still missing. The equivalent of a hydrogen bomb has essentially been lost to us and it could be anywhere in the world."
"I dunno what you want me to do about it," Dean says snidely. "He hid it."
"I know that. So I require your help."
"You need my help? When you're the one who told him to try and kill me?"
"Hmm. Yes, I suppose that is how he would hear it. When I learned of the angel tablet, I told Castiel to get it at any cost. That's my job: to protect Heaven. I'm a warrior, just as you are. And part of my job involves securing anything that poses a risk to us. One of those items is the angel tablet."
"Save it," Dean says scornfully. "I don't trust angels, which means I don't trust you."
"And yet you haven't warded this place against us." Naomi tuts and shakes her head. "I know. You're hoping Castiel will return to you. I admire your loyalty. But Castiel is home with us now. Where he belongs. However…"
She pauses. Dean latches onto this.
"However?"
"I suppose if we had the angel tablet," Naomi says slowly, "we would no longer need to keep Castiel. He would no longer be a liability with his knowledge of its location. So if you were to retrieve it for me…"
Dean instantly bristles.
"Listen, lady," he snarls, wanting nothing more than to ram an angel blade in her throat like he'd done to Zachariah years ago. "I know exactly what you're up to. Tryin' to use Cas like – like some sorta hostage?"
Naomi sighs and shakes her head.
"I know you don't want to believe it, Dean, but we're on the same side here with your desire to shut the gates of Hell. Just think about it. Oh, and I know you've been doing business with Ajay. He did mention, didn't he, that his way into Hell is through Purgatory?"
Dean's stomach immediately drops. It must show on his face as well, because Naomi catches it straight away and goes in for the attack.
"I knew you'd want to know. You see, I really do want to help. I only have Castiel's and Earth's best interests in mind."
She vanishes before Dean can slap her, leaving him clenching his fists so hard that the bones nearly pop out of place in his attempt to not level the place. So she does have Castiel. Well, Dean's going to make sure that she regrets the day she laid a finger on his angel. For now, though, all that matters is making sure that Sam gets through Hell and Purgatory safely.