Cas passed all the tests; holy water didn't smoke on his skin and neither the silver nor iron blade produced anything more than normal scratches. That done, Dean pulled out his cell and hit Cas's...well, OK, Castiel's number in the speed dial.

It dropped to voicemail immediately and Dean waited, tapping his fingers on his thigh, while the recorded voice told him that number was unavailable and he should leave a message. "Cas, uh, we've got, we've got something you should take a look at. It's, damn it. When Zachariah sent me to the future...it's you, the you from the future, he's here and we need to figure out why. We're still in the same motel. Come as soon as you get this, OK? And you should set your voicemail up right."

"No Cas?" Sam asked. He tucked the knives back into his bag and then went to flip his laptop open.

"He must be somewhere out of range of the towers," Dean agreed, sitting down on Sam's bed. "Who the hell knows where he looks for God anyway?"

"At least he didn't take you seriously when you told him to check prisons." Sam paused. "Did he?"

"Not once I explained the joke," Dean said. It maybe should have occurred to him after the flatbread thing that telling Cas how a lot of guys found God behind bars was likely to lead to a rash of prison guards tripping over an angel in a trenchcoat; fortunately he'd managed to catch him before he went and started actually searching prisons. He'd been kind of pissy when Dean told him it wasn't really a lead, too.

Meanwhile they had to decide what to do with this Cas, who looked like he'd lost every bit of what little fat Jimmy Novak, that poor bastard, had possessed, and who Dean suspected wasn't asleep so much as deeply, profoundly out of his mind on whatever he'd taken. This Cas was all stringy muscle and sharp bone, and Dean hated to look at him at exactly the same time that he could hardly look away.

He had no idea how Cas had come to be here, and he was sincerely not sure he cared. Sure, living in motels could suck, but at least motels had, like, 24-hour electricity and hot water. (Dean had taken a shower at Camp Chitaqua; it had been lukewarm—for the first thirty seconds—and the showerhouse had smelled like mold.) And they could get Cas some decent food once he woke up, and maybe get him off whatever pills he was taking.

"Maybe we should take him to Bobby's," Sam said, breaking into Dean's train of thought. "At the very least we'd be able to do some better research into what might've done this."

"Not much that could've," Dean said. The list was...really short, and mostly had angels on it. In fact Dean couldn't think of anything but angels that could've done this, but he also had no idea why one would. There weren't even any angels left in 2014, and none of the present-day feathery dickheads would have reason to do Cas any favors. Except Anna, maybe, but she'd have stuck around to explain, right? It wasn't like Gabriel had shown any particular affection for his kid brother.

"Yeah," Sam said, and Dean could tell from his tone of voice that he'd done much the same calculations. "I can't think of anything except..."

"Yeah," Dean said. Morose silence fell. "OK," he continued after a minute. "Bobby's it is, but we should probably let him sleep off whatever this is. Don't want him waking up in the middle of the interstate."

Sam made a noise of agreement and turned back to his computer, shooting occasional quick glances at Cas around the screen that Dean recognized as queasy fascination, a sentiment he could sympathize with. Dean got resolutely to his feet and pulled out the gun bag to do a little cleaning.

He had Sam's Taurus in pieces all around him when Cas choked on nothing, rolled onto his side, and started retching. Dean managed not to lose any gun parts in his haste to get to Cas's side, which slowed him enough that Sam snagged the wastebasket first. Between them they got his head over the edge of the bed right before he vomited in earnest; there hadn't been much in his stomach, apparently, but the dry heaves went on for minutes. Dean winced every time, because as far as he was concerned there wasn't much your own body could do to you that was nastier than trying to puke when there was nothing to bring up. He sat next to Cas through it, and didn't object when Cas's hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed, harder than a scrawny guy like him should've been able to manage. Dean kind of figured that the amount of screwing over his future self had done to Cas deserved a little payback, so he let the bones of his wrist grind without complaint.

Finally Cas's death-grip eased and the heaves died down. He panted for a few seconds. When he spoke it was without opening his eyes, but in the same casually sarcastic way that Dean remembered far too well. "OK. Next time I'm gonna listen when you tell me not to take the pink mystery pills."

"Good call," Dean said. Cas twitched and made a convulsive movement that got him mostly back on the bed, settling onto his back before he opened his eyes. They were bloodshot, but at least his pupils were the right size. "Damn," Cas said in a tone of quiet wonder. "It wasn't a hallucination."

Dean had absolutely no idea what to say to that. Cas just stared at him for long enough that it began to be uncomfortable, until Sam, who'd been hovering in the background (and probably wringing his hands or something), shifted and cleared his throat.

Cas startled visibly and his gaze snapped away from Dean. He stared at Sam for a second, perfectly still, and then said, "No," in a flat, even voice that was somehow worse than any terrified gasp would have been. Sam's eyes widened and he looked at Dean.

"You didn't tell me I said yes," Sam said. Dean winced. He'd been hoping not to mention that detail, but of course Sam had figured it out. He gave his brother a helpless shrug that promised apologies in the future and turned to Cas. "He's not," he said firmly. "Not here, not now. He's still Sam here." Cas continued to watch Sam like a mouse watching a cat, and it made Dean feel sick. He leaned to block Cas's line of sight, staring into Cas's eyes. "Cas," he said, trying to be firm without snapping. "Cas. That's Sam."

Cas opened his mouth and appeared to stall out on what to say. Dean sighed. "I swear to you, OK? It's 2009, and that is Sam."

"2009?" Cas repeated. Dean nodded. "How?"

"Your guess is as good as ours," Dean said. "Maybe better."

Cas appeared to think it over for a second, and Dean found himself holding his breath. "I guess there's nothing I can do about it if you're lying," Cas said at last. "So OK." He grinned, that wide, empty grin that set Dean's teeth on edge. "But you know me…you know what happened to me." Dean nodded. Cas made an expansive gesture and shoved himself up on the bed till he was leaning on the wall. "This I have got to hear."

Dean thought about it, trying to sum it up, and gave it up as a lost cause. "About two and a half months ago, I was in Kansas City," he said. "Zachariah had spies out, and one of 'em dropped a dime on me. I went to bed and when I woke up, I was in 2014. First thing I knew about it was a little girl, tried to gut me with a piece of broken window. Then a whole pack of them, chased me, they'd have gotten me too if the Army hadn't shown up." Cas looked fascinated. So did Sam, for that matter; Dean's summary to him had been way more along the lines of It was bad, and it was bad because we stayed apart than anything detailed. "Gave them all the slip, got out of the city, lifted a car—I had to siphon three other cars to get enough gas to get to Bobby's. On the way Zach showed up and got all intimidating about how I have to say yes to Michael and then screwed off like a gigantic douche. When I got to Bobby's, all I found was his wheelchair, with bullet holes in the back." Cas winced; it was subtle, but Dean was used to looking for tiny changes on that face. He decided he was going to get the story of what exactly had happened to Bobby, damn it. "He had a hideyhole, though, and there was a picture in it—you and him and a couple other guys outside the gate. Siphoned some more gas, got to the camp in the middle of the night."

"I remember that picture," Cas said thoughtfully. "You thought it was dumb."

"Bobby's always tryin' to take pictures of things," Dean said shortly, remembering watching Jo's face curl up and burn. "When I got there…Jesus." He looked at Sam and said, "My baby was junked. Worse than after the truck hit her." Sam looked faintly appalled, Dean was gratified to note. "And then the other me snuck up on me and knocked me out. I came to in his cabin handcuffed to the ladder."

"Kinky," Cas said. Both of them blinked at him for a second. "What?"

"Kinky?" Sam repeated. He sounded like he wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. Cas smirked.

"Come on," he said. "Two versions of Dean, one of 'em in handcuffs? Excuse me while I...appreciate that image for a second." Sam screwed up his face in a way Dean would have found hilarious under most other circumstances. As it was he sorta wanted to make the same face, and also that answered one of his questions about his future relationship with Cas—a question he'd been carefully not examining too closely.

"Anyway," Dean continued, a little louder than he'd meant to. "Future me left me alone to go on a mission, and I managed to pick the cuffs. I met Risa, and Chuck, and you. When future me got back, he had the Colt."

That went through Cas like an electric charge; his careless sprawl didn't change, but Dean could see him tensing. "So we had a meeting, and future me came up with the stupidest frickin' plan I have ever heard. It was basically, go where Lucifer is, send everyone but him and me in the front as Polish mine detectors, and let everyone else get killed so he could take his shot at the Devil." Dean paused, feeling Cas's eyes heavy on him, with no disbelief whatsoever, and there was another question answered. Cas had known. He'd known future-Dean was gonna let him get killed. Dean swallowed. "On the way there you told me about the angels leaving." Cas looked mildly surprised at that, which Dean didn't really get. "So we got there, and dude, I swear—I tried to warn you, but that bastard sucker-punched me and by the time I got my act together you were already in the building." Dean couldn't look at Cas, didn't want to look at Sam, so he stared at the wall instead. "I don't know if he got his shot, not that it would've mattered. By the time I found him, Lucifer was breaking his neck." Dean almost managed to be amused by how identical Sam and Cas's responses were to that—they both winced, and looked down, and came back up looking murderous. "So Lucifer spent some time telling me how misunderstood he was and how nothing I could change would make a difference, and then he left, and Zach showed up and took me back to the present. Did the say-yes speech again. I told him to piss up a rope. He was all set to send me back when Cas—you—Castiel—popped in and yanked me out. And I called Sam, and we got back together."

The look on Cas's face was fascinating; he was clearly torn between being deeply skeptical and wanting to believe every word. "This didn't happen," he said. "Not just that you didn't come to the future, that could be in my future. But I never pulled you away from Zachariah in Kansas City. And you and Sam..."

"I know," Dean said, with a certain satisfaction. "That's what we're changing, Cas. Lucifer said 'No matter what details you change, we will always end up here.' Well, this ain't a detail. This is talking to my brother for the next five years, instead of not."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm OK with that," Sam said, a little dry. "But next time, I want the whole story, OK?"

"Sam," Dean started, but Sam said, "Secrets. They don't work. Pretty sure those were your exact words."

"Yeah, yeah, OK," Dean said. "I didn't keep it secret, it was just...he couldn't even run your face right, it was creepy. It was worse than that time with Meg, dude." Sam didn't look entirely convinced, but Dean didn't care; there was time for Sam to bitch him out later. "Anyway, none of that matters. We can change it. We're changing it already." He tried to catch Cas's eyes, and at first he couldn't, which was weird as hell; since when did Cas not make eye contact? But then he did, and Dean almost shuddered at the familiar look Cas gave him.

That look said I did all of it for you, and Dean still didn't know how to handle it, but it was better than the empty laughter, Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out, and that was all Dean was going to worry about for now.