Okay, so this is the end! Hope you like it, let me know.
L.
"There should be croats everywhere." He hisses under his breath. "And demons…"
"What are you saying?" I ask.
"I'm saying the dick cleared the path for me. He's waiting."
"Then why are you going there? You can still go back, ambush him any other time."
"No, it's gonna be today. I'll try to sneak on him. Follow me and be quiet – you're here to watch only."
We creep towards the garden silently, but there's no one in our way. It's so silent that I actually jump when I hear the first gunshot echoing from the direction the others went to. Future me snaps his head up and stares towards the sound of gun shots tearing at the silence, followed by shouts and screams. I can see his fists clench and he grits his teeth, but then he shakes his head and starts walking again, faster now, until finally we sneak into the garden and we both freeze.
"Stay here." He mouths and moves into the clearing of the garden. I stay hidden behind the fence and watch him approach the devil.
I never thought I'd live to the day when seeing Sammy would only cause a dread and horror rushing through me. It's not Sam, of course, and I know it in my mind, but I can't help seeing Sam in him. He's all dressed up in white, quite the freakin' dandy. Sam wouldn't be caught dead in an outfit like that. He's also holding a rose in his hand as he watches the future me come closer. Seriously, I know angels are dicks, but this one is also a tremendous douche, by the looks of it.
"At last." Lucifer says with a soft smile that distorts Sam's features. He never smiles like that. "You never disappoint, Dean."
"There's always a first time." The future me growls, but Lucifer just laughs.
"Not for you, though." He snaps his head up and at the same instance the shots echo loudly from the direction he is looking at. "Ah, and you even brought my poor, lovesick little brother! Now, now, Dean, what have I ever done to deserve such favors?"
"Cas has nothing to do with this!"
"Oh, but he has everything to do with this!" The dick laughs and I can barely contain a snarl ripping through me. Future me looks like he's on the verge of snapping too. "He made it possible for me to get Sam, you see. I convinced your lonely little brother that you no longer cared about him, that you had Castiel to take care of now. They call me devil for a reason, you know. I can convince anyone of anything. I can twist their darkest secrets and deepest fears and make them believe whatever I want them to believe." His voice is deceptively calm, but there's smugness and triumph beneath the coolness. "But I don't have to tell you any of this, now do I? You believe it's Castiel's fault anyway and he is here to die for it."
"I didn't… It's not… Leave him out of it! It's between you and me!" The other Dean shouts and Lucifer narrows his eyes.
"You brought me a sacrifice, Dean, and I intend to take it!" He snarls and then looks back to where the shouts are coming from, frowns, but then there's a bout of shots again and he laughs jubilantly. "Finally! You have no idea how long I wanted to get my hands on him – the little rebel that refused to join me! And it's for Sam's benefit too, of course; he hated him, loathed the angel who became more important to you than your own brother."
"That's a lie!" Future me snarls shaking all over.
"Maybe." Lucifer allows with a soft smile. "It doesn't matter anymore. The idiot's dead. Ah, but the surge of dying grace, even weakened to almost human, is delicious."
"No!" He shouts and even though my insides twist with pain for his, and frankly my, loss, I can still see the scene unfolding in front of my eyes with frightening sharpness. The future me moves on an impulse, instincts more than anything else. He lifts the Colt, points it straight into Lucifer's face, cocks the hammer and pulls the trigger. It all happens in the matter of 2 seconds and I watch Lucifer, well, it's really Sam now, fall down. Dean is shaking all over as he sinks to his knees. He buries his face in his hands and sobs desperately, tremors shaking his entire body. It's a painful reminder of the time I held Sam's dead body in my arms, crazed with grief and sorrow and I'm so engulfed in it that I notice it too late, and the future version of me doesn't notice it at all.
"Dean!" I shout as Lucifer sits up, no traces of wound left on him. They both look at me – future me is startled by the panic in my voice, no doubt, while Lucifer is mildly intrigued at first and then triumphant later. "Look out!" I yell, but as the leader turns back to Lucifer I hear a loud snap of Lucifer's fingers and sickening crack of my future version's neck. He falls face first to the ground and is finally still.
Lucifer stands up, staring at me, smiling his horrid smile that is so out of place on Sam's face.
"Hello, Dean." Lucifer smirks. "Aren't you a surprise?"
Before I can say anything he disappears from my sight and I just feel him behind me. I whirl around.
"You've come a long way to see this, haven't you?" He asks calmly and I think it's a shock more than anything, shock of losing Cas, losing my future self and seeing Sam distorted like this, that propels my answer. "Well, go ahead. Kill me."
"Kill you?" He asks raising his eyebrows and glancing at future me. "Don't you think that would be a little… redundant?" He makes an over-dramatic sigh and I grit my teeth. "I'm sorry. It must be painful, speaking to me in this… shape. But it had to be your brother. It had to be."
The dick actually extends his hand as if to console me. I glare at him and move back.
"You don't have to be afraid of me, Dean. What do you think I'm going to do?"
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe deep-fry the planet?" I snarl. The fucking dandy actually examines the rose he's been holding!
"Why? Why would I want to destroy this stunning thing? Beautiful in a trillion different ways. The last perfect handiwork of God." He says dreamily, but then his tone sharpens. "You ever hear the story of how I fell from grace?"
I roll my eyes at him angrily. "Oh, good God, you're not gonna tell me a bedtime story, are you? My stomach's almost out of bile."
He ignores me entirely.
"You know why God cast me down? Because I loved him. More than anything. And then God created... You. The little... hairless apes. And then he asked all of us to bow down before you; to love you, more than him. And I said, 'Father, I can't.' I said, 'These human beings are flawed, murderous.' And for that, God had Michael cast me into hell. Now, tell me, does the punishment fit the crime? Especially, when I was right? Look at what six billion of you have done to this thing, and how many of you blame me for it."
I sneer at him. I heard this crap before – poor misunderstood brat with daddy issues!
"You're not fooling me, you know that? With this sympathy-for-the-devil crap. I know what you are."
"And what am I?" He asks.
"You're the same thing, only bigger. The same brand of cockroach I've been squashing my whole life. An ugly, evil, belly-to-the-ground, supernatural piece of crap. The only difference between them and you is the size of your ego." I growl and I'm pretty sure I'm about to be smitten. But no, the dick only smiles.
"I like you, Dean. I get what my poor little brother saw in you. Goodbye. We'll meet again soon."
"You better kill me now!" I bellow as he turns to leave. He turns back.
"Pardon?"
"You better kill me now. Or I swear, I will find a way to kill you. And I won't stop." I promise.
"I know you won't. I know you won't say yes to Michael, either. And I know you won't kill Sam. Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up… here. I win. So, I win."
"You're wrong."
"See you in five years, Dean." Is the last thing he says and then before I can retort there's a lightning flash and he's gone. I turn around at the tingling feeling that someone is behind me and sure enough, the last thing I see before the darkness engulfs me is Zachariah reaching for my head with his two fingers.
The first thing I'm aware of when the darkness dissipates is the same motel room I fell asleep in 3 days ago. I lean against the kitchenette sink to pull myself together. I really, really hate the angel whamming thing. I notice Zachariah standing next to me, smirking stupidly.
"Oh, well, if it isn't the ghost of Christmas screw you."
I can see I'm getting on his nerves, but he lets out a deep breath and smiles as pleasantly as he can, being the head of dicks. "Enough. Dean, enough. You saw it, right? You saw what happens. You're the only person who can prove the devil wrong. Just say yes."
"How do I know that this whole thing isn't one of your tricks? Some angel hocus-pocus?"
"The time for tricks is over. Give yourself to Michael. Say yes and we can strike. Before Lucifer gets to Sam. Before billions die."
I stare at him for a moment, thinking about what I saw with my own eyes and all the things Cas told me. Finally, I close my eyes and shake my head. "Nah."
"Nah?" He asks incredulously and I can see he's struggling to keep himself together. "You telling me you haven't learned your lesson?
"Oh, I've learned a lesson, all right. Just not the one you wanted to teach."
"Well, I'll just have to teach it again! Because I got you now, boy, and I'm never letting you…"
I suddenly feel the sickening lurch in my stomach and have a second to think that I really, really hate angel mojo, when the next second I'm standing in the middle of deserted road staring at Cas' face. I let out a sigh of relief and before I can stop myself, I pull Cas into my arms and hug the crap out of him. Even as I bury my nose in his hair, my mind can't help cataloguing how different this Castiel is to the one I just saw walk towards his death. Cas I hugged there was human, pliant and warm, and he smelled of earth and grass and all those human things. Castiel I'm hugging now is so far from human, my mind can't even wrap itself around it. His posture is straight and stiff, even though he does wrap his arms around me awkwardly. He's not pliant at all, he's stock still. He's clean, his suit and the trench coat, I now realize I actually missed, are in mint condition. But most of all, he smells differently. Like a lightning, my mind supplies helpfully. And yet… He's warm and he's alive, and most of all – he's real.
"That's pretty nice timing, Cas." I finally mutter forcing myself to let him go. He actually gives me one of his rare lopsided smiles, so unlike the other Cas'. I'm momentarily torn to understand which one I like better.
"We had an appointment." He says with the same smile and just like that I know. That Cas was awesome, but he wasn't my Cas, he belonged with the future me. And this one… This one is fucking mine and dammit if I'm not royally screwed... "How did Zachariah find you?"
"It's a long story. Let's just stay away from Jehovah's Witnesses from now on, okay?"
He nods and then asks me. "What did he show you?"
"The future." I tell him. "A version of it, anyway. What happens if I don't say yes."
"And are you alright?" He asks frowning. "You have to know Zachariah only showed you what he wanted you to see. The future is not set in stone; it's fluid and it can change. Be as it may, I imagine it was it hard to see?"
"Yeah, it sucked." I nod and then smile at him. "But you were there, you know? And you were badass!"
"I was? Was I very different there?" He asks staring at me with those goddamn blue eyes that are somehow blue even in the middle of the night. My mouth runs dry at that stare and I itch to touch him again. I force myself to stay still and instead I look at him for a moment longer. Finally, I grin.
"No, man, you were just the same. You were fucking amazing!"
p.s. I just killed Dean and Cas... Harder than I thought it'd be...