Hope you enjoy [if you're still here as the new season starts airing!]. Once again, thanks to everyone who reviews – I really appreciate that you take the time out of your busy lives to R&R… it really means a lot to get that feedback, with the work that goes into this. Wonderful AngelsAcolyte, there is a line in this that is just for you: see if you can spot it… ;-) This chapter mentions events in Never Come Back.

Warnings Foul language, blasphemy up the wazoo and back again, S5 spoilers

The Zeppo

Dean sits on the porch swing and watches them, Sam leaning on the Impala, gesturing crazily and shaking his head every so often as he talks, and Bobby pacing, stamping, jogging up and down in front of him, and every so often the old man leans forward slightly, kneads at his thigh muscles, and as he straightens up he wavers slightly and Sam catches him under the arm to steady him. And Bobby pulls off his cap, rubs his sleeve across his eyes, glances over at him. He stares back, and Bobby's gaze is unreadable. After a moment the old man casts his eyes away, down and to the side.

He contemplates hauling ass over there to pass the time of day with them, but instead he closes his eyes, wonders what it might be like to see the bright side. So he does, and he savors it for the first time: the feeling of completeness, of having come home. It sparks inside him, floods him, melts across and over him, a whole-body rush of joy and satisfaction that screams at fuckin' last inside his head, combined with a gentler contentment and warmth that has him sighing into the knowledge that this is it, this is what was missing all along, this brilliant glow inside him. And it makes him worthy, might even make him into someone who deserved to be saved.

He finds himself gazing over at his brother and his old friend again, wonders if he might be able to find the words to tell them that this is his natural state, what he was meant to be, what he's for, the words to ask them to celebrate it with him and share his elation. He pushes up to his feet, smiles as he starts walking towards them, but Sam's face is impassive and Bobby's is drawn and gray, and they don't smile back, don't say anything as Dean draws up alongside them.

He stands there, feels awkward, feels like the fifth fuckin' wheel if he's honest. "How does it feel to have your getaway sticks back?" he says with forced cheer, and then, after a moment of flat, dead, goodwill-sucking silence, "Bobby, you're making me feel like a spare dick at a wedding."

"Can you blame him?" Sam says quietly. "It makes no sense."

"Him walking again makes perfect sense to me," Dean challenges.

"That isn't what I was talking about," his brother replies meaningfully. "Michael."

He frowns. "Oh. That. Well – in a way it does. Make sense, I mean. If you think of it in terms of multiple universe theory."

Sam goggles then, and Bobby might too, the first real reaction he's seen from the old man in the half hour since he hauled him upright and Bobby gasped and staggered out ahead of them into the early morning on shaking legs, silent with shock.

"I'm cursed, remember? I know everything," he jokes weakly.

His brother frowns. "Are you? Were you? Cursed, I mean. Can an archangel even be cursed? Only maybe it was…" He throws up his hands. "This. The whole Michael thing. Maybe that's why you know everything."

Dean considers. "I don't know. There was definitely something off about that kid in the car." He drifts as it preys on his mind again. "She had barbecue eyes." He nods to himself in affirmation, looks up to see two baffled expressions staring back.

"Barbecue eyes?" Sam queries.

"That movie, remember? About those zombie mutants who wait year round for some poor sap to wander in off the highway and then make him the main course at the annual town barbecue." He shudders. "She had barbecue eyes. Like Missy Bender. And there was something she was doing…" He stops, because it's just there but still out of reach. "If I ever sleep again, it'll probably wake me up in the small hours," he quips.

Sam doesn't even smile, just stares back unblinkingly, and Dean clears his throat, feels oddly self-conscious under the scrutiny. "Are my wings stickin' out or something?" he says.

Still nothing, and Bobby is staring too.

"Come on," he demands. "That was a little funny."

And Sam is still all silent appraisal, skepticism mixed with confused fascination, his mouth a thin, tense line.

"Anyhoo," Dean continues uncomfortably, "multiple universes are all parallel, but if you go back in time the universe you're in starts to change, diverge… so it isn't parallel any more. Ours veered off a true line because I – because Michael – stayed, and when we came back it was all different. We didn't come back to our original universe, we couldn't. Because he changed the now when he stayed. Do you see?"

Sam finally blinks, and his expression shifts up a gear from curious to quizzical. "So… now we're stuck moving forwards into the future as it is in this universe?"

"Yep. All that running, fighting – it meant nothing. Because in this universe, I'm him. I've always been him." He shakes his head. "I might as well have said yes on day one. Jesus."

Sam stands, paces much as Bobby had been doing, scrubs at his head. "But – you weren't, I – Dean, I can't take this in at all. And I know what you said about how you're still you even though you're him. But – I remember a time when you weren't him. And if I do, then so do you."

He stares back at his brother, and Sam's face is earnest, and he's looking for assurances, agreement, approval, and it's pointless, because it's too late. "Get it through your head, Sam," he says bluntly. "As it stands now, there has never been a time when I wasn't him."

Bobby exhales sharply. "I wiped your ass when you were a kid," he rasps painfully, like the words are being ripped out of him. "I helped you learn your letters, helped you learn to write your name, a good, short name, easy for a little boy to learn to write—"

"Dean means church official," he cuts in acidly. "Did you know that? Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes, huh?"

Sam throws him a warning look, flares his nostrils dramatically, and he buttons it.

"I held onto you after your nightmares, and you held onto me," Bobby continues, almost like he never spoke, because Bobby is miles away, in another time and place. "I waited near on two damn months for you to say a single word to me after your dad first dropped you here. I've picked you up, held you up, mopped you up, and stitched you up. So don't you stand there and have the fuckin' nerve to tell me that was never you, Dean. It was." The old man clenches his fists, and his voice is ragged, breathless. "Now unless you're gonna say something worth hearing, don't bother talking to me for a while."

Dean feels his joy fading, slipping away through his fingers, feels his luster tarnish to dull monochrome, and he bristles. "I never said that wasn't me," he says roughly. "I said it was him too. You weren't listening." He stabs a finger out, down, towards Bobby's boots. "You got your legs back. Mister Tibbs, too, so no more pissing through a tube. You can walk, instead of sitting here spinning your wheels. You can be useful in this fight again, just like you wanted. You can stop wearing a bullet in your pocket and being a whiny fuckin' princess. All of that's worth hearing. Isn't it?"

Bobby almost lunges forward, loses his balance and reels back against the car. "It isn't worth this," he hisses, and his eyes are already watering.

The disappointment doesn't reach crushing levels but his chest feels tight suddenly, and his mouth goes dry. "It's worth it to me," he snarls. "If you walking again is the one good thing that comes from this, it'll be worth it to me. But." He waves a hand dismissively. "Whatever the fuck you say, old man."

He turns, walks back towards the house, thinks it damn well might be exactly the right moment to holy waterboard what he needs to know out of Crowley's package, and he hears his brother's feet thudding on the dirt as he jogs up behind him.

"Dean, wait a minute." Sam grinds to a halt next to him. "I'll talk to him. He's in shock. You know that's what this is, don't you?"

He ignores Sam, keeps walking, until his brother catches up to him again and grasps his upper arm, swings him round. A flare of revulsion sparks in his gut, Lucifer, and he flinches, jerks the limb out of Sam's grip.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Sam races out. "Off limits… I forgot." His expression is crestfallen, and he pushes his hands into his pockets like he doesn't trust himself not to reach out. "He doesn't mean it, Dean. And anyway, there's something you need to know…"

He doesn't wait for his brother to continue, just puts it out there. "I can't help it. It's like you set alarm bells ringing inside me. Or something." He shrugs, lies. "I don't know why. Maybe it'll wear off… you don't smell so bad now." He grimaces. "I meant the sulfur. That didn't come out right."

"It's okay," Sam says quietly. "We're all in shock, Dean. You too."

"Yeah," he mutters. "Maybe I'm just – hyperaware or something."

"Maybe," Sam echoes. "But listen, Dean, there's something you need to know about Cas, he—"

"I know," he cuts in dispassionately. "I know about him. What are you giving him?"

Sam flounders for a second, squints. "What… are we giving him?"

"Yeah," he says, briskly, businesslike. "Meds. What's he on?"

His brother frowns back at him. "Uh… Bobby set up a fluid drip, antibiotics, and he's on morphine for the—"

"No." He raps it out like the order it damn well is, slices his hand through the air for emphasis. "Absolutely, categorically, no. Nothing stronger than aspirin. I mean it, Sam. I want him off that crap, and I have my reasons. If he's hurting, give him a belt to chew on." He exhales long and loud. "And now we have a demon to haze."

He starts towards the house again, hears Sam behind him, aghast, disbelieving, stumbling through the words.

"My God… you're not going to help him, are you?" And then Sam whirlwinds around in front of him, crowds into him. "Are you going to feed me the same line Gabriel did?" he's asking, and he's pink with anger, almost shaking with it. "That he's untouchable? This is Cas, for Christ's sake… don't do that to him, it'll – I thought you and him had some sort of—"

"You don't know a damn thing about me and him," he interrupts icily. "He wouldn't expect it of me. And he'd never ask for it either."

And he maneuvers around and away from his brother, keeps walking, up the steps and into the house.

Sam schleps back over to Bobby, sits up on the hood of the car, even puts his boots up on her skin, wonders if Michael considers her his baby, like Dean does.

"Multiple universes, my ass," Bobby grouses beside him. "Space, the final fuckin' frontier. It's a bunch of crap. He's cursed. That's what it is. We need to knock him out, tie him up, and start driving back to Heber, hunt that skeevy little—"

"Actually they did do it on Star Trek," Sam ventures absentmindedly. He jumps alert to a sharp dig in his ribs. "Ow."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Bobby snaps.

He rubs at his side. "Star Trek," he mumbles. "The transporter malfunctions, sends Kirk, Bones, Scotty and Uhura to a mirror universe with an evil Spock." He floats a hand up to his face, pats at his chin, wilting as Bobby flattens him with a look. "Evil Spock, he, uh… wears a goatee."

"You don't say."

"Dean loves that episode."

They both fall quiet for a second before Bobby leans forward, starts rubbing his thighs again.

"They feel okay?" Sam ventures cautiously. "I mean, I know you said—"

"They feel fuckin' awesome," Bobby mutters. "I've dreamed of this, boy." He presses two fingers to the space between his eyebrows and rubs at it. "I've woken up in the mornings full sure I'm just gonna swing my legs over the side of the bed and tap dance my way downstairs." He looks at Sam then, and his eyes are shifty. "I've made deals," he says hoarsely. "No, not demon deals," he hurries out at Sam's wince. "Deals in my head. With God. So help me, Sam, I've laid there in my bed every single night since this happened and I've told the man upstairs I would give anything. Anything. But this business with him?" He motions to the house. "It makes me feel like I'd give anything to be stuck in the damn chair again if it changed things back."

Sam chooses his words carefully. "You don't have to be guilty about walking again, Bobby. This isn't anything you did… it didn't happen because of any deal you think you might have made with God." He hesitates for a beat. "And it's true, what he said. He's still Dean. It's weird… I mean. Cas and Jimmy were totally different. Maybe it's the difference between being a vessel and actually being one of them, like – fallen. Or whatever he is. Maybe it's the fact he was born. Anna, she was normal too." He grimaces. "Until she went Glenn Close."

Bobby is scuffing patterns in the dust now with his boot, swirls and streaks, can't seem to stop moving his legs. "I wonder how they do that?" he muses. "Get born, I mean. I thought they needed permission. Must be different when they fall, I guess." The old man steps forward, large steps, twirls around on the spot.

"Don't say anything to him about falling," Sam cautions. "It's like their version of original sin or something." The sun is getting stronger, beating down more warmly now, and he slides off the Impala, shrugs off his jacket.

"Yeah, I got that from the words you were having with him," Bobby replies. "He won't fix Castiel?"

Sam tsks in frustration. "From what Gabriel said, it's more like can't. The whole fallen thing makes it verboten."

The old man furrows his brow. "That don't make much sense given he pulled him out of there. I mean – he must matter still, for him to do that."

Sam chews on his lip for a minute. "Yeah. It's weird…" he murmurs. "Anyway, Gabriel says it looks worse than it is. Cas, I mean. Said he just wasn't used to being fragile. Being human."

Bobby rat-tat-tats his fingers on the car. "So Castiel fell," he muses. "I guess he's a real boy now. Just when we needed the mojo." He scratches at his beard, frowns. "That said, I guess Michael packs more volts."

Sam scowls at that. "He wants Cas off the morphine," he says after a minute.

"Why's that?"

"No clue… he just said he has his reasons. So just aspirin from now on."

Bobby sighs. "Guess we should do as he says. Given his new super powers and the whole smiting deal."

"He isn't going to smite us, Bobby."

They sit quietly for a couple of minutes, until Bobby gives Sam a sideways glance. "What do you think is gonna happen?" he says then, tentatively. "Only Dean said these guys leave the vessel pretty bad off when they beam out, told me Raphael fried that guy up in Waterville's brain to a crisp."

Sam shakes his head. "Man… I don't know, Bobby. When we went back to the past, Michael told him he'd leave him in one piece. But this – this whole not-vessel thing. I don't know, maybe it means he's in there for good." And he feels the knot of tension start twisting his gut again, feels his eyes sting, his breathing speed up, and he shivers at the thought. "This, all of it – it's unreal," he mumbles. "My brother is… he's – I just can't. I can't even begin to process this, I don't know how to, what to—"

A hand pats his shoulder suddenly, clamps down, fingers squeezing tight for a second, so many unspoken words in the gesture. "You gonna be okay putting the screws on this demon?" Bobby says.

He flicks his eyes over at the old man, snickers despite himself. "Given the circumstances, I think Brady's gonna be the comic relief."

He stops outside the den, gazes in at the figure on the bed for a long moment, before he ventures inside the room and closer, slowly. "Wake up," he murmurs. "Please. I need to talk to you. Come on, I know you're faking it."

Close up he can feel his skin crawl like there are insects swarming under it, feels a distaste, a disgust, that he has to swallow back down. He reaches out and hovers his hand just over Castiel's face for a second, feels something there, some sort of buzz, an aura. He has to fight the urge to snatch his hand back as he pushes through the invisible barrier and lays it cautiously on Castiel's brow, and he has to take deep breaths as he does, because his brother's fall drills into his heart and his soul. He rests his hand there for a second, gentle, pushes the hair back, fists it there on top, and scowls. "You fuckin' idiot," he breathes out. "Why did you do that? It was unbelievably stupid. Why did you have to go and do that?"

"Michael."

He always did get that frisson of something, maybe static dancing just over the surface of his skin, a split second before Castiel materialized. But that was before, that was then, and this is now, and it's magnified ten-fold, so that his brother's presence sings through his whole body like he's a living, breathing tuning fork, and his whole being resonates with vibrational energy, pure tone.

He doesn't turn around. "That isn't my name," he says softly.

"It is to me, brother," Gabriel says, right behind him now. "And what you're thinking of doing is disobedience. You can't fix him any more than you did when you pulled him out, and you took a big enough risk doing that. When news reaches—"

He cuts in, bitter. "I'm not going to fix him, Gabriel, don't worry. You know it isn't that bad anyway. And God left the building, didn't you hear? We can be free agents now."

Gabriel's tone is careful. "Free will, Michael?" He raises an eyebrow. "It's a slippery slope. You get too close to the edge and…" He trails off.

"And what? I fall?"

"It gets noticed."

Dean laughs, and it's sour. "By who? I went home, and it turns out our Father is off playing fuckin' golf or something." He glances back now. "I really don't think he's going to leave off hitting balls with a stick to chastise me for redeeming one of his grunts."

His brother doesn't blink. "You can't take risks like that. You have to stop him. That's why you're here."

"That's rich, given you have no intention of choosing sides," he fires back. "Or of helping me. Too much like free will, huh?" He snorts derisively, turns back to stare down at the still face again for a moment. "You must've been tuning into angel radio all these years, Gabriel," he says tightly. "Did he know? Did he know who I was? All along?"

"It's one of the reasons why he was sent there to get you," his brother replies neutrally. "Why they were all sent. But I doubt if he knew. You were the only one who could stop it, that's as much as the grunts were told."

He keeps staring down, and finally Gabriel nudges him gently with his elbow. "You know it's the truth," he admonishes. "He's been trying to keep you as far away from you as he could. Sigils, remember? He fought his way through Hell to get to Dean Winchester. Not Michael. He's been fighting for Dean Winchester ever since. And he fell from grace for Dean Winchester. For what it's worth."

And it is worth something, it does matter.

He sifts through his vocabulary for words that might be even remotely suitable, finds none, spins on his heel and strides out of the room, up the hallway and into the kitchen. He stops in front of the window and tracks Sam and Bobby, just now walking back towards the house, Sam trotting up the steps and Bobby taking it slower, savoring each step, placing each foot solidly on the ground, staring down at his boots as he does.

Team Free Will, he thinks suddenly. "Us," he backtracks then, glancing back over his shoulder at his brother. "You have no intention of helping us."

Gabriel's regret emanates out from him in waves, engulfs Dean's mind like a tsunami, crashes over him, churning remorse and contrition like flotsam, and he groans, doubles over, has to press his hand up to his brow. "Fuck, Gabriel… turn it down. Lower, it's too much…"

His brother reins it back, puts a hand on his shoulder. "You're rusty, Michael."

"And you're loud," he grouses, and he flips back to a memory, hospital, Cas, hive mind, the Borg. "I thought I could access all that collective crap at will. I didn't think it was fuckin' mandatory… like, all the damn time."

Gabriel's face splits in an amused grin. "You still blaspheme like you're bunked down in the barracks, Michael," he says, shaking his head. "You'll be tuning it out in no time. And besides…" He trails off, his attention caught by movement at the door.

Dean tracks his gaze, and Sam is there now, skirting around him, giving him a wide berth, and Bobby is standing in the doorway, his face pale and strained tight with stress, and he's tapping his toe frantically on the floor.

"Bobby," he throws out testily. "Sit down, before you fall down."

The old man's eyes widen. "I'm never sitting down again," he mutters.

Gabriel taps his shoulder now. "Pay attention to me, Michael," he says. "Me-me-me. And listen." He cocks his head.

Dean concentrates, squints for emphasis, ignores the filthy look Sam fires at the smaller man as the name trips off Gabriel's tongue. "Listen to what?" he finally says, exasperated.

"Exactly!" Gabriel exclaims in triumph, and he folds his arms in smug satisfaction. "We're leaving," he says.

"Oh yeah?" he retorts. "And where are we going?"

Gabriel rolls his eyes dramatically. "Not we-we. We. We're leaving." He flaps his hands up in the air. "We can't hear us."

From his spot at the doorway, Bobby grinds out a muffled oath, and his face is like thunder when they all swing their heads around to look at him. "Well," he barks. "Do any of these idjits ever tell it like it is? Ever? Speakin' in fuckin' riddles like—" He jerks his head backwards, motions up the hallway to the den. "The other one."

Gabriel cackles. "Well riddle me this, old man," he taunts. "It has no top or bottom, but it can hold flesh, bones and blood all at the same time—"

"Gabriel," Dean cuts in. "That's enough."

"But Michael, I'm giving you a clue."

"Golly, thanks Baloo," he growls. He remembers this on some level, his brother's uncanny ability to wind him up, and he sharpens his voice. "Enough, I said."

He circles his shoulders stiffly, because he still can't get used to the feeling of heaviness there, and he suddenly thinks of not-John Winchester, his level, reasonable tones, his deadpan calm, his conviction, you can't fight city hall. "I have no sense of humor, do I?" he sighs out as it dawns on him. "It's all riddles, just like the man said, because this is one of your pranks. And I'm the humorless one. That's what this is, isn't it? I'm the uncool one, the straight man, the boring Marx brother, the one with no sense of adventure, the one who never has any fun. I'm the designated fuckin' driver. The hammer. That's what this is."

Gabriel smirks. "Douche. Like I said, you're just rusty. It'll take a while, but you'll be back on the horse in no time, bro." He puts a hand behind his ear. "I mean we. The angels. Us." He waves at the air between them. "You can't hear us whispering now, can you? Or not as loudly, anyhoo."

He glances over to Sam, watching the verbal jousting from where he's leaning up against the kitchen table, and Sam raises an eyebrow. "Whispering pines."

Dean nods in reply, and hell, it's true. The whispering, the whooshing, it's barely there now, it's far off fields of corn rustling in the breeze. "It was us I could hear," he breathes.

"But not so much now," Gabriel says. "It's fainter, not so many of us. Because we're leaving. When you said yes, when you acknowledged who you are, when you opened yourself up to taking back your grace and destroyed Zach—"

Sam chips in, his voice stuttering slightly. "The light," he says. "In the green room, the light. It wasn't just Zachariah dying was it? It was Michael…"

"Give that man a kewpie doll! It was a portent—"

"Please tell me I didn't have a grace tree," Dean cuts in morosely. "That was just so many levels of fuckin' stupid. And there was no opening up of any kind."

Gabriel rolls his eyes. "It was a portent," he repeats. "And it went out on the bush telegraph the second it happened. Why do you think Crowley showed up here?" He pauses a beat, sighs. "And now we're all going home, to wait it out. Wait for the reckoning. It's the end times, Michael."

Bobby clears his throat harshly. "At that time, Michael, the great prince who protects the people, will arise," he says. "Canonical New Testament."

Dean rolls his eyes, and now they're all looking at him, expectant, like they think he's going to offer them solutions, like it's all arbitrary, like it's coincidence, like none of it is premeditated at all, and it's all he can do not to laugh at them and tell them not to waste his time, because—

"It doesn't have to be that way, Michael," Gabriel cuts in quietly, reading every unspoken word he just uttered in his head.

He's just as calm and impassive himself. "Oh? How's that, Gabriel? And while we're on topic, why is that?" He takes a step forward. "It's what you want. Isn't it? Isn't that what you told me? You just want it to be over."

His brother swallows, uncomfortable now. "That's what I told him."

He shakes his head, laughs. "Come on," he scoffs. "There is no him, you know that. There never really was, not in this reality. There's only me. So don't go playing the Dean Winchester card now, brother. And don't try and kid us that you care who wins."

Gabriel looks shifty, sidles a few feet away from him. "I do care… I, uh. Changed my mind," he bleats. "I like people. I like Sam and Dean. And… there might be another option."

Dean cocks his head, confused. "Another option?"

His brother stares back, purses his lips. "Come on, Michael," he says harshly. "I've given you the means of figuring it out." He taps his temple. "It's in there. And I've given you a clue. It has no top or bottom, but it can hold—"

"Fuck it, why can't you just tell us?" Sam barks from the other side of the room. "If you like people, if there's a way to save us from this shitstorm, why can't you just man up and make the right choice? Castiel did."

"That was free will, Sam," Dean interjects witheringly. "Gabriel thinks free will is a slippery slope."

Gabriel glowers at him, eyes flashing. And the smaller man clicks his fingers together, waves the bag that materializes at him. "Candy, Mike? Sam, Bobby – candy?" He unwraps one of the jewel-like discs, holds up his hand, slowly, deliberately crushes the cellophane wrapper up in his hand, drops it down at his feet. "Know it all," he says softly. "In fact, I bet you think you know everything."

— the teenage girl in the passenger seat is looking up from a pile of papers and a textbook, glowering at him, feeding candy into her mouth and scrunching up the wrapper before she drops it in the footwell on top of a rapidly growing pile of bright cellophane and silver foil—

"It was you," he murmurs, incredulous. "It was you, in the car… eating candy. It was all a set-up." And he's tuning out the interference now, tuning into his brother, shaking his head in exasperation at what he finds. "You gutless little shit," he scathes out viciously. "Too much of a coward to choose sides, too scared of what he might do, and where you might end up, so you pull one of your damn pranks to pass on your intel…"

Sam is darting his eyes from one of them to the other, looks puzzled, and his voice is rising, hopeful. "Dean, what is it now? What prank? Are you saying you aren't him, it was a set-up? He's the Trickster, right? So none of this is real, and you aren't Michael?"

Dean snorts, ignores the question, taps the side of his head. "He planted it here… made it so I know everything," he grates out. "Because he didn't have the guts to actually tell me. Because it would mean taking sides, and he's afraid to stand up to our brother, just like he said." He takes a step towards Gabriel. "Whatever you did, switch it off," he snarls. "It didn't work properly. You made me forget stuff I need to know."

Gabriel holds fast, doesn't back away. "Oh build a bridge and get over it, Michael," he says coldly. "It was the only thing I could think of at short notice. I can't prank one of my own for long, you know that. It's wearing off already. And I'm standing up to Lucifer now." He throws a look across at Sam. "And I'm telling you now, too. There's a way you can stop this without the death match, save six billion souls at the same time."

All of them are taking slow, cautious steps forward now, moving together almost as one into a huddle in the center of the room while Dean watches. And Bobby is enthralled, the years dropping away from him, and he's clenching and releasing his fists, and Sam has a fake half-smile curling his lips, fake because maybe it wasn't what he hoped to hear but it's still something, still lets them off the hook for mass murder on a global scale, and he's looking for alternatives, for solutions, for an easier fix. Fake smile, Dean thinks suddenly, and in his head he can hear his brother's voice mimicking sincerity, and whatever choices they make, whatever details they alter, he knows where they end up. And all he can see looking back at him in that moment is a forgery, artifice, deception, Lucifer, and it seems instinctive to distrust his brother, as instinctive as it is to be repelled by the sulfur that still stings his senses when Sam comes too close.

"It won't be easy," Gabriel is racing out, and he's glancing over, and he's anxious, uneasy. "You're gonna have to trick him big time… get him—"

The click resounds around the room like it's sensurround, his hand up at shoulder level, the pad of his thumb pressed firmly to his ring finger, sliding smoothly, snapping up and away from his palm, just like he did with Uriel back then.

And Sam and Bobby are blinking at each other through empty space, and Sam swings around to face him. "Where did he go?"

Dean shrugs. "Crab nebula," he says sardonically.

"You seem to be getting the hang of this whole angel thing," Bobby says dryly. "I hope you had a damn good reason for doing that, since he was just about to—"

"Give Lucifer the jump on plan B?" he snaps.

The old man pulls up short, his expression quizzical. "What does that mean?"

Dean doesn't reply, but he hears his brother clear his throat, knows Sam has it figured out.

"He means me," Sam says softly. "He thinks I'll say yes. And that Lucifer will pick my brains once he's through the door."

Dean stares levelly back at his brother, keeps his tone as even as he can. "You're easily led, Sam. And it's not so much saying yes as being unable to say no once he starts working on you."

Sam fists his hands, draws himself up. "I thought we—"

"This is tactics," he says, brusque now. "I'm thinking strategically. Okay?"

His brother flushes, looks away, and there's a moment of quiet before Bobby shakes his head, pulls off his cap, and rubs at his head.

"Well," the old man says finally. "That – makes sense." He shoots an apologetic look at Sam, turns his attention back, and he's newly tense, suspicious. "But it doesn't explain why this other option, whatever it is, is plan B. Care to enlighten us?"

Dean hesitates for just a minute, formulates his approach, keeps his voice suitably solemn. "It's the end times," he says. "And I'm going to kill my brother. I'm going to kill him because it's right, and I have to, and because I'm a good son. And if he won't be killed, well…" He smiles. "You'll have plan B to fall back on."

Bobby pales, and his eyes are flinty, his jaw tight. "You can't do that," he forces out, through gritted teeth. "You know what it means."

"I know it means peace," he says reasonably. "Paradise, here on earth, instead of Hell. I've seen what happens, remember? I've seen what he does, because I didn't stop him. And you've read Revelation, Bobby. The veil has been lifted. This, all of it, has been foretold."

Sam is scrubbing an agitated hand through his hair, twists his head around to look at Bobby, looks back again, chews his lip. "Foretold?" he blurts out. "But what about free will? You just said… to Gabriel, you – you have free will, you must—"

"Free will is an illusion, Sam," he cuts in. "Everything about me and my brother has led us to this moment, and he will be judged, along with all of the wicked. And the righteous will be rewarded, and we will see the beginning of Eternity. A new Heaven and a new earth. Paradise found."

Bobby backs his way to his desk, sits down on the chair, lethargic and heavy suddenly, but his voice stays as steady as a rock. "You're the angel of forbearance and mercy, who presides over human virtue," he says meaningfully, because he's shrewd enough to have worked out exactly who he's talking to. "You're supposed to protect people. You might want to keep that in mind. Michael."

Dean starts towards the door, stops, glances over at Bobby. "If you know I'm the angel of forbearance and mercy, then you know the Church of Rome calls me the angel of death too," he says somberly. "I carry the souls of the deceased to Heaven. You might want to keep that in mind. Robert."

TBC

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