The next few days past without incident.
Cas' presence in the house set Dean alight with purpose and he set to work preforming as the perfect host. With Cas' presence a sure thing the couch turned into a sofa-bed which Dean quickly set up, before Cas reminded him he didn't actually need to sleep. Dean also showered and changed into actual clothes, shaving the rather sad beginnings of a beard. He was keen to show Cas the new hobbies he'd acquired in his absence, which included semi-proficient cooking and whittling as well most strikingly a half-built wooden fishing boat.
When Dean first showed him the project he bragged that it would be done soon enough he could get out on the water. All Cas could think to say was: "If you wanted a boat you could get a working one easily."
Dean replied that would take all the fun out of it, which Cas again did not particularly understand, as the fun of it, seemed to consist of a lot of loud blades, sweat, and swearing, which in he had found to particularly compelling elements of the human experience. Dean seemed delighted by it though and that was enough for Cas to feign enthusiasm.
"You'll see," Dean said, after a few sessions of hanging around the garage had failed to convince Cas of anything. "The real beauty of it will be when we can take it out for fishing."
Cas had not gone fishing while on Earth and he did not feel it was a missed opportunity, but Dean seemed excited enough about it that he cheerfully agreed, he was sure he would understand as soon as they were out on the water. He watched as Dean clamped a piece of wood to the side and began to measure its angle against the bow stem. After a few days he'd become very familiar with how carefully Dean measured angles, despite there not being an actual need. It was Heaven however he cut the wood it would come out just as he needed it. He had chosen not to say anything about this though as he suspected it would take the fun out of it for Dean.
"Here, can you hold this while I measure," Dean asked, nodding towards one side of the board. Cas nodded and walked over. He grabbed the board idly and Dean clicked his tongue disapprovingly.
"No, not like that, you're messing up the angle. We've been over this, you've got to hold it like this." Dean grasped the board again in a way that seemed identical to Cas to how he had been holding it. Cas tried his best to imitate it again and it seemed to meet with Dean's approval as he walked away to grab a measuring tool and pencil from a bench on the side of the room.
"Have you thought of asking Sam to help you on this?" Cas asked, he wanted Dean to have this project but he was not particularly keen on spending the majority of his days hanging around a woodshop. Dean stiffened.
"Yeah maybe," he muttered turning around to face Cas. He played off his discomfort with a shrug, returning to the boat's side with a measuring tool. He fidgeted with it until it was lined up the way he wanted.
"Something happen between you?" Cas pressed. Dean shrugged again. His eyes fixed on the measuring tool, he remained still for a few moments before making a mark with the pencil. Cas began to move his hand but Dean waved him away as he frowned at the mark. He bit his cheek and then nodded to Cas, taking the plank from him and walking over towards the bench.
"Nothing happened." He began, lining the wood up with the saw. "I just— he got here and we hung out and it was great. Then his wife got here and I saw less of him and you know by the time we got to seeing each other I wasn't doing so great and I figured no need for him to see me like that. You know?" The saw buzzed to life before Cas could respond. When he finished he changed tactics slightly.
"And Bobby?" He asked. Dean shrugged, taking the piece of wood from the table and blowing the shavings off.
"Same thing. He's got better things to do than hang around me." Dean kept his back turned towards Cas. He made a show of examining his handiwork to keep himself busy.
"And how long exactly has it been since you've seen them?" Cas asked. Dean put down the piece of wood and shrugged.
"I don't know Cas, if you're so interested why don't you go ask them?" He demanded, gripping the edges of the worktable. His eyes focused on the back wall. Cas studied him. He knew Dean's forgiveness wouldn't come that easily. He had a habit of pretending things were fine long before they were. He would refuse to discuss anything until it boiled over and he exploded. At times, Cas wondered if boiling was all Dean knew. It was like he was the proverbial frog in a bot of boiling water, only if no one cranked up the temperature he'd do it himself. In some ways uncomfortable seemed more comfortable to him than actual comfort. Cas didn't know what to do with that. He never had.
"I'm not trying to pry," he assuaged.
"Could have fooled me." Dean replied coldly. He walked over the boat without looking up at Cas and began to lay the piece where he wanted it to go. Cas walked over to offer to hold it for him but Dean didn't look up.
"I think I'm going to talk a walk," Cas ventured. Dean focused on his work.
"Okay, you do that then." Cas stared at him and sighed. Just a few days ago he'd begged him not to leave and now it seemed he had no interest in him staying. It was not an ideal situation but he was worried, and unsure of what Dean would do left on his own.
He walked along the lake shore studying the gentle waves as they lapped at the shore. A mist rose just above the waterline. He spotted a solitary loon along the far shore. It let out a sharp and long call which echoed across the water and carried up into the pines above Cas' head. A few moments later a second call echoed across the water and the loon disappeared under the water.
Cas could have seen the lake as it was, rising mists of colors imperceptible to the human eye but he liked Dean's interpretation better. It reminded him of his time on Earth. Everything around him was no more than projection a simulation of the real thing but it was as close as he would get. The other Angels didn't care for the Earth itself, they were uninterested in a simulation of it.
They insisted that the mists of time and space were far more beautiful than anything on Earth ever would be. They made a sound argument for it, the grandiosity of it, the sheer imposition of the universe as it was, a display of power and grandeur so vast and unimaginable that one had no choice to find it beautiful.
Still, Cas preferred the lake. It felt familiar, safe, in a way that Heaven failed to. Cas didn't know when exactly Heaven had stopped feeling that way, he only knew that it had. Then again, maybe it never had felt that way. Perhaps, he had just never known that he needed it to feel that way until something else did.
Now wherever he went it was like there was an absence inside him. A longing for something that had never been and never would be. Whatever he felt about humanity about people and the Earth, he was still ashamed that he could not be the sort of Angel who felt at home in Heaven. He wouldn't have been better for it if he had been but he would have been happier, or at least, he wouldn't have known he was unhappy and that was worth something.
As it was he was unhappy wherever he went. He was able to see through the projection of the lake to the mists beyond. He understood that everything from the pines, to the lake and the creatures in and around it, were fictions, projected images of something somewhere else. Yet, he found that he was still human enough to hope that the loon found what she was looking for.
He sat for a while, trying to capture the image in his mind. By the time he looked up he realized the sun had begun to set. He could see past it perfectly well, but he knew Dean might worry. He never seemed to fully grasp the extent of his Celestial powers. Then again Cas could never explain it all that well. There was a very human framing of the same question that he quite liked: "How do explain red to someone whose never seen it." The blunt answer was that you couldn't. They would never understand. Yet, the human response, was that impossible or not you tried anyways.
He could have zapped himself back to the cabin door but Cas took his time walking instead. It was late by the time he arrived. He opened the door to find an empty but well lit cabin. There were two plates on the table and the beginnings of dinner preparation but no Dean in sight. Dean had clearly come in from the garage, his boots were set down by the entryway but he was nowhere to be found.
"Dean," Cas called. He knew Dean's Heaven emulated most components of the human world including things he found less than desirable, but he also knew there shouldn't have been a need for Dean to do anything he didn't want to. Basic needs which existed on Earth didn't usually replicate themselves in Heaven. It made the empty house all the more ominous.
Suddenly a guttural scream echoed through out the cabin and Cas rushed towards it. Throwing open the bedroom door he found he had stumbled into a scene he didn't understand. Dean lay on the bed frozen. Long black lines ran along his arms up to his neck and face. They surged forth, trying to burst out from under his skin. His chest heaved up and down as he struggled to breathe.
Veins, they were veins. Cas realized. He stumbled forward, not quite knowing what he was going to do. He couldn't exactly take a pulse, Dean was already dead, and spirits didn't have beating hearts. They were supposed to maintain the way they'd looked at the happiest point in their life though and the black veins were clearly unnatural.
Dean's eyes opened and swept the room with a look of terror.
"Dean!" Cas called, reaching out towards him. Dean met his gaze but remained otherwise unmoved. His breathing leveled slightly as Cas kneeled beside him. He grasped the blankets tightly for a moment before he lurched to his side and caught Cas' wrist. As his palm closed around Cas' wrist Cas felt a sharp sting and a wash of noise overwhelmed him.
It took a moment for him to become steady on his feet. When he did he found he was standing in the entryway of a suburban home. The floors were a dark wood scratched by soccer cleats. The walls were less clear. The wallpaper was some kind of bright floral design but the more Cas tried to look at it the more it became blurry and distorted. Dean stood a few paces ahead of him, dressed as he had been back in the cabin, a flannel shirt unbuttoned to reveal a monochrome undershirt. He stepped forwards, his eyes focused on some distant point through the wooden archway in front of them.
Cas trailed behind him. As he reached out to grab his shoulder though Dean halted and Cas froze as a second Dean, this one dressed in a dark brown leather jacket with a black shirt, stepped into view. He leaned idly against the archway observing the same scene as they were.
Before Cas could say anything the present Dean stepped forward and joined the past one in the archway. The muffled sounds of china and silverware clanking echoed through the hallway as he did so. Cas stood behind him and looked over his shoulder into what he now recognized as a dinning room.
A family Cas had never seen was gathered around the table laughing and talking. Their conversation muffled. Turning his head to the side he saw Sam, as he'd first met him, sitting at the table, chatting with a girl who looked five years younger than him, maybe more. A Dean just a few years older than Sam appeared behind him. He realized they must have been in Heaven as Dean had seen it. He stared at the past Dean, the one who had exited hell only a few months prior as he stared in turn at Sam.
The present Dean inhaled sharply, dreading what was about to unfold.
"Wow. Just. Wow." Dean's pronouncement of judgement rung out over the muffled family dinner. The present Dean stared down at the floor. Cas watched him for a moment and then reached out gently to see if he could. His hand grazed Dean's shoulder and Dean's head snapped up, his mouth opened and he stumbled through his past self and into the dinning room.
The floor and walls began to melt around him and the sharp static shriek began again. Cas instinctively covered his ears. Dean stared at him, his mouth opened to say something. The world rushed to fill in, memories spilling into each other. Darkness then a flash of light the static turned to screaming. A high-pitched shriek and the sound of windows shattering a burst of light. Flames rising up in a circle. Dean on the floor bloodied and beaten Cas staring down at him. The knife clattering to the ground. Voices and words clambered over each other in a rush to escape. Cas could only make out some of them.
"You can't stay here. Cas, I need you. An Angel of the Lord. You're still mad at me for Mary! I love you, Dean. You're family."
The room had shifted and they found themselves now, standing next to the railing of a staircase. This hallway was impenetrably dark. The only light was above a young boy in pajamas, who stood on his tiptoes, leaning against the railing. His heels raised, he clutched the banister, as he leaned over, straining to hear. Muffled shouts and yells rose from below.
"You have no idea what I do for this family!" A woman's voice rose above the din. The boy winced, his heels slamming to the floor with a loud thud. He clasped a hand to his mouth. The world was silent for a moment.
"Dean is that you?" A man's voice this time. John's. The much younger Dean turned and ran back towards an unseen bedroom.
The world shifted once more. They were in the dark once more but there was a light at the end of the hallway. It was bright. Too bright. And it was warm.
Fire.
The child version of Dean, rushed towards the flames, passing through Cas and Dean on his way. The hazy shape of a man appeared in the doorway, backlit by the flames, his face obscured by smoke. As he stepped forward, his face was cast in shadow. The shrill cry of a baby echoed in the hall and Cas saw the baby in his arms.
"Daddy!" The child cried. The man's face became clear. John. He rushed through Dean, and halted before the child. He stopped down to his level, handing him the baby.
"Take your brother outside and run as fast as you can. Don't look back!" The child took off down the corridor. Dean stood staring at his father but his face became blurry as the child wheeled around. A black ooze began to seep from the nursery, it pooled on the floor under the feet of the now frozen and blurry John. His feet and then legs vanished as it continued to rise and spread, Cas stepped back, but Dean remained frozen in place, his arm extended towards the rapidly vanishing image of John. Black veins popped from under the skin of his arm, illuminated by the flash of red and blue light, which now illuminated the hallway.
All that remained of John was his form in a cast of the black goo. Dean stepped towards him and the black goo reached out a tendril towards him. Cas rushed forwards and yanked him back before he could go any further. Dean stumbled, broken from his trance state, and stared at Cas in confusion.
"Cas?" He croaked out, his eyes wide in confusion. "You shouldn't be here." He backed away jerking Cas' hand off his shoulder. Cas reached out to grab him and overshot slightly. He regained his hold on Dean's shoulder, but as he did so he felt something cold brush against his finger. Than came the pain. It was more pain than he had ever felt before. Sharp and hot like a an electrical shock that was emanating from deep within him, radiating out over his body. He remembered what Zachariah had told him when he first had doubts.
"You have forgotten that while God is merciful, absolution requires penance," Zachariah's voice through the cell. Cas saw himself keeled over on the ground, Zachariah standing above him.
"Are you ready to ask for forgiveness?" He boomed. There was a moment of silence then Cas struggled to stand.
"No." Zachariah's face beamed with glee.
"Wonderful, this wouldn't be fun otherwise." The younger Cas crumpled to the floor in agony as Zachariah sent another burst of pain through him. He screams swallowed the air in the room as he struggled to find some relief.
"Cas!" Dean's voice cut through as he rushed forwards to step between Cas and Zachariah, or at least whatever he saw as Cas and Zachariah. Cas suspected he wasn't seeing their true forms and he stretched his arm out in front of him as if to protect himself from a blow. The pain overtook Cas again and the room changed to warehouse.
Dean still in the center of the room, now stood behind himself, as Cas wrapped him in a hug and then pushed him to the side. Dean rushed forward to grab Cas before he disappeared and the image of Dean tumbled through him onto the ground behind him.
"Dean!" Cas gasped out through the pain that had overtaken him. Dean stumbled and turned, relief and then confusion washing over him as he noticed Cas.
"Cas?" he asked.
"I'm here." Cas replied. Dean rushed to enfold him in a hug. When he pulled away Cas found himself on the floor of the cabin bedroom. Dean's hand hovering over his wrist without gripping it. Dean retracted his hand quickly. Cas stumbled to his feet bracing himself against the back wall. His eyes fixed on Dean.
Dean let out a shaky breath and rolled over so that he was on his back staring upwards at the ceiling.
"How long?" Cas asked.
"You weren't supposed to see that." Dean replied.
"Dean, how long?" Cas asked again. Dean shuddered and brought his hands up over his face.
"Since I got here." He said. Cas let himself sink down against the wall so he was sitting, with his back to it, staring up at the bed. Dean's let his arm dangle off. His veins had gone back to their normal blue, Cas noted.
"Why didn't you tell me?" He pleaded. Dean didn't respond. He kept his eyes focused on the ceiling.
"You weren't supposed to see that." He repeated blankly. Cas thought of his discussion with Jack. Had he come here? Had he talked to Dean? Where there other things he was keeping from him? His mind swam with possibilities.
"Who told you that?" Cas pressed.
"No one," Dean replied, baffled, "I just— I didn't want you to know."
"Why, after everything we've been through?" Cas asked.
"I didn't want you to see me that way."
"What way?" Dean didn't reply immediately. He turned to face the other direction.
"It's late. You should go to bed Cas."
Cas stared at him. There was so much he wanted to ask him. He knew he wouldn't get any answers though, and so, he picked himself up off the floor and walked out into the living room. He turned to shut the door but it had already shut behind him.