-Summary: It's the end of the world and they've got one last card to play. Castiel sends Dean back: back before everything. Now he has time to stop what's coming, but no friggin' clue how to do it. Time travel should really come with a manual. TIMELINE AU

-A/Ns: GUYS WE PASSED A HUNDRED FOLLOWERS! How cool is that? More than a hundred people are reading this story. That's awesome :) Thank you each and every one of you! I hope you continue to enjoy and offer up requests, suggestions, critique, and feedback as we continue on our epic journey of 'Messing With Dean as Much as Possible'!

-Chapter Warnings: Our Mystery Beast makes it's first appearance, the boys contemplate their existence in this timeline, Azazel is being a dirty rotten no good demon, and Dream-Cas gets his fishing on.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

The Road So Far (this Time Around)

Chapter 11

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

Crowley was done. He was beyond done with everything. Not only was he now an unwilling participant of the Apocalypse he'd spent years planning to avoid, bound by contract in his own damn trade, but his talents were once more wasted playing the friggin' messenger. Again.

Letting the whole world burn was looking more appetizing by the minute.

The King of the Crossroads scuffed the toe of his favorite Italian leather shoes against the dirt with more force then necessary. He'd have his tailor buff those clean when he got home. Someone deserved to suffer his indignation.

There was a rustle to his left and he huffed. Finally.

A beast emerged from the forest, massive paws pressing down lose dirt and sticks and leaves. Fiery amber eyes regarded the demon as the thing settled on its haunches.

"Tokorum," Crowley greeted with a nod of his head and no mention of how the damn animal was two hours late. "Pleasure as always."

"You're a terrible liar, Crowley." His voice was a rumble that rolled across the demon's awareness. He resisted the shiver that started at the base of his neck and crawled down his spine. Damn telepaths.

"I am a fantastic liar. I'm just not putting in any effort." He pulled his hands from his pockets. Pleasantries exchanged, it was time to get down to business. Thank Satan. "We have a task for you."

The fur along the thing's back rose as it bristled. His trunk swung to the side in indignation. "I am not your servant."

Crowley clenched his teeth. Good God Almighty, was he ever done. "It's a paid task."

The beast settled almost immediately. The old ones were always so much testier, and Tokorum was a right bastard compared to most of his kind. Crowley had not been thrilled to be the one dealing with the thing. But, as Azazel pointed out, he had the most history with the creature.

Yay for him.

"What is the payment?"

"Ten souls."

The words had hardly finished passing his lips when Tokorum countered. "One hundred."

Crowley balked. At first, because he thought the beast was joking. And then again when he realized that was not the case. He stared at the thing in both shock and disgust. "Well, aren't we greedy," he mocked, eyeing the enormous monster from head to tail. "Perhaps you should reconsider, darling. You're starting to get a bit chubby."

The growl was a physical one, and it rumbled through the earth as paws shifted in agitation across the ground. Crowley hardly batted an eye. Tokorum did not scare him in the slightest.

"Damned souls are not as good."

The demon rolled his eyes. "You don't even know what the job is."

"No job is worth only ten."

"Yes, well, damned souls are more expensive. Less of them, you see." Crowley gave a grim smile, the one that said 'don't negotiate with me, I'm the bloody king, sweetheart.' "Fifteen."

"Seventy-five. I must insist, Fergus."

It was the demon's turn to growl low in his throat. It was a warning that the beast would not survive the meeting much longer. Hell and its plan be damned.

Fucking telepaths.

"You know what?" Crowley suddenly brightened, straightening with a wide smile. "I'm in a generous mood." Mostly because he wanted this meeting to be over as much as the damn creature. "Let's call it an even fifty, and I get to rip your heart out and feed it to your prey if you ever use THAT BLOODY NAME AGAIN."

The creature's curled ears twitched at the volume change. Crowley released a deep breath, straightened his tie, and regained his demonic composure.

"What is the task?"

That was more like it. "We need John Winchester. Alive and whole."

"No."

Crowley gave it more than a few moments thought before he decided that burning the entire woods to the ground would be a touch dramatic. People would probably talk. So instead focused his rage into a sharp huff.

The dumb beast did not seem especially grateful that his life was being spared by Crowley's self-control.

"A hunter like that has a reputation, Crowley, one that spreads quickly. We have avoided the attention of such men for centuries by not calling for their attention."

"You don't need to approach him," Crowley answered with a roll of his eyes. "We'll handle that. We just need to know where he is."

The beast regarded him. But the demon could already see he had won. He always could, especially when it came to the desperate or greedy. And Tokorum was certainly one of those things. After a moment, the creature gave a nod and rolled his head and shoulders to the side as he moved back into the forest.

"I'll be hearing back from you shortly, then?"

The beast paused, looking back over his shoulder at the king of the crossroads. His amber eyes conveyed his annoyance at the falsely sweetened condescension, as had been the intention.

"It will not take long. Everyone sleeps eventually, even hunters."

-o-o-o-

Dean sat in the passenger seat of the Impala, staring at the leather jacket in his lap. His old leather jacket. Well, his now.

It had been in a second evidence box next to the one he'd gone looking for at the Jericho Police Department. He knew the cops would eventually find the hotel room, even without the brothers to accidentally tip them off to it. But to be honest, he'd forgotten about his Dad's jacket.

He'd missed that thing.

Sam watched his older brother as he stared down at their dad's jacket like it was a bomb rigged to blow at the slightest jolt. He really had no clue what was going on with him, but he was pretty much at wits end about it.

"Let's find him." His brother looked up as Sam stared expectantly at him. "We need to find him, Dean."

That seemed to jostle the older man out of his morose thoughts and he leaned forward to finally pull the thing on. It felt good to wear it again. "No, we gotta keep hunting. Demon say so."

"What do you think Dad's doing?" Sam balked, incredulity and frustration growing on his features. "He's hunting, and we can help. We need to help. Hell, we probably know more about the yellow-eyed-demon at this point than he does!"

"Don't count on it," Dean muttered under his breath. He could still hear John's words, pressed against his ear, the last thing he ever said to him. Kill Sammy. Yeah, fuck going and finding John Winchester. The man knew plenty and had never shared it with them.

Besides, if there really was any hope of saving him then Dean and Sam needed to stay away. That's how the demons had caught him the first time, it was how Azazel got to him the second time, and it was the reason he ended up in Hell after all of it.

Nope, John was safer if they just stayed the hell away. And so were they.

"Look, we don't even know where he is. His cell's still off. Last we heard he was here and he's clearly not here anymore. Trail's gone cold, Sam. So drop it." Dean gestured emphatically for his brother to get them back on the road. They had places to be and none of them were Jericho, California.

Sam's jaw was clenched tighter than a dog with a bone, but he turned the key in the ignition (maybe a bit harder than necessary, to Dean's chagrin) and pulled back onto the highway.

-o-o-o-

They still saved people. People that maybe hadn't been saved the first time around.

The skinwalker in Indiana was definitely off-menu once they got to it. Dean would have remembered a guy posing as an alligator in the sewers and a Sasquatch in the woods just out of town in order to draw some tourism and help generate income for the small bookshop his girlfriend ran on the main drag. Apparently, the store specialized in tales of urban legends and fictional beasts.

The brothers ended up letting that one live once he proved he wasn't the one mauling people to death. Turned out? Actual rabid dog. That shit never happened for real.

So much so that, for a while there, Dean was looking for candy wrappers at the crime scenes.

They did manage to save a pair of kids from an ugly end and put the unfortunate pooch down. Couldn't get the older girl out of the six painful rabies shots to the gut, though. She got her arm munched on protecting her baby brother from the dog before the hunters showed.

Dean gave the kid mad props.

Other cases were more familiar. They managed to avoid the entire 'I'm not a sadist and a murderer' shapeshifter fiasco by catching the freak before he had the opportunity to knock Dean out. That case he sure as shit remembered. Which was GREAT; emphasis on the all caps. He didn't have to imagine how many times he wouldn't be asked if he was the same Dean Winchester from St. Louis.

You know. The dead, rapey one.

The déjà vu itself was weird as hell. Sometimes he could tell you exactly what was about to occur, but in a fuzzy, dreamlike way that gained clarity only right before it happened. He'd saved himself a nasty cut to the shoulder from a werewolf by remembering a second before the swing to friggin' duck this time.

Other times he repeated the same course of action, no matter how rotten his gut felt or how hard he tried to recall why. In Twin Falls, he'd tripped over a dog, tangled himself in the owner's leash, and ended up with a black eye courtesy of a lamp post after having appreciated a woman walking past. He hadn't remembered that happening until he saw Sam laughing so hard he was crying. Yeah. That part he recalled perfectly.

Sometimes, the same shit happened no matter how hard Dean avoided it. They'd caught the Hook Man case again, and he remembered the Pastor's daughter being the cause. But the same people still died, despite burning her silver cross necklace two days sooner. This time around, the Hookman worked on an accelerated schedule, like what had happened was supposed to happen, no matter what the brothers did to change it.

Dean wanted to find Time and punch the bitch in the face.

She could at least be consistent. She could, you know, not give him hope that things could change – that they could save people this time that hadn't been saved, that he could stop the apocalypse from happening, that he could stop Sam from dying – only to yank it away in a single hunt that showed Dean he really had no control at all.

He cursed Cas's name over and over again because he could. The guy could have at least left him with a manual or something. Some friggin' instructions for this crap. A whole chapter on self-help entitled 'Yes, You Can Change the Future' would be good by him.

The worst bit about being from the future, though, was being with Sam. Don't get him wrong; it was great – fan-freaking-tastic, actually – to see his kid brother again, lighter than he'd been in a decade and years before the various rifts that would drive them apart and back again. Some days Dean forgot when he was from and what he had to do. Some days he just enjoyed the drive, the banter, and the life.

But letting his guard down meant forgetting that he wasn't the Dean this Sam knew. That this wasn't the Sam he knew, or at least not the most recent Sam that he knew.

It meant mentioning things that Sam hadn't yet lived through. Like that time they'd caught that lucky rabbit foot case and his kid brother had been a literal walking disaster.

Only, Sam had no idea what he was talking about, and Dean had to awkwardly scramble and play if off like it had been Garth. Because who wouldn't confuse the mouse that was Garth Fitzgerald the IV with the Moose that was Sam Winchester. The two were just so similar.

He couldn't police what he said all the time, though. When he tried early on, he didn't last the day before he was so exhausted and frustrated that he ended up mostly tongue-tied any time he tried to speak. Sam had eyed him worriedly, to which he'd finally snapped. When the epic rant (that had made absolutely no sense to either party and was mostly just grunts and wordless yells) finally finished, his brother told him to stop PMSing, Dean called him a bitch, got a jerk in return, and that was that. Dean decided he'd just get by saying whatever came to mind, as usual. He'd be no good to the future if he spent all his time thinking.

So he slipped up. A lot. Sam's Bitchface #12 became official in Dean's count. The younger Winchester used it. A lot.

The older brother categorized the look as the most monotone of bitchfaces, and although it had several sub-versions of 'what the hell is wrong with you?', 'I don't know what you're talking about,' and 'Where are you getting this from?', the most base expression boiled down to 'you are lying to me.'

Dean hated that face.

On top of all that, he was pretty sure his brother was keeping a list of his own. He'd play on his phone or pull out the laptop as inconspicuously as possible, especially when he thought Dean was asleep. The older hunter couldn't be sure (he hadn't managed to find the file yet and Sam seemed to police his electronics a lot more carefully than he remembered) but he knew his kid brother. And suspicion always led to sleuthing. Which meant keeping lists.

There was crap that he could do about it, even if he did find whatever Sammy was always writing down. It wasn't like he could delete it without raising more suspicion. And trying to address it off hand would go about as well as sneaking out of the motel room with clown shoes on. Dean wasn't the most graceful when it came to subtlety.

Besides, even with Sam being far from stupid, there was still only about a 0.1% chance in hell that 'time travel' would be among the theories he came up with.

Instead, there was just a growing tension pervading their brotherhood. It was a tension he was uncomfortably familiar with. Which royally sucked, because damn it, this was supposed to be before all of that. Back when they were just brothers, before the lies and the distrust. Sure, it wasn't nearly as negative as it would be in the future (wouldn't be, Dean reminded himself, you're going to stop all that) but it was still there.

And it sucked.

-o-o-o-

"I want another go."

Azazel glanced sidelong at the voice bubbling up through the goblet of blood on Amanda Stutson's white and pink dresser. She was six months old today, sleeping peacefully in the crib beneath him. Her mother was still choking on her own life liquid, ever weakening fingers clasping at her slashed throat as she leaked impressive amounts of blood all over her daughter's pristine carpet.

Really, white in a nursery was just asking for trouble.

The yellow eyed demon gave little Amanda's cheek a soft stroke and big brown eyes sleepily opened. Her daddy had unwittingly sold her humanity to him seven years ago exactly in exchange for a successful climb up the company ladder and a soon-to-be-dead wife far too pretty to actually be interested in him.

"Get me topside, and I'll get you Dean Winchester."

Azazel regarded the goblet with distaste. His daughter may be his creation, turned by his own blade and trained from the moment she'd taken the knife under her hand, but that didn't mean much more to a demon than pride.

And right now, he was not feeling particularly proud.

"You didn't last an hour with them."

He could picture her face, charred and twisted with the very essence of evil that had warped them all, scrunched into something pissy at his words. He could hear it in her voice. "Dean's definitely on the take. I don't know who's feeding him information, but it's in real time."

Azazel raised an eyebrow at that. If that information was right, it severely limited the number of things that could be assisting Dean Winchester. There weren't many creatures that could speak and not be seen by a demon.

A psychic perhaps. They hadn't considered human involvement as the wrench in their plans. But if some upstart psychic saw what was coming and decided to change it….

A powerful psychic like, say, a prophet?

"Did he say how he knew?" He rolled up his sleeve, smiling down at the baby who was beginning to wake up, kicking her little feet and starting a fuss. She must be hungry. He would help with that.

"Said I tasted like sulfur." Her father's skeptic silence was question enough. "I'm pretty sure he's full of shit, but considering he tasted like righteousness…."

Azazel chuckled lightly at her disgust and held his wrist out over the crib, digging his nail into his skin hard enough to slice through the fleshy meatsuit.

"I can still get to him," his daughter insisted once more, blood bubbling with determination. She had always been a stubborn thing. He'd liked that about her the minute he'd dug his blade into her soft belly.

"How?" Little Amanda blinked in shock when something warm splashed onto her lips and chubby cheeks.

"I'll go through Sam." When he scoffed, she continued, "Worst case, you get to find out if he's in on it too, or if it's just Dean. But I don't think he is. And I'll get to them through him."

Azazel did not immediately answer, instead watching Amanda's little tongue slide out experimentally with the lack of coordination that came with still growing muscles. In the face of his silence, his daughter's stubborn hold-out caved to begging. "Just get me topside, and I'll get you what you need."

Amanda began to cry as the metallic tang bit at her tongue and she tasted evil.

"Fine. I need the Colt."

The silence that followed from the goblet spoke volumes as to what he was asking. On the other end, trapped in Hell and desperate to once more escape, his daughter hesitated. A human reaction that had not been carved completely out of her. Should she fail again, he'd have to correct that mistake.

"Okay," she agreed reluctantly, voice bolstering with determination he knew she did not feel. "But one thing at a time. Sam Winchester first."

"I'll find you a gate." With that, the blood silenced and settled. Amanda was kicking up quite a fit now, and Azazel heard the telltale sounds of a waking father in the hall.

"Honey? Is there someone in there with you?"

The demon stroked the infant's cheek, swiping up the missed blood and painting her lips red with it. Looked like little Amanda would be growing up an orphan.

-o-o-o-

Dean was fishing off the dock in the mountains again. He was halfway through his first beer and his line hadn't caught anything yet. That didn't usually happen until after Cas showed up.

"We need to talk."

Speak of the angel.

Dean looked up at the man, haloed by the sun as he always was when he first appeared by the hunter's side. Sometimes he wondered if Cas did it on purpose, or if that bit was all him. Giving an angel a halo of light.

He snorted. There was something wrong with his head. Really.

"Dean."

"So talk," he bit out, looking back out at the lake. He still remembered his last dream with Not-Real-Cas and the way the angel looked when he asked why he had let the devil in. So nonplussed, like the answer was obvious and Dean was just another stupid human too small to comprehend.

Just thinking about it pissed him off.

Castiel was silent long enough for Dean to get even more annoyed. He refused to look at him – at what his mind had summoned up as his best friend, because the guy next to him wasn't real – but he knew his friend was staring at him with that hurt look on his face, and he didn't want to see it. He was the one who was hurting, he was the one who deserved answers here. Not Cas.

"You need to be more careful. The changes you're making, they will not go unseen." Dean didn't answer, instead focusing a morose and angry glare on the line sunk into the lapping water. He waited for the inevitable tug. "Dean, I am serious. The demons have already taken notice. Meg was just the first."

The hunter straightened in the camping chair, finally looking at the angel.

Son of a bitch.

Of course it was Meg. He'd known that stupid smirk and bitch attitude. How had he not picked up on that sooner? No, he had to wait for his brain to figure it out and tell him via Fake-Dream-Cas-Chat. He must be more of a masochist then he thought to keep putting himself through this shit.

"What am I supposed to do then, huh? You didn't leave me with much to go on, Cas!" He stood up, leaving behind the pole and fish to face the angel. They'd always been the same height, but every time he got into Castiel's personal space the angel had a habit of somehow looking up at him. Like Dean had more than even odds at being the stronger of the two.

It should have been his first clue when it was Lucifer wearing those eyes.

Dean turned away, fists clenching.

"You are angry with me."

"Hell yes I am, Cas!" He spun back to his best friend, gesturing between the two of them with his hand. "You and me? We're not okay, and we're not going to be okay until you can tell me why you let Lucifer ride you for weeks. Explain it to me in a way that this stupid human can comprehend!"

Castiel frowned at the hunter. He didn't need to ask what it was he should be explaining.

"You are far from stupid, Dean." The man considered punching the angel in the face for yet again avoiding the question. But he didn't have to. "I needed to be…useful."

Something inside the hunter lurched at the words. It was something angry and it was something hurt.

"What?" Dean waivered, staring at the angel who looked no bigger than a man. "No, seriously, what?"

Castiel shifted, uncomfortable, and Dean was suddenly flooded with cold. Like a bucket of ice water being poured over a pleasant memory. This, this felt too real. All of a sudden, he was no longer dreaming. This was him and Cas, and something was trying to claw its way up his throat and choke him.

"Cas…Why doesn't this feel like a dream?"

The angel gave him a sidelong look – one of his old, fierce ones that told him to stop asking questions.

"You need to be more careful, Dean. The waves you're making, they are getting too big." The angel took a step forward, forcing the hunter to counter with a step back, lest they be all but pressed together. And two dudes didn't do…that.

"This plan- Hell's plan, Heaven's plan, my Father's plan- it has been in motion for a millennia, and written in stone for far longer. You cannot stop following the script without those who have read it a thousand times noticing your alterations."

Dean swallowed heavily, staring into those piercing blue irises. "Then what am I supposed to do, Cas?"

The angel watched him, eyes darting back and forth between his own. "You must let some things happen, Dean. Somethings must stay the same."

The hunter wet his lips nervously. He could feel the warmth of Castiel's body so close to his own. Could feel the ends of the trench coat brush against his jeans in the breeze. Something….something wasn't right here.

Castiel had never given off warmth as an angel. Vessels were always oddly cold.

"Cas," he breathed and he swore the angel swayed closer. "Are you really here?"

The angel put a hand to his chest and something in Dean flared for a moment, so brief he wasn't sure it had happened at all. So confusing he was sure he made it up. Then Cas pushed and Dean was tumbling backwards into the water.

-o-o-o-

He woke with a gasp, hand to his chest and lungs telling him not to breathe because it would be a mouthful of lake he inhaled. The hunter still choked, despite being in a hotel room, sitting upright in bed and definitely not in the water surrounded by fall leaves and fish.

Sammy was sitting in the bed across from him, legs over the side and a scrap of paper gripped his hands. Dean let his breathing calm down to manageable levels before he even attempted to speak. His brother beat him to it.

"Did you have a vision?"

The older hunter wanted to groan. God, he was sick of lying to Sam, and he was even more sick of hearing that question. "No," he answered, chest still heaving and fighting valiantly to sound normal. "I…I don't know."

Because what the hell had that been? For a second there…he'd sworn he'd felt Cas. The angel had been there, in his head, like the good old days. But that wasn't possible. It wasn't.

'Cas?' he whispered the prayer, sending it upwards with a thought of the nerd angel and heaven. 'Castiel?'

Nothing happened, and Dean tried not to be disappointed. Of course it hadn't been him. He was ten years in the future, lying dead in a graveyard. Right next to Sammy.

"Dean?" He looked over at to his little brother, who was very much alive despite the slightly ashen pallor of his skin. "I had one."

That got the hunter's attention, and he straightened up, hand falling from his chest. "A vision?"

Sam nodded, fingers tightening around the paper in his hand. No, not paper. A picture.

"I think…I think we have to go back home. Back to Kansas."