Summary: Cas pulled his broken body over the grass-covered graves beneath them. The buried dead that he and Sam would soon be among. But Dean was alive and only a few feet away. Only a few feet and he could fix this. He would fix it. There was still time: time to send him back, time to make the other choice, time to choose a different road. TIMELINE AU

Chapter Warnings: Strong language, cuz Dean is piiiiiiissed.

-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)

Season 2: Chapter 4

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

Dean shot up in the bed with momentum he had certainly not possessed a second ago. Energy flooded his body and he fought, momentarily, with the tube down his throat and the wires sticking out of every part of him. He gagged and chocked around the intubation, coughing deep as he hauled the thing up and out of his throat with mucus and disgust.

Shit that hurt.

His body shook from the exertion, discomfort, and shock as he tossed the thing to the side with a frown. He went for the IV in his arm next, pulling the needle out with a hiss. God, he hated hospitals. Dean left the heart monitor on, not wanting to deal with the rush of a false Code Blue just because his finger wanted freedom from the clip. Instead, he looked around the room.

He was tense. Terrified, even, though he didn't know why. The last thing he remembered was that cabin, albeit in bits and pieces. And if he was in the hospital, alive, then there wasn't much to fear.

Except an empty room and no clue what condition Sam was in.

And Dad.

Dean's breath stilled, drawing in slowly as realization came back to him and the terror returned. The heart monitor started beeping faster as he quickly catalogued his injuries, which totaled a grand tally of absolutely friggin' zero.

Intubated with zero injuries?

Not a chance in hell he came by that naturally.

He paled as the words – nothing more than an idiom – brought on realization a lot more real than some turn of phrase.

Hell.

"No," he whispered to the empty room, panic running through him like a freight train. "No, no no. I have more time. I have more time!"

It was May. It had to still be May. Azazel had held them in that god awful cabin, but John had come for them. He'd been in there at the end, Dean was sure of it. His dad had come for him and Sammy, and the three of them had all gotten in the Impala and driven away.

"No. No, no, no."

They'd driven away in the Impala. Just like last time.

"Dean."

The hunter looked up from his bed, eyes already watery and full of denial and anger and fear, as John Winchester walked into his room with the look of a dead man painted in every line of his body.

"Dad," Dean breathed out, barely a whisper. "Tell me you didn't."

John smiled a small little smile at him, and Dean's heart broke for a second time in his life. "You know, when you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt and after what I'd seen, I'd be….I'd be wrecked."

"Don't. Please, dad, don't." Dean was shaking his head, trying to climb out of the bed but his legs wouldn't listen and John was walking up to the side. He knew this speech. He'd heard it again and again for months after his dad had sold his soul to save him.

"You'd come up to me and you, you'd put your hand on my shoulder, and you'd look me in the eye and you'd…" John's eyes were watery and he blinked through them, giving a small, nostalgic laugh. "You'd say, 'It's okay, Dad.'"

"Dad."

John reached out and cupped the back of his son's neck, staring into those eyes that somehow knew exactly what he'd done. He didn't know what was going on with his son, but Sam had been right. It was still Dean in there, even if he knew things he shouldn't.

"You shouldn't have had to say that to me. I should have been the one saying it to you."

"I was happy to say it," Dean whispered and the tears started running down his cheeks, despite his urge to look away, to pretend it wasn't happening. But he knew this was the last time he was going to see his father, and he wasn't going waste it staring at the bedsheets. "You did the best you could, Dad."

"No, I didn't." John bent forward, pressing his forehead to his son's. His second hand joined the first, wrapped around Dean's neck in a comforting way he had so rarely done in the past. He should have done it more. He should have hugged his sons more. "I'm sorry, Dean."

"Don't," his son whispered, half hiccupping past the word as he reached up and wrapped his hands around his father's forearms, hanging off of him like a child.

"I need to tell you something, son."

Dean swallowed heavily, his father's head pressed to his, that voice whispering so much like it had happened last time that he almost couldn't breathe. "I know. Dad, I know."

John pulled away slightly, releasing his son's neck enough to stare into his clear, green eyes. Dean blinked, but refused to look away.

"I won't do it. I won't," he reiterated, water swimming in his eyes as his father's last words echoed in his mind. They would not be his last words this time, Dean would make sure of it. "I'm going to save him, Dad. I promise you that."

His father looked uncertain what to say, but he found himself nodding slowly at the conviction in his son's voice and, more than anything, in those eyes. Somehow, Dean did know, of that John was sure. So he released his son's neck slowly, pulling away and letting the touch linger, if only to feel his son, alive and breathing, beneath his hand one final time.

"And you…you hold on down there." Dean swallowed heavily, and John could only mirror the movement. He didn't know how his son knew all of this, but the fierceness in those eyes silenced any questions he might have had. "In a year- In a year, they'll be a hell gate. You get yourself out, alright? Promise me you'll be there."

"I'll be there," John whispered almost numbly. He didn't know how his son knew but it didn't really matter anymore. His part in this fight was over, and he had his own battles upcoming. A year in Hell. He had no idea if he could hold out that long, but for his son, he would try. "Tell your brother…"

"I will," Dean whispered, and John grabbed his shoulder, offering his oldest a smile through tears.

"I'm proud of you, son."

Then he looked over his shoulder at something Dean couldn't see, and it was the last thing John Winchester ever did.

-o-o-o-

Dean stared, eyes unfocused and gaze all but dead, at the funeral pyre burning hot and steady. It was early afternoon and he and Sam had driven out into the less populated woodlands of east Michigan in order to find a final resting spot for their dad. It had taken them almost an hour to build the pyre, using palates they'd snagged from the back of a grocery store and plenty of branches and limbs from the surrounding trees.

They'd done so in absolute silence, each in their own heads and their own mourning.

10:41 am.

John Winchester died at 10:41 am. Didn't matter that it was two months early and a whole bucket load of changes later. Ten forty one in the fucking morning. Again.

Dean was so tired. So. Damn. Tired. Tired of fighting this fight, tired of losing it.

He stared, numb, at the flicker of orange and yellow and reds that blurred in front of him. He was so done, so over this, over Time and always being one step behind the bitch when he should, by the very friggin definition of coming from the future, be at least a step ahead. He was done trying to change things and losing.

What was the point? What had been the point of any of this? Of sending him back in the first place. This wasn't a second chance; it was torture, was what it was. Worse than Hell. Worse than being a demon or bearing the mark.

This, of all the things he'd ever faced, this fucking thing was going to be what broke him. If only Zachariah and Michael had known. If only Crowley or Abbadon, Eve or Raphael had known. All you had to do to break the mighty Dean Winchester was make him relive it all again, unable to change anything.

He'd known, that morning he'd woken up in the Impala in 2005 and not 2016, the morning he'd realized his father was still alive, that he'd never be able to save him. He'd known that. He'd tried like hell to keep him and Sammy away from that suicide mission wrapped in their father's clothes. Still, still, as soon as he'd seen the man, as soon as he'd opened Bobby's basement door and seen his dad, free from the Baku's dream power, leaning on Sam, weak as a kitten but very much alive, Dean knew he was screwed. There was no way he couldn't try – couldn't hope – that maybe, just maybe, if he was fast enough, strong enough, clever enough, he could stop it.

He was an idiot.

"Tell me we kill him."

Dean turned his head to take in his little brother, standing with slumped shoulders, hands shoved in his pockets, and head hung down damn near his chest. The older Winchester and man from the future took a deep breath to still the sudden ache in his heart on top of his own despair and downright darkness. Sam was fighting with everything he had against the tears gathered in his eyes, the trembling of his bottom lip and the reddening of his nose. The kid looked a damn near wreck, and rightly so.

This was Sam's first time losing their father. He hadn't lived it before, been prepared or forewarned it was coming, because Dean hadn't told him. Dean hadn't told him anything because he hadn't been able to man up and be the bearer of bad news and a crap ton of crap. Hadn't been ready for the way Sam would look at him. Well, that sure as shit at cost them.

Dean's anger fell to the wayside. It didn't dissipate – Dean Winchester rage didn't just fade away or stop existing – but it was pushed violently aside to be dealt with later because his little brother needed him.

"Tell me we kill him," Sam repeated. It was obvious from the murderous look in his watery eyes, tipping over as he blinked and trailing down red cheeks rubbed raw, that he was honestly starting to wonder if they even could.

"We kill him." There was a very obvious, if silent, 'but' that echoed through the woodland clearing.

"…But it cost us Dad," his younger brother filled in the silence, staring at the slowing burning pyre and the only source of warmth in what was feeling more and more like a damn cold world.

Dean didn't answer for a moment – thought about not answering at all – but he knew he needed to knock that shit off, and soon. He couldn't keep lying or omitting truths (splitting hairs), if he expected to change anything. Sure, there were going to be things he didn't need to tell Sammy – didn't want to – but here on out, as they watched their father burn, he was going to have to start being honest. More than that, he was going to have to be friggin' forthcoming, something he hadn't mastered in damn near forty years of trying, and which might have cost John Winchester his life this time around.

Not that he had much faith (or strength or whatever you wanted to call it) left that it would make much difference. That he – they – could change anything at all.

"Costs us a lot more than that," he finally muttered, tone carefully blank of the bitterness that infested his soul. Their dad was gone, despite Dean knowing it was coming. What reason did he have to believe that in a year, Sammy wouldn't be as well? Then he'd be on his way to hell, and this would all have been pointless.

"Dean-"

He shook his head, refusing to look anywhere but those climbing flames. "Not now, Sammy."

"When?" Because Sam understood, he got it, really, that right now might not exactly be the best moment to be asking. Not standing in front of John's body, a hunter's funeral for their own father. But if not now, then when? Because they'd had plenty of time leading up to this, and still Dean had said nothing. "I need to know, Dean. If I'd known about the deal-"

"You'd what?" Dean cut in harshly. Sam turned to him, eyes hurt, but Dean was barely looking at him. "Not left Dad's side? He'd have found a way, Sammy, and you know it."

His kid brother flinched under the harsh assault as Dean finally turned to him, arms flung wide, eyes fierce with an anger Sam knew wasn't directed at him, and all but foaming at the mouth with hatred for something that didn't exist and, if it did, wasn't corporeal enough to punch in the face.

Dean was done. He was done, and he was angry. Angry at himself for failing. Angry at himself for hoping. Angry at John Fucking Winchester for pulling the same damn martyr play twice. Angriest at Time and Fate and fucking Destiny, written in stone, for letting it happen. For demanding that it must.

"So let's go back further. I told you about the crash, would you have taken a different road? Not gotten in the car in the first place?" Dean shook his head with a hollow, broken laugh and his arms fell, lifeless, to his side. Sam swallowed, knowing that even if he'd known – even if he'd known there was a demon out there in the dark, waiting to crash the Impala off course – he couldn't have stayed in that cabin with his brother bleeding out in his arms. "It wasn't supposed to happen for months. Telling you about it would have done jack shit. Don't you get it, Sammy? There's no point. We tried and we failed. We can't change anything! Coming back, changing the future? It's useless!"

Dean was screaming, red faced and so close to breaking. Sam's heart hurt for his brother so suddenly it stole his breath away. Dean so rarely lost it, especially not in front of Sam, who he saw as needing some sort of macho, invincible, super-hero brother to look up to. Not that he'd been wrong when Sam was young, but he was a man now – an adult – and old enough to know that super-heroes didn't exist. There were only ordinary men and sometimes that was enough.

"No, it's not," he whispered quietly and Dean blinked in the sudden volume change. Wood crackled, trees rustled. Sam stood, hunched with his hands shoved in his pockets, feeling small and fragile, and yet so much stronger than his brother. He could be the pillar of support that Dean usually tried to provide him. "Jess is alive, Dean."

The older hunter went still, an odd and heavy silence wrapped around him. He probably could have used a good screaming match. Hell, he definitely could have used a screaming match, but Sam, always the smart one of the two, wasn't going to give it to him.

Sam been worried – so worried – Dean wasn't going to handle John's death at all. The brother he knew shoved everything down, refused to feel or be weakened by emotions. But this, this Dean from the future seemed already broken, and Sam knew he was reliving this death a second time, probably with twice the guilt now that he'd failed the old man twice.

"I get that in the bigger picture that may not be much," the young hunter continued, staring at his brother imploringly as he pushed his own guilt and grief aside and focused on what they had left, "but it means everything to me."

Even if he never saw her again. Never talked to her again. Jess was alive, and it meant everything.

Dean swallowed and suddenly turned back to the pyre, running a hand down his face as he visibly pulled himself together. "I know it does, Sammy."

A section of the pyre collapsed, sending sparks and embers into the air. It should have been beautiful. In a morbid, depressing way that rotted away at their hearts, it still was.

"We have changed other things." Sam gestured to the flames. Perhaps not the best or most appropriate example, but it was the most relevant. Sam tried not to let it tie his tongue or fill his throat as he pushed the words through. "It may be the same result, but it didn't happen the same way, right? It happened sooner."

"How is that in any way a good thing?" His brother's voice was bitter – angry – but Sam had plenty of experience with that.

"It isn't always going to be good, Dean. Change, at any level, is unpredictable! That's why people are so damn scared of it." Logic had always been his best weapon against an overly-emotional, panicking Dean Winchester. Leave it to Sam to be the Spock to his brother's Kirk; a reference Dean would love, if only he was in the mindset to appreciate it. "Look, if time wants to stay the same, then there's probably a balance. For everything we do manage to change, some things have to stay the same."

"Win some, lose some, huh?" Dean smiled bitterly, refusing to look at him as he rubbed harshly at his chest. "Story of our god damn lives."

"We just have to pick our battles," Sam offered with a light headshake, resuming his funeral watch.

His brother didn't answer, but eventually he bent down to the small cooler they'd brought. It had three beers in it: two for the ones still kicking, one they'd pour out for the member they'd lost. The final component to a hunter's funeral, John Winchester style, and the last goodbye from a couple of sons to their father.

-o-o-o-

They worked their way back to the car slowly once the fire had burned down to safe enough levels to leave. They'd parked on the edge of a river, which might have been beautiful and calm any other day, and they'd hiked a ways into the woods that bordered the water and road until they'd found a large field perfect for a hunter's farewell.

Now they were leaning against the old, rotted out fence that lined the edge of the waterway, probably leftover from the days that this was someone's property. They'd broken out another round of beers; one hadn't seemed justice enough for the legend that was their father. Though these they sipped slowly as the mood slipped slowly, but steadily, back to grief and loss.

"Did he say anything to you?"

Sam had been quiet for a while, and Dean was not surprised by the question when his brother finally asked it. They had had this conversation once before, after all.

"No," Dean returned softly as he watched his brother, beer all but untouched in the sasquatch's hand. The man from the future struggled in the silence between them for a moment, knowing what he had to say but dreading every word of it. "Not this time, at least."

Sam's head whipped over to meet his eyes. Dean didn't volunteer the information, but he could see his baby brother's gears churning behind those intelligent hazel eyes. "But…last time?"

The older Winchester didn't need to answer or even nod. Sam already had it figured out.

"Dad knew."

"Not the end game, Sammy." Dean finally turned away, back to the river. "Not about the apocalypse."

"But he knew about the blood." John had told him as much, back in Bobby's yard that day. The last happy memory of his dad, really, and it ate at him now as much as all the bad ones. "He knew Azazel had plans for me, even if he didn't know what they were. Dean, what did he tell you?"

"It doesn't matter-"

"Yes, it does!" Sam grabbed his brother's shoulder, forcing the older man to look back at him. Those green eyes were hurting so damn much that Sam found it difficult to keep the gaze, despite it being what he had been aiming for. Still, it didn't change the bare facts. "I need to know all of it. I can't make different choices, can't stop your future from happening, if I don't know what it is I'm trying not to do!"

Dean tried to look away again, guilt and pain weighting those eyes and body down, but Sam shook his shoulder insistently.

"You told me no more lies."

"And I meant it. Not trying to lie to you, Sammy. I just…" Green eyes hesitantly met his and his brother let out a broken, aggravated sigh. "He didn't know what Azazel was doing to you. But he- he wasn't going to let him… let him have you."

The younger hunter stood, gripping his brother's shoulder, as he parsed through the less than straight answer. It didn't take long, and Dean could tell each degree of understanding gained by the way those fingers dug harder and harder into his collarbone.

"Dad…" Sam blinked hard and swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing as stiffly as the rest of him. "He told you to kill me."

"He told me to save you," Dean countered harshly – insistently.

"And if you couldn't?"

The return was more immediate than Dean had been expecting and he went silent. He couldn't hold his baby brother's gaze anymore.

'That's what I thought.' Sam's hand fell from his brother's arm and a dangerous emptiness filled his gut. It was almost like numbness, accept it had a distinct taste of dark to it. Sam didn't know how else to explain it, but whatever it was, it was ugly and it rooted quickly and festered even faster.

The implication of the words that weren't said, said too much. His dad – his dad, the man that had raised him, that should have loved him and cared for him and helped him move to Stanford and been there at his wedding and the birth of their first kid, his first grandkid, that man, who Sam knew was nothing like John Winchester – had told Dean to kill him.

'If he can't save you,' a gentle voice called from the depths of that deep, dark pit, fighting against it, though the struggle did not seem to be in its favor. Still, the voice sounded like Jess, and Sam clung to it more desperately than he was proud to admit. 'And you know he'll do everything he can to save you first.'

'What if he can't?' He whispered back, but Jess didn't have a response for him.

The quiet between them, broken only by the rustle of the wind and the soft gurgle of moving water over river rock, was heavy and stretched.

"Dad's wrong, Sammy," Dean whispered softly, his gaze directed off to the side, back towards those woods where there father's ashes still sat in a pile of smoldering wood. "Plain and simple. I don't care what he told me or when. He was wrong."

"Maybe he wasn't."

Dean's gaze snapped to Sam's, and suddenly the silence was so much more preferable. "What? What?"

The younger hunter winced at the harsh, demanding tone, but he fisted his hands by his sides and stuck his chin out stubbornly. "Dean, if killing me stops the apocalypse-"

"It doesn't. It won't."

Despite Dean's adamant tone, Sam was relentless. "You said-"

"They'll just bring you back, Sam!"

"Not if you shoot me with the Colt."

Silence fell on them once more, this time so thick that it slowed time and blocked all other sounds. No more water, no more bird song or breeze through the trees. Just Dean, staring at his little brother with incredulous, wrecked eyes.

"Jesus!" Dean swore, turning away. The move was immediately aborted for, instead, spinning back around to jab a finger in the taller man's direction. "Is this what you call picking battles? Funny, it sounds a lot like quitting."

"It's not quitting, Dean, it's tactical."

"Well guess what, Sam; we don't have the Colt. There goes your tactic!" And why hadn't that been something he'd remembered before he'd decided to go comatose in a hospital bed, useless to every damn person on the planet. Not that that had any fucking ground on what had just come out of his brother's mouth. He gritted his teeth and steered the conversation back on god-damn-point. "Even if we did have it, I'm not killing you!"

"We'll get it back." Sam's jaw was just as tight as his brother, hands just as shaky, heart just as heavy and pounding. "We'll get it back from Azazel, and I'll do it myself."

Dean threw his arms up in the air and turned away; it was about all he could do not to punch the stubborn, stupid, selfish kid standing in front of him. That wasn't entirely fair and he knew it, but he also didn't care just then. His brother had just asked him to kill him or, at a minimum, hand over the gun to do it. They weren't a hundred yards or an hour away from where they'd just buried there father. There wasn't much more Dean could care about other than those four fucking words.

Sam, smart enough to know when he was on the verge of his brother's limits, didn't speak. Dean bet he wanted to. He probably had sixteen thousand reasons and no less than four exhibit A, B, C, and Ds to demonstrate his reasoning and point.

It just made him all the more pissed.

They were such fucking martyrs, the both of them. Self-sacrificing sons of bitches. Over and over and over again, they could always save each other, always pull one another out of that kind of talk, but never gave a damn about themselves. Could never see the friggin' light of hope when it was their turn to hold the smoking gun to their head. Well, Dean was sick of it. Color the universe surprised that, of the two of them, he was the one to finally call quits on that line of thinking, but that's just what he was going to do.

He spun around, finger out and jabbing into his brother's chest. "You listen to me, Sammy, because I'm only saying this once. I did not come ten years into the past to relieve all of this shit-" he threw his arm out wildly to the side, encompassing not just the world as a whole, but their father's final resting spot as well- "just to watch you blow your brains out!"

Sam stumbled back a half step, before he righted himself and seemed to remember his earlier resolve. Dean still didn't care.

"So you-" this time he gave his brother a good shove in the shoulder with the flat of his palm, hard enough that Sam bumped into the fence and it leaned dangerous beneath his large size- "are going to suck it up and put a little faith in me. If you can stand there and tell me to pick and choose my battles and not lose friggin' hope that we can change all this, than you can listen to your own damn words for once. And maybe, just maybe, we'll make it out of this with no one else dying!"

Sam held that gaze for as long as he could, but he wasn't a match for the fierceness – the anger and the sadness and the downright pain – before he lowered his head against his brother's onslaught. His own anger and stubbornness was far from fading, but it had always been hard to see his rock of an older brother – and despite the macho front and emotional constipation, he was still a rock – in pain. Pain he was causing by asking something he knew he shouldn't be asking.

It still didn't change his mind, however.

"Dean-"

"Sammy."

"I can feel it in me." The quiet admission finally shut his brother up long enough to listen. Sam lifted suspiciously glistening eyes, but if Dean noticed, he didn't react other than to snap his jaw shut. "I know you want to save me, stop the end of the world, but…"

He unclenched and clenched his fingers. That vibration was still there, just beneath the skin. It was faint, and its weakness left an empty feeling flowing through his veins that begged to be filled, to be renewed. And he knew what renewed it, knew what that hollow feeling throughout his body wanted. It terrified him beyond anything he'd ever faced before.

"This…This thing doesn't feel like something you can save me from."

He'd held the Colt to his head twice now and, while each time terrified him, it had terrified him more how ready he had been to do it. How simple the solution seemed. He knew it wasn't sane thought guiding him now, but nothing in the last two weeks of their lives had been sane. And not much on the horizon looked to be either.

Dean was quiet for several moments, staring off away from the river and the world and his brother. "Then we'll find the Colt."

Sam raised his brow at his brother. Caving had been about the last thing he expected, at least not with so little pushing. The younger Winchester fiercely ignored the odd coil of disappointment that filled him at his brother giving up on him so easily. He'd wanted this; he had no place to be annoyed at Dean for agreeing.

But the man from the future wasn't done. He looked at the younger hunter with the same coldness that had first clued Sam into the change in his time-traveling brother. "You said there are two bullets left. You can put one in my head before you deal with yourself."

His body may as well have been the Sahara for how quickly the moisture left Sam's mouth, throat, everything. He might have shriveled away in that second, turned to dust and blown away on the wind for all he knew. Hazel eyes looked away, then back, then couldn't leave. He shifted, tense bravado and anger gone the way of all the saliva in his mouth. He started to shake his head his head, denial on the tip of his suddenly fat tongue, but Dean didn't let him get far.

"You're as bad as Dad if you think I'm not eating one as soon as you're gone." The man from the future turned away, towards Dad's old truck that they had driven here for the funeral. Sam watched him go, watched him climb into the cab and sit behind the wheel, staring at nothing and waiting for his brother to eventually join him.

He knew it was a harsh thing – a cruel thing – to ask of his dangerously codependent, family-loving brother who'd come back from the future to save him. He hadn't yet thought beyond the first step of eliminating himself as a potential cause to the apocalypse. Hadn't thought past the great, infallible John Winchester, knowing it might come to this, and the world riding on his ability to make the right choices this time around. Hadn't thought what Dean would do once he was gone. But even knowing now, even with the painful, deep weight settled in his chest at the thought of it, Sam's opinion on the matter didn't change.

Was it really even debatable? His life for the planet? The math seemed easy to him, even if the steps it took to get there were ugly.

Eventually, he did join his brother in the car, parting with a final goodbye towards the woods and the man there who had both raised him and failed him, in so many ways. Dean tore away from the river with far more aggression than was probably healthy, and they left behind an idyllic view and the burned ashes of a hunter's grave.

-o-o-o-

Dean was done. He had been done at 10:42 am three days ago. Now he was fucking done. Nothing had changed – not enough had changed – and he was at the end of his rope of tolerance, patience, and god damn sanity.

In total, he was done. Done listening to an angel that might be nothing but a memory in his messed up head. Done working his ass off for no reason, with no result. Done being Time's bitch. Just. Fucking. Done.

The car pulled smoothly off the road at the first populated parking lot they came across on their way into and through town. Originally, the plan had been to drive Dad's truck back to Bobby's. The older hunter had already left with the Impala, shortly before the two boys went off to give their father a proper funeral. He'd made himself available for damn near anything either of them could have needed over the past day and a half, but he also knew when he wasn't much needed.

Now, however, Dean was done and that meant Plan F (which he was conveniently calling Plan Fuck It).

Sam furled his brow as they pulled into a mostly empty lot with a spattering of old cars parked here and there in a semi-vacant strip mall. Dean parked a couple spots over from an old Ford Pinto that had seen better days, put the truck in park and pulled the keys from the ignition before tossing them to Sam and pushing open the old, creaky door. Sam, still confused, scrambled out of the car as well, expecting to switch places with Dean.

Only his older brother wasn't headed around the car. He was headed for the Pinto.

"Dean?"

"There's someone I gotta see."

Sam's brow went from furled to brushing his hairline in half a second flat, and the dark pit in his stomach – now mixed in with a dose of guilt – flared to life with a new hefty dash of worry thrown in the mix.

"What? Who?"

Dean just shook his head, rounding the pinto and trying the door. The old thing was actually locked, not that Dean looked surprised.

"Dude, what the hell?" Sam asked, following him to the car. "You're just going to take off? Dad's dead, we just buried him, and you're gonna leave?"

"Told you," his brother gruffed as he glanced around the parking lot before ramming his elbow into the window and shattering it inward. Glass tinkered to the ground and across the seat before Dean finally met his brother's eyes over the roof of the now-stolen car. "There's someone I need to have a chat with. Just head to Bobby's, I'll meet you there in a couple days."

Sam tilted his head dangerously, chin jutting up: a warning move that usually came before he punched whoever he was looking at in the face. Luckily, Dean was spared by the barrier that was his new wheels. "Dean, we need to stick together."

"I'm not leaving, Sam," the older man countered, though he shook his head in annoyance at his own statement and corrected, "Not permanently. I'll be back in three days."

"Then I'll go with you." His voice booked no room for argument, but he knew that would hardly matter where his older brother was concerned.

"No. You won't." Dean reached through the broken window, grabbed the old silver pin of the door lock and popped it up, opening the door. They probably shouldn't just stand around the car they were breaking into, waiting for the owner to return, even if it did look like no one had touched the poor vehicle in weeks. "You can't come on this one, Sam."

Sam clenched his jaw, hand fisted by his side. "If this is about what I said back at Dad's-"

"It's not," Dean interrupted swiftly, voice as hard as his brother had ever heard it. Sam didn't believe him for a second.

"Don't do this." His voice was low and foreboding, and Dean knew what he was saying. Don't cut me out. Don't be dad.

"I'm not. But I don't want you anywhere near the guy I'm going to see."

Sam had a feeling who it was, but didn't bother asking. That wasn't the point here. "If he's that dangerous, you're not going alone."

The man from the future made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, cursing his apparent inability to ever explain anything to his brother without somehow making the kid feel like he was being left behind due to lack of skill. "He's not dangerous. I mean, yeah, okay, he is – he can be – but not to me. Probably."

Yeah, he was really explaining this one real well.

Dean blew out a breath. "Look, I need you to trust me on this."

"Why?" His brother's abrupt, harsh response drew the hunter up short just as he'd been about to climb into the stolen vehicle. Sam was staring at him fiercely across the hood. "You keep asking me to trust you Dean – and I do – but you never trust me back."

The older man frowned, pulling his head back as he righted himself once more. "This isn't about not trusting you, Sam."

"Yes, it is. It always is with you!"

Dean rolled his eyes, irritation at the reoccurring argument that wasn't even relevant flaring up among all the other anger. He went to climb back into the car, not even bothering to answer.

"He was my dad too, Dean."

The man from the future froze, blood turning to ice. That…that wasn't below the belt, not really, not considering they'd just lost their dad and here he was, taking off as well. But it still hurt. Dean swallowed, not quite able to look at his kid brother but also entirely unable to look away.

The world was empty between the two of them, silent and heavy and hollow.

Finally, Dean closed his eyes briefly. "Last time."

Sam's eyebrow climbed slowly, challenging.

"I swear."

"You sure you want to cash in that chip?" his brother asked coldly, and Dean winced. Yeah, Sam wasn't going to let him get away with this again.

He swallowed but nodded. "Last time. I'll be back in three days."

Sam knew a lost cause when he saw it, or maybe he was just deciding which battle to pick after all, because he eventually bit out, angrily, "Two. And you'd better be there."

Dean let the demand hang heavy in the air for a moment before he cleared his throat and nodded, throwing on a smile that almost didn't look as fake as it felt. "And what, leave fixing my Baby to you? Not in this timeline, or any other, bitch."

The pause before his brother's reply was duly noted and spoke volumes, but, then again, so did his eventual response. "Jerk."

Dean made to climb into the Pinto but stopped once more. He straightened back up, meeting Sammy's gaze across the car.

"You'll help me fix her up, this time. We'll do it together." It took Dean a lot more than he was willing to admit to keep his brother's gaze. "And while we do… I'll tell you everything."

The younger Winchester's jaw was clenched tight and was all but stone. "All of it?"

The man from the future hesitated for only a moment. Procrastination was Dean Winchester's go-to, but he knew this time his dues would come and he'd actually have to pay them. He wasn't even sure if he would be able to. But it didn't matter, not really. They'd reached the end of this road, and he had no doubt that Sam would leave – for good this time – if Dean didn't figure out how to start telling his brother the truth.

"All of it."

-o-o-o-

He was on his second drink of the morning, and it wasn't even ten o'clock yet. But the screen in front of him was disturbingly blank, his head disturbingly clear despite both the alcohol and the penchant for migraines that seemed to strike him on a weekly basis now, and his cell was blinking that little green light that meant he had voicemails from his publisher because no one else ever called him.

Chuck Shurley set down his glass of amber liquid, ice cubes clinking along the sides, and stared at the computer screen. He was… stuck wasn't the right word for it. He couldn't be stuck, he had deadlines. Not to mention, he'd never been stuck before. Sure, the story didn't ever seem to go where he thought it would – wanted it to, really – but anytime he hit that patch of writer's block, bam! On came a new idea and a fresh headache.

Only, no ideas, no headache.

The writer sat, blinking, in front of his blank laptop, at an absolute loss for what to do next. Were there other ways to cure writer's block than alcohol, insomnia, and quite possibly the slow but imminent liquefaction of his brain under immense pressure, pain, and light sensitivity?

Probably. Maybe he should google.

A heavy-handed knock on his front door interrupted him before he could, not that he was really all that likely too, not before drink number four if he was being real honest with himself, which he was frighteningly good at. The only thing he might actually be good at, he muttered as he climbed off the small desk chair and gave himself a cursory look-over.

He considered changing out of the striped bathrobe and boxers, but ultimately decided, whatever. His visitors totaled about as much as his callers. It was either his neighbor Phil – a practical joker who had an awful sense of humor – or his mean mail-lady who he had a bit of an ongoing feud with currently.

Either or, they'd both seen him in worse.

What Chuck Shurley was not expecting when he pulled open his front door that morning, was a young, good-looking guy wearing an angry expression and holding a glowing ball of light dangling from a black chord.

"Hey, Chuck."

Dean Winchester did not look happy, standing there lit by the blinding amulet, a sightless head adorned with cow horns currently glowing like a supernova, which his brother had given him fourteen years ago. Chuck remembered writing that scene.

"We need to talk."