-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
-Quality Warning: I wrote this chapter four weeks ago and two friggin' days ago I found a crap ton of notes for it. And I just haaaaad to go back and work it all in because darn it, it was decent stuff. Which just kept making it *longer* Gaaaaaaaaah. So, uh, anyway, the editing on this is kinda shoddy, little hobbled together, and entirely last minute.
-Chapter Warnings: No actual chapter warnings (whoo-hoo, break from the total angst fest!)
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 8
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Jim Murphy had not only known where they could find some holy oil, he happened to have a supply of his own, as it turned out. Not his, per say. It belonged to the church, but he was sure they would not miss it, given he believed whatever task the boys needed it for would be for the betterment of the world.
Sort of, Dean supposed. It would be if Plan C went according to, well, plan.
They spent the first day after Dean returned by climbing into Bobby's old junker truck and driving to Blue Earth, Minnesota. At first, Dean had insisted on fixing up the Impala for the drive. Sam balked – there was no reason not to take the Pinto or delay their tip to the good father by days. Only after hour two of Dean's grumbling and bitching about the miserable excuse of a stolen car, not to mention the fact they'd have to hotwire it every time they got it started ('that'll be real subtle, Sammy. Won't scream 'I stole this!' at all.'), did Sam cave and send pleading puppy-dog eyes Bobby's way. The gruff hunter tossed the kid his keys and told them, in no uncertain terms, to get out and best be gone for at least eight hours. He was too old for this crap.
Jim's church was only a couple hours away from the salvage yard, so the boys spent most of the day catching up with the older pastor, who had been a friend and mentor of theirs since Sammy was still in diapers. Dean just kept letting that niggling warmth in his chest glow all happy behind his sternum, ignoring the oddity of it and, what he suspected, was some serious brainwashing on God's behalf.
He'd be so mad about that if it wasn't so damn good to feel hopeful. And if he could, you know, focus on the problem for more than the three seconds it took his brainwashed-mind to jump ship. He was worse than a dog with a squirrel. He was a friggin' goldfish.
Bobby happily stayed back at the house for their little errand. Not only did he not want to be the third body crammed in the truck's relatively small cab, but he needed a break from his boys. Parenting sucked some days. Not that he didn't secretly love it.
Originally he'd offered to go out in search of this 'safer location' Dean was insisting on. But the older Winchester shot him down, adamantly insisting he needed to be there for the search. A search which, according to him, wouldn't be right without the Impala. Figuring it was just another one of those weird, I'm-From-The-Future quirks, Bobby backed off and agreed to dig around for a summoning spell that would fit both the deed. The time traveler didn't argue, despite knowing the spell by heart already.
After most of a day spent catching up with the pastor, the boys turned the old junker back towards Sioux Falls. The ride back to Bobby's was amiable, both men's spirits lifted by their friend and old babysitter. Sam had a feeling from the way Dean greeted the pastor that maybe things hadn't gone so well for him the first time around. He'd nudged his brother for more information as soon as Jim left the nave to fetch a container of holy oil he'd left in his office, but Dean just shut down and muttered, darkly, a single word: Meg.
Sam hadn't asked any further. He could picture how that worked out for Jim, and it wasn't a picture he liked. If he hugged the pastor a little harder on their departure, neither his brother nor Jim said a thing. Now back in their borrowed vehicle, the mood optimistic in a way only the good father could ever foster, Sam asked the question that had bothering him since the previous night.
"Why are you stalling on summoning Cas?"
Dean usually charged head first into things, especially things that were hasty and dangerous. The fact he was hesitating, that he wanted time to think it through, was disconcerting to the younger Winchester. Sam wasn't sure whether to be concerned or amused. Certainly confused.
His brother's answer of "I'm not" were followed so quickly by a cleared throat and the confession of "Okay, I am," that it might as well have all been one word. Sam raised his eyebrows and waited for his fidgeting brother to continue.
"We just lost dad, alright?" Dean bit out, and while Sam winced, he forced aside any other reaction. He'd been expecting this, actually. Angry, bitter, blaming Dean was familiar. Truthful Dean was someone he actually trusted less. He was harder to read, ironically. "Can't we have a week to recover from the latest shit show that is our lives, before jumping head first into the next thing?"
Sam chewed on his lip to keep from speaking too soon, rising to the bait like his brother wanted him to. He did his best to keep the pitying look off his face, knowing Dean would only grow more furious if he saw it, especially when he realized he wasn't pulling any wool over Sammy's eyes, not this time. Instead, the younger man counted to ten several times over – a trick he'd been trying to get Dean to pick up with little success before taking off for Stanford – then countered softly, "Of course we can. I think it's a great idea. But that's not what this is about, is it?"
Silence reigned, and Sam let it. He knew his brother. Silence would ultimately be his undoing.
Sure enough, Dean cleared his throat again less than a minute later. "Look…Cas is kind of a big deal, alright? We can't do this without him, so we can't fuck it up. Right now, we're off our footing. I'm off my footing."
While Sam was suspicious about his brother's promise to come clean – alright, perhaps not suspicious. Apprehensive? – he was also fairly certain this was exactly that. Dean actually coming clean, in the most Dean way possible.
"Are you…." Sam blinked at his brother, then shifted in his seat to stare more head on at his brother, who refused to take his eyes off the road. "Are you nervous?"
"Yes, I am!" His older brother's quick exclamation actually startled the young Winchester, who had fully expected the version of Dean who was full of bluster and puffed his chest out in the face of fear. "You should be too! No- wait, damn it, don't be nervous."
Dean gave an aggravated noise deep in the back of his throat and hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. The man from the future was trying to give himself a seizure between the glances towards his brother, than the road, than his brother, then shaking his head and finally looking like he wanted to facepalm into a friggin' wall.
Sam stared at him for a moment, something between worry and deep, loving endearment filling his gut and chest. This wasn't the type of nervous born of fear. He knew what that looked like, rare as it was in his brother. There might be a little of that in his brother right now, but it wasn't what had Dean so damn out of sorts. This was more like the jitters - like asking a girl out. Only, well, no, not Dean asking a girl out. There wasn't anything Dean was more confident about, other than hunting of course. More like his brother preparing to meet an idol. Steven Tyler or Brian Johnson, maybe. His brother would be this freaked out right before meeting one of those guys.
Except for that flicker of uncertainly that kept flashing across his face before he clamped down on it hard. Like he'd clamped down on his future-self back in dreamland. Sam could almost see the mask slamming down in place.
"Dean, what's going on?"
His brother closed troubled green eyes for a moment – only a moment, he was driving after all – before he forcibly swallowed whatever had him so tongue-tied. His fingers wrung the length of the steering wheel, missing Baby's smooth leather and comforting grip. Finally, he licked his lips and opened his mouth, "Cas didn't start out on our side, okay? It took a lot of convincing and some damn bad stuff happening in between for him to realize we were the right side."
"And…without all that happening?" Sam asked cautiously because that was exactly what they were about to do.
"I don't know," Dean breathed out. He was rubbing at his chest distractedly. Sam didn't think he was aware of it. "I think I can talk him into it."
The younger hunter didn't want to point out that this didn't really seem like a good situation to only think and not know. "If you can't, what happens?"
His brother winced, rapping his knuckles against the steering wheel in a nervous gesture. "Best case? He sends me back to my time."
"That's- Best-" Sam practically choked, but he swallowed back the immediate fear and looked away. He wasn't going to confess how much that possibility scared him. How much that had been scaring him since he realized the implications of his brother going off to scream at God. It hadn't taken much for his never-silent brain to supply that little tidbit, and Sam was ashamed of the all-gripping panic that had encased him at the thought of doing this alone.
Sam's throat closed up on him again and he cleared it harshly, refusing to let that terror show. Dean wouldn't let it show.
Without his brother though…. He couldn't do this. Bobby knew the truth and what was coming, so he wouldn't entirely be alone. But he knew they didn't stand a chance without Dean. Neither of them knew enough, and despite growing attempts, Dean had not prepared either of them to face the full extent of what was coming without him.
Turned out, Dean wasn't the only co-dependent Winchester brother in this story.
"Uh…wh-what exactly is the worst case here?"
His brother was silent for long enough that Sam was now officially on Team-Stall-Summoning-Cas. He was, in fact, thinking maybe they should rethink this entire plan, after all.
"He reports it to Heaven," Dean finally supplied, "and we're all screwed. They'll break the timeline, we'll lose our one advantage in this, and most likely? Zachariah will hand deliver you to Azazel and probably keep me under house arrest until it's time for the big showdown."
And without Cas on their side, they wouldn't stand a chance against any of that.
Sam breathed out…something. He wasn't even sure what it was – it certainly wasn't something nice – but his brother nodded along with it in agreeance.
"Yeah, so, you know," Dean swallowed a little thickly, eyes still on the road and Sam could hear the avoidance in his voice. It was ridiculous that this was somehow more dangerous than hunting God down for a personal scream fest. "Maybe don't give me crap for thinking this through a bit more than usual."
"No, yeah, uh…" Sam stuttered out, nodding his head way too damn much, way too damn fast. He was still processing – shell shocked – and incapable of much more as he sat, numb, and watched the world pass them by. "Take your time."
Silence filled the car for several miles as Sam worked through the last thing he'd been expecting. What had he expected? Sam's thoughts flashed back to Missouri Moseley, her deep voice and soothing words trying to hush down his brother's fear of a man with black hair and blue eyes. That day back in Kansas, Sam assumed the man was Cas and his brother's fear came from the demonic presence holding something dangerous and costly over his brother's head. Later, he assumed it was the price Dean paid for the Colt.
Then came Dean's confession that Castiel was an angel, and Sam thought, maybe he wasn't the man with blue eyes. He'd all but written the idea off once Dean confirmed Cas as their best friend and ally. He couldn't have been the blue eyed man, then. Dean wouldn't be afraid of his best friend. Even with Sam's doubts that Castiel was some magic guardian angel conveniently arrived on his brother's behalf, he still trusted Dean enough to know when to be suspicious and when not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Now? Sam found himself rethinking everything, with little conclusion or comfort in any of those thoughts. Was Dean afraid of the angel? He'd stressed, heavily, just how dickish the species could be ('no better than demons,' had been his words, 'cept for Cas, of course.') If this angel hadn't started out on their side…
Honestly, Sam was struggling with the concept of Dean befriending something so wholly inhuman. He understood the brother that sat beside him was not the same that he'd known his whole life. Things changed – would change. Still, it was difficult to accept the augmented reality without proof. Now? Dean was telling him they were best friends with an angel that had started out as an enemy, and one worth being afraid of?
Sam didn't know what to think.
"Dean, what does Cas look like?"
His brother shot him a questioning look, eyebrows raised. It was clearly not the question or response he had been expecting. "A wave of celestial intent the size of the Chrysler building?"
Sam choked again, eyes the size of saucers. He had no clue if Dean was joking.
"Don't ask me, I never saw it," he supplied with a shrug. "Here on Earth he looks like an IRS agent. Tan trench coat, suit, tie: the whole deal."
Sam waited for more, but Dean didn't seem to be catching on to what he really wanted. "Hair color, eye color?"
His brother shot him another weird look. "Black. Blue. He's a little shorter than me. Maybe six foot. You want his weight and zodiac sign next, Sam?"
Sam didn't bother returning the snark. That was exactly what Missouri had described, but it didn't make any sense. Why, why would Dean be afraid of the person he claimed was their best friend? The one he hadn't planned on summoning way back then, so he had no reason to fear his interference…right?
The younger Winchester bit back the thought that saying something might be a bad idea, and instead asked Dean straight up, explaining what Missouri Mosely had seen and said. Dean's grip on the steering wheel tightened again, wringing at the leather, but he didn't shut down like Sam expected him to.
"I figured," he muttered, recalling how Bobby had mysteriously known Cas's features. "Damn meddling psychics."
"Why were you afraid of him?" Sam asked again, desperately needing the last piece of this puzzle, but also weary of the answer. They could really use a win right now, that's what Dean would say, and Sam couldn't deny it. His brother had started out so excited to summon Castiel, and now Sam was starting to wonder just where that excitement was coming from, since everything about this venture sounded dangerous and borderline suicidal.
"At the end-" Dean cut himself off sharply, emotion thick in his throat even as he cleared it. "Before he sent me back, Cas wasn't himself. Not fully."
Sam's brow cinched together. "What do you mean?"
"He was possessed," Dean replied, and Sam could only blink, a thousand questions springing to mind but his mouth unable to form any of them fast enough. How could an angel get possessed? "The details don't matter. That's what Missouri must have picked up on."
The man from the future shut his eyes against that wicked smile spread across his friend's face as Cas turned on Dean, head dipping, blue eyes staring up at the hunter from beneath long eyelashes. Dean knew in that moment that his best friend was about to kill him, with his bare hands, slowly. The look had been demented; the whole thing terrified Dean in a way very few things ever had. It was a moment his brain refused to forget, despite his best attempts.
So, yeah, little surprise Missouri picked up on that. Seeing his mom's ghost burn up on the ceiling the same day probably hadn't helped that whole mental control thing, either.
"We got nothing to fear from Cas," Dean supplied, clearing his throat again and shoving away those memories, old and new. "Unless he decides not to listen to us."
He shot his brother a sheepish smile that went absolutely nowhere in comforting Sam.
"Are you sure we should summon him?" Despite his own growing concerns, Sam tried not to sound as worried as he was, aiming to be a support pillar and not a sledge hammer taking down whatever flimsy structure was still standing in his brother's head after almost seven months of time travel. "Maybe we should wait."
"No, we're gonna need him," Dean answered evenly enough that Sam could tell he'd already this argument several times with himself. He started rubbing at his chest again. "And I need answers. We've barely got a clue what we're doing, Sammy. We need someone who knows more."
The younger Winchester was quiet, back to staring at the passing scenery before he answered, softly, "…Okay."
-o-o-o-
"This is it?"
Sam winced at his brother's exclamation. The two stood in front of the wreck that was the Impala, or at least what was left of her. The entire side and rear of the car was totaled, crunched in like a candy wrapper. The right passenger door and trunk had taken the brunt of it. Honestly, Sam was kind of impressed Dean had survived, unbuckled and injured in the backseat as he was.
Thank God they'd put him in with his head on the other side of the car.
"Man, you had me worried," Dean continued, voice sounding way more optimistic than it had any right to be when staring down the annihilation of literally his favorite object on the planet. Sam stared at him with disbelieving eyes. "This isn't so bad. Way better than last time."
"Wait, really?" The younger of the two scrunched up his face, glancing back and forth between his recently demonically-healed brother and the car that had put him in a coma. How could the damage have been worse?
"Oh yeah," the man from the future nodded, eyes alight with some twisted sense of excitement. "This'll take way less time. Look, the truck hit the back passenger side." He pointed to the damage like Sam was supposed to see something specific, and not an almost entirely wrecked car overall (which is exactly what he saw because, overall, the poor thing was wrecked.) "Last time it T-boned the front seat dead on, completely totaled the engine. Had to build her from scratch. But look at her!"
Dean threw his arms wide, an enormous grin stretched across his face.
"The frames busted, yeah, but I bet her engine's just fine." He let his arms fall back to his hips, expression sobering ever so slightly. "We'll disassemble it, of course; check each piece. A blow like that probably rattled her. Besides, it'll be good practice for you; learn how she runs. Then maybe you'll finally pick up chicks like your awesome big brother."
Sam choked on the laugh that came, unbidden. He'd expected Dean to be pissed. At best, morose for his poor baby. But apparently, this was an improvement over the previous time. Not that Sam could see anything particularly optimistic in the twisted metal, other than the fact that they'd walked away.
Well. Most of them.
Despite the sobering thought, he couldn't help the scoff that tugged at the back of his throat and he rolled his eyes just because he could. Leave it Dean to be the man from the future he barely recognized one minute, only to jump back to being seventeen years old again. That Dean Sam knew only too well.
He held his hand out for the crowbar. "Whatever. Just tell me what you want me to do, jerk."
Dean grinned, slapping the tool into his brother's outstretched palm with a satisfying weight, over-enunciating the first letter as he replied with, "Bitch."
-o-o-o-
Sam was on bolts duty while Dean properly assessed where his Baby stood: what was salvageable and what was fodder for the scrapyard. They were only an hour or two in before Sam started flagging. The sun wasn't high in the sky yet, given the mid-morning hour, but the temperature was rising, particularly in the yard, where there was no shade and nothing but reflective, heating metal and bright dirt to shine the sun back on them from every angle. It took a while for Dean to notice, no doubt because Sam hid it as long as he could. Soon enough, though, the sweat dripping down his face, skin a couple shades too white, and the tremble in his limbs were no longer concealable.
"Let's take a break," Dean announced after a moment of watching his brother struggle with his relatively easy task of loosening anything he could get a tool around: nuts, bolts, screws, the like.
Sam huffed in response, clearly annoyed with his body not being able to handle even the simplest of physical labor, and even more so with Dean for bringing it up. "I'm fine. We have work to do."
Dean took a couple steps back from the car. He hadn't really dug into his poor, sweet baby yet, though he'd just about been ready to start doling out the more complicated tasks that came with deconstructing a totaled vehicle. Still, this wasn't just about fixing up the Impala, so he made his way over to the cooler, popping the lid and digging inside the ice. He tossed a water bottle to his brother, who nearly fumbled the catch and frowned at his shaking hand.
"Car's not going anywhere," the older of the two joked, uncapping his own bottle and taking a long swig. "There's no rush, either. We got plenty to do, but plenty of time to do it."
Sam glared down at the water, but his throat was aching with thirst and the sickness he was still shaking off. So he cracked the lid and took a seat on the cooler. After he'd drank no less than two thirds of the bottle, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, closed his eyes against the bright, warming sunshine, and had to admit that sitting down felt immensely better on his still aching joints and muscles.
When he opened his eyes several peaceful minutes later, Dean was staring at him with so much guilt that Sam found himself grunting, "I'm fine, Dean."
"I know you are," came the immediate response. The words were steady and serious, and Sam squinted over at him, wondering immediately what conversation they were about to launch themselves into. Then he wondered how he could put it off for another several hundred years. Sam would accept the title of hypocrite, he really would. "I should have been here."
The younger Winchester closed his eyes, taking a deep breath of warm, dusty air in through his nose and letting it out through his mouth. Jess had dragged him to yoga once, and it was just about the only thing he'd taken away from that class, other than the knowledge that he had way worse balance than he'd ever thought.
"Yeah, you should have," he answered calmly and matter-of-factly. Dean winced at the response, but it was nothing more or less than he deserved, in his opinion. Besides, Sam had said it without heat or accusation: just stating fact. "But you won't always be. You can't always be. And I handled it."
His voice sure sounded more confident than he felt, but Sam reminded himself that he had beat it. Was he sure he could do it again? Not at all, but that didn't negate that he'd won this first battle, and he'd done it on his own.
"It's not fair," Dean growled out from his side, glaring off past his wrecked Baby, hands on his hips and expression dangerous. "You shouldn't have to go through this. You didn't choose it, Sammy; he practically shoved it down your throat."
Sam clenched his eyes shut against the memories, the illusionary ones and the real, of blood creeping towards him in an ever growing puddle. His stomach clenched. He no longer wanted it, no longer thirsted for it so much that it hurt, but the memory of that need was fresh enough to hurt all on its own.
"Dean."
"I won't let him do it again," his brother bit out, despite the warning. Sam opened his eyes once more to find Dean staring down at him, fiercely protective. It was oddly comforting, despite still not wanting to discuss this.
"I won't. This-" he gestured to Sam's still trembling frame and the sweat pouring off him, despite the break- "this won't happen again."
The younger of the two was far less sure, but he nodded anyway, taking another sip of the icy water that curbed his thirst. A thirst still left over from two damn days of hell.
Silence passed between the brothers once more as Sam nursed his water and Dean brooded in silence against the Impala, arms crossed over his chest.
"Look, I gotta say it, and you're not gonna like it," Dean started up after another minute. He pointed his bottle in Sam's direction. "I think you should hang back when we summon Cas."
Sam opened his mouth to argue immediately, pissed, but Dean talked over him.
"It may not play out the same way this time, but Cas was a dick to you at first." Sam closed his jaw, slowly, still staring with an angry expression, though it held traces of confusion and curiosity there as well. "It wasn't all his fault. Heaven dragged your name through the mud, man. The 'boy with the demon blood.'"
Whatever relief from the dust and sun the water had provided was gone now, dried up in an instant, leaving Sam struggling to find a place in his mouth for his tongue. He couldn't stop himself from wincing, or push down the flare of pain and shame that ignited in his chest.
"That's not you, Sam," Dean bit out fiercely, either in reaction to the pain on his baby brother's face or in a rage all his own. Sam forced the shame aside and met that angry, protective gaze. "It wasn't you then, either. It was bullshit, is what it was – is."
"But Castiel may not know any better," Sam picked up, easily seeing where this was going. "Not now. Especially when I'm like…this."
Recovering from addiction and withdrawal from a substance that, yeah, Heaven would absolutely find appalling. Abomination. He didn't know where the thought came from, but his heart squeezed at it, and he fought away the disparaging voice clawing at his heart like acid.
"Cas becomes your best friend, too, Sammy. Like a brother to you, I swear. It just…" Dean shook his head, obviously recalling a memory and dismissing it. "You got every right to be there this time, to make it different. But…maybe it's not a great idea."
Sam didn't answer at first, thinking over the newest bombshell in what was sure to be several days of pure firestorm. Finally, he stood back up, setting his water on one of the tool tables they'd scrounged up for the job. "I appreciate the choice, Dean, I really do. But I'm going."
It was testament to how seriously his brother was taking their previous conversation, that Dean only nodded in acceptance and didn't argue. Sam moved to get back to work, only to be all but shoved back onto the cooler with a single, motherly look that would have put actual mothers to shame across the globe. He opened his mouth to protest again, but Dean cut him off.
"Sit down before you fall down," he growled out, grabbing the crowbar from the table. "You're shaking like a leaf, Sammy. Just watch and learn."
Sam let out an annoyed sound at his brother's purposeful bluster, but he relaxed back on the cooler with a light glare instead. "Addicts are supposed to keep busy, Dean."
His older brother fumbled with the first placement of the crowbar against ruined metal, and coughed awkwardly to cover up how blatantly uncomfortable he suddenly was. The man from the future stared down at the iron in his hands, knuckles growing white around it before he forced his grip to relax. "You're not an addict."
Sam hadn't meant to bring the conversation back around. Or maybe he had.
He'd been reading up on those books Bobby had gotten, both from his own collection and several he'd picked up in town since Sam had shown up on his doorstep and given him the scare of his life for the following forty-eight hours. One of them, on recovering from addiction, just happened to show up on the kitchen table shortly after he'd come downstairs that first time, and Sam didn't bother wondering if Bobby had left it out on accident or purpose. He'd fought to keep the shame off his face, embraced the truth of exactly what he was now, by choice or not, and picked it up. That afternoon, he tucked into Bobby's comfortable, worn couch and buried himself in one of the strengths he still very much had.
"Maybe not by choice," he said, because he could hear what his brother wasn't saying. 'This time.' Which might as well have been a 'yet' as far as Sam was concerned. "Will and intention have nothing to do with addiction."
"The truth is that I wanted it." Sam had to force the words out, and put every inch of the strength he had left into keeping his voice even. It may have only been a couple of days, but Sam was never one to waste time when it came to employing his new understanding of something, particularly if that something affected himself or the ones he loved. And all his reading so far had led him to believe if he could own his shame, then he could own his recovery too. "I wanted it since the cabin. It may have happened different here, this time. I may not have chosen it, but I have to acknowledge it either way if I'm going to fight it."
Dean remained uncomfortable, his rigid posture showing every failed effort to relax, but he nodded all the same. This didn't feel like the last time, but Sam had a point. They'd be stupid to ignore it just because it happened differently. The man from the future had to concede that if the addiction part was going to stay the same, this version of events was infinitely better. No, it wasn't fair that Sam had this forced on him, but Dean wasn't going to lose his brother to it this time. Not by choice, and that made a hell of a difference in his book.
And if what Sam needed to keep that up was Dean's acknowledgement and support, however hard, than he'd fucking support him till he was blue in the face. Coming home to find his baby brother had gone through withdrawal, while he was fuck-all elsewhere, off on a trip purely about anger and revenge and not anything useful or even important, had been a very hard pill for Dean to swallow. One that was washed down with an unhealthy gulp of 'do better.'
So that's what he was going to do. That's what they were both going to do.
"Okay," he said, though he knew it was probably a lot less resounding than either of them needed. He'd work on that. "We're going to kill him, Sam. Yellow Eyes is next on the list."
Sam ducked his head with a huff of air, staring at his hands. "There's a list?"
Despite not being able to see it, Dean could hear the curiosity in his brother's voice, which was as good as a smile some days. "Hell yeah, there's a list. And soon as we cross off Azazel, Ruby's next. Then you'll be right as rain."
His grip on the crowbar slipped and he stumbled painfully into the car when his brother asked, "Who's Ruby?"
-o-o-o-
By the time Dean finished answering all of Sam's questions about the manipulative demonic skank that would trick him into the real deep, dark, no-going-back blood addiction and, oh yeah, set Lucifer free by killing Lilith, it was well past lunchtime and both boys were ready for a break. Sam was looking pretty pale and shaky, though whether that was the tail end of withdrawal still working through his system or the possible future he might start in two years' time, Dean couldn't say. Probably a bit of column A, a bit of column B.
They headed back inside, where they helped Bobby with the groceries he'd just returned with, since Dean hadn't actually picked up anything but pie. The gruff man had steaks, beer, and something that looked suspiciously like salad, which Dean declared entirely for Sam. No way Bobby was a rabbit food eater. Dean's heart wouldn't be able to take it.
The old hunter had an ancient George foreman grill out back, which needed some serious cleaning and TLC, but Dean didn't mind the chore while Sam and Bobby prepped food. He was pretty sure the old man was providing a steady, mild flow of work for them entirely on purpose. A leaky sink here, a squeaky door there. They were mostly mindless, time-consuming tasks in and among fixing up the car that provided the Zen sort of stress relief both boys desperately needed, even if they refused to admit it.
Grieving 101 by Bobby Singer: work around the house and don't talk about it. Probably a healthier coping mechanism than Dean's 101, which consisted of rebuilding the Impala just so he could destroy it himself with a crowbar or, you know, find God and punch him in the face. Chores were also easier to swallow than Sam's 101: talk it out over hair braiding and pregnancy breathing exercises.
Yeah, Dean had no problem letting Bobby quietly bully them through his grief counseling course.
They grilled up the steaks and talked about what would be needed for summoning Castiel. Dean eyed the heaping helping of rabbit food Bobby gave himself, and blamed Sam entirely for ruining the last of his childhood heroes. Bobby was obviously just trying to keep the kid happy by taking some of those greens onto his plate as well. Obviously. Dean decided he would have to be the balance that maintained the world and therefore took none for himself. Should balance out that disgusting fact of Sam having more leaf on his plate than meat. The savage.
Meanwhile, Sam was keeping half an eye on his brother for entirely different reasons. The way he was ducking questions about summoning the angel, particularly the when and where detail, kept raising little curious flags along Sam's mental periphery. They weren't red flags, not yet anyway, but coupled with the talk they'd had on the way back from Pastor Jim's, Sam couldn't help but wonder what it was he was missing.
-o-o-o-
"What's he like?"
Dean paused from his spot back beneath the car, dismantling the axels and…uh…Sam assumed the other stuff that made up the underside of a car (so sue him, he wasn't a car guy). It was late afternoon now, dusk just starting to settle on the distant edges of the horizon and they'd be out of light in another hour. His brother's voice was muffled by the damaged metal between them as he asked, "Who?"
"Castiel." Sam was busy prying sheets of crunched and dented metal off the equally damaged frame of the right side of the car. Dean had finished the driver's side before lunch, but Sam had insisted he was recharged enough for the task. He'd already gotten the passenger door almost fully stripped. It had been pretty easy, suffering far less damage than the back door he was currently struggling with.
"Uh, well… He started out a total nerd angel." Dean relaxed back under the car, settling into the easy, repetitive motion of dismantling the undercarriage as he spoke. "Turns out he's a baby in a trench coat. A badass baby, granted, but a total baby." Dean chuckled, some unknown memory obviously occurring to him. "He was all serious when we first met, but he loosened up over the years. Even started trying to crack jokes there at the end."
The words flowed more easily the longer he talked about the angel that would be their best friend. He joked with Sam about the poor guy discovering Netflix and perfecting the binge to an unhealthy amount that had resulted in Dean confiscating the laptop and insisting the angel go reacquaint his body with that thing called the sun. And his inability to ever get idioms, even after some super-powered bookworm named Metatron had zapped all the references straight into his head.
Sam could tell Dean was skirting things – that some of this stuff wasn't all good or hadn't come from good – but he didn't call his brother on it. Not yet. It was clear from the way he spoke that Cas was important to him, and would be important to them. Sam still had a mountain of reservations about summoning the angel, but he was beginning to understand why Dean still wanted to.
In a way that Sam was smart enough to identify as childish, he wanted to skip the hard stuff and move right into having that best friend. Sam was introspective and honest enough to admit that he missed friends. Traveling the country with his brother was not a life he regretted, though how they'd gotten into it certainly was, but it could be difficult spending twenty-four seven with the same person, with very little other socialization.
Of course, it was also kind of weird to find yourself envisioning a friendship with a guy you'd never met and who, apparently, was just as likely to ruin any future you had together as he was to improve it. Right. Couldn't forget that little detail.
"What's he going to be like when we summon him?" Sam found himself asking suddenly, not quite interrupting his brother but not exactly being subtle about where his thoughts had gone off to.
Dean shrugged, not that Sam could see it, but he knew his brother well enough. "Stoic, man. Angels think they don't have emotions, so they like to pretend they don't. Except being arrogant dickwads. They embrace that one fully."
"Arrogance isn't an emotion, Dean," Sam chided, though there was barely enough eye rolling to count.
"Yeah, well, you haven't met Zachariah," his brother countered, the scraping sound of tools on metal stopping momentarily. "That guy redefined smug as a state of being. Cas was different, though. He wasn't smug, he was-"
Intimidating was the word Dean wanted to use. The angel had made his damn knees shake, if he was perfectly honest. Not that he would be, not about that and definitely not to his kid brother. The creature that had first walked into that barn, though, or that time in the kitchen when he'd almost casually threatened to throw Dean back in Hell like it was as easy as rip, toss, zip. That guy had terrified Dean, and he found himself suddenly struggling just to swallow. He hadn't really missed that Cas, per say, and he wasn't too sure he was looking forward to interacting with (or surviving) him again.
"-intense," is what he settled on instead, thinking about the guy Cas had grown into. "He has this creepy, intense stare. Makes you think he's looking right through you. And the guy never smiled. It took him years before he figured it out."
He laughed from beneath the car, the memory of those first few attempts at human interaction – God, the FBI interviews – almost making his eyes water. "He was terrible at it."
Sam couldn't help the answering grin to his brother's descriptions, even as they tapered off into silence, clearly thinking back on memories of the angel. He kept at the paneling, reveling in the almost jovial banter and especially the grin he could hear in Dean's voice.
"This one time," his older brother started again, the laughter just barely contained beneath his words, "I took him to a brothel."
Metal clanged as Sam slipped on the door, the crowbar hitting the dirt with a loud thud after the horrendous metallic screech it made on the way down. Dean couldn't help it, he burst into a ruckus of laughter from beneath the car.
"Yeah," he choked out in response, despite Sam not having said a word as he bent down to scoop up the dropped tool. "He called it a 'Den of Iniquity.'"
The younger of the two choked as he stood back up abruptly, crowbar in hand. Good, god, his brother was a child. Dean rolled himself out from under the car with a grin nothing short of devilish, and Sam tried not to laugh.
"The dude's eyes were this wide," he said, forcing his mouth into a thin line and opening his eyes as wide as he could. He only managed the look for half a second before he burst into a raucous of laughter once more. "He was terrified."
Sam groaned, shoving the end of the crowbar back under metal and fighting against his own grin. "Why? Why on earth would you take an angel to a brothel, Dean!"
That had to be some sort of blasphemy.
Dean just sniggered, knowing Sam was finding it just as funny underneath all that pretension. He pulled himself back under the car, the sounds of metal scraping on metal floating up once again as he got back to work. "I wanted him to experience life! You know, the stuff worth fighting for."
His words trailed off, the jovial mood still there, but dampened somehow. Sam paused in his tugging, eyeing his brother's legs at the lapse in story.
"It was the guy's last night on earth," Dean finally continued. His voice was still light – lighter than it had been in weeks – but Sam could tell this wasn't the happy part of the story. "We were snaring an archangel the next day. He didn't expect to survive it."
"Where was I?" Sam didn't know why, but he knew that we didn't include him.
The silence got darker: deeper and lonelier. Sam didn't regret asking, but he knew immediately he didn't want to hear the answer. He was pretty sure he already knew it, after all. Ruby. Dean kept working without answering, and the younger Winchester thought, briefly and with growing disappointment, that maybe he wasn't going to keep that promise he'd made.
"We split ways at that point," Dean answered, the noise actually startling Sam. "Fallout over the, uh…"
"The demon blood," Sam supplied. And the demon supplying it. A wave of disappointment, new this time, washed over him. It was for himself, which was weird. He was disappointed – devastatingly and shamefully so – at a version of him that had made bad calls, in a life he had never lived.
"It's not gonna happen this time, Sam."
Sam looked down to find his brother out from under the car once more, staring at him with earnest emotion in his eyes. He met that gaze and couldn't look away, not that he honestly wanted to. Dean was all he had left, and for once there was recognizable faith in that green gaze.
"No, it's not," he answered calmly and believed it.
Dean held the look until Sam turned away, back to the car and the piece of metal he had half pried off. He went back to the job, and his brother slid under the vehicle once more, the tinkering noises resuming.
"So," Dean spoke up after a moment, that grin back on his lips and in his words, "we find Cas this gorgeous little thing named Chastity."
Sam groaned as loudly and obnoxiously as he could. "You've got to be kidding me."
-o-o-o-
Hours later, Sam lay in the bed upstairs, atop the comforter and quilt he'd decided to keep spread across the bed. They'd changed his sweat-soaked, soiled sheets the first day he'd come downstairs, and Sam reveled in the fresh laundry smell and cleanness of it all. Dean was sprawled across the other mattress, staring at the ceiling. It was late, and Sam had eventually conceded the need for dinner and bed.
"We should talk about it."
His brother cast him a sidelong look, eyebrows raised but expression otherwise blasé.
"What more is there to talk about?" Dean asked in return, glancing from his brother to the lamp on the little nightstand between them. Neither had thought to turn it off before collapsing on their respective beds, and both were now just out of reach of the switch without putting in more effort than either wanted to. "It happened. You got covered, and you're better now."
"No," Sam shook his head. "Dad. His death."
Dean stilled for a moment, quite the feat considering he'd hardly been moving before, but eventually he loosed the tension in his frame and resumed his staring at the ceiling. He didn't say anything, though, and Sam figured if he wanted this conversation, he was going to have to pull most of the weight.
"Tell me how it happened the first time."
"Nothing to tell, Sammy." Dean kept his eyes forward, though he knew his brother's were on him. "I woke up in the hospital, no memory of being a ghost, and dad died. Same way."
The younger Winchester bit back a sigh, and went for attack move #3. Silence and staring. Which, after a period of extended silence without results, could be adjusted by modification 3.1: an added warning of, "Dean."
His brother made an aggravated noise, the regret of his promise clear in the disgruntled look he sent Sam's way before conceding. He began the story farther back this time. He told Sam about how Meg had gone after their friends, first Jim and then Caleb, demanding the Colt. How John had gone to meet her with a fake from an antique store, and they'd taken him instead.
Sam marveled at the way things had happened the same way, even weeks or entire events apart. The way Meg had gone after their friends – Garth instead of Pastor Jim, because Dean was the one with the Colt, not John. Yet their dad had still ended up with the gun, shown up with a fake when it was demanded in exchange for a loved one's life.
No wonder Dean was at the end of his rope. Things could happen weeks before or after they should, still in the same way, rendering Dean's knowledge of each event useless except to bitterly watch them happen, helpless to stop them. That would drive anyone to the point of seeking out God and having themselves a little screaming fest.
"Then Azazel got in him," Dean continued, the bitterness in his voice a direct contradiction to his stiff, tension filled form lying flat on the bed. "Tried to trick us, get me to hand over the colt."
"How did you know it wasn't Dad?" Sam asked it on impulse, something desperate flaring in his chest. He needed to know. He needed to know the signs he had missed in his best friend for two whole years.
Dean chortled bitterly, bringing his younger brother's attention back to the present with a twinge of something uneasy in his stomach. "He told me he was proud of me."
Sam's eyes widened, brilliant mind having no problem connecting the dots and finding the punchline in a joke that wasn't funny long before Dean finished telling it.
"I wasted a bullet from the Colt on some no-name demon." Dean's smile was brittle, filled with self-loathing and irony. "And he told me he was proud. He should have been furious. I knew it wasn't him immediately."
His younger brother didn't know what to say. He had wanted Dean to work through their Dad's death, knew he might shove it all deep down, well aware his brother was not good with grief or mourning or emotions in general. But this Dean already had gone through that, and now he faced the guilt of perceived failure, in addition to a whole new round of grief. Sam had no idea how to walk someone through a second death, one they had known was coming, fought tooth and nail to prevent, and wound up facing it anyway.
Sam might be the closest thing to proficient in Dean Psychology, but even this was beyond his limits.
"I miss him," Dean admitted roughly, surprising Sam with the sudden confession. His voice was croaky, hands shaking atop his chest as he stared up at that water stained roof. They'd spent so many nights in this room, abandoned by the man that was supposed to be there for them, always. "He was a bastard. A self-righteous asshole. But I miss him so damn much."
"He was still our dad," Sam offered quietly, understanding completely. He was probably one of the few people on the planet who could almost always understand his brother, no matter the timeline.
"Yeah," Dean said, sniffing away the tears and pain. He finally turned to look at Sam, and his little brother smiled sadly from the other bed, eyes equally watery and just as silent about it.
"I miss him too, Dean."