A/Ns: So I had every intention of getting this chapter up last Sunday/Monday. It was written by mid-Saturday, and all I had to do was edit it. Whelp. Sunday came and went. Monday came and went. I couldn't even get myself to read the first three paragraphs. Dude. Guys. This lockdown business *sucks*. It is seriously messing with my brain. I have all the free time in the world and NO CREATIVITY.
[inhale deep breath] AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Quality Warning: *ahem* This chapter is not so different from the last chapter. I think it's a jumbled mess with some excellent ideas that are all tackled shallowly enough to make them less than excellent. Uuuuuuugh. Stupid lockdown. Stupid Brain!
Chapter Warnings: Cas and Dean have their quiet man-on-angel time (…that sounded dirtier than I meant it to…) only it's hardly quiet (…this is getting worse. I swear I didn't intentionally do this…), and by the end Dean's not entirely sure why he wanted man-on-angel time in the first place when all it amounts to are lectures about time, unsatisfying beers, and shocking revelations about Cas's status as a Star Wars Fan.
(….did I mention stupid brain? Stupid muse? Yeah? Okay then. Awesome sauce. You've been warned.)
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The Road So Far (This Time Around)
Season 2: Chapter 69
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Dean set Angela's body onto the bed in Cas's room. At least, Dean considered it the angel's room. Sure, that title had never specifically been stated. And, okay, maybe they had let the occasional other guest use the room while Cas wasn't around the bunker (it was the only other room they'd bothered to get a modern mattress for, after all), but it was still Cas's room and always would be. Which meant Dean had frowned pretty darn sharply at Cas when the angel hadn't bothered to call it such. He'd only asked if Dean wanted to put Lady Cas in 'the guest room.'
Not 'my room' or 'her room' (hell, Dean would have taken 'our' room, at that point).
Nope. The 'guest' room. Like Cas didn't have a room in his own friggin' house (which was even more ridiculous when you factored in that they weren't even in the bunker, they were in Dean's head, where Cas was now a friggin' roommate). So they were left both standing awkwardly in the room, Dean next to the bed staring grumpily at the sleeping angel who was in her bed in her room, damnit, wondering how exactly to tell her stubborn counterpart that (and make it stick), without hitting chick-flick territory right off the bat.
(The dude had spent how many hours in here binging Netflix, and he didn't think the room was his?!)
(And how long living in Dean Sternum Condo, only to apparently think the representation of the bunker (which he'd friggin' chosen, not Dean!) wasn't his home!? Now that just pissed Dean off.)
"How is Sam?"
Dean didn't know if Cas somehow knew he was trying to broach a subject he didn't know how to bring up (and only getting angrier and angrier as the silence stretched), or if the angel just had lucky timing. The hunter turned towards his friend to find the angel regarding him with a simple, unfettered expression, the beer bottle still in his hand. His tactic, purposeful or accidental, totally worked. Dean forgot what he was getting all worked up over.
"Yeah, he's…uh, he's good. Real good. Heh, he's so young." Dean couldn't help but smile. It had been a while since they'd had time to just talk (since Dean had dreamt of the angel at all, let alone just to chat about the little things, those small, seemingly inconsequential moments that made everything they were both going through actually worth it). Dean left the side of the bed to walk up to Cas, swiping his beer back and taking a sip of the never-ending beverage (okay, so dreamland had some benefits, he supposed). "So, so damn young. Sometimes I forget he's just a kid, actually."
More often than he cared to admit, really. Those were the times, after he realized the Sam he was looking at was, in fact, so much younger than the one he was used to (and not just in physical age, but all the shit they'd gone through mentally and emotionally, too), that Dean noticed – alarmingly so – how much he missed the brother he knew. The one who knew him, more so. It wasn't easy, having ten years on someone: ten years of stories, shared experiences, shared pain, only to have them remember none of it. Reflect none of it, in their actions or their words. Sometimes Dean got angry. Or frustrated. Sometimes he would sit in the Impala long after Sam had gone inside to their latest motel room home for the night, and Dean would bang his hand or his head against the steering wheel for lack of a better target to hit (and apologize profusely to his lovely lady, who was always there for him and hadn't changed a bit).
Because these days Sam wasn't always Sam. At least, not the Sam Dean expected him to be, the one he braced for. In any given scenario, be it hunting or talking or arguing or just about anything in their lives, Sam might choose to go left or choose to go right. And Dean guessed wrong more than just occasionally. Which was unheard of for Dean Winchester. But Dean, the man from the future stuck ten years in the past, would forget which brother he was trying to predict. He expected Sam to go left (knew he would go left, because the brother he knew would have gone friggin' left). So he'd brace for left, shield left, argue for left, and then the kid went right! Because ten-years-ago-Sam often went right. Ten years ago Sam didn't have the experience, the growth, to see that left was the better option, damnit.
And 'right', of course, in any given scenario, was the choice fueled anger. Youth, petulance, foolhardy-ness, stubborn jackassery, or guilt-ridden martyrdom. (In other words, 'right' was everything Dean had ever taught his kid brother, and 'left' was the path of choices Sam finally made on his own over the course of ten years. Only, those ten years hadn't happened yet.)
Most of the time, though…. Most of the time, what Dean saw when he looked at his brother was Sammy: his kid brother who hadn't broken the world yet. Who hadn't released Lucifer or jumped in the cage with him to save a world that didn't deserve Sam Winchester to begin with. A kid that would never break down from cage scars or spend a year as a soulless robot or…. Or ever live through his brother tricking him into saying yes to an angel just because Dean couldn't let him go.
He missed his Sam, but Dean was going to do everything in his power – everything – to make sure that version of his brother never existed this time around.
(There was probably something to grieve there. Something worth mourning the loss of. But Dean didn't have time for either. He never would, not if he was going to prevent it all from happening in the first place.)
The older Winchester sighed, speaking out loud almost unintentionally, "I want to save him, Cas."
"You will."
The angel's swift, ever-unwavering faith was almost too much for Dean (always too much for Dean). The hunter became immediately wary of the conversation they were about to get into that had absolutely not been his intention (it never was. When he finally did open up, he almost always regretted it because no matter how 'healthy' opening up was (according to his brother) it always ended the same way: with a conversation that just demanded more opening up, damnit). Already feeling the crawl beneath his skin that always came with these chats (definitely an evolutionary defense mechanism, warning him of the incoming 'feels'), Dean decided to run for it. Casually, of course (because he wasn't actually running away. That would be cowardly (and he was no coward (except yes, yes he absolutely was when it came time for emotional Show and Tell))). He set the beer down on the dresser, no longer having an appetite for it, and headed out of Cas's room, leaving the sleeping Lady Cas behind on the bed. The conscious angel followed him, partially closing the door behind him as he entered the hall.
Dean was heading towards the library, forced calm in every step (because, again, he wasn't running away from anything), and ignored the angel following behind until Cas's hand landed on his arm. Those blue eyes were as intense as always, despite Dean searching for something – anything – other than the steadfast support he saw there.
"You will, Dean."
The hunter didn't know which he wanted to do more: roll his eyes, huff in frustration, or shake the angel off. But he didn't do any of those things (and who knew why not. Not Dean, that's for sure). He just stood there, awkwardly in the middle of the hall, glaring down at his best friend.
"Without ending the world?" he bit back, because, really, that was the conversation they ought to be having if they were going to have one at all. The one where Cas told him how to keep that innocent light in his little brother's eyes without getting his (new best?) angelic friend killed or starting the Apocalypse doing it. Because he may have promised Sam – he'd promised him – that come the worst, come that dreaded day in Cold Oak where he held his dying brother in his arms, Dean wouldn't save him after the fact. But, most days…Dean didn't know if he could even keep that promise. He'd never managed to before, even if he had been trying in recent years.
"You're working on it," came the patient (and far-too-sympathetic-for-the-current-discussion) response. Cas was looking at him like he believed it, too. "Give yourself some credit, Dean."
The hunter dropped his gaze to the angel's hand, still curled around his forearm. Cas hadn't let go yet. Dean swallowed roughly, something tight and painful suddenly in his throat as the same arm throbbed in response, only a foot higher up where a hand-shaped scar used to be. Green eyes reluctantly met blue.
"Why'd you send me back, Cas?"
That hand pulled away – the loss of body heat leaving a stark absence in its wake that Dean wanted to shake off like droplets of water clinging to his skin – but Cas's ocean eyes stayed locked on his.
"For hope."
"Because you think I can change it." The derision in his voice set Cas's teeth on edge. Dean could tell by the way the angel clenched his jaw, and Dean found himself mirroring the movement.
"You can change it," Cas repeating what he'd already said in different words. "You already have."
"One person isn't enough!"
Even if that one person was Sam's whole world. Even if Jess made all the difference, he'd still lost her, whether or not she'd gotten to keep her life.
In front of him, Cas looked like he wanted to start tugging on his own hair. That, or hit the stubborn hunter in front of him. Dean jutted his chin out, practically asking the guy to do it. But the angel, for all that his face had eventually learned to show emotion, he still hadn't quite embraced the physicality of true expression.
"What makes you think it's been only one?"
Dean's brain sputtered for a minute, trying automatically to defend his point by thinking back through the events of the last year. Data gathering, Sam would have called it. Dean shook his head before he got further than a couple hunts because that wasn't the point, damnit. The numbers weren't the point. "It doesn't matter how many it has or hasn't been, it's still not enough!"
"Because you expect too much of yourself, Dean!" The angel's voice raised to match the volume and irritation of the human's.
"You wouldn't have sent me back if I couldn't do it, Cas!" Dean struck Cas in the shoulder with the heel of his palm. Not enough to hurt, hardly enough to even move the angel if he didn't want to be moved, but enough to escalate what was quickly becoming a yelling match.
"You are doing it!" Cas rolled his eyes in the same circle the conversation was going in.
Dean seemed to pick up on that too and threw his arms out, yelling, "Why are we yelling!?"
The abrupt question, shouted in nothing short of an outdoor voice at full volume and accompanied by agitated, waving arms, drew the angel up short. Cas looked temporarily affronted by it, before he ducked his head and huffed.
"You started it," he muttered grumpily, but there was no heat left in his words.
Dean pulled his head back to disagree (he had not-) only to realize Cas was…well, okay, he wasn't wrong. That didn't make him right, of course. But he wasn't entirely wrong. Dean glanced guiltily. Fine, so he'd mostly started it. The hunter had been itching for a fight, though he couldn't say why. Well, that wasn't completely true, either. Dean knew why; it had been the month from hell, between the damn Croats he'd never thought he'd have to fight off again, to Andy going missing and showing up half dead (surviving the kind of nightmare no one should ever live through), to Gordon Fucking Walker taking Dean out and trying to do the same to Sammy.
So he was a little worked up, alright? Which, apparently in dreamland, meant shouting in circles at his best friend. (Not that he'd cop to it, of course. He might be willing to own up to it in his head, but out loud, Cas definitely started this. Dean just finished it. Yeah, he was going with that.)
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. "Yeah, well, according to Sam, I do that."
(Okay, fine, maybe he'd cop to it a little. This was Cas, after all. And they were in his head.)
"Dean."
"Can we just drop it, Cas?"
"Dean." The angel – this angel, who so rarely pulled out the Warrior of God voice anymore – was definitely forcing the issue. Internally, the human allowed himself an irritated huff and decided if they were having this conversation, they definitely weren't having it in the friggin' hallway. But Cas grabbed his arm, fingers folding right over the same spot as before so he couldn't run away this time.
(Excuse you. He had not been runningaway. It was just…the library was a way better place for this sort of thing. Plus, there was an angel sleeping half a door away, alright?)
"Come on, man. We're gonna wake the other you up."
(It was a weak excuse and Dean knew it. At best, it would only stall the conversation, not stop it from happening in the first place. And Dean really wanted the latter. He didn't want to hear his best friend tell him he was doing everything he could. Because everything he could wasn't proving to be enough, and Dean didn't know what else to do, what else he could give.)
"You cannot wake an angel from a healing trance with raised voices." Oh good, the Warrior of God voice was now exasperated. That's what happened to the might and power of an angel when you subjected it to eight years of Dean Winchester. Unfortunately for Dean, that also meant this was the version of Cas knew all his tricks. Knew him well enough to know what he was trying to do and wouldn't let him get away with any of it. He didn't let Dean push any further, distract him with a pointless argument about what could wake an angel from a healing trance then. Nope, this angel just plowed right on into that conversation they were apparently having. "Dean, I wouldn't have sent you back if there wasn't hope. You are doing good."
"But?" Dean turned fully into him, dropping his arms in the same way he wanted to drop this topic, but Cas's grip on his skin remained. There hadn't been a 'but' to Cas's words, but Dean knew it existed all the same. It might be outside of what the angel was willing to put on his shoulders, but it was there (it was the weight of the world. A weight he and Sam had insisted, on numerous occasions, wasn't Dean's to bare, at least not alone. But they just didn't get it). "It's not enough."
Cas huffed again, fighting against the irritation that was dealing with the unmovable wall of Winchester Martyrdom that had ever existed in time and space. "It will be. It has to be, Dean. You need to trust in that. And stop overthinking it."
The hunter just snorted, a clear indication of what he thought about that. The angel pinned him with a cautionary look.
"Some things can't change, Dean. You wouldn't want them to."
He'd heard that before, and he was sick of it.
"Like my dad?"
Cas released his arm, and this time Dean felt like a jerk about it. Cuz that hadn't completely been fair. John's death this time around wasn't on Cas; it was on Dean. It would always be on Dean.
Those blue eyes dropped away regardless, looking a little into the past and a lot into the floorboards. Apparently Dean wasn't the only one harboring guilt about repeated events (and yeah, now he definitely felt like a jerk). "I don't know. Maybe."
The hunter fought to keep his arms at his side, itching to come up and cross over his chest once more, to brood and be angry and right (because he wasn't wrong, damnit, and he deserved to be angry, he was right to be angry, regardless of what the guilt was saying). "And Sammy? Drinking demon blood, dying at Cold Oak? Selling my soul and breaking the first damn seal! Are those things that can't be changed, too, huh?"
Dean pressed forward with his bitterness, for once being the one to invade the angel's personal space. It got Cas to look back up at him, at least. If he couldn't be defensive with his body language, than he'd be friggin offensive. Only the move didn't carry nearly as much weight as Dean had intended. With Cas so close and his eyes wavering with levels of misery and guilt equal to what Dean was feeling inside (had been feeling for months, no matter how far down he shoved that shit), it just felt stupidly intimate instead of intimidating (god friggin' damnit).
The angel shook his head, gaze never leaving his charge's. "I don't know, Dean. I hope not. I hope you can change them, but if you can't…"
"If I can't, then I'm going to Hell again and the world is screwed." Which wasn't true, because Dean had promised his brother he wouldn't do that. No matter what. (But also, yeah right. They were so friggin' screwed.) It didn't matter, though, because it felt good to be angry, so Dean was going to be angry. He backed away from the angel so he had room to run a frustrated hand over his scalp without elbowing his friend in the face doing it (he wasn't that angry. Yet.) "That's just great, Cas."
"Dean, Time is…a mess." The human snorted as Cas waved his hand around helplessly, at a loss for a better word. (Well…he wasn't wrong.) "In some places, at some times, and in some cases, there are what you could call anchor points."
"Anchor points?" Dean didn't have a clue what those were, but what the hell did Cas mean some times in some cases. What the hell, was Time some sort of fluid, shapeshifting bitch? It either was, or it wasn't, damnit. It was time, not a friggin rhyming riddle on a popsicle stick!
"Yes. Things that can't be…that are very difficult to change. Events that have such tremendous impact on other things, or were created by other such events, that they're too deeply rooted in the timeline to ever truly change. Not without pretty much destroying everything else." Cas shrugged kind of hopelessly and started walking. He passed Dean, headed for the library. Since that was where the hunter had wanted to go all along, he followed without resistance. "These events can be obvious – like the Apocalypse-"
"Thought we were trying to change that, Cas," Dean all but growled as took the couple of stairs up into the much larger, brighter lit Library.
"-or smaller, innocuous even. Things you wouldn't realize hold any significance in the timeline." Cas ignored his interruption (as he often did when Dean was being little more than petty or grouchy in an argument he wasn't winning or didn't want to hear in the first place), and settled into one of the chairs by the main table. He looked tired, enough so that Dean had to fight back a fresh wave of guilt (and worry) with fierce, manly fisticuffs. "What events are or aren't anchor points are hard to predict, because we do not view things that happen, or the order they happen, as Time does."
"That doesn't make any friggin' sense, man." Even as he said it, Dean set aside his utter and complete discomfort with dreamland (seriously, it gave him the willies. Too close to witchcraft and hoodoo only with all the feels of a rom-com) and imagined two beers in hand. When cold, condensation-slick glass filled his hand out of seemingly nowhere, he held one out to Cas. An apology for all the yelling, he supposed (a non-verbal apology, because let's be honest, all the participants here knew that wasn't gonna happen).
The angel took it with a weak smile, then had himself a sip as Dean partook of his own.
"It's complicated, Dean." Again the hunter snorted, nearly missing inhaling beer foam down the wrong pipe. Yeah, Cas could say that again. And again, and again, and again. "Time is like…the earth beneath an overgrown garden. Thousands up on thousands of intermingled root systems that anchor each other into the ground."
Dean frowned, realizing where Cas was going with this and his 'anchor points'. Which was unfortunate, because the hunter didn't really want to hear it, even if he might need to.
(Dean got the weirdest sensation, sitting there sipping at his beer, being lectured about how time worked through convoluted and mostly useless analogies, that he'd done this all before. It was annoying, regardless of how familiar he was with déjà vu by now.)
"In some cases, you can pull a single plant from the garden, roots and all, and nothing else is affected. Other times, it's quite obvious by the proximity of two plants that their roots will be entangled and it will be a battle to pull one out and not damage the other. But the most common plant in this garden is the one that seemingly has no relation to any other, but whose roots are tangled with a dozen plants beneath the dirt."
"What's your point, Cas?" Dean growled low, fingers tight around the cold bottle in his hand. Because it sounded like his angel was telling him this couldn't be done. That he couldn't change shit. Damnit, why did they always circle back to this? Cas himself had said he wouldn't have sent Dean back if there wasn't a chance. So why was he sitting there telling him there wasn't one at all?
"Most of the time, it's very difficult to look at a single event and predict how wide its impact is beneath the surface. What other events it entangles." The angel shrugged again, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees, back and shoulders hunched, picking idly at the paper label like only the Winchesters could have taught him to do. "My point, Dean, is that you're trying to tackle this like a hunt and it isn't. It's Time."
"What?" He pulled his head back, frown firmly in place, and tried to decide if he was insulted or just confused.
"Changing the timeline isn't going to be as simple as looking for clues, finding the points that line up in the lore, and then taking the fight to the monster." Cas set his beer onto the library table, barely drunk (and Dean was definitely insulted. Hunting wasn't simple, damnit. It was hard friggin' work.) "What you're trying to do – what Time itself is – is unpredictable. You're not going to know which plants to pull up, which events to change, alright? And I can't tell you, because I don't know either. Almost no on in the cosmos does."
"Except God." Dean suddenly bit out, angrily realizing exactly where he'd had this conversation before. (Goddamnit!)
"Yes, well, I believe you tried that already," Cas snorted right back. Dean rolled his eyes but, yet again, the angel wasn't wrong. "Time would know as well, but I doubt she'd be willing to help us considering we're actively fighting against her will."
Dean skipped right over the part where they were talking about time like an actual sentient identity (because, at this point, nothing would surprise Dean, but that didn't mean he wanted to deal with it. Sometimes, ignorance was friggin' bliss and no one could tell him otherwise). "I can't just stumble around blindly and expect to avert an Apocalypse! It doesn't work that way!"
He'd definitely had this conversation before, damnit!
"Yes, it does, Dean. Because you will be changing things. You already are." Cas stared up at him from his hunched position, still leaning on his knees. His eyes looked damn near pleading and his human charge found himself swallowing roughly past that look. "It's the only way. Stop looking for order, stop trying to control every event and outcome. Listen to your brother and pick your battles."
The hunter turned away, both to avoid those stupid eyes as well as his stupid, faithful friend who never seemed to give up on him or, in this case, his conviction that Dean could actually do this. Like Dean friggin' Winchester could do anything. Like he'd hung the god damn stars in the sky.
His thoughts flickered briefly to Angela's words, back in the Impala on the side of a Lafayette highway, and Dean was inexplicably stricken by the reminder. He ground his teeth and forcibly pushed the thought away. "Alright. Fine. What battle?"
When he turned back to the angel, Cas was giving him another exasperated look, like he knew Dean was just being purposefully obtuse because he didn't like what he was hearing and didn't want to hear (or think about it) any more. "Lilith, Dean. Your Castiel already told you as much."
"She's not my Castiel," Dean argued back immediately, but by the look his Cas gave him, the angel knew he was being petty at that point.
"Regardless of angel-human ownership here-" And oh, did Cas get a glare for that one- "Lilith is the key to averting the Apocalypse without upsetting the timeline too greatly. Every other event is too entangled in the others. Sams' death, your soul deal, breaking the first seal. They'll all create a thousand unpredictable ripples and you'll drown trying to fight them all. But if we kill Lilith first-"
"Then none of it matters. The final seal's gone, there's no point in getting the rest of the party set up when the main event is toast."
Cas huffed, whether in wry amusement or something along the lines of 'somebody please save me from the hopelessness of humans, why do I even bother?' was really anyone's guess (Dean was pretty sure he knew). "It's possible Hell could form a new final seal, but it would take centuries to do so."
The earth would be safe, at least for as long as it was the Winchester's job to protect it. Some poor sap a couple centuries down the line could deal with the fallout for their Apocalypse raincheck.
"So we gotta kill Lilith as soon as she's topside. Before the first seal breaks."
Which sounded strange coming out of his own mouth, giving that he would be the one to break it and given what it would take to break it. Dean shivered and ran a hand over his mouth to hide the tremble, further burying it down with a long swig of beer.
"Yes, and if you don't want to damage every other plant in the garden doing it, maybe don't make it look like you're tackling the giant Apocalypse Tree in the center."
Dean so did not appreciate circling back to that stupid analogy (what was it with everyone trying to explain time with analogies? It was time. It just…was, alright?!) but at least this Cas wasn't obsessed with friggin' air quotes while he did it.
"So…we pull up a bunch of smaller plants, then. Uh…wipe out some of the more minor shit that's going to feed- er, that's tangled in the…uh…Lilith plant."
Yeah, this sure as shit wasn't working for him.
The angel's exasperation definitely took on a fond look and Dean scowled if only to beat back the heat rising to his cheeks (no, no, no, he was not blushing. Dean Winchester did not blush. It was just more furious, furious rage, damnit).
"Take her out for a reason other than stopping the Apocalypse," Cas translated.
Dean's scowl turned genuine, tinged with incomprehension. The other Cas – Lady Cas – had said the same thing back at Bobby's house, when they'd first brought her up to speed. But they'd never gotten to the 'how' of that plan. The angel had merely said she'd work on it and, well…a lot had happened in the meantime. He doubted she'd had much planning time.
Not to mention, Lilith wasn't even topside, yet. And outside of Cas and her angel blade, they didn't have a way to kill Lucifer's first born, anyway.
(And, also, there was that whole idea where he just wouldn't let Sammy die this time, so there'd be no point in selling his soul, so no Apocalypse or first or last seals to even bother with and therefore Lilith and her entire posy could just fuck off for all he cared. Personally, that was still Dean's go-to plan: Don't Let Sammy Die. Then it wouldn't matter that everyone and their mother doubted whether or not he could keep himself from making a deal to save Sammy, cuz Sammy wouldn't need saving. See? Bullet proof plan, right there.)
"A reason like what?" he asked, almost cautiously. It was possible Cas had a plan his younger counterpart hadn't come up with yet. Sitting in a Dean Sternum Condo with nothing to do, he had a lot more time on his hands (at least when he was 'stable'. Sometimes this Cas wasn't always as present as he had been so far today). Plus, he had a lot more knowledge of future events to work with. Probably made, uh, pruning that whole garden thing easier, or something.
The angel eyed him for a moment, like he was sizing him up. Dean narrowed his eyes in return, immediately wary of what was coming next. "Like freeing a contract she's holding, Dean."
And rightly so, apparently.
"Oh, come on!" Dean had to resist chucking the bottle in his hand at the nearest wall. Waste of good beer, he told himself (even if it was Dreamland beer and he could just replace it). "All any of you have said since I got back to this time was not to sell my soul, damnit. Now you're telling me to do it just so we can take Lilith out before I go to hell and break the first seal!"
"Hardly." Cas rolled his eyes about as hard as Dean had, pinning him with that scary ass angel look that told him to shut up and stop being stupid before he got himself smote. "You're not the only contract she held in those days."
Dean frowned sharply at the angel. His first thought (being, 'What the hell?') was quickly overrun by his second thought ('Who else did we know back then that-') and then his brain short-circuited and green eyes went wide.
"Bela."
Bela freaking Talbot.
God, what a pain in his ass she had been. But, admittedly, quite an interesting pain. And none too hard on the eyes, either. Dean honestly couldn't tell if he was looking forward to or dreading running into that woman again.
…Little bit of column A, little bit o' column B, probably.
"Why can't we just stop the hellgate from ever opening?" was what came out of his mouth instead of anything remotely in line with Cas's plan. Because his plan was stupid. They hadn't managed to kill Lilith the first time around until she'd let them. Yeah, Dean had ten years more experience and was a badass (translation: terrifying, borderline serial killer that Hell should be a lot more afraid of this time around, but, ya know, details), but even he had his limits. Lilith was Lucifer's first born; she was more powerful than Abaddon, and Dean didn't want to think about the lengths he'd gone to in order to defeat a Knight of Hell. (He did not slide a hand up and over his arm, covering the clear, unblemished skin of his right forearm.) "If Lilith can't get topside, then there's no last seal, no Apocalypse."
In addition to his own promise that he wouldn't sell his soul, well, shit, they'd be golden. Double golden.
(Only he knew, he knew, it would never be that easy.)
"It's not that easy, Dean."
Copy cat. (Copy Cas. Heh. Get it? See what he did there? Copy- nevermind, you get it.)
"There are hundreds of hellgates and Team Free Will, no matter how it's expanding, doesn't have the resources to guard them all. Regardless of whether or not Sam is killed or you sell your soul, Lilith will make it to Earth." Cas sighed, dropping the 'judgmental teacher dealing with his most difficult kid in class' look and going back to his hunched shoulders and bowed back. "That's kind of my point, Dean. Trying to avert your soul-deal, or stop Sam from dying, or a hellgate from opening is far more complicated than killing Lilith."
The hunter gave him a look that clearly questioned whether he had his head on straight. (This was Lilith. Lucifer's first born they were talking about here. Had he mentioned they hadn't been able to kill her first time around until she wanted them to?) The angel ignored it.
"Trying to stop any one of those things would mean covering every possible way they could go down. It's pure defense, and it just won't work. You need to go on the offense."
Dean heard the words, even recognized the logic in them somewhere deep down inside his brain, but he was busy focusing on the one small, little, infinitesimal detail. One little detail that had turned his entire chest, his soul, to ice. "Cas…are you saying I'm going to sell my soul again? That that's- that's a…a what? An anchor point?"
Because- because up until that point, he hadn't been planning on it. Yes, everyone seemed to doubt his ability not to sell his soul if it meant saving Sam (even Dean himself, were he being honest). And yes, not doing that was going to be the damn hardest decision of his life (which is why Plan A was: Don't Let Sammy Die In The First Place). But if Cas was talking about it like it was inevitable, like selling his soul as inevitable, then…then….
(Only he knew. He'd always known, he'd just never wanted to know that he knew. Hell would get their way; they were always going to get their way. It was only a matter of leverage. If it Sam alone wasn't enough, then it would be Sam and Bobby. Then Sam and Bobby and Andy. If Dean wasn't broken by that point, it would be Ellen and Jo and the whole damn Roadhouse. How many bodies would Dean let pile up beside his brother's before he did what they wanted? And if he knew that was going to be the end result, then what was the point of letting those bodies pile up to start with? Sam would hit the ground, cold and grey, and Dean, seeing the whole future painted out before him in a pile of people he loved, would sell his soul just to keep it from happening.)
Fuck. Fuck!
He didn't- he wasn't- …Dean didn't actually know if he had another forty years in the Pit in him. If he could survive it. He'd joked and he'd put on that same brave face as he had the first time around, but Dean hadn't actually thought it would come to that. He wasn't going to let it come to that. Except…maybe he didn't have a choice. IN which case…
God, he was screwed. The world was screwed. He didn't have forty years in him. He just didn't. There was a lot less of him left now, and what was left was shattered and broken, held together by duct tape, guilt, and a little bit of familial love that would mean damn next to nothing down in the Pit.
It wouldn't be enough to see him through to the other side this time. Not a second time.
"No," Cas answered immediately, firm and forceful despite the eternity that could exist in a single second when it came to Dean's spiraling thoughts and what was quickly amounting to an anxiety attack. "That is not a guarantee. I promise, Dean. But…if Lilith is allowed to live, the odds of Hell claiming its Righteous Man for the Pit do increase. Um…a lot."
Which was Cas's way of saying no, it wasn't a guarantee, but it was really, really, really, really likely.
Dean swallowed roughly. Great. Great! So now they had to kill Lilith or he was going to be dragged back down as hellhound food. No pressure there, at all.
(Fuck fuckity fuck fuck!)
Dean didn't want to think of forty more years in the pit, so he didn't. "Okay, so we kill Lilith as soon as she's topside. Only, the hellgate opened after I sold my soul the first time, Cas."
"That doesn't mean it will happen in the same order this time, Dean."
Which made…no frigign' sense when he wasn't allowed to change anything, but hey, nothing did anymore, so at least that was familiar territory (yeah, right).
"Great. So, do we just open the hellgate ourselves?" After all, the sooner Lilith was topside, the sooner they could kill her and de-rail the entire Apocalypse (including his soul deal) apparently. And, at least she already had Bela's contract, considering she'd made her deal when she was a child. Which meant all they needed now was the Colt or Ruby's knife.
Which…was a problem (and also hadn't worked all that well for them the first time, remember?)
"Or do we not fight Azazel when he goes for it?" Dean reasoned out loud, since it was the Yellow Eyed bastard who had the gun right now, and short of trying to bribe Crowley into getting it for them (which…yeah right, there probably wasn't enough gold in China to get that bastard to do anything so risky), they had no way of getting it except to wait for Yellow Eyes to show up with it. Of course, Azazel hadn't gone for Fossil Butte until after he'd had Sammy iced and guaranteed Hell its Righteous Man.
(Again, how exactly were they going to change that this time around? Cas wasn't actually answering any of Dean's questions, here and the circles were just giving him a headache.)
"No. You would never let the gate just open if you didn't know the future." The angel shook his head, and Dean kind of wanted to hit him for how calm he was. Did he not see that this was insane and totally hopeless? "It's best to act as you would if you don't know what will happen next."
"Except for when I'm trying to change it," Dean bit out caustically, because different versions of this angel kept telling him that and it didn't make any damn sense. He couldn't change anything if he acted the same exact way as last time. Couldn't do anything different if he didn't do anything different! How did they not see that?!
Cas shrugged, and this time Dean wanted to pull his hair out or punch his best friend in the face. He settled for draining his beer, which didn't do much to make him feel better at all when it immediately refilled itself. He glared down at the thing like he might just take his anger out on it instead.
"That's also kind of the point, Dean." The angel reached over to his forgotten beverage, passing it to Dean in exchange for his bottle, like Cas was somehow saving the beer from certain death. Like they were in the real world and Dean had drained his beer in exchange for another. Like…like Cas had known he'd needed some sort of normalcy right now. Which was really friggin' thoughtful, Den supposed, fidgety with the realization and the feels that came with it. Damnit.
Cas set Dean's beer down on the table and Dean took a sip from Cas's, frowning around the lip of the bottle. "You need to change it without acting any differently than you would if you didn't know what was coming and weren't trying to change it."
"How- How does that make any sense, Cas?" Dean threw his arms out to the side, beer and all, and was lucky when he didn't slosh the nearly full bottle all over the floor. Cas sent him an admonishing look, the one that said he wasn't thinking hard enough. He hated that look. It was like Sam was here and the two of them were tag-teaming him, all in one little look.
"Would you save Bela Talbot if you didn't know what was coming? Would you try to kill Lilith to free her from her contract, not knowing what Lilith's death might also save?"
Dean stilled, staring almost dumbly at his friend. That… Yeah, he would. He'd offered to do just that, once upon a million years ago, but by then it had been too late. There hadn't been time, but now…now there was. And Dean was starting to see what the angel – both angels – were talking about.
Okay, so there might be some wiggle room in the way he responded to events (if he was trying to respond in the 'same way' as last time). He could still do what needed to be done to change the future, but only if he could make it look like that wasn't what he was trying to do at all.
Great, it was technically possible but god, what a friggin' headache.
Dean drained Cas's beer too, handing it back to him (rather needlessly. He could set the bottle on the table just as easily as the angel could) even as it refilled itself. He'd had his fill of never-ending beer. Today, it just didn't have the same satisfaction as finishing one off. "How the hell am I supposed to do this without you, man? Don't suppose we could work on getting communication going between us that doesn'trequire the two of us being passed out? Cuz that's gonna make things difficult and I tried policing my actions and thinking every little step through the first couple months here. It did not go well."
Although he said it mostly in jest (a bitter, self-deprecating, only-half joking sort of jest), Dean's grin dropped the second he realized Cas was looking at him with the kind of look that meant absolutely no good ever.
"Cas?" It was a warning tone. A warning that the angel better speak up pretty damn fast about what that look was about, and one that also said that look better be about abso-friggin-lutely nothing at all.
"You need to trust yourself more, Dean," the angel repeated without answering that warning in the slightest. "And stop overthinking it."
"Cas." Dean stepped up the warning as he stepped up to the angel, who lifted his head from his seated position to stare up at the hunter less than a foot in front of him.
Those blue eyes stayed locked on his, but eventually the angel sighed and Dean got the distinct impression of him looking away, even if his gaze never shifted. "I…may not always be here, Dean."
"What?" Dean blinked at him. And then he got angry. "What? The hell are you talking about, Cas?"
Cas finally dropped his gaze and Dean realized he was less than a foot from the guy and most definitely looming. Angrily, he flopped down into the chair next to Cas, eyes never leaving the angel who glanced at him but didn't hold his gaze.
"Eventually, this…afterimage will fade out."
His friend gestured almost offhandedly at himself, like he was nothing but an afterthought and Dean felt his blood boil. Not just at his friend casually referring to himself as a- a- what? A shadow? The human was freakin' sick of hearing people call the angel that. But also, to hear Cas (again) sound so- so- so calm about his own demise. It just- it pissed him off, is what it did.
"No." Dean shook his head, causing the angel to give him the side-eye for thinking he could change facts with a little adamancy and a whole lot of stubborn. But Dean had done more with a hell of a lot less. "No. I know enough about angels and grace to know you're like a nuclear power plant. You're self-sustaining or, you know, whatever."
The look got worse because Cas added a huff and some of that fond exasperation into the mix. Dean was really starting to detest that combo. "Self-sustaining merely means you produce more or equal to the amount of energy you use, Dean."
Oh, good. There was that Warrior-of-God-Eight-Years-After-Dealing-with-Dean-Winchester-so-Now-He's-a-Warrior-Who-Lectures-Like-a-Preschool-Teacher-Instead. Dean sure hadn't missed that version of Cas.
"So?"
"So," Cas mimicked, nailing the impertinence perfectly, "that sliver in your chest is not producing more grace than it took to keep you alive in the hospital in Michigan, or aid Castiel in exorcising Azazel."
"Wait, what?" Dean pulled his head back, full frown in place as the words hit home. They- they'd been killing him doing those things? Granted, Dean had kind of already thought they'd killed him once, after Rivergrove, but Lady Cas had very clearly said that only an angel could kill another angel. Which meant Chest Cas would be fine. Was fine. Would stay fine, damnit.
"It's possible the power Castiel drew from me in Rivergrove has triggered a…end process of sorts." He said it casually. Casually like they were talking about the batting average of the New York Yankee's weakest player. Not that Dean knew anything about baseball. Or New York.
"Then friggin' reverse it!" the hunter yelled in retaliation, having absolutely none of this. He wasn't losing Cas after he'd just spent a week thinking the dude was already dead. He wasn't.
"It can't be reversed, Dean." His angel eyed him, still way too fucking calm.
"Then stop using your grace, damnit!"
The angel didn't say as much, but he was very certain that was the one thing Dean could ask of him that he simply couldn't agree to. Not if it meant saving Dean. Saving the people he loved. And the hunter could see it in his eyes.
"Come on, man, I can't…I can't lose you."
"If I am fading, which I believe I am, the process will still take time. Years, possibly." Cas tried for a smile, but it was weak and they both knew it. The words were supposed to be a comfort, but all Dean was hearing was that he was going to lose his friend. Again. ('Always' a caustic voice whispered in his ear, bitter and dark and sounding like the Mark and a Damned soul all in one.) "I will stay for as long as I can, Dean, but…I'm hardly myself most days. That will get worse. Eventually, I won't be much help to you."
"Doesn't matter," Dean insisted adamantly. "I don't need you to help, Cas, I just…I…"
Dean hesitated for only a moment before he reached out. His initial aim was for Cas's hand, dangling next to his knees, but he aborted at the last moment and curled his fingers around Cas's forearm. The angel glanced down at the hand, smiling warmly at the contact, and Dean found himself swallowing through a giant lump in his throat.
"I need you, okay?" The words were like razor blades being pulled up through that lump and out his mouth, leaving nothing but wreckage behind. Why was just telling someone how he felt so damn hard? This was Cas, damnit. He deserved to know he was lo- needed, wanted. "I can't do this without you, Cas."
Those blue, blue eyes slid away from him, looking over his shoulder to the dormitory wing they'd left behind what already felt like a lifetime ago. Then that intense gaze slid back to focus solely on his charge. "You have me, Dean."
The other Cas. He was talking about the Castiel sleeping it off in the dormitory wing. Dean swallowed roughly again, for entirely different reasons, and slowly withdrew his hand from his friend's arm.
"She's not you," he muttered, not quite able to meet his eyes as he said it and feeling guilty as hell about it.
Because she wasn't. She was…she was fine, she was good, and Dean was glad to have her on their side. He knew they couldn't do this without the angel. But she wasn't his angel. She wasn't the Cas he knew, had gone through Hell with (had been pulled out of Hell by). And he didn't want to trade one for the other.
He knew it was selfish, but he wanted – he needed – both of them.
He needed the physical angel who would stand by his side, who would choose humanity over her home, her family, and everything she'd ever been told, everything she ever knew. He needed that loyalty, that stalwart support. That friendship.
But he needed his Cas, too. The one that knew him, the one that knew when to pull his head out of his ass and tell him he was being an idiot. Sam was good at that, but Dean didn't always listen to his brother. For some reason, the older Winchester had a better track record of actually hearing it when his angel said it in the same words. It might be because this was the same angel who'd told him to start respecting him or he'd get his ass thrown back in Hell. More likely, though, it was because Dean knew it was Cas who'd come charging in after him when he royally screwed up against their advice, the angel who'd end up pulling both him and Sam out of the fire (because of course Sam would be right there next to him), and likely the angel who'd come out injured because of it.
(Dude…that pattern sucked. Dean made a mental note to work on that with Lady Cas.)
"Not yet," Cas responded quietly, voice even in that gravelly way that usually spoke of things Dean wasn't gonna want to hear. "Maybe not ever. But she's still me. Give her time."
The hunter's gut clenched, realizing for the first time (in words, at least. He suspected he'd known for a while and didn't know how to put that tense feeling in his stomach into something identifiable), that Cas was right. If he waited, if he gave it time and kept doing what he was doing, if he stuck to the timeline (even an accelerated one), than he would have that version of his Cas back, or one that was pretty close to it. Maybe not the eight-years-and-how-many-ends-of-the-world-later friendship he had with the angel sitting next to him, but it would still be close. It would be the apocalypse version, this time without all of the ups and downs, betrayal and lies and mistakes they'd both made afterwards.
Maybe…it wouldn't be so bad not to have those other things. Yes, what they'd gone through together in Purgatory, what Cas had suffered under Naomi and Metatron, what Sam had suffered under Cas's hand… Maybe they could skip all that this time, and Dean could still have his friend. The one he needed, even if it wasn't the one he already had.
Somehow, Dean doubted he'd get all of it, simple and neat and tied up with a bow. He'd always been a selfish bastard when it came to Castiel. That hadn't changed with a ten year time jump.
"I…I shouldn't want her to," Dean finally admitted, the words dragged out of his mouth like sandpaper over a bed of tacky glue. "I shouldn't want her to be you."
Cas stared at him for a moment and was quiet for even longer. In an abstract way, the angel could appreciate his friend recognizing the hardships he had faced over their years together. Better late than never, he knew, and Dean had done a lot of reflection in this past year, forging his way in another time, much of those months spent thinking he was alone. However, more than anything, Castiel wished he could convey how little those hardships mattered, in the scheme of things. Cas had been honest when he'd told Dean he could not picture this tale told any other way. But perhaps he should have been more specific; he could no longer picture a world without the Winchesters in his life.
He doubted any other version of himself would feel differently, given the opportunity.
Eventually, once the silence had stretched and the hunter beside him got fidgety, Castiel sighed softly. His hands were clasped lightly in front of him, fingers idly rubbing over one another.
"She won't regret it. It won't be easy, the road ahead, but…" Blue eyes met Dean's once more, and the human was taken back – like he was always taken back, something that ten years of friendship hadn't ever friggin' dulled – by being the sole focus of that attention. "It's a road worth traveling."
Dean hung his head. He knew, he already knew that he would ask her to travel it. Hell, he wouldn't even ask. That implied giving her the option not to, and like Dean had already said, he was friggin' selfish when it came to this particular angel, this particular friend.
"You confuse the hell out of me, man." The words slipped out before he could wrangle them back in, before he could realize he was saying them out loud. Beside him, Cas huffed something like a laugh and smiled at him with just the corner of his mouth.
"Just me, or us?" Like he knew what Dean was thinking and, fuck, they were in dreamland in Dean's head, for Christ's sake. Not to mention this damn angel was curled up to his friggin' soul, so hell, he might just. Double fuck.
"All of it. It's messing with my head. Putting things in my head!" And not just the Cas'es. But that was another topic Dean was not thinking about in dreamland sitting next to the angel curled up to his soul, damnit. His eyes flickered over to his friend, who just looked amused at his personal struggle and…
Screw it.
If asked, Dean could not say why he did it. Why he let himself go there. But now that it was in his head, he couldn't let it rest. Not when he might have the answer sitting right next to him. Not when it was his friend, and…well, if Cas was right (which he friggin' wasn't, damnit), then there might be a number placed on how many of these conversations they had left.
(But he wasn't right, Dean was gonna make sure of it.)
"Cas…" The angel glanced over at him, his smile fading into concern at the weight and guilt of Dean's expression, and he straightened a little under the sudden shift. Dean could hardly keep eye contact. "Do I…look at you differently than everyone else?"
His friend went from straightening to stiffening, back rigid in his chair. It was all the answer Dean ever needed and not the one he remotely wanted (not that he'd really been expecting a different one, but he had hoped). That intense gaze shifted away. "You don't need to worry about that."
Shit. That most definitely was not a 'no.'
"Kinda feeling like I do." His friend's eyes flickered back to his briefly, and Dean's heart sunk somewhere into his toes, plowing right through his stomach and leaving a mess of shredded knots in its wake. "Shit, I- I never meant…"
"I know," Cas cut him off before he had to say the words (and what words, exactly? Dean didn't even know what he would say. He considered himself lucky his friend seemed to). The angel looked away again, staring off at the far wall in a distant, but not entirely absent way. "It used to confuse me. You always told me my stare was…'intense.' But you'd stare right back at me, so I didn't understand." The angel laughed, and something in Dean's shoulders – something he didn't know he was holding so tight his muscles were shaking and his back ached – loosened a little. "I like to think you did it for payback those first few years. A very Dean Winchester form of challenging my authority."
Dean snorted because, uh, yeah, that sounded like him. It even explained, somewhat, why he might be doing it all over again with Lady Cas. She was that same old Cas, stick-of-authority-and-holy-righteousness-stuck-up-her-butt.
"I noticed it more once I became human. The first time, during the Apocalypse." Cas shrugged his shoulder a little, like a bad memory he was trying to flick away. He knocked his head towards Dean, meeting his eyes again. "I was trying to fit in. To belong. Poorly, I might had." Dean huffed but didn't argue. Cas had been…painfully awkward back then, even if the fault was hardly his own. "My observations of the humans I knew – you, Sam, Bobby – increased exponentially."
Inexplicably, Dean found himself struggling with that whole swallowing and breathing thing again. (Stupid, god damn, feely conversations.) He might not know the words that were coming next, but the curl in his stomach was not so different from sitting in the front seat of the Impala, Angela Garrett in the back, telling him he gave off 'I'm hot for an angel' vibes to everyone within visual range of his friggin' eyeballs.
"You show your emotions in your eyes, Dean. You always have, though it took me many years to learn how to read them correctly."
Was the air getting increasingly drier in the bunker? Dean swallowed again, throat scratchy and sore. Allergies maybe? Could there be allergies in a dream? Hell yes, if he imagined them, then there could be and he'd have a reason for why he felt all hot and bothered and feely right now. Dean narrowed his eyes and thought about pollen, pollen, pollen.
Damn, but he could use another beer right now.
"You looked at me with anger a lot of the time." Dean flinched when Cas handed him a new beer, freshly uncapped, still cold and dewy like it had popped right out of an ad for the stuff, and he didn't know if the wince was from Cas's words or the fact that he could very clearly hear Dean's wants and needs right now (and that…that was so…so not okay.) "But often with you, anger hides something else. Something that makes you feel vulnerable."
The hunter flinched a second time, definitely from the embarrassing words this time. It was his turn to avoid eye contact, burying his attention into the bottle in his hand.
Cas wasn't trying to catch his eye, though. He had his thumbs hooked together, hands hanging loosely between his legs, as he stared at the floor a couple feet away from them with a distant expression. "I guess I never did find out what that was. If I had to call it anything, I would say…expectation. But I never found out what it was you expected of me."
I was never able to fill that expectation.
Dean didn't hear it in so many words, but he remembered his last couple chats with the Cas that sat in his chest. The Cas that had almost died sending him back, that would have died if Dean's soul wasn't a clingy, life-saving mother effer. The same Cas that had volunteered to be Lucifer's vessel because he needed to be useful, because he hadn't expected to survive and was somehow okay with that.
The air around them might as well have been on fire for how Dean's blood boiled and skin burned, for how dry his throat was and how it seared with every swallow. The hunter sighed, fighting back a wave of anger with a wave of guilt instead, because the second one was so much easier.
"Maybe because I never realized I was expecting- uh, asking for anything." Angela seemed to think he had been asking (unintentionally!) for a lot more than he'd intended. Cas seemed to think Dean had wanted, well, everything else. A tool against the Apocalypse, against the Leviathans, against the Mark and the Darkness after that. Dean didn't know which was worse.
(A lie. A total lie. He sure as shit knew which one was worse, just like he knew which one made him the shittier friend and which one was just embarrassing.)
"How do I-" Dean's voice broke and he had to clear his throat, cheeks flushing with heat. He doubted it showed – he rarely blushed visibly anywhere but the tips of his ears (although, this was friggin' dreamland, so all bets were off) – but that didn't stop it from being embarrassing all the same. "How do I stop doing that with her? With, uh, Lad- I'm mean, erm, the other Cas?"
Because he couldn't put her through it, too. His hand to (a) God (he didn't believe in), he hadn't known he was doing it. Hadn't known he was leaving Cas to think he always wanted something more of him (or her). But he knew it now, and it wasn't fair to keep doing it, even if he had no idea how to stop it. Especially since everyone else interpreted that look entirely differently. He didn't want that either, even if was weirdly less embarrassing and more…just…inappropriate with Lady Cas.
(And it was not because he was homophobic. It wasn't, alright? Gays were fine. And damnit, calling them 'gays' probably wasn't helping his cause here. Man-on-man love was fine, just as long as he wasn't a part of it (damnit, he wasn't making this better, was he? Man-on-man love? Really?).)
"Don't worry about it, Dean." The hunter's head snapped up at that, going from berating himself internally for sounding like a dick who couldn't put two words together (like a ten year old boy. Jesus.) to staring at his best friend because…because that couldn't be right. But Cas met his stare evenly. "Don't do anything differently. Stick to the timeline."
Dean's stare faltered. His just-about-everything-else faltered too as he realized what Cas was saying. Dean's heart kind of sank somewhere into his only-barely-healed-up-from-the-last-heart-sinkage-disaster-of-a stomach. He was saying…if Dean wanted the younger version of Cas to turn into the one he knew – to be what Cas had been for him ('still is, damnit. He's not dying. Not if I have anything to say about it.') – than he couldn't change anything.
And…and…he wanted that. God, but he did want that. He couldn't do this without Cas, his Cas.
Why? Why did he want that, when he wanted nothing but the opposite for Sam? He'd do anything, right this second, anything that was asked of him, to keep his brother from walking the path he'd seen him walk once before. To keep that light and innocence in his eyes, even if it faded a bit every day. To save him from all that pain and suffering coming straight at them like a freight train they had so, so little chance of de-railing? Even if it meant permanently losing the brother he loved, the one he knew that existed only nine years and some change from now. He'd sacrifice that brother to save this one.
Why didn't he want to save Cas, too?
Dean swallowed, dropping his eyes to floor.
Because this Sam, even though it wasn't the brother who lived ten years more with him, who knew everything about Dean, was still his brother. It was still a version of Sam that he knew well, and who knew him, even if he didn't know everything. He was still Sam. In so many ways, that brother was a better version; a version that still had hope for a future that wasn't constantly stained with blood and death and friggin' misery. A version before Dean screwed up the one job John Winchester had ever given him. A version that wasn't broken, that didn't have the history of lies and the weight of Dean trying to make up for that mistake ever since.
But that's not what he had with Cas. He didn't have a Cas he knew. Who knew him. Castiel was trying and Dean appreciated that she was with them, had chosen them, repeatedly over the last several months, but they still only barely knew each other. The angel especially didn't know him and Dean, well, on more than one occasion he'd already stepped in it thinking he knew her. They had years to go – and more than a couple painful happenings in between – to get them to best friend status. And he'd need that best friend before the end, which meant Dean couldn't change any of those events, no matter the pain they caused, the home and family they cost, the life they altered.
If he was going to stop the Apocalypse, he needed Cas. Couldn't do it without him. He couldn't live without Cas. Like he couldn't live without Sam. Which he'd…he'd kind of known for years now. But his brain had never bothered to put it into words.
"Here." It seemed like Cas realized he was at his limit of thinking and feels for the day, because the angel reached his trenchcoat and pulled out an angel blade, offering it to Dean as a very efficient change of topic. Dean's eyebrows went up at the sight of it. Cas spun the blade, handing it over hilt first to the hunter. "Uriel's blade. You and Sam should keep it. It will give you a weapon to use against Lilith, once she's topside. And, I imagine Heaven will continue intervening."
Castiel knew both versions of himself would rest better knowing the Winchesters had the ability to defend themselves against whatever schemes Zachariah would surely come up with. Not to mention, the blade would suffice in any hunt. If Cas could not be present to keep them safe while she was healing, then at the very least they would be far better armed with this.
Dean reached for the blade automatically – that would be a hell of a thing to have on hunts this early in the game, not to mention it solved the whole Colt-slash-Demon-Blade dilemma with Lilith – only to pause when he remembered Cas (a different Cas) so hesitant to take it off her brother's corpse.
But this wasn't that angel. Dean knew instinctively that his Cas already understood. Otherwise, he wouldn't be offering the blade he'd clearly taken off his sleeping counterpart at some point (How…did that even work in dreamland?). That…that kind of sucked, actually. For them both. All three of them, actually. Dean wrapped his hand around the sword, taking it none too lightly and tucking it inside his jacket.
"I'm sorry," he apologized and, given the confused look Cas sent his way, it must have seemed out of the blue for him. (Ouch. Not untrue, but still. Ouch.) "Not for killing Uriel – I'm not sorry that bastard's dead – but for… for the other you, uh…losing a brother." The human turned away, adding in a muttered, "Even if he was a total dick."
Cas seemed to understand both sentiments, smiling sadly (sweetly, not that Dean would ever admit to thinking that) at the hunter. "I appreciate that, Dean. You're right. Uriel was a…a 'winged dick.'"
Dean hid the practical flinch that rippled through him at the air quotes. God, the air quotes. How they could ruin the perfection that was his angel calling another angel a winged dick was…was…well, it was a goddamn tragedy, was what it was.
"And he needed to be taken care of. You should tell the other Castiel that, as well. It will….help. I'm afraid she has many more brothers to lose in the coming years."
Dean scowled at that, as well as the downturned gaze. The angel might not be wrong but that didn't make it okay. "Hey." He waited until he had that intense gaze locked on his. "None of that inevitably crap. We're Team Free Will! Right, man?"
He got a peak of that smile – sad and sweet again – and it was enough. Cas nodded, even if it was rather placating. "We're re-writing the book."
"Damn straight." Dean nudged him with his shoulder, having to scooch almost off the chair to do it. It wasn't like they were exactly side by side. It was worth it for the slight smirk he got in return, though. Which meant, of course, that his throat dried up like the damn Sahara. Goddamnit. "And…I'm not gonna let you die, Cas. I'll find a way to fix it. I swear."
The angel looked away, but only for a moment. When he looked back, he reached out and laid his hand directly on top of Deans. The hunter blinked, staring down at in in nothing short of confusion, tips of his ears burning red.
"Uh…Cas?"
"You might not be able to stop it this time, Dean. But if you can't, it's okay. Really." The hunter looked back up, frown firmly in place. "I'm just a shadow. There was never enough of me left to be here to begin with."
Dean's scowl instantly worsened, and he found himself scooting all the way to the end of chair, ass precariously perched right on the edge, but he didn't care. What mattered was getting right up in Cas's face to let him know he meant business, those big blue eyes wide and locked on his. "Bullshit. Sure feels real to me, Cas."
To prove his point, he flipped his hand over so he was practically entwining fingers with an Angel of the Friggin' Lord, and he gripped that hand hard enough for his friend to damn well feel it. Cas looked town between amused and annoyed, and Dean just stared and stared, having himself a point to prove, and thought, 'Deal with it. You're not getting rid of me easily.'
Cas could doubt him all he wanted, but he was gonna find a way to save him. He always did.
Eventually, that look shifted completely into the amused category, and Cas glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow. "You're still holding my hand, Dean."
And now he was releasing it like a cursed object. "Shaddup."
But Cas was smiling affectionately as he took his hand back. So Dean counted that as the friggin' win it was and decided to ignore all the other stuff. Means to an end, and all that. "There's still time, Dean. Even if I am fading, it won't happen instantly. We have time."
He didn't know if the angel did it on purpose, using those same words he'd spoken a lifetime ago in a cemetery facing the end of the world before jettisoning one measly hunter back through time in a Hail Mary act of desperation, or if it was just a coincidence. And he honestly didn't know if hearing those words again should make him feel better or worse.
"Yeah, right. Time." Dean shook his head. "Speaking of…"
The hunter had to concentrate again to get another beer to appear, and he handed it over readily to his friend (okay, he could admit, this part of dreamland he could get used to). "You got some to spare?"
Cas reached out with the neck of his beer to meet Dean's mostly undrunk one with a hearty clink. "For you? Always."
And hell, for once, Dean didn't even mind the dangerously chick-flick line, even if had been delivered more as a joke (and thank god for that). It sort of fit, actually (even if Cas was about as good as delivering a one-liner as he and Sam had been at acting that one time).
"Dude, can we talk about something happy for once? Like, anything. Anything at all, man. It can be depressing as shit and it would still be happier than-" he waved his hand between them and the silent revelation that Cas might be fading and the dreamworld around them that still made his heart ache with homesickness every time he dwelled on it for too long- "this."
He got another tentative grin out of the angel for that. "Did I imagine you and Sam teaching my younger self about Star Trek, or did that really happen?"
"Oh, man!" Dean lit up like the vacancy sign at a haunted hotel. "It was awesome. She lies like a Vulcan now! You shoulda seen her, man. A natural. And I got her to watch Jaws, too. Next on the list is Star Wars. I'm debating the order to show my young Padawan."
Cas seemed to give it actual thought for a second, which was ridiculous, because while Dean was completely serious, it really wasn't the sort of thing worthy of the strategic mind of an Angel of the Lord. "Start with the first three. Numerically."
Especially not when that was the answer he came up with.
The hunter speared his friend with narrowed-eyed suspicion. "Those're terrible, Cas."
Cas shrugged, that shy smile growing. "I liked them. She will too. They were very…shiny."
"Ugh." Dean hung his head back like he'd just found out his best friend was a fan of the first three Star Wars movies. Which, he had. "Of course you like them. You and Sammy, man. You two have no taste. How did you live with a guy for years and not rub off on him at least a little?"
The man from the future suddenly sat stick-straight up in his chair, spilling a bit of his beer and actually managing to make his angel look concerned.
"Holy shit." He grinned wide, turning to Cas who looked equally confused and wary. "Holy shit, Sam doesn't know there are gonna be three more movies! Oh, oh! Andy doesn't either!"
-o-o-o-
Dean woke up with warmth in his chest, an evil plan in his mind to ruin the next three Star Wars movies for his brothers (not that he'd gotten to see anything but the first of those three, but they didn't need to know that), and cold steel in his hand.
The hunter sucked in a slow breath, feeling his lungs expand almost to the point of pain before he let it back out. Uriel's angel blade was firmly gripped in his dominant hand, laying across his chest where Cas's hand had been before he'd fallen asleep. Dean raised his arm to stare at the silver, unearthly metal that still managed to glint in the low light.
He rolled his head to the side, staring at Angela and Lady Cas both sleeping soundly next to him, the dream still fresh in his mind. Dean blinked, suddenly realizing just how next to him the angel was. Like very next to him. Like…almost on top of him. And breathing away on a newly inserted ventilation tube (which was great, that meant someone had come in and finished the job he'd barely started), pooling body heat beneath the blanket that was draped over them both-
Wait. What?
Dean jerked upright, taking half that old quilt with him as he did, staring at the thing in horror. It hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep. It most definitely had. Not. Been. There. Its presence now met someone else had been. There. In the room. With him and a cuddly Cas.
It didn't even matter whether it had been Sam, Bobby, or (god forbid) Andy. Because any of the three of them all meant the same thing. It meant someone had seen him practically spooning in the tiny twin hospital mattress with Cas. Which meant everyone in the housenow knew about it.
"Son of a bitch!"
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A/Ns: Good god. This chapter fought me almost as hard as the last, only this time it was trying to write itself in places I did not want it to go. That chat about Time and Bela was NOT in the blueprints (any of the, like, twelve that existed for this chapter, sheesh), and the Muse just typed it up and away. So I deleted it and told her we had a million other things to focus on. And she RE-WROTE IT on the next attempt. So I sidelined it for a deleted scene, reminding her we'd already *had* this chat with Chuck, we didn't need to repeat it with Cas. Yet, lo and behold, it made the chapter anyway. Because of course it did. The Muse always gets her way (why do I even bother?!)
(The first ten pages, guys. The first TEN pages of a chapter that is usually only ten pages, and none of it was supposed to be there. SIGH.)
(You guys remember Jo and Asa? Ava and Cold Oak? That thing we had going for us called a plot? Yeah, I do too. But the MUSE SURE DON'T. *head thud*)
It's not even that I don't like this chapter. I do (I think. Mostly, like, that very last end bit. *Head thud and a sigh*). It's just…I'm used to being very in control of what I'm writing (control freak) and having everything clearly laid out (OCD control freak). But ever since Quarantine, my brain has been foggy and totally unfocused. I'm writing in circles and it's leaving everything just…jumbled and all over the place. (Like, yes, Muse, that's a fascinating way to bring in Bela. Awesome sauce, let's totally use it. But do we have to use it RIGHT THIS INSTANT?! Yes. Yes, apparently we do.)
So…yeah, I don't completely know how to feel about this chapter. It is a puddle of goo and feels and angst and, oh, yeah, also completely side-tracked by a plot about Time. I'm really hoping it didn't feel repetitive to you guys (the Chuck-Time-Chat was quite a while ago, at least). Sigh.
Ugh, whatever, it's fine!
Moving on!
Requests: I had several requests to shine some more light on how Dean might miss the Sam from his time and mourn the death of that version of his brother. I tried to sneak some of that into this chapter, along with (my personal viewpoint) on why Dean hasn't reacted as strongly to his dead-and-gone brother as he has to his dead-and-not-quite-gone angel (for reasons that aren't *just* Desitel, because I don't believe in over-balancing character interactions just to favor a ship XD)
Please keep requesting things! I really do try to squeeze them in whenever they line up with the story :)
Star Wars: I tend not to like when Authors interject their own opinions about Real World things (like movies) onto their characters because it feels faked/forced/and usually not on-character, so I usually avoid the kinds of discussions that involve opinions (because it's hard enough to nail a character's opinion, let alone keep yours out of it). But, once again, the Muse decided I don't get a say (*head thud*). So, personally, I don't really like the first three Star Wars (numerically), but I am a story snob and a romance-hater, so…I was never gonna like those movies XD Also, as someone who works in VFX, omg, Lucas went over the top. So…So shiny. So much shiny. So pretty but so, so much.
Anyway, hazarding a guess (because the show is much, much smarter than me and has STAYED OUT OF THIS by not having characters give their opinions on such things), I think Dean loves the originals, and begrudgingly accepts the prequels because he's a fanboy and it takes a lot to knock a hardcore fanboy/girl off his/her fandom (sure, he'll gripe and whine, but he's still loyal and was therefore excited when they announced three more), which is why he would insist on showing them to Lady Cas regardless of said griping. While Cas, who does not understanding fandom or fan-ning, would think the first three were acceptable forms of art and story-telling, he would not see why there was much difference between the first three and the second three, and he would marvel at the technology that humans had developed to create such visual virtual worlds from pure imagination (while also asking a thousand questions and pointing out fallacy or misplaced logic in every possible plot hole, but in a curious, I-don't-understand-what-am-I-missing-to-make-this-make-sense sort of innocent way that you would have to give him rather than get annoyed over because he's *Cas*)
And all that could have been avoided if I'd just left the entire Star Wars chat out. Ugh. Stupid. Damn. Pushy. Muse. Stupid. Friggin'. Quarantine. Brain.
(Okay, but I did line it up for a future conversation in which Dean ruins the next three Star Wars movies for Sam XD Uh…whenever we get to that.)
Side Movie Note: I have been trying to work in a scenario where lady Cas would say "I think we need a bigger boat" in the middle of a crisis and Dean would straight up stop and grin at her and be like "Did you just quote Jaws?!" and Sam, amid a hail of bullets or whatnot, would be yelling, "CAN WE PLEASE FOCUS?!" And Dean would return to the crisis but be all, "Sammy, I think I'm in love." And Sam would roll his eyes and mutter, "That's what clued you in?" and wonder how this became his life.
Alas. Such a scenario has yet to line itself up. Le sigh.
Up Next: The Supernatural Family decide to hold an intervention (uh, sort of) where Sam's kind of clueless but onboard, Dean's in for some stubborn family members who have opinions, Asa Fox and Bucky Sims get dragged into it because, uh, they were there to be dragged? Jo and Andy re-unite (and Andy totally thinks he has a shot. Like a lost puppy), and, if there's time leftover after all that, we're gonna catch up with Hell, Chuck, and Persephone (but it's still not written yet, so tune in next week (possibly two weeks from now) to see the stunning conclusion! (Not a conclusion. Just…the next chapter…we're a loooong way from a conclusion. I- I really need to go to bed now.))
(That…that was a lot of author's notes. That was almost as long as the damn chapter. *HEAD THUD*)
Reviews: Last thing, I swear. Please do not feel the need if you review to assuage my worries and fears and jumbled dislike of this chapter. I will be very pleased if you enjoyed it, but I mostly rant and rave because I like to babble, occasionally in all caps screaming, and we know this :D
.
Night, Cheers, and 'Till Next Time,
Silence