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Dean introduces himself as Special Agent Plant and catches himself before he says, "And this is my partner, Agent Page." It gives him a sour feeling, but there's a sheriff to mislead and a terrified hiker to question, and Dean has no time to linger on the absences in his life.
Later, he's back in the motel room with a slice of pizza in one hand, Sam on the phone, and Sam is saying, “So, what, shapeshifter?”
Maybe it's a siren, Dean says, and Sam says no. A siren comes to you as a new love, not as people you already know. Didn't the hiker get pushed around by something that looked like her sister? Dean shrugs. Maybe it's a demon. Sam says maybe, sounding dubious. Sam says probably not, and Dean lets it go.
It's just a quick detour, this hunt. Something quick and easy to clear his head after Zachariah's Back to the Future extravaganza. When he told Sam he was going to drive upstate and check out some disappearances in the mountains first, there was enough of a sigh in Sam's “You're what?” for Dean to know that Sammy was just gonna grit his teeth and bear it. This is their job, after all. They may be each other's weaknesses, but they still have things to hunt, people to save.
"No heroics," Sam warns. "Just kill the thing and come home."
Dean quirks his mouth. 'Home'. The Winchesters don't have a home, just the Impala and each other. They still use the word anyway. It's become shorthand for 'where I am'. “It'll be difficult for me to not be heroic, Sammy,” Dean says.
He can imagine Sam making his bitchface again. He can imagine Sam with black eyes and a white suit, his foot on Dean's neck, and his smile being the last thing Dean sees before he sees nothing at all.
+
He can't get the taste of 2014 out of his mouth.
Dean wakes up in the middle of the night and waits to remember who he is, when he is.
Was that really the future or just some angel trick? When he thinks of how ready Future Dean was to send his friends to their deaths, and how misplaced the devil's smile looked on his brother's face, Dean becomes sure it was a trick. But when he thinks of Cas's body twining around his own, of the warmth of it sweat-slicked beside him, Dean is less sure. There had been a tangible sense of relief that came with unfolding himself in Cas's arms. Something right, or at least something like clarity and inevitability somehow compressed into the desperate creature Cas had become.
“I missed you,” Cas had murmured into his skin. “I miss you. I miss you.”
Then Dean was zapped back to 2009 and Cas is the same Vulcan he's always been, popping into his personal space to blab about Lucifer before dashing off to look for God. In this life, he has never kissed Dean, never looked at him with such naked hunger, never bit Dean's lip hard enough to draw blood. (There is no cut on Dean's lip; he returned from the future whole.) He tries not to draw comparisons when this Castiel appears, but it's hard. Castiel appears half a foot away from him and Dean's eyes are drawn to the curve of his mouth. He finds himself wondering how much one kiss would change things anyway.
On the nightstand, his phone buzzes with a text message and Dean reaches out to fumble for it. It's from Sam, and it reads: i dont think its a shifter.
So Dean calls Sam, pretending he cares more about shapeshifters than he does about grabbing onto a familiar anchor. He pushes the future out of his head and waits for his brother's mystified “What are you doing still up?” before he jumps straight into “What do you mean it's not a shapeshifter?”
“Okay, so you said this thing liked slapping its victims around a little, right?” Sam's sounding pretty perky for three in the morning. Does he ever sleep? Does he ever say no to research? What a nerd, Dean thinks fondly.
“Pulls their pigtails and pushes them around, yeah. Laughs at them. Or so says the one hiker who came back.” Dean rolls over on his back and rubs his eyes. “Said it'd keep disappearing and reappearing.”
“And that's not what a shapeshifter does,” Sam says. “It tries to blend in. Shapeshifters try to trick you, not heckle you. And it can't just vanish and come back, they're not ghosts.”
“You saying it's a ghost?”
“No! Look, if this is what I think it is, then--”
But then Dean hears a flutter of wings, and he looks up to see a familiar trenchcoated figure standing at the foot of his bed. “Cas?” Dean reaches over and turns on the lamp on the nightstand, and blanches at what he sees: the angel is pale and drawn, shaking, bloody nose, unsteady on his feet.
“Cas!”
“Dean,” Castiel rasps, before dropping to his knees.
“--really tall and has red eyes,” Sam continues. “It's gonna smell like tobacco--”
Dean's already out of bed and by Castiel's side, propping him up against the bed as the angel breathes unevenly. He gives Cas a once-over, makes sure he isn't bleeding anywhere else as Sam on the phone goes blah blah blah, goes yadda yadda as Dean runs into the bathroom and soaks a washcloth under running water.
“--why only one hiker made it back,” Sam speechifies. Jesus christ. “Disorientation is its M.O., and she was just lucky that it got bored with her when it did. To take it down, you--”
“Sam, I gotta go,” Dean cuts in. “Cas is here.”
“This will just take a minute.”
“He's hurt,” Dean explains, and hangs up. He hands the washcloth to Cas, who presses it against his nose. “Cas, buddy, what happened?”
“I don't mean to disturb you at this hour,” Cas wheezes.
“Doesn't seem to stop you from disturbing me anyway,” Dean mutters. “Okay, don't go anywhere, I'm going to get some ice from outside.”
As he wrangles with the ice machine, Dean's phone rings in his pocket. He ignores it.
Back in the room, Castiel accepts the makeshift icepack and declines the shot of whiskey. “I don't mean to--” Cas begins, “I didn't know where else...” He settles on, “Thank you.”
“You're welcome,” Dean says, and tries not to worry about how an angel of the Lord needs an icepack for a nosebleed. “Dude, what happened?”
“I was chasing demons.”
Dean raises his eyebrows. “And?”
“I caught them.”
“Fuck yeah. Hope they're roasting happily back in the pit.”
“I didn't exorcise them.”
This takes a few seconds to register. “...What? Why?”
Castiel hesitates. “I couldn't.”
“You what?” he barks.
“I couldn't exorcise them,” Castiel cracks out, and Dean puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him, but also to grasp tightly and shake.
“What do you mean you couldn't? What kind of an angel are you?” Dean demands, and he doesn't mean to sound so angry but the past couple of months – fuck, this last week alone – are catching up to him. All the things he didn't want to think about, all the horror of a future dystopia that he's convinced himself he will avert: they're resurfacing.
What if Cas stops being an angel? What if Sam says yes?
“I just need to...” Castiel's brow furrows, as if unsure of the words. “I just need to rest.”
“You need to take a shot of this whiskey is what you need. Does this happen often?”
“No,” Cas says firmly, ignoring the whiskey, “but I rebelled against Heaven, Dean.” Castiel removes the ice pack from his face and touches his blood gingerly, examining it on his fingers. “They've cut me off from the Host. They'll weaken me to find me. It's both punishment and strategy.”
“No one's gonna punish you,” Dean snaps.
“I don't plan to let them,” Castiel says, and looks up at Dean with the artless sincerity to which Dean has become accustomed. There is something else there too, the same hardness in Castiel's eyes that Dean saw there in Bobby's hospital room the last time they were all together.
Dean holds his ground. “Good.”
In the pause that follows, Dean thinks of reaching out and touching Castiel's cheek, the way Cas from 2014 so easily reached out and touched his, so easily shifted closer to Dean, like an old habit, like Dean - though bewildered - might never presume to say no. (It had been Cas who kissed him first, but Dean who pulled them towards the bed.) He glances at Castiel's mouth and neck and curve of collarbone, and finds himself remembering things that haven't happened in a world that shouldn't exist. Then Dean thinks, stop.
He thinks, just stop.
+
Cas says he'll stay until he regains his strength, and Dean wakes up the next day alone. There's nothing in the room to hint at a visit from a bruised-up falling angel except for the melted icepack on the table.
“So what's next on your to-do list?” Dean had asked last night, already drifting off to sleep on the bed.
Cas, seated stiffly at the table, replied, “I'll go to the Esagila.”
“Who?”
“Not a who. A what. The Esagila is the temple of Marduk.”
“Of... what?”
“No, Marduk is a who. He's the Babylonian god of light and healing, also known as the Shepherd of the Gods. I will summon him and ask if he has information on my Father.”
And that's when Dean gave up and went to sleep. If Cas wanted to blabber on about ancient pantheons, he was with the wrong Winchester.
So it's morning and Dean eats what's left of the pizza for breakfast and throws his stuff in the car. The sooner he ices this thing, whatever it is, the sooner he can get back to Sam. The sooner they can change the future. (Destiny can't be changed, Dean, Castiel had said those many months ago when Dean couldn't save his parents, could never have saved his parents. All roads lead to the same destination.)
The sooner they can change the future, the better. He starts up the car and pops AC/DC in the tape deck, because 'Back in Black' is always an excellent way to start the day.
(I can't believe it's really you, said a Castiel who wasn't supposed to exist, who looked at Dean in a way that made him feel like an impostor. They were both impostors there anyway, of a sort.)
+
Gwen, the one hiker who returned after the creature stole the hikers away, said she had seen something tall and dark behind the trees, something that moved quickly, but clumsily. Something that laughed like a drunk and shrieked like a horse. It was probably a deer, she said meekly, but after Dean pried the filter off her, she confirmed that sometimes the creature looked like her sister. Sometimes it would talk to her and it would sound exactly like her sister, and it wouldn't stop pulling Gwen forward and pushing her back, pinching her arm and scratching her neck.
“I knew it wasn't actually my sister,” Gwen fretted. “My sister is in Colorado, but I thought...”
“What did you think?” asked Special Agent Plant.
“I don't even know, I just...” She shook her head. “I just kept following her. It. I just kept going.”
“You kept going, or it made you go?”
But Gwen just kept shaking her head and saying I don't know, I don't know.
+
The trees stretch tall around him, and the dense canopy cuts the sun into narrow beams of green-gold light. It's a nice day for hunting monsters, if a little warm, but then again the last creature Dean hunted had led him into the sewers, so this is definitely a step up. Okay, technically (paradoxically?), the last thing Dean hunted was the devil in 2014, but he's not sure if alternate universes count anyway.
2014 may not be real, but for something unreal, it has a surprising amount of staying power. He knows that seeing Lucifer as Sam will never be something he can talk to his brother about, for the same reason Sam never talks about those hundred Tuesdays where Dean died over and over again: it hits too close to home, it strikes too many chords. It may be an illusion, but it is exacting in its cruelty.
Dean follows the trail Gwen took, and he can almost pretend he's on a nature hike instead of a hunt. He runs into other hikers and campers, and he shows them ID and tells them to get out of here, there's been a rabid wolf sighted in the area. He leaves them to panic and argue with each other, and continues on his way, keeping an eye out for tall shadows between the trees, keeping an ear out for crazed laughter.
He runs into fewer and fewer people the deeper into the woods he goes, but still no monster. It's going on 2 p.m. and the quality of sunlight has changed from the crispness of morning to the oppressive heat of the afternoon. Dean shrugs off his jacket, and allows himself a fifteen minute stop to wolf down a sandwich and check the map. There's an X where Gwen reappeared, and best-guesstimates of where the other hikers vanished. He considers his own position, and thinks maybe he should head south.
He checks the time again. If Dean can kill this thing before the sun goes down, he can probably make it to Sam before tomorrow.
+
Dean stops in his tracks when he smells tobacco, tightening his grip on his gun.
Didn't Sam say something about tobacco? Shit, Dean should have called him back. What else did Sam say? Red eyes? There's no reception out here and no time to call Sam if there were. Something crunches underfoot a few yards away and Dean has his gun out in an instant.
There is something lithe and dark that flickers behind the trees. A grunting sound, could be human, could be animal. Wendigo? Werewolf? Sidhe? He can't quite focus on the darting shape. The smell of tobacco becomes uncommonly strong, prickling his nostrils, but he steels himself. Dean Winchester has been to Hell and back, and he's not afraid of whateverthefuck monster you put in front of him.
“Come out into the open, shitbag!” Dean yells.
It's not a monster that steps out.
The man is dressed in jeans, a frayed blue shirt, and a military surplus jacket. He's all scruffed up, and the look in his eyes gives off the impression of permanent intoxication. “Hi, Dean.”
Dean stares. “Cas?”
Castiel from 2014 raises his eyebrows, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Did you miss me?” he asks, and then he throws his head back and laughs.
+
The year 2014 clings to him now, roiling behind Dean's eyelids and under his ribs: it is everywhere, having climbed out of his memories to diffuse through the air. Castiel's eyes flash red, and Dean feels himself pulled in like a moth to the flame, has to tell himself to resist resist resist.
Cas steps forward and Dean takes a step back.
“You're not Cas,” Dean manages, but it's hard to say the words, and harder still to believe them. Of course the man in front of him is Cas. Why wouldn't he be? (THIS IS NOT CAS, he reminds himself.)
“Who else would I be?” Cas asks, wide-eyed. Dean fires two rounds at point-blank range and somehow misses. The bullets sink harmlessly into a tree.
Dean takes out the knife, and Castiel says, almost pityingly, “Dean, put that away.”
“I don't do requests,” Dean says through gritted teeth, and lunges forward to gut the creature, but he ends up tumbling into the dirt because suddenly Cas is gone. When Dean looks up, the angel is walking off the trail, weaving between the shadows with a bizarre and ponderous swagger.
“Cas?” Dean calls out, panicked that it's not Cas, panicked that it might be.
Castiel pauses and glances over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for, Dean?” He smiles around his cigarette. “Come on.”
“Where the hell do you think you're going?”
“I have something to show you. Come with me.”
And Dean knows he should say no, he should end this fucker right here and now, but he can't, because it's Cas, but no, no no, it's not Cas, and Dean should kill it. He shouldn't be following it anywhere.
“Dean,” Cas says again, with the gravely tone of the Castiel who hasn't fallen, and the impish smile of the one who has.
Dean deflates, and he doesn't mean what he says next (or so he'll tell himself later), it's just the monster's mojo. But that doesn't change the fact that he says: “Okay.”
+
On his last day in 2014, Dean woke up at dawn when his future self nudged him with his boot.
He blinked blearily into consciousness, and realized that the uncomfortable weight on his stomach was Cas, contentedly asleep using his belly for a pillow. Future Dean gave them a smarmy “this is so cute I could puke” smirk, then toed Cas awake, a little harder, before going off to do whatever it was that tyrannical douchebags do when they're preparing to kill the devil.
When Risa announced a ten minute ETD, Dean saw Cas and Future Dean caught in a hushed argument some distance away. Dean wasn't close enough to hear, but he took in Cas's tired expression, his crossed arms, and general air of disinterest as Future Dean hissed some angry lecture. Occasionally Cas tried to get a word in, but Future Dean would interrupt him, and Cas'd look down at the ground, up at the sky, anywhere else but at his fearless leader.
Eventually Cas put his hand on Future Dean's shoulder and said something that shut him right up. It was the first time Dean saw his future self look like he felt sorry for anything, and maybe he was even going to say something in reply, but then Cas turned around and left.
“Lover's tiff?” Dean asked when Cas fell in step with him.
Cas just rolled his eyes.
Halfway to the sanitarium, Dean asked – more for small talk than anything else, more to reach out to to the ex-angel, who was the only one here who knew him – “So, hunting the devil. You think we're gonna live to tell this tale?”
It was meant to be a joke, but Cas stopped in his tracks and turned to look at Dean with a considering expression on his face. Dean stopped too, uneasy. That was another thing: when this Castiel deliberated instead of simply reacting, it was a warning sign.
Cas said, “I guess you will.”
+
Castiel walks with a strange uneven gait. He moves fast even though the trees grow densely this far off the trail. There isn't as much light, and the shadows are full of tricks: sometimes Cas's arms appear longer than a human's should, sometimes it looks like Cas's legs are bent the wrong way. Sometimes Dean loses him between the trees, only to have Cas materialize beside him and laugh as he slams Dean against a tree.
“I'm glad you're coming along,” Cas says, restraining him with minimal effort as Dean writhes in his grip. “I'm glad you're here with me.”
“Fuck you, you son of a bitch,” Dean spits out. “I'm going to end you.”
“You haven't yet,” Cas says, and he kind of has a point.
They've been walking through the woods for a few hours now, and the more they walk, the more Dean loses things. The world slides away from him: he can't remember what that hiker said about this creature, he can't remember what Sammy said about it, about Cas. He can barely remember why he should want to kill Cas instead of following him, but Dean fights to keep the impulse alive. He knows it's important somehow, and it throbs dully in his chest – kill Cas kill Cas kill Cas – over and over again until the syllables lose their meaning, stubborn but confused.
Dean doesn't put things off, and he isn't sure why he hasn't pulled the gun on Castiel by now, why he hasn't taken out his knife and stabbed him. This isn't even the real Casti... But then Cas glances over his shoulder and gives him a stilted grin, and Dean is pulled along like a dog on a leash, his weapons untouched.
On and on they go, with Cas too quick for him and Dean discombobulated as he finds himself urged forward by an easy word, held back with a casual shove, pushed against a tree, pushed down to the ground as Cas laughs delightedly at Dean's struggle to escape.
“Aren't I your friend?” Cas chuckles, pinning Dean's wrists to the dirt. “The future is now, Dean. You shouldn't be afraid of it. You shouldn't be afraid of me.”
“Fuck you, you fucking bastard, fuck you, I'm gonna--” Dean curses desperately.
“Are you afraid?” Cas asks.
His face is inches from Dean's and Dean is calling him all sorts of names, when Castiel kisses him, warm and feather-light.
+
In 2014, the morning lost its chill as the sun rose steadily higher.
“What do you mean, you guess I will?” Dean demanded.
Cas adjusted the strap of his gun. “We gotta make sacrifices, right?” he said hesitantly, as if he found the words unwieldy, as if he was just parroting someone else. Dean thought of Cas's argument with Future Dean, and wondered if Cas was parroting him.
Then Risa trudged past and told them to get a move on, so they did, because when Risa told you to do something, you did it.
Back in the present, up in the mountains, Dean will wonder: where is Risa in 2009? How is she doing right now? Is she healthy? Is she happy?
He will walk through the woods with the future leaking out of his head, and the long shadows will continue to play tricks on him because in the oncoming twilight, sometimes Cas's silhouette will appear to shift, and Dean will see not his friend's face, but something wilder and elongated and dark. Cas will open his mouth and Dean will think he can hear the cries of the dead, unless those are just regular woodland critters. Yeah. Critters.
Maybe.
And always, always: the gray stench of tobacco. The smoke gathers around Cas's head like a halo, and Dean will wonder if he'll be able to get the smell out of his clothes.
+
Dean lies stunned on the ground, frozen.
Castiel doesn't close his eyes as he kisses him. He watches Dean like he's waiting for a reaction, and the reaction Dean gives him is a violent jerk and a box to the ear. Cas falls off, and immediately Dean is on top of him, furious and hurt and holding a knife to his throat.
Somehow it's this kiss that breaks through the veil. Dean remembers everything: why he is here, why he should kill this creature right the hell now, how it is not Cas because Cas is off in Babylon or something, and how he still needs to get back home to Sam.
He really should've called Sam back.
“I'm gonna string you up and beat the living crap out of you, I swear to fucking god,” Dean hisses.
Castiel makes a face as if genuinely offended. “Dean, don't you know who I am?”
“I don't fucking care anymore. Take it to your grave, mirrorverse.”
“Even if I weren't Castiel,” the creature says, “how do you know that knife will work on me?”
Dean replies, “I'll take my chances.”
“Dean.”
And there is something in Cas's tone that makes Dean hesitate, something pleading and ominous. Cas's eyes glow a faint red, just around the blue of his irises. Oh shit, Dean thinks, and feels his tenuous grip on reality shift.
“Am I just going to be something else you sacrifice?” Cas almost sounds disappointed.
“What?” The words catch on a blurred memory, but before Dean can force it into clarity, Cas says:
“We gotta make sacrifices, right?”
2014 rushes back to him, and in his mind's eye, there is Cas weighed down by guns and mortality, and there is Cas lying under him with his fingernails digging into Dean's back, there is Cas crunching down on pills and when Dean kissed him later he'd tasted like a fucking pharmacy. There is Cas, that final morning, with an air of resigned loyalty about him that only made sense later, when Dean found out his future self planned to lead them all to slaughter.
If you can't change yourself, then what can you change? If you can't control your own future, then what do you control? Dean promised himself to never become that hollow man from 2014, he swore. When he said to Castiel, “Don't ever change,” he was talking to himself too.
“Dean,” Cas cuts across his thoughts, “don't you recognize me?”
What a stupid question. Of course he does. This is Castiel. Cas, who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition, who defied the will of Heaven and killed his brothers, who did all of it for Dean.
Right?
Dean sits up and removes the knife from Cas's throat.
Right?
Castiel grins.
+
Cas's cabin in Camp Chitaqua smelled like the morning after: the sour smell of spilled booze, stale smoke, and the musk of sex. It stank, in other words, but Dean was comfortable here, away from the surreality of the world outside. He understood, perhaps, why Cas preferred to be away from it also.
There was a part of Dean that was still surprised at how easy this felt, like maybe he had just forgotten about it and had to be reminded by Cas trailing kisses along his shoulders. Remember this? It was like looking at one of those Magic Eye pictures and finally, finally getting it. Everything falls into place as you see the colors raised into patterns that are almost tangible.
“So you and me,” Dean asked, afterward. “I mean, you and him. Other me.”
Cas shrugged. “Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“Since Sam... you know.” Cas frowns. “You mean we weren't.... When Zachariah brought you here, we haven't--”
“Dude, you were like, a monk. The one time you actually came close to getting some ass, you scared it off and we had to exit through the back.”
Cas chuckled. “How things change.” He rolled over onto his stomach, and looked into Dean's eyes. There was one thing that hadn't changed at least: his habit of staring at Dean like he meant to memorize him. “So where does that leave you, when you go back?”
“What do you mean?”
“When Zachariah zaps you back to 2009. If he does.” Cas tilted his head. “Will you start this,” he gestured vaguely between them, “with me then? For all you know, maybe this trip is what started it – started us – in the first place. Zachariah zaps you up here, I seduce you – apparently – and you like it so much that you decide to try it out once you're back where you're,” Cas tensed his jaw, “where you're supposed to be.”
“This is making my head hurt,” Dean replied, because he really didn't want to think about it.
“Or what if you change the future,” Cas mused, “and avert all this. No croats, no living in shitty camps, Sam's still with you, I still have a stick up my ass... What if you stop everything, and the me right here right now? I cease to exist, and you're stuck in another timeline with a Castiel who doesn't want you back.”
Dean raised his eyebrows. “If this is the only world where you'd ever want me, then I'm not sure we're meant to be, sweetheart.”
“I hate this,” Cas muttered, looking down. “I hate seeing time in only four dimensions. I don't understand it anymore.”
“Cas.”
“What.”
“Come here.”
“What?” Cas sighed, but he obeyed, shifting closer to Dean and sliding an arm across his waist. Sliding his whole body over him until Dean was trapped between Cas and the bed, Cas's hands pressed into the mattress on either side of Dean's head. He looked at Dean as if he were something to be figured out, and Dean could see desire pooling in Cas's eyes again, in the way he parted his lips and wet them in anticipation.
“Come here,” Dean whispered.
Cas lowered his head and his mouth tasted of vicodin and beer.
+
Twilight: the last of the day streaks through the sky in shades of gold.
Ahead of him, Cas is becoming more difficult to see. Dean strains to listen for him and hears, not footsteps, but something heavier, akin to hoofbeats, and a whinnying giggle that reminds him of fingernails on blackboards.
“Cas, where are we going?” he calls out.
“We're almost there,” Cas assures him.
“Look, I gotta get back to Sam. Why don't we just--”
“We're almost there, Dean.”
“Hey!” Dean yells, and stops walking. It takes a surprising amount of willpower. “Cas, look. I've been walking for hours here. I'm exhausted, I'm out of food, water, and my feet feel like they're about to fall off.” He feels compelled to keep on walking, so he grabs onto a branch and hangs on.
Cas, lost to sight in the gloom, orders, “Dean, come.”
“Naw, man,” Dean says, ignoring the bile rising in his mouth. He gets the feeling like maybe he should've stopped sooner, should've tried to stop hours ago. “You come here. Come on, we've been walking all day.”
“We're almost there.”
“You've been saying that for the past two hours.” Dean feels some indiscernible force tug him forward, and he tightens his grip on the branch. “Cas, look, I have to...”
“Dean.”
“You keep forgetting this about humans, Cas. We're not the goddamn Energizer bunny, all right? Look, whatever is out here, whatever--” Whatever you are, Dean thinks desperately, because there is still a part of him that is aware enough to know what's going on, but it is not the part that controls his actions or his thoughts. It's not the part that can't be extinguished by the voice insisting that all this is real.
Dean manages to gasp, “Cas,” rallying his strength for that one syllable. He sags sideways against the tree and breathes hard, thinking of immoveable things. He wishes Sam were here. He wishes he'd called back.
“Maybe you're right,” Cas says from somewhere within the shadows. “Maybe I've been taking the wrong approach.”
The sound of footsteps draws near, changing from uneven and clumphing to hesitant and light. Dean steadies himself for whatever's coming, his heart jackhammering in his chest, his senses trying to be alert.
“It's difficult sometimes, I admit,” Cas continues, except it doesn't sound like Cas anymore, “to be able to tell the difference between what's at the forefront of your mind and what is at the heart of you. But I think I've learned something of you now, now that we've had time to get to know each other. Let's try again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean rasps. He feels a chill that has nothing to do with the crepuscular drop in temperature. He knows that voice.
“Nothing,” says Sam, stepping into view. “Come on, Dean. Let's go home.”
Dean doesn't know whether his heart is squeezed tight from relief or disgust.
“You're not Sam,” he retorts, testing out how the words feel in his mouth.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I'm the tooth fairy.”
He walks closer to Dean, his movements awkward and his limbs oddly cumbersome. Dean resists the urge to shrink back. This is Sammy here, and even if it's not...
Sam steps in real close and he has to bend his head to look Dean in the eyes. Dean has missed this. He's missed this proximity and ease, the looming bulk of his brother nearby, and the warmth with which Sammy is looking at him right now, even if his eyes are a little unfocused. Even if he's gripping Dean's shoulders a little too tight, reeking of the tobacco that neither of them smoke.
“It's been a while,” Sam says.
Dean swallows dryly, replies, “Yeah.”
“Why are you stopping?”
“I'm tired, Sammy.”
“I know, but we're not far now.”
“Sammy, I don't think--”
“Come on, Dean.”
Dean tries again: “You're not my...”
“I wouldn't let anything happen to you.” Sam slides his hands to Dean's arms, and tugs gently. “You know this, right? Come on.”
“No.”
“Dean.”
“No!”
“Why do you always have to fight me, Dean?” Sam sighs, and there's such frustration in his tone, which grates, and has always grated. There's a sad and wary smile on his brother's face that might have been meant to reassure, but Dean has seen that smile before and in that instant Dean sees his brother's eyes flare red and he sees--
--black eyes and a white suit, Sam's foot on Dean's neck and his smile being the last thing Dean sees before he sees nothing. It's the devil's smile via Sam's face, like Lucifer doesn't know how to use it, like the muscle and skin and sinew are just inconvenient necessities. Dean knows his brother and he knows his brother's smile, and this is not him. This is not it.
“I'm your brother,” the creature promises.
“You dumb shit,” Dean croaks. “All this trouble impersonating a Winchester and you don't even choose the handsome one.”
Dean shoves forward, throwing all his weight at the creature, and it wails in fury as they crash to the ground.
+
“In a way, I've always been waiting for you to come back,” Cas said to him in that other future, and Dean flinched because he wasn't ready to be what that sentence wanted him to be. Cas's eyes slid to the other Dean, up in front of the group, and quietly added, “Accept no substitutes.”
+
The fall knocks the wind out of Dean, but he still struggles to pin the beast to the ground.
Already it is changing its shape under him: already its arms darken and curl, already the legs become leaner and longer, nudging Dean off-balance. Sam's face narrows and elongates, its eyes moving apart, its hair concentrating itself down the middle of the head, like a mane. Like a horse's mane. It has a horse's face, but with none of the blankness of dumb beasts. It holds the intelligent fury of someone whose meticulous plans have been overthrown.
The creature throws Dean aside as if he were a rag doll.
“I knew you were difficult,” it says in its true voice, which comes out in a grainy hiss. “I didn't know how difficult. It was fun, Dean Winchester – your head is full of interesting highways and byways, many ways to make you fall. But,” its breath fogs in the air, “you are too stubborn for my tastes. If your brother does not bend you, perhaps we've come now to the end of our game.”
Dean remembers a sketch from his father's journal, a column of notes beside it, a map of the Philippines taped in with arrows pointing at northern Luzon, and scribbled phone numbers with west coast area codes. Dean's practically memorized the whole damn journal, back when he'd try to figure out his father through the catalog of things he killed, and the page is suddenly clear in his mind's eye. Here it is in front of him in living color, surround sound.
The creature raises itself on its hind legs, and confirms the generalities of his father's sketch: the tikbalang is a minotaur with horse parts instead of bull. It has the head of a horse and stands on a horse's hindquarters – deceptively strong for being so spindly-looking. It has the arms and torso of man. The eyes of an angry spirit. The smell of tobacco, which it loves to smoke. The constitution of a trickster, loving to obfuscate and lead astray and – when its mind games fail – to kill.
What his father's sketch failed to express was how fucking huge these things are in real life. It's got like two feet on Dean.
“You've proven more of a challenge than the others,” the tikbalang continues. It sways forward, its swagger belying great strength. “Then again, you are not like the others at all. You're very different, aren't you?”
“Save it, Seabiscuit,” Dean growls, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for his gun. Which isn't there. Not that it would help against a trickster figure, but anything's better than going empty-handed. Dean goes for his knife and at least that's there, and then Dean's back in fighting stance, ready for anything, but mostly he's ready to get his ass kicked.
Dean pieces together now the interrupted phone conversation with Sam, setting it next to his father's journal entry. Number one reason he's going to get his ass kicked: Dean has no stake dipped in victims' blood. He has a single goddamn knife. Number two reason: tikbalangs are strong and fast, and you need to be fit when you're facing off with them, not hungry and thirsty and emotionally drained because you've been wandering hypnotized around the mountains all day.
He asks, low and angry, “Where are the other hikers?”
The tikbalang replies, “You'll soon find out.”
And it strikes.
Dean ducks and rolls, but a tikbalang has a long reach. It grabs Dean by the shirt collar and drags him closer, but he writhes and stabs, and the tikbalang screams, lets go. Dean shoots back up to his feet, spares a glance at the forest floor looking for a glint of metal that might be his gun, but no dice.
“Where are the other hikers, you son of a bitch?” he snaps. “Don't make me ask again!”
“Don't worry,” it assures him. “You won't get the chance.”
Dean charges a hair of a second before it does, and when they crash into each other, it's a tornado of blows and yells and drastic movement, or at least it is on Dean's part, because he quickly realizes that the tikbalang isn't even trying. It evades Dean's maneuvers with lazy ease, dodging this way and that like this is just some amusing dance, like it's the fucking drunken master. Like Dean isn't fighting for his life.
Dean's best bet in the absence of a stake is to climb up on the beast's back and cut off its thickest lock of mane, which would weaken it and more, but he is in no condition to do that. But it's not like 'stab the fucker!' is any better of a plan either. His throat is parched, his muscles ache, and when the tikbalang suddenly barrels forward and deals out a quick succession of blows, Dean goes down, straight down, and his ears are ringing and his vision blurs.
He's crumpled in a heap on the forest floor, and when he looks up at the beast, he sees only a dark shape. He hears it say, “Paalam,” which – in the weird clarity that visits you when you're about to die – is a word that Dean remembers from a pretty waitress in Santa Clara, back when he was hunting gaki out west. The waitress taught him: dagat means 'ocean' and puso means 'heart' and paalam means 'goodbye'.
Dean hopes, with a vague detachment, that Sammy won't take his death too hard. Again.
He hears the rustle of wings.
The tikbalang disappears from view, blocked by a beige trenchcoat, and Dean hears the granite-edged rumble of a voice he's come to associate with eleventh-hour rescues and the willful ignorance of the concept of personal space.
“You will not touch him,” Castiel threatens, “or I'll destroy you where you stand.”
“Cas--” Dean gasps, and the angel lifts his hand for silence.
“Another player for our game?” the tikbalang asks, amused.
“Cas, be careful,” Dean blabbers, “it's a tikbalang, a trickster--”
“I know what it is,” Cas says simply. “Give me your knife.”
Dean does, and Castiel attacks.
The last time Dean saw him, the angel was weakened and stiff from pain, but Dean is reminded now of how, above all things, Castiel is a soldier, a warrior of God. The tikbalang barely has time to react before the angel slams an elbow into its belly. It doubles over with a throaty bray, and Cas clouts it across the face for good measure before before grabbing fistfuls of its mane and hoisting himself onto its back. Dean scrambles out of the way, narrowly missing having his ribcage flattened by a massive hoof.
The tikbalang roars, flailing at the back of its head where Cas hangs on with his legs hooked around its shoulders. There is barely enough light to see by, and Dean sees the action mostly as silhouettes, shadow puppets dancing against a darkening sky. The tikbalang tries to dislodge Castiel, thrashing this way and that, shaking and jerking, and still Cas holds on like he's going for the grand prize at the goddamn rodeo.
The beast manages to catch the edge of Cas's coat and goddammit, Dean knew that coat was going to be a pain in the ass someday, unwieldy and bulky and getting caught on things that are man-broncos from the Philippines. But Cas doesn't even lose a beat. The angel hunches forward and angles his arms back, and lets the coat slide off him.
Cas looks for all the world like a door-to-door salesman, waving around a hunting knife as he rides the carousel horse from hell.
The tikbalang whinnies frustratedly when it realizes that the coat is empty, and those two seconds of distraction are all Cas needs: Dean can see the fervor of near-victory in Cas's hunched shoulders that means he's found it, the thickest cord of mane.
He cuts it.
The tikbalang screams, and suddenly Cas is kneeling next to Dean.
“Dean, are you all right?” he asks.
“Holy shit,” is what Dean says. He grabs Castiel's shoulder and the angel helps him to his feet. “Your timing is impeccable as always. I'm fine.”
It doesn't take long for the creature to settle down, stumbling around as the murderous rage gives way to a dazed stupor. Soon it becomes as docile as Dean had been all day, and he can't help thinking hah, you fucker, because if you can't feel vindictive at monsters, then what can you feel vindictive at? (He thinks of his brother in a white suit, then doesn't.) Still, Dean keeps one eye on it. Just in case. It's just that there's something unnerving about having an eight-foot mutant Mr. Ed looming nearby, especially one that was just trying to kill you.
“It wasn't easy tracking you,” Castiel says gruffly, as if annoyed with himself for not arriving sooner. “It's not easy finding a tikbalang, or its victims before it releases them.”
Dean grins. “Well, thanks. You saved my ass. Again.”
Castiel nods solemnly. “You're welcome.”
“How'd you know to find me?”
“Sam called me. He became worried when you when you didn't answer your phone.”
“Sammy?” Dean chuckles. “Sam worries about everything.”
“He worries about you most of all,” Cas says, like Dean doesn't already know.
“Yeah, it's gonna give him wrinkles.”
Cas says, “He wants you to call him back as soon as you can.”
“Cas,” Dean says, and puts both hands on the angel's shoulders.
“Yes?” Castiel tilts his head at him, bird-like, with that familiar expression of patient curiosity like Dean just cracked wise about yet another eighties sitcom. And that's Cas right there, that's the angel he knows, the one who sucks at not being a Vulcan and who would rather be trapping archangels than getting laid. The one who leaves Dean's side only to look for his father, and if that isn't a sentiment that Dean can identify with, then what is?
“Cas,” Dean repeats, because he's not sure what to say yet. He's not even sure he wants to say anything. He just wants to stay here in this moment, washed clean of illusions, refreshed by the solidity of something honest under his hands. Castiel's coat is still lying on the ground some distance away, and without the bulk of it, Cas looks much smaller, deceptively so. Castiel can rip Dean to shreds and scatter his molecules to the edge of the universe if he wants to, and it's humbling to have the loyalty of a creature so terrifying, to have him look at Dean like Dean's the axis on which everything spins. Dean thinks, I'm the one who should be looking at you like that.
Dean says, “I could kiss you right now.”
Cas raises an eyebrow, and Dean tugs him into a bear hug to end all bear hugs. The angel makes a sound that sounds suspiciously like 'urp!' and hesitantly, carefully, like he's trying to figure out the inner workings of a complicated machine, puts his arms around Dean and hugs back. Then, having figured out that it's not as hard as he thought, hugs Dean closer, unstiffening as he eases into Dean's embrace.
“You son of a bitch,” Dean croaks into Castiel's neck. “You're capable of hugs after all, aren't you?”
“I am capable of hugs,” Cas confirms.
This is not a new feeling, the way the world seems fresher after escaping certain death (again), but it's a great feeling every time. But over Castiel's shoulder Dean sees the tikbalang shuffling vaguely between the trees, looking around like it's lost. It kind of reminds him of the dog waiting for Fry to return in the only Futurama episode to ever make Dean tear up, not that anyone will ever know that. There are loose ends to attend to.
“Okay,” Dean says, patting Castiel's back. “Come on, we're not out of the woods yet.”
“We're miles from the road,” Cas agrees, stepping back.
“I also meant that figuratively. We've got some unfinished business, not the least of which is Kentucky Derby over there. Cas, can you stick around?” Dean asks. “You don't need to zip off to like Tír na nÓg or whatever, do you?”
“No.”
“Good. First, we need to--” and all of a sudden Dean finds himself talking to air.
The angel materializes next to his fallen trenchcoat. He picks it up and dusts it off before he swings the coat around himself, putting it on in one fluid movement. He looks up at an amused Dean, and nods. “I'm ready.”
+
“And that's just how I roll,” Cas concluded as they drove to the croat hot zone. The amphetamines were starting to kick in and, in the passenger seat, Dean wondered wearily how far they had to drive. “Because God is dead, Dean,” Cas said, and laughed to himself. “Welcome to the end times!”
“Okay, Nietzsche, eyes on the road,” Dean muttered.
“Nietzsche would have loved this! Can you imagine? God is dead and he remains dead,” Cas recited. “And we have killed him! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” He gave Dean an exaggerated heartbroken look. “What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?”
“Clue?” Dean suggested. “Humanity, in the library, with the zombie apocalypse?”
“Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?” Cas continued, hovering between histrionic jest and genuine mourning. “Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”
“Are you saying you're God?”
“I'm saying,” Cas said, “fuck it.”
Dean scoffed, “So this is what happens when an angel falls? They get stoned and go all Philosophy 101 on you? What are you, a freshman?”
“A fresh man,” he mused. “Hmm. I haven't been fresh for as long as I've been a man, I can tell you that. But if you think about it,” he met Dean's eyes in the rear-view mirror, “what choice do I have?”
“You always have a choice.”
“I chose you,” Cas shrugged. “I always have.”
+
The thickest, longest cord of a tikbalang's mane is the source of, not necessarily its power, but its freedom. Whomsoever cuts it becomes the master of the creature, and the tikbalang becomes as confused into their submission as its victims usually become to it. Dean inspects it, frowning: it's gnarled, almost bark-like, like a dreadlock off of a particularly earthy Grateful Dead fan. Gross.
“So he's yours now?” Dean asks Castiel, nodding at the beast swaying in front of them. “Like a dog? A pet?”
“Yes,” Cas replies, “though I don't require the services of a tikbalang currently.”
“Don't forget to walk it and feed it twice a day. You should probably get a collar for it too. A license, a leash. What are you gonna name it?”
“You are making a joke,” Cas guesses.
Dean sighs. “Yes.”
“Hahaha,” Castiel offers, valiantly.
“Thanks, Cas. Thank you.” Then, on to more important matters. “Okay, so let's ice this bastard.”
Castiel hesitates. “I don't think we need to ice it.”
“In this context, ice means kill,” Dean clarifies.
“You've explained to me what 'ice' means,” Cas says irritably, “but now that the tikbalang is bound to me... perhaps its death is unnecessary. I can make it do what I say.”
Dean raises his eyebrows.
“Avoid unnecessary deaths,” Castiel says, quoting Dean back at him, “in this war that's probably going to claim a... shitload, of lives.”
Dean smirks outwardly, but he stays quiet, feels his throat go dry and his heart do a funny sort of ta-thump.
“Dean,” Cas says, a smile quirking at the edge of his mouth, “we talked about this.”
And yes, they did, they've talked about a lot of things, and god, if Cas is doomed to fall and become human or whatever, then let this be the humanity that he clings to – compassion, mercy – instead of the hedonism and barely concealed desperation of that other Cas, wherever and whenever he is.
“Well, hop to it,” Dean says, and Cas hops to.
It's kind of weird, seeing a giant horse-monster crouch low to hear what this diminutive man has to say. The expression on the tikbalang's face is one of concentration, as if struggling to see through a fog. Leave the humans alone, Cas instructs. Keep out of sight. Just eat your fruits and smoke your tobacco, and do no harm.
And of course the creature has no choice but to say, “I will obey.”
Cas lifts his hand and touches the tikbalang's muzzle. Is the tikbalang nuzzling it back? It totally is. Dean makes a mental note to give Cas shit about that later. Castiel: Tikbalang Whisperer.
The tikbalang gives off the impression of untangling itself as it rises its feet. Hooves. As it stands up, and it makes no sound when it turns around and disappears into the trees.
“Are you sure I can't kill it?” Dean asks when they go off to find the other hikers.
Cas frowns at him. “Why are you so intent on killing it?”
Dean shrugs and looks away. “Nothing.”
It doesn't take long for Castiel to find the survivors, and to bring Dean to them. Out of the six hikers taken by the tikbalang, only four are alive, and even then just barely. They also find the two disoriented rangers who disappeared from the search party. Dean tells them that it's okay now, everything's gonna be okay. Help is on its way. (“Get help,” Dean tells Cas, out of sight of the survivors, and Cas is gone before Dean even blinks.)
Some of the survivors have stories to tell, once they find the energy for words. My boyfriend, my girlfriend, my mother, my father, my best friend, they told me to follow them. And Dean wants to say I know, I know, but instead he tells them that it was probably hallucinations caused by sunstroke.
As for the bodies, an anonymous tip to the rangers later will have to do, just so they'll know where to find the remains.
By the time they get back to the motel, Dean is too tired to do anything but collapse on the bed and groan, “Cheeseburger. Bacon. Extra fries. And pie.”
“Apple?” Cas asks.
“Chocolate cream.”
And with the muted rush of wingbeats, Dean is alone in the room once more. He kicks off his boots, takes out his cellphone, and dials the first number on his Missed Calls list.
“YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER,” is how Sam answers the phone.
At the sound of his brother's voice, Dean laughs with relief, and it's like releasing a breath he didn't even realize he was holding. “Hey, Sammy,” Dean says, and grins so hard his face hurts.
+
“They didn't have chocolate cream,” Cas says when he returns, “so I got one of each.” He holds out the bags of food. “Lemon meringue or pecan?”
Cas is awesome.
“In retrospect,” Dean is saying, around a mouthful of pecan pie, “the tikbalang wasn't even that good at the whole shapeshifting thing. It looked like Sam, sure. But it acted like some homicidal stoner the whole time.”
Dean has decided not to tell the angel that the tikbalang took on Cas's form most of the time.
“The tikbalang doesn't need to act exactly like your brother,” Cas points out. “It has other ways of clouding your senses and making you do what it wants.”
“So this trickster is like, part siren, part 'shifter.”
Cas sighs. “It is what it is. It's not just some collage of the things you know.”
“Part centaur,” Dean continues, “but in minotaur format. Our little pony here didn't even make up new realities.”
“It shifted yours just enough to matter. There are many kinds of tricksters, Dean.”
Dean takes another bite of pie and asks, “So how was Babylon?”
Cas grimaces. “Full of tourists. Their flash photography was distracting.”
“...Their what?”
“It was difficult to find a space to summon Marduk. The vendors kept trying to sell me t-shirts and sunglasses.”
It took a few seconds for this to process. “Wait, what? T-shirts?” Dean frowns. “This is Babylon as in hanging gardens Babylon?”
“Yes. Its ruins are not far from the city you know as Baghdad.”
“Oh. Well, shit.” He had gotten the impression that Cas was time-traveling again. Maybe Cas is too weak now for even that. “Did, uh, Marduk know anything about your dad?”
Cas closes his eyes and shakes his head.
“You'll find Him, buddy,” Dean assures him, saying the words he's never believed in. “At least your angel powers are back, huh? Should make things easier.”
“Yes,” Castiel says morosely. “For now.”
“For now's good enough, Cas,” Dean says, taking another bite of pie. “For now's pretty excellent.”
+
Dean finishes all the food while Cas stays with him and regales him with theories on where Lucifer might be, what Lucifer might be doing next, why God is AWOL, and where he will go next and why.
“You mentioned Tír na nÓg earlier,” the angel says. “There is potential in that idea. The Tuatha De Danann are recalcitrant at the best of times, but it is possible that they are more flexible now that end is nigh.”
It's the grasping at straws that Dean recognizes from back when Sam looked everywhere for a way to get Dean out of the deal with the crossroads demon, the same harried postulating back from when they were still going after seals. Dean tosses ideas back and forth with Cas anyway, because it's good to keep busy, even if nothing might come of it, and it does Dean good to see Cas riled up. He still can't quite shake glassy blue eyes and cynical laughter from his head, can't shake the feel of deft hands and hot breaths on his neck, and he almost hates Future Cas for turning on the lightbulb over what Dean had been fine being blind to all this time.
Finally, Cas rises to his feet. “I'm glad you're safe, Dean. We'll be in touch.”
“Wait, hang on,” Dean says, and stands too. “Cas, c'mere.”
“I'm here.”
“Come closer.”
So the angel steps around the table, stands in front of Dean, hesitant. “You said personal space--”
“Yeah, I know what I said,” Dean mutters, and puts his hands on Castiel's shoulders like back in the mountains. Cas glances at them, furrows his brows, then looks up at Dean again, waiting. “Look,” Dean says. “I just... Thank you.”
“You already thanked me.”
“I know. But like, thank you for... everything. You're a real stand-up guy.”
'Stand-up guy'? Who the hell says that anymore? But Dean can't think properly, on account of Cas being right there. It dredges up the muscle memory that has refused to leave him since he returned from the future. Dean's getting distracted by the little details; he wonders what kissing Cas would taste like when the angel isn't eating half a pharmacy and most of the liquor store. What sounds would he make if Dean were to graze his teeth along his skin? What is it like to tug off that coat, that blazer, that shirt, to know him this way too?
On impulse, he lifts a hand to cup Cas's cheek, reasoning that Cas is too socially awkward to know that this is socially awkward anyway.
“...Dean?”
Dean slings an arm around Castiel's neck and pulls him close to press a kiss against the angel's forehead.
Cas blinks.
“Um,” Dean says, intelligently. “That's for luck.”
Just. Shoot him now. 'For luck'? Jesus christ.
“So, uh,” Dean says.
Then he thinks, This is maybe a bad idea, and kisses Castiel's mouth.
Cas freezes, but if anything, Dean's tentativeness is testament to his determination. The brush of his lips against Cas's is gentle and light, and Dean doesn't relax until he feels Cas relax too, exhaling softly into Dean's mouth. Cas lowers his shoulders and just as tentatively kisses him back. When Dean parts his lips, Cas does too, with the bright-edged trepidation of those who ask a question they think already know the answer to.
Oh god, this is happening, Dean babbles in his head, and leans into the kiss, pressing harder, lifting both his hands to cup Cas's face. This is his mistake. At this raising of stakes, Cas sucks in his breath sharply and stiffens again. The angel shifts his head slightly away, and damn it, okay. Dean knows how to take a hint.
Dean takes a step back.
“That was, uh,” Dean says.
And Cas just stands there, looking as bewildered as Dean feels.
“So take care of yourself, buddy,” Dean bursts out, and pats Castiel's shoulder. “Good luck on the God search, okay? Tell me how it goes.”
“Dean,” Castiel says, and is he looking more serious than usual? It's hard to tell, with Cas.
“If you find Him, tell Him Dean Winchester says hi, and also that He better get off His ass and--”
“Dean.”
“What.”
Oh god, not this, not the soulful staring. Usually Dean can handle the soulful staring, but not right now. Not after that. Usually Dean's pretty good at distinguishing between id time and superego time, so how what just happened happened... he doesn't even... Fuck, maybe Dean just needs to go to bed, it's been a long day. Maybe--
Dean's second-guessing is cut short when Cas lifts a faltering hand and touches Dean's mouth. The angel frowns contemplatively, as if analyzing the sensation, cataloging it for future reference. Castiel's touch is as light as his kiss, and he runs his thumb over Dean's lower lip with a gentleness that strains to ask, “What if I...?”
“I've always wondered,” Castiel says softly. “This vessel... I've felt,” he begins, and stops, and as much as Dean wants to ask FELT WHAT? he lets it go, because he understands the lack of words, and also because he doesn't want Cas to stop touching him. Cas's hand slides to his cheek in an echo of Dean earlier, and Dean finds himself following the movement to brush his lips against Castiel's palm.
Castiel's breath hitches, just a little, and Dean murmurs, “Sorry.”
“Don't apologize,” Cas says, and there is something brittle and aching in his voice. He withdraws his hand, and declares, “I have to go.”
“Yeah, I have to sleep,” Dean replies.
They don't move.
“Good night, Dean.”
“You too, Cas.”
They don't move.
“So--” Dean says, but is interrupted when Cas suddenly appears in his space and brushes a kiss against Dean's lips, fast and soft, and then Dean hears the beat of wings, and Cas is gone.
Standing in the empty motel room, Dean says, “Well, shit.”
He smiles.
+
Dean's forgotten how tired he is until he actually climbs into bed, and that's when all the aches and bruises crackle up to the surface. He groans into his pillow, rolls over and pulls the blanket up to his chin like that might help somehow. It doesn't.
The whiskey bottle on the nightstand catches his eye. He stares at it for a few seconds before deciding what the hell. Nightcap.
The burn in his throat is comforting in its familiarity, but it brings with it something threadbare and Pavlovian that visits upon him failures past and future: all that he might and might not be, what he could and couldn't do. They gather on the edge of his mind and taunt him, poking and prodding. Dean contemplates another shot to drown them out, but instead he closes his eyes and thinks about Sam chewing him out on the phone, Cas sighing about how difficult it is to get an audience with the Morrigan these days. The warm burr in Sam's voice when he told Dean to come home, and the spark in Cas's expression when he touched Dean's mouth.
Dean waits, and eventually they outshine everything else in his head.
He sleeps.
.
[end.]
.
NOTES
1.Like most folk tales, tikbalang lore is varied and often contradictory. What is common is that it is a trickster figure who likes to mess with travelers, and it looks kind of like this. I referred to various sources (I use the term 'sources' lightly) for details, which I cobbled together haphazardly for the purposes of this story. I drew from this site, this site, and this site, then applied artistic license.
2.That was Nietzsche's “Parable of the Madman” that Cas quoted to Dean on the way to the croat hot zone. Chuck wonders sometimes if maybe he should've recommended some lighter reading to Cas, maybe some Maeve Binchy or R.L. Stine. Cas seems to like it though. It's just, when does it stop becoming catharsis and start becoming pain?
3. Dagat, puso, and paalam are Tagalog words. The waitress's name was Concepcion Vitan, but most people know her as Connie. She grew up in Bulacan, which she told Dean she wanted to visit again someday. Dean wondered what it says about his life that when Connie started telling him about her childhood home, his first thoughts were curiosity about how hunters operate in the Philippines, if they have a network there like in the US, whether they use different weapons, and what the monsters are like on the other side of the world.