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Dean makes pancakes the next morning.
He uses up the last of the instant batter and briefly considers making some from scratch, but he figures that even if Sam does wake up, he won’t eat many, so he tosses what he has on the griddle. He’s been getting better at flipping them at the right time—the trick is in paying attention to the bubbling on top.
At 7:13, Sam stumbles into the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes. For a moment, all Dean can see is his eight-year-old brother waking up after a nightmare. Then it passes and all Dean’s left with is his brother, thirty-odd years old, several hundred in his soul.
“I’m up,” Sam says, holding his hands up like he’s waiting for a snarky response.
Dean just drops a pancake on his plate, forgoes the butter (knowing Sam will say something about the health benefits of going without ) and shoves the syrup in his direction (knowing even his health conscious little brother can’t ignore his sweet tooth forever).
“Eat. I saw you in that diner last night.”
During the time Sam had had Lucifer rattling around in his brain, he’d perfected the art of cutting up his food into little pieces and pushing it around to make it look as if he’d eaten it all. Luckily, Dean had perfected the art of knowing when Sam was bluffing. Last night in the dinner had been the first time in years he’d seen the technique.
Sam doesn’t complain. Maybe he’s more affected than Dean thought.
“You didn’t say her name.”
Sam rolls his eyes. “Kaia? Yeah, no, definitely mentioned that last night.”
Dean has to restrain himself from rolling his eyes in response because he knows if he does the two of them will just descend into a silent argument.
“Not Kaia.”
The mention of the name still stings. Dean can’t quite wrap his mind around the fact that he led a girl—okay, young woman, but God they seem younger all the time—to her death at gunpoint. If Kaia had had her way, she would have been halfway across the country, not traipsing into parallel universes.
“Excuse me?” Sam asks, through a mouthful of pancakes.
“Didn’t I teach you better than to talk with your mouth full?” Dean teases.
At the death glare Sam throws his way, he has to back down a little.
“Sam. Eileen.”
Sam flinches, minutely, at the mention of the name.
“You told me once you wanted something with someone in the life.”
Sam closes his eyes, pushes the plate away. Dean doesn’t try to stop him.
“That’s not over, Sam. It’s not. This doesn’t have to end in blood, you know that. We get Mom and Jack back, we call it a day. We make sure Jack grows up right. We eat dinner at Jody’s and show Mom how to work Netflix and teach Claire about flamethrower safety. Maybe you meet a girl, maybe—”
Sam holds up his hand. “Don’t. Okay? Whatever Eileen and I had—it wasn’t anything. She’s gone. It’s over. I learned my lesson, Donna’s learning it right now, and I thought you learned it a long time ago. We don’t get to have what other people have. We give that up so they can live their lives.”
Dean turns off the griddle and wipes his hands down on his apron (it says ‘kiss the chef’ on it because Jody thinks she’s some sort of comedian).
“All I’m saying, Sam, is that you’ve always been Mr. Optimism. Where’d that go?”
Sam just stares at him. “Um. Where do you want me to start? The part where a demon bled into my mouth? Or when I watched you get killed by a hellhound? Oh, I know, when I went to Hell? Or—”
“I get it.” Dean tosses the pancake pan into the sink. “I just—think about it, okay?”
He heads for his room.
“We weren’t anything,” Sam calls after him.
Dean shrugs. Almost is sometimes worse.
“Angel.”
Cas resurfaces from his reverie, in which he was trying to recreate the entirety of the Lord of the Rings extended edition frame for frame in his head from the one time Dean sat him down to watch it. Sue him. It gets kind of boring sitting around all day with only Lucifer for company.
“What do you want?”
Asmodeus looks almost annoyed at his lack of reaction.
“You need to answer this one.”
He holds out Cas’s phone in between two fingers, as if it’s giving off some sort of weird smell. Cas doesn’t reach for it, just in case Asmodeus is just going to yank it out of his hands. Demons get their kicks in strange ways.
“Respond,” Asmodeus says icily, eyes narrowing. “But if you give even the slightest indication that something is amiss, I will strip Dean Winchester’s skin from his bones and use it to throttle him. Understood?”
Cas isn’t even fazed by it. “Isn’t that what you’re planning to do anyway?”
Asmodeus tilts his head, considering. “Fair enough.”
He holds the phone out again. Cas can’t withhold his curiosity anymore, so he takes it. A text from Dean appears on the screen when his thumb brushes the phone.
where do you think this all ends?
Another text from a few minutes later.
i mean, this hunting thing. sam always said there was a way out and then today
well after today i don’t think he believes it anymore
so i wondered what you thought.
“How’s lover boy these days?” Lucifer drawls.
Cas rolls his eyes, smirking as he thinks about how Dean told him once that he’d get stuck like that. Under both of their watchful gazes, Cas types out his response. As much as he hates the days where Asmodeus makes him respond, he hates the ones where he only gets to watch more.
I’ve never really thought about it. I thought we’d hunt until we met something that got us all killed.
and what if we just…stop?
What?
what if we just lived in the bunker? worked like bobby used to, helping younger hunters out. i’m not getting any younger, you know.
I am.
shut up.
Cas smiles down at his phone, able to pretend that he’s sitting in the front seat of his truck, texting Dean an update on a case when they go off on a tangent like they so often do.
“Wrap it up, Castiel.”
And the illusion shatters.
Cas considers chucking the phone at his head, before deciding that he probably won’t get it back no matter how much Asmodeus needs him to play himself. Instead, he types a message.
I’d like that.
me too
Dean, I have to go.
right, yeah. night.
When Asmodeus leaves the room, Cas closes his eyes. Instead of the Lord of the Rings, he pictures what that future is going to look like, frame by frame.