Chapter Text
'This is the end, my beautiful friend. This is the end, my only friend, the end. Of our elaborate plans, the end. Of everything that stands, the end. No safety or surprise....'
Muffled lyrics, ethereal, ephemeral; after the croon of a melody begins beating like some sort of distant, laborious heart through walls and doors, accompanied by a familiar rattle that weaves under the pounding beat of Dean Winchester's own heart.
A burst of guitar work causes him to startle in honest recognition along with surprise, never mind the apropos nature of the lyrics that he registers. He bites his lower lip and closes his eyes, nodding emphatically along with the chord progression. Registers, practically feels a glance levered at him before darting away, feels a shift and settling, before a lean, familiar body begins leaning back, rolling shoulders.
"...I show ya this track?" Dean asks, arresting a prior burst of movement that had been surprisingly fluid, not at all stiff, from the angel who apparently never left his side since pulling him out of Hell. And then with the words, the question, it seems all of Castiel's previous stiffness, the jerking movements and careful distance (put upon, Dean has reason to expect, by Heaven) is returned to him, shivering through the muscles of his arms. Reminding Dean of all his angelic power, yet also the...pauses, the way that Cas would squint his eyes and cock his head, curiosity winning out, that - what might've been eccentricity, or awe. How intense he always was, from the first. With those direct gazes, unblinking stares. No personal space, but only in regards to, only between Dean and himself.
Theirs truly was always a more profound bond.
Yet witnessing ...this, this dark future, and himself as he is here in it (if this actually IS some twisted future and not just Dean being dicked around by Zachariah) puts a sour taste in his mouth, like bile. Especially witnessing the way he is to Cas. Because it's Cas. But he can't just go in with somethin' big to say except by using his typical banter: "- before I got the stick shoved up my ass, I mean. Looks like it transferred," and quirking lips notwithstanding, he catches sight of the darkness in Cas's eyes, drowning that bright summer blue. The only brightness left, diminishing all as a result of his big mouth. For making some stupid joke. Shit.
Automatically shifting as if to do something, maybe reach out, but unclear whether or not the other would be okay with that, no matter what they've been through together, Dean can't help but blurt "Whoa, hey, Cas -" to say sorry for bringing it up, or that he was joking, and besides, it's their last night on earth; come on, man - but in such a human manner, a way that Dean recognizes and feels painfully twinging through his innards, the once-angel's shoulders curl. He drops his head, stiffening. Turning away from Dean, even as he laughs - a shrill and bitter barking sound.
"As I removed it from my own, you mean?" Gaze flat, facing the opposite wall as his thin lips tremble amidst stubble. "You could say what happened with Sam - TO him -" as Dean winces sharply, unable to help himself, sheen wells up, eyes filling, and the Winchester chokes on a horrified wet inhale because oh no, he knows this Cas can feel, that he's human, but it's a whole 'nother thing to...he doesn't wanna make the dude CRY
But it's as if Cas pulls back. This Cas. His never would. He knows, or at least he thinks he knows - but what does he know, really?
This one...he collects himself, swallowing, throat bobbing deep. Which is worse than crying, 'cause it means clearly he has been too close to Dean for too long. He's sarcastic, almost bitchy, and unwilling to express his feelings. A paragon of emotional constipation, heh. Musta learned - HAD learned - from the best. Or rather, the worst.
But Dean - this Dean - hasn't gotten there. Not yet. He isn't torturing again, yet. Others, at least - if not himself. "It's gotta be hell. Worse than hell," he croaks, clears his throat heavily. Because in hell, Sam couldn't come for him. Not for lack of trying, he knows. But this - here, even the thought of Sammy taken over by the devil hurts, takes all his breath. Worse than getting punched or shot or hung on jagged rusty hooks to be taken apart piece by bloody piece for forty years... Dean feels saliva pool in his mouth, in his gullet, but he swallows and utters what he thinks, what he knows "But it isn't, it wasn't your fault. I know I probably said that, hell if you were human then, I'd - I woulda told you -" Nobody cares that you're broken, dammit! Save him! Fix him! "And I know ya thought he was an abomination, but -"
"No, Dean," Cas breaks in, that rough deep tone scratchy from cannabis, maybe even nicotine, the slower speech remnants along with glassy gaze from pills. Dean has - uses booze. He always has, it's simple; pulls him, dragging deeper into the clutches of those damning questions, swirling in the darkness of endless searing doubt. But Cas looks at Dean as if begging him to understand "I should not have been human. My Grace was ripped from me when I fell for you, on your behalf, but I should have been able to retain some power, surely I could have retained enough to save Sam, I -" his voice breaks, breath shudders from his throat almost like the final gasp of a dying man. His eyes are full of tears as he looks into Dean's and says "I know you can't, you won't forgive me for it, as your other self did not, but. I am so sorry, I could not save him and I don't deserve your forgiveness, but." His voice is creaky, he shakes his head with teeth so bright catching on thin lower lip. "Dean...," his voice breaks and is gone, then, lips circling around more words that include Dean's name again.
And his eyes are huge, pleading. Dean is drowning in that sky. And in the words. Those words he could put focus on, come back to, if he wasn't in the business of shoving shit down all the time. "Cas," he whispers. I forgive you, of COURSE I forgive you! The words are on his tongue, but they sear through and leave, to be replaced by, hell, he's suddenly sure what the other needs to hear, even if he'd never ask for it. "It ain't your fault, man; not like it's mine. I told him" a wrenching sound exits Dean's throat as squeaking notes expel from the scratching music player.
'I'll never be your beast of burden - my back is broad, my knees are hurtin', baby,'
"- we never saw each other" again, the word unutterable, still shatters Dean. "- did we? Last time we talked, he - I, future me said, was -" this is all so fucked up, and to top it off in a deadpan sort of voice, tone saved for knowledge rattled through the eons-old brain of an angel, Cas intones
"October 2009, the first of the month. At four in the morning."
Dean feels as if the icy legs of a gigantic spider have skittered up his back. His heart skips a beat, breaths coming shallow. "Damn. How d'you -"
"Know that?" Castiel's lips curve into a smile as sadness weighs in the depths of his eyes. "Because you told me. You've shared - so much, Dean. Except for..." Pressing lips together he bows his head.
Dean doesn't miss the way the other looks away from him, down to the side. It would seem a gesture utterly human, but Dean so clearly recalls that moment between them in the green room, when he smacked and rolled his lips together and shifted his head and gaze to catch Cas's. "Well you can take your peace and shove it up your lily-white ass. 'Cause I'll take all the pain, and the guilt - hell, I'll even take Sam as is! But I ain't givin' it up to be a Stepford bitch in Paradise. This is simple, Cas! There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it. Look at me! You KNOW it."
And that. That.
Feels like the voltage through water going through his whole body again and again, feels like the tortures of the Pit, reverberating as do the words his other self said about Sam.
"That isn't where Sam died. It's where he said 'yes'."
"You weren't with him?!"
"No. Sam and me haven't talked in-" that sniff, wrinkling up, scrunching of lips with a flat nod, all hits as deep as much as the words "- five years."
That hits, it all hits like the drag of enormous chains behind a truck, the feeling of sheer stark terror. Sight of that dead expression. A blow that takes Dean's breath, because he thought about his wish that he couldn't feel a damn thing and with this, how much this shows the repercussions.
And so he let himself leave, stagger out after being told to say yes, to do everything different. Because after that, and after hearing the plan (it was incredibly reckless, even knowing about this world for a day, Dean can tell that. Reckless, probably stupid, maybe even suicidal, and yet when asked if he was coming, Cas had said "of course.") Spoke so gently, with surety, and a look back - "I like past you" is what else he had said. And right now, somehow those words stick.
And so he ran - as far as he could, as far as he ends up.
Which is in Cas's place, this Cas. So different and yet with something still akin to the essence of his own. Dean stops outside of it, his little house; where he first heard movement, shifting tinkling beads announcing his presence, where Cas had only to look at him for a split second to tell "whoa, you're not you. Not now you, anyway. What year are you from?" and as Dean's eyes blur and burn, in response to ...well hell, so much - the erstwhile angel looked up.
"Dean." He spoke so gently, softly. As if he'd known, because of course he does, he's Cas - even his own reddened eyes and the musky skunklike scent and haze in the air doesn't mitigate the sharpness of his particular sort of intelligence.
Or perhaps it's his knowledge of Dean; how instantly, intrinsically he knows enough not to ask "how are you?" And expect anything but the immediate dropping of Dean's stance.
The heavy tearing of his reply of "not good, buddy," from his throat preceding naught but the other minutely beckoning for Dean to come in, to sit down.
Dean realizes he'd heard the familiar music from a player on Cas's tiny table as the erstwhile angel nods. "I understand," he says, then reaches out and whispers "I'm here."
Scratching, sharp but warm somehow is the music, as warm as Cas's voice; the last remnant of something from a bygone age, if you believe in that sort of crap, Dean thinks. If this one, this place an' time is different, not just the future.
Dean slides down the wall, pressing both palms to the sides of his head and leaning heavily just by Cas's shoulder. Feels catching of cloth, and warmth of skin shifting as the touches nearly trade to rest. Morrison's mournful vocals drift around them. Inexorable. Inevitable as this place, as Dean's words and his plan.
This is the end, my only friend, the end.