Work Text:
“I’m sorry. I can’t have heard that correctly. You want to what?” Castiel stared at Sam, mouth hanging open.
Sam grinned, ducking his head as he laughed at Castiel’s reaction. He shouldn’t be surprised, and yet, Castiel looked like he’d just been informed that Sam wanted to turn into a Pegasus and mate with a centaur. “Look. You just told me that time travel’s online and you’d like to take me somewhere to test its effects on humans. There’s three classic answers to what to do if you got access to a time machine.” He held up three fingers, folding one down almost immediately. “See the dinosaurs. That’s out because you asked me to keep it to a time where people were alive, in case something went wrong and we needed help.” Another finger folded down. “Kill Hitler. Dean would never forgive me if I changed history and made it so his kill didn’t stand.” Castiel rolled his eyes as Sam folded down the last finger. “Save the Library of Alexandria. I know how important it is to preserve the timeline, so we’re not going to do that, we’re just going to do the next best thing. Sneak in as scholars sent to make copies of the texts for our local library, which is true, just our local library is this one.”
“This is, without a doubt, the stupidest plan you’ve ever had.” Castiel sat down across the table from Sam. “I know you can read ancient Greek, but do you speak it? Or Egyptian?”
“No, but you can do the talking,” Sam said, shrugging it off. “Tell people I’m mute or whatever and you’re my guide and spokesman.”
“Here.” Castiel put two fingers to Sam’s forehead, and Sam shook his head as it rapidly processed the new information downloaded. “If I’m incapacitated, you’ll need to be able to speak for yourself and for me, you know. Exactly how long are we planning on staying?”
Another shrug to hide how silly Sam felt at the reminder that this was dangerous. “Depends how it goes for you. If you need time to recover, I’ll have that time to read and study and copy; if not, then just a day or so. We won’t get much, but anything we do get… think what it could do, what we could learn!”
“You know that your own science and history have long surpassed the teachings to be found there?”
“In most ways, sure, but there are mysteries still! Holes we might be able to fill in! If nothing else, just getting some answers about what we lost and had to reinvent – or even that there wasn’t anything lost that didn’t exist in another library would be an answer that would help set minds at ease.” Sam reached out, taking Castiel’s hand as he deployed the puppy eyes. “So? Will you do it, or do I have to come up with something else?”
Castiel rolled his eyes again. “Of course I’m in. I promised you anywhere, any time, as long as there were humans around. Let’s go.”