Chapter Text
Castiel sat in the downtown diner, surrounded by the familiar sounds of ice being scooped into glasses, the low hum of conversation, the occasional burst of laughter, and the jingling of the bell at the door. The large windows let in the morning sunlight, making the diner glow. The center of the diner had booths and tables, and a long counter stretching along the back wall, and the walls were covered with old rock 'n roll memorabilia. Dean loved this place.
Even though it had been years since Castiel had been here, the diner still felt like a second home. He and Dean had frequented the place during their high school days. Milkshakes after a game, late night study sessions, and breakfasts on the weekends (“Not brunch, Cas, I don’t do brunch”). Although time had passed, the diner hadn't changed much. The vinyl table under his fingertips had more wear-and-tear and the floor’s pattern was hardly recognizable, sanded away by the continuous foot traffic, but there was no mistaking the place.
He tapped his pen against his small spiral notebook as he waited, but his attention was diverted as his watch beeped and his best friend walked in. He was dressed in one of his many Lawrence Fire Department t-shirts and, surprisingly, no flannel today. It had to be hot for Dean to forgo a flannel.
Castiel felt his heart lift at the sight of him, and he couldn’t help but smile as he pushed himself to his feet. They saw each other frequently enough during video calls but seeing him in person was different. His eyes drank in every detail of this man, something was lost when he saw him through a screen. From the way his sandy hair was styled, to the way his green eyes sparkled with a fierce determination, Dean was the epitome of rugged beauty to Castiel. The lines of his face, rough and strong, the breadth of his shoulders, the power in his arms, the grace in his movements, all of it captivated Castiel, leaving him breathless and in awe. He loved the way Dean laughed, the way he smiled, the way he loved.There was some sort of inner light that shone out of Dean in person. He was beautiful. In more ways than one.
Dean caught Castiel’s eye, and his face lit up with excitement. “Cas!” he called out, striding over and embracing Castiel in a warm hug. Castiel was taken aback by the physical affection but appreciated the gesture all the same. The familiar scent of his aftershave, mixed with his own personal scent, drifted into Castiel's nose as he hugged Dean. He held on for what he recognized was just a moment too long. Fortunately, Dean understood that he didn’t have the best ‘people skills’ and wouldn’t question it. He would take every opportunity to be as close to Dean as he could.
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel responded in his gravelly voice as he pulled away.
“Dude, what are you doing here?” Dean asked, clapping his shoulder as he took a seat across from Castiel. “Not that I’m complaining. I enjoy our Facetime calls, but it's been ages since you’ve been back in town. God, it's been like-”
“Four years, nine months and twenty-five days?” Castiel answered, with a small smile.
Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head.
The waitress, Tessa, approached the table, her shoes tapping against the tile floor. "The usual, Dean?" she asked, with a friendly smile.
“You know it,” Dean replied, with a playful wink.
“Tessa, this right here is my best friend, Castiel Novak. Cas, this is Tessa-”
“Tessa, your favorite waitress at the downtown diner,” Castiel finished, with a nod. “I’ll have a water, lots of ice. Don’t worry about the spill.”
Tessa frowned and shot Dean a look. “Okay then. Black coffee and that water with plenty of ice.”
After Tessa walked away with their order, Dean turned his attention back to Castiel and shook his head. “I don’t know how ya did it, but you have somehow gotten even more awkward,” he teased.
Castiel ignored Dean’s comment and instead focused on the task at hand. “Go to the ESPN live stream. Royals vs Red Socks. Hernández will get a home run-”
“Stop, whoa whoa whoa,” Dean interrupted, holding up a finger. He pulled out his phone and started tapping away. “Let me get there first.”
With a deep breath, Castiel repeated himself, “Hernández will get a home run. It’s his third in five days.” He watched as Dean navigated to the live stream, feeling anxious. Just as he had predicted, the announcer’s voice echoed from Dean’s phone: “Wow! Hernández just hit a home run! That’s his third in the past five days. Too bad for the Royals!”
Dean silenced his phone and looked up, bewildered. “Wow, Cas… That’s strange. And I cannot believe the Lawrence High School mathlete captain just told me to watch a sport.”
Cas glared at Dean, his eyes piercing. “Math got me a full ride to MIT. What did playing with a ball get you?”
“Laid.” The corners of Dean’s lips twitched upward into a mischievous smile.
Cas dropped his eyes back down to his notebook to avoid looking at his best friend. “Yeah, laid. Sure. You did a lot of that in high school.”
Girls loved Dean and he loved girls. Until the end of his senior year, there was hardly a time when Dean didn’t have a girlfriend: Lisa, Cassie, Carmen... A part of Castiel was glad that during their final semester and summer before college Dean had remained single. For once, he hadn’t had to share Dean. They had spent nearly every day and night together before Cas had left for school. Castiel could unequivocally say that it had been the best eight months of his life.
Just then, Tessa approached their table with their drinks. “One black coffee and-” she began, but her words were cut short as she stumbled, spilling Cas’s water all over Dean’s phone.
Cas reached out and snagged Dean’s drenched phone.
“I am so sorry!” Tessa exclaimed, her eyes wide with worry.
“Tessa, it’s fine,” Dean reassured her with a calm voice and a comforting smile.
“No, no, your phone!” she said, frantically grabbing ice from the table to clean up the mess.
“No worries,” Dean said with a casual shrug, “I’m due for an upgrade anyway.” He flashed her a dazzling grin, the same grin that he had often quipped was his ‘panty-dropping smile,’ making her cheeks turn a rosy shade of red.
“I’ll get you another water,” Tessa mumbled, still blushing, and tucked her dark hair behind her ear as she scurried back to the counter.
“No need,” Cas interjected, his voice calm and firm.
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, “I’ll be back in a sec to clean up.”
Dean turned to Cas, intrigued. “How did you know that Hernández was going to hit that home run?”
“I’ll show you. Let’s go,” Cas said, standing up and putting the phone into his pocket.
Dean raised his hand in protest. “Dude. Let’s wait till we get our breakfast first. I’m a much better listener when I’ve had my bacon.”
Cas rolled his eyes and replied, “I am well aware of your love of bacon.” He glanced at his watch, which beeped as if on cue. He silenced the alarm and said, “Timer. We need to leave right now. Pay the waitress. Left pocket.” Without waiting for Dean, he strode out of the diner.
Dean sighed and rolled his eyes as he reached into his left pocket and pulled out a five, leaving it on the table for Tessa. “Okay, I guess I’ll call in sick,” he muttered to himself as he followed Cas out the door.
*
Cas could feel Dean behind him, the silence between them loud with Dean’s unasked questions. After a few minutes where Cas kept up his brisk pace, he heard Dean sigh in resignation before his own steps hurried to catch up.
Cas rubbed his hand across his eyes before dragging it down his stubbled cheeks with an audible rasp. "This afternoon, a fire will break out in the forest by Pines Road," he said with a sigh.
“Wait, what? There’s a fire out where we always went camping?"
“Not yet, but there will be,” Castiel corrected. He and Dean spent a number of summer nights camping up in the secluded grove. They would roast marshmallows and spend much of the night talking instead of sleeping.
"Exactly eighteen people will die. We have to get there and stop it before it starts." Cas’s words came out in a rush as he started to hurry down the street.
Dean put a hand on Cas's shoulder to stop him. "I'll put in a call to get some trucks out there."
"No," Cas vehemently shook his head. "When we did that before they turned up and left because the fire hadn't happened yet."
The watch on Cas's wrist beeped again and his arm shot out across Dean’s chest, preventing him from crossing the street just as a little white Ford went screaming past. The car's wheels screeched against the pavement, the sound piercing the air.
"Great. So you're like a time-traveling Smokey the Bear now?" Dean quipped, trying to lighten the mood, but the joke fell flat. He looked over at his friend in consternation and Cas winced inwardly. He knew that he looked a mess, and Dean’s earlier elation at seeing him had faded quickly into a growing concern.
Cas attempted to explain. “It’s actually a time loop. I discovered that if I manipulate the cosmic string phases by frequent-”
"The cosmic sting phrases, what?" Dean interrupted, brow furrowed and jaw slack.
With a deep centering breath, Cas leaned forward and started enunciating in the way he used with his students when he had been a TA. The eye roll and set jaw he caught on Dean’s face told him this was a tone that Dean was all too familiar with, as well. "I can repeat time. I don't have the energy yet to go any further back than today and I have to reset the loop by sunset or I'm stuck in the present."
"So it's kind of like Groundhog Day," Dean supplied, the reference finally clicking things together for him.
Cas frowned. “The superstitious ritual around the weather, based on whether a groundhog casts a shadow?”
"Come on, man! How are you still like this? Groundhog Day, the movie with Bill Murray. He keeps reliving the day over and- you know what? When we’re done here, we’re going back to my place and watching it. Obviously, none of your friends in D.C. have been continuing your pop culture education.”
Cas gave him a small smile. "I’d like that, Dean. Let's go."
Dean paused, his hand on the door handle of his beloved car. "Baby's waitin' right here, Cas. I'm drivin'."
"Nope, not happening," Cas called back, continuing down the street. "Your battery's dead. I rented us an SUV."
"Son of a bitch," Dean cursed, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. "Baby's never let me down before. What a damn day."
Dean locked up the car and jogged after Cas. "Alright, fine. But I'm still driving."
*
Cas clicked his pen repeatedly as he flipped through his notebook, the sound loud in the car's small cabin. Dean glanced over when he stopped at a red light and he could see the intensity of his friend’s focus on the notes, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips pursed as he assessed his friend’s fragile mental state.
"What's up with all the clicking, man?" Dean asked, trying to draw Cas out of his focused state. "You're makin’ me nervous."
“Take Massachusetts out towards 23rd,” Cas said, still flipping through his notebook and clicking his pen.
“Really? Fifty-nine is way faster,” Dean argued, but Cas shook his head.
“There’s going to be an accident. Take the next left, skip Kings. Water main broke and flooded the street,” Cas explained tersely.
“Dude,” Dean responded irritatedly, “You can’t just show up and start ordering me around. It’s been ages since we’ve seen each other and you’ve been acting like a crazy person.”
Castiel lifted a domineering eyebrow and gave Dean a, ‘are you sure about that?’ look that definitely had side effects that went beyond getting him to back down.
"Okay, okay," Dean responded, shifting in his seat to relieve some pressure that the “look” had caused in his pants. "I trust you, Cas, I do, even if you are acting like a nut."
As Dean looked over at Cas, he could see the concentration in his friend's eyes. Despite having seen Cas in intense states before, Dean couldn't help but focus on the knot forming in his own stomach. This was a whole new level of weird, even for Cas.
The beeping of Cas's watch at regular intervals only added to Dean's growing discomfort. He remembered how thrilled he had been to see Cas sitting in the diner, but now he felt like he was sitting at a red light with a stranger. Dean had always known Cas to be a little strange, but he had done more than his fair share of defending him during high school. This, however, felt like something was different. Something was wrong.
As they sat at the light in silence, the sound of knuckles rapping against the glass of the driver's side window made Dean jump. He turned to see a scruffy, unkempt man peering into the car. The man's breath fogged up the glass, and the smell of cigarette smoke clung to his clothes and seeped through the cracked window as he bent down to make eye contact with Dean.
His faded baseball cap sat low on his brow, shielding his eyes from view, but not hiding the desperation in his voice. "D’you want yer windows washed?" He held up a weathered squeegee, the rubber blade streaked with dirt and grime.
Before Dean could say a word, Cas's hand shot out and slammed onto his knee. The sudden jolt caused Dean's foot to hit the gas, and the car shot forward, racing through the red light. Horns blared, tires screeched, and Dean swerved to avoid a collision, his heart racing in his chest.
"Son of a bitch! You trying to get us killed?" Dean yelled, looking over at Cas who remained stoic.
"I'll explain when we fix the flat," Cas responded, his tone dismissive.
“What?” Dean asked, Cas didn’t respond before a loud bang jolted the car. He could feel the back end fishtail and swerve to the side. Dean's hands instinctively tightened and his knuckles whitened on the steering wheel, fighting to regain control.
Once more heading straight, he turned to Cas, searching for answers, but his friend was flipping through his notebook, his pen clicking away with a nervous energy. "Dude, what is going on?" Dean asked, his voice rising.
“In a quarter mile there will be an underpass by the railroad tracks. Park next to the track,” Cas instructed, his eyes never leaving his notebook.
Dean shook his head in disbelief, like the guy in the passenger seat next to him was a stranger. "Cas, man, you're freaking me out," Dean said, his voice shaking.
When they’d parted ways after high school, Dean had often thought he should have followed his friend. He knew Cas needed someone who could pull him out of his own head, someone to ground him when he got lost in the clouds. A small voice sometimes told him that Cas needed Dean, the same way that Dean needed Cas to need him.
As Dean drove along the city streets, memories of his childhood and youth flooded his mind. He remembered the overwhelming responsibility he’d felt as a young boy, taking care of his younger brother and trying to shield him from their alcoholic father. He remembered how much he’d enjoyed being needed, finding purpose in the role of caretaker, and the way he’d felt when he was able to help others. And no one had ever needed him the way Cas did.
In high school, he’d always harbored a small crush on Cas, but the guy had never shown any interest in anyone, boy or girl. Dean had tried, oh, had he tried, to set Cas up with someone. Anyone. He had even asked at one point, with words, if Cas was into men or women. Cas had just looked up at him and blinked before responding, “I am indifferent to gender.”
Dean had stopped trying to set Cas up with people after that, and had pretty much stopped dating himself. Hell, he and Cas had gone to prom together… well, not “together together,” but they’d both gone stag and driven there and back together. Honestly, the second half of his senior year had been so much better when he’d just spent his time with Cas.
Now, Dean wanted to be there for Cas once again. He watched as his friend clicked his pen and flipped through his notebook, and he felt a sense of affection and protectiveness wash over him. He would do anything to help him, no matter how strange or confusing the situation may be.
*
The smell of burnt rubber filled the air as Dean pulled off the road onto the gravel shoulder. By the time he’d stepped out of the vehicle, Cas was already at the trunk, grabbing the spare tire and jack. The sound of a train in the distance grew louder, its whistle echoing across the open fields, a mournful note that seemed to linger.
The sun beat down on them, making the already warm day unbearable. Dean was on his knees, wiping the sweat from his brow, his face contorted in concentration and effort as he removed the tire. Cas licked his lips as he watched the sweat drip down Dean's neck, staining his shirt.
Growing up, Cas had always appreciated Dean's competency with cars, especially when working on Baby, the vintage Impala he’d taken over from his dad. Dean had an inspiring level of confidence, and watching him bend over, getting dirty and sweaty, was attractive to Cas.
He wished he could have that kind of confidence. Truth be told, he’d always been a little bit in love with Dean, but there was also a part of him that had been jealous of how easily things came to him. Things were never as natural or simple where Cas was concerned..
Dean cleared his throat, interrupting his thoughts."How did you know the tire was going to blow? That the battery was dead? That Hernández was going to hit that homer? What is going on? Talk to me, man," Dean finally stood up, wiping his hands on his jeans where the denim stretched tight over his thighs.
"It’s all happened before," Cas replied with a sigh. "Change the tire."
"I need more than that," Dean insisted, stepping closer to Cas. "I need to know what the hell is going on and why you're not freaking out more about all of this."
Cas's gaze flickered to Dean, his eyes dark with emotion. "I've seen it all before. I just want to get through it this time." His words weighed heavy in the air between them.
Dean nodded and went back to work, the muscles under his t-shirt rippling with grace as he tightened the bolts on the spare tire. Cas tried not to look, but it was hard to resist the enticement of Dean's body.
“Right. Time loop. Okay.” The crease between Dean's eyebrows deepened as he frowned. He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes meeting Castiel's for a moment before he looked away. The gesture was all too familiar, one that Castiel had seen countless times before.
In high school, Dean had always tried to guide him, to help him understand the social norms that had seemed so foreign to Castiel. But try as he might, Castiel never really got it, to Dean’s repeated frustration.
Now, as they stood by the side of the road, the sense of déjà vu was palpable. Castiel couldn't help but wonder why Dean continued to put up with him, why he didn't just give up on him as so many others had.
"Why's it seem the universe has got it out for us ever since we left that diner?" Dean muttered as he slammed the trunk shut, securing the flat and tools inside.
"Time is a logical entity. When I changed one element, time responded by altering another to ensure the equation remains balanced. It's like being trapped in a maze created by a determined scientist, determined to stop us from reaching the fire. I have experienced this day repeatedly and yet, I have yet to reach the fire with you."
"So we’ve had this conversation before," Dean said, more to himself than to Cas.
"Yes," Cas replied.
“All right then what am I going to say next?” Dean asked.
The two men shared an awkward silence before speaking simultaneously, "Trick question, I’m not going to say anything."
They both rolled their eyes and flipped each other off, breaking the tension with a laugh.
“Thanks for the help,” Dean said sarcastically as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
"You’re welcome," Cas replied with a smile.
Dean huffed and said, “Do you remember that time you helped me run for class president? You tried to hack the computer system and rig the election.”
"Tried? You were elected president," Cas reminded him.
"I was elected twelfth grade president. I was running for eleventh grade president," Dean said with a shake of his head.
Cas smiled into his lap. "Yeah, I remember."
"Man, I remember when Adler called us into his office. He was all kinds of shocked that you had memorized 400 lines of code, but couldn't remember what year we were in. All that to say, man, sometimes you get so focused on one thing that you miss the big picture.”
Cas's watch beeped and he looked down, noted the time and silenced the alarm. “We need to get moving.”
*
On the road again, Dean settled back into the plush leather seats and listened carefully as Cas gave him directions. Now he followed them without question.
As they drove, Dean's fingers reached for the radio. Before he could, Cas's hand shot out, covering his own. The grip was firm, unyielding.
"Come on, Cas. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole," Dean protested, trying to pull his hand away.
But Cas held firm, his gaze intense. "No, let’s keep the radio off," Cas said, his deep voice resolute. As if on cue, his watch beeped, breaking the silence in the car.
Dean snorted, "Yeah, who needs music when you have random beeping?"
It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but Cas answered, "I’ve calibrated it to go off at key moments to keep us on schedule. If we don’t meet the deadlines… bad things happen."
"Okay…” Dean trailed off, waiting for Cas to say more. When his friend remained silent, he sighed and decided to change the subject."So, what's been going on in D.C.? I feel like I only hear about the weather and traffic during our calls," Dean said, a certain pettiness to his tone. Cas winced. When they were younger, all they did was talk, all the time, about anything and everything. They didn't always agree but they both thrived on the debate. Now, that connection was strained. Sure, Cas was always good at asking questions about what was going on with Dean, but he never opened up about his own life, and he could see that Dean resented that.They were barely scratching the surface in their stilted conversations now, and he missed the way things used to be when they were kids.
Back then, they would spend hours camping and talking about everything under the moon. Cas was always good with random facts, and would wax poetically about bees or whatever other topic had caught his interest.
Cas had always challenged him. Challenged his assumptions. Challenged things he had taken for granted as fact. Dean missed that challenge dearly.
And yes, the guy was a genius, but he also sometimes got so wrapped up in a project that he ignored everything else around him. He’d ignore people, food, and even schedules he’d set himself. Dean had worried about Cas when he’d gone off to MIT. It was Dean who was the one to pull him out of the clouds, remind him to sleep, to eat. He had even contemplated going with Cas to Boston, just to… just to… make sure he was taken care of.
Cas finally spoke, bringing Dean to the present. “We’ve never made it past the roadblock before - when you’re with me, I mean.”
Dean blanked for a moment, surprised, then took a breath. “Oh. Okay. Well... Dude, honestly there’s uh… I got something sorta big I wanted to share…” His eyes flickered back and forth as he looked for the right words but was interrupted on his next breath by Cas.
“We’re almost there.”
Dean looked ahead and saw the roadblock in the distance. "You want me to gun it? See if we can break through this barricade?"
“No. When we did that the car flipped and you were decapitated,” Cas deadpanned.
"Seriously?" Dean asked, shocked.
"Yes," Cas said nonchalantly.
The sound of gravel crunched under the tires of their SUV as they pulled to a stop. A barricade made of orange cones and caution tape blocked their path, and a construction worker, his face tanned and weathered from years of working in the sun, yelled out to them, “Y’all need to turn back. Sinkhole up here. Took out the whole damn road.” The worker was wearing a bright yellow hard hat and a reflective vest, both of which were covered in a grimy layer of dust. He looked exhausted, wiping the sweat from his brow with a dirt-stained handkerchief.
“Okay, I’m going to talk to him and see if we-” Dean offered.
“No, you can’t,” Cas said firmly, his eyes focused on the construction worker.
“Well, what do you think we should do?” asked Dean, his eyebrows furrowed in frustration.
With a sigh, Cas pulled on the door handle. “I’m about to see if my actions this morning result in my desired outcome.” He stepped out of the SUV and Dean followed, the warm air of the forest surrounding them.
The construction worker stepped closer to the pair, his boots crunching heavy on the gravel, and said, “Did you hear what I said? The road is closed.”
“I saw the poster for your missing dog.”.
The construction worker turned to look at Cas, confusion warring with hope on his face. “Say what?”
“I found him,” Cas amended.
“Jasper? My… My dog? Is he okay?”
“Yeah, he’s tied up in front of the downtown diner. I set up food and water for him, which should ease his discomfort until you retrieve him,” Cas responded, his voice calm and confident.
“Okay, yeah, but how did you know... No wait, it doesn't even matter, man. Thank you!” the construction worker grinned, already walking away from them, his pace quickening with each step. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
As the friends watched him walk away, they heard him say, “I need you to come down and cover for me at Pines Road. You know how Jasper went missing today? Some guy found him.”
Dean turned to Cas and whispered, his voice filled with awe, “Must’ve taken you a long time to find his dog.”
Cas smiled and shook his head slightly. “Not really. I took him from his backyard this morning.”
Dean laughed and smiled, his eyes sparkling. “You’re one of a kind, Cas.”
The corners of Cas's lips quirked up, amusement and satisfaction on his face. “We’re on foot from here. Can you give me the keys?”
Digging into his pocket, his friend retrieved the keys and tossed them to Cas. He made a grab for them, but they thunked against his chest and then to the ground. Cas gave Dean a flat stare as his friend smirked back.
“You want to time travel back, maybe try that again?” Dean teased.
“No,” Cas responded as he bent over and retrieved the keys. He tapped his watch and said, “Pick up the pace.”
“Pick up the pace,” Dean echoed back, his tone mocking, but he followed Cas down the road and onto one of the forest’s trails.
*
The sun was shining brightly overhead as they trudged through the forest. The ground was soft and spongy, giving way under their feet and producing a muffled crunching sound as they walked. The warm scent of damp earth and pine rose in the air, filling their nostrils and providing a refreshing change from the city air Cas was used to.
As they walked further down the trail, they stumbled upon a group of young girls huddled around a campfire.
“We’re here, this is it,” Cas said, his eyes lighting up with excitement. Dean followed, fast on his heels, his training kicking in as he began to smother the fire.
“No fires today, ladies,” Dean said sternly, “You shouldn’t even be out here on your own.”
The girls looked up, their faces a mix of fear and guilt. “Sorry,” they chorused, grabbing their bags and running down the path.
“You don’t have to run away,” Dean yelled after them. “You aren’t in trouble.” He shook his head in disbelief as he turned back to Cas.
Cas was beaming, his eyes crinkled at the corners. Dean smiled in return and pulled him into a warm embrace. “We did it!” Dean whispered. Cas nodded, a sense of relief washing over him as he held on tightly.
Cas pulled back, his hand clutched to his heart, and whispered, “I’m glad you’re here.” He let out a long breath, his eyes misting over with emotion.
Dean looked down at the smothered fire, his hands on his hips, “You know, this isn’t really the kind of fire that’s hard to control. There’s a good perimeter, and-” But his words were cut short by the sound of a pager.
“What’s that?” Cas asked, his eyes wide.
“Emergency pager,” Dean said, glancing down at the device, “A five-alarm fire just broke out six blocks from the diner.”
Cas looked away, his gaze fixed on the ground. A heavy silence fell between the two men as Dean stared at him, waiting for a response.
Finally, Dean asked, “Why’d you bring me out here, Cas?”
Cas swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously. “Every time you stay downtown, you die.”
He blinked, trying to clear his stinging eyes. “We’ve tried to stop the fire so many times, but it never works. We stop an electrical fire, and an oven fire breaks out in the kitchen. We put that out, and three teenagers forget to put out a cigarette next door. No matter what we do, the fire happens, and you always die. I always live.”
With a deep breath, Cas finally turned to look at Dean, his eyes shining with desperation, “Even when you manage to save a few people, you never make it out. So I started looking for another exit to the maze. Away from the fire. I spent days searching for locations. I calibrated what would be the shortest safe distance away and then it hit me, here! Where we used to go camping together!”
“Firemen don’t run from fires,” Dean hissed, his green eyes blazing with anger.
“Something always happens to bring you back to the fire or to kill you on the way out of town. But this time, I saved you this time!” Cas yelled back, getting closer to Dean, his voice ringing with determination.
“I don’t need you to save me, Cas,” Dean said, his words even, but his voice cold and biting. “Why do you even care? It’s been five years since you’ve been home and even our calls feel like they’re just an obligation to you. We’ve talked once in the last month for all of fucking five minutes-”
“But if I could create a time loop that goes back-” Cas interjected, his eyes pleading, but then Dean screamed in his face, “I don’t care about fucking time loops, Cas!”
Cas blinked, his expression falling. He looked down at the ground and then back up at Dean. With a swallow, Cas asked, his voice trembling, “If you don’t care, then why did you come?”
“Because I wanted to spend time with my best friend,” Dean rasped brokenly, seemingly astonished that he even had to answer.
They stood in silence, Dean’s breaths coming out in puffs as he fought to control his emotions. The rustle of leaves grew louder as the wind picked up, blowing away the remaining scent of campfire. He watched Cas, searching for any sign that he understood what he was trying to say, but Cas kept his eyes steadfastly on the ground.
Cas glanced at him for a second and then away. "I wanted to spend time with my best friend too," he whispered.
A distant siren wailed, shattering the moment, and Dean eyed his pager again before he sighed heavily. "Give me the keys, Cas," he demanded in a low voice.
Cas shook his head. No.
"Give me the keys, Cas!" Dean yelled, his voice echoing through the dense forest. He lunged forward, trying to grab the them from his friend's pocket.
Cas deftly retrieved them and tossed the keys into the surrounding brush, watching as they landed just a few yards away, glinting in the dying light.
Dean's jaw tightened in anger as he pushed Cas aside. "People are dying!" he spat, before storming towards the keys.
"No, no, no!" Cas yelled, lunging after Dean. The two men tumbled to the ground, rolling in a tangle of limbs and grunts. Cas managed to break free, his chest heaving, and reached for the keys. He scooped up the keys and then looked back. “No, no, no,” he said again, though this time it came out as a moan.
Cas scrambled towards Dean's head, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't believe what was happening. A jagged rock, slick with Dean's blood, stood out against the forest floor. Dean didn’t move.
Cas reeled backwards, his arms flailing as he struggled to maintain his balance against the staggering weight of reality. The forest was alive with the sounds of nature - birds trilled in the distance, leaves whispered in the wind, and small creatures scurried through the underbrush. The acrid scent of Dean's blood mixed with the earthy fragrance of the forest floor, overpowering all other scents. The dappled sunlight filtered through the trees cast a hazy glow over the scene.
But Dean didn’t move. Wouldn’t move again. Not today.
Cas hung his head and sat for a long time, just trying to breathe. The wind picked up, adding to the already mournful atmosphere. Finally, he took out his pen and notebook, but he couldn't bring himself to write anything. He shook his head. “You can’t escape the maze.” He flipped back through his notebook, reading his own scrawled handwriting.
The pages were filled with equations, drawings, and theories, all in an effort to find a way out of the time loop. But now, as Cas sat in the stillness of the forest, surrounded by the sounds of nature and the scent of Dean's blood, he realized that all of his theories were worthless. He couldn't escape the fact that his best friend was gone and he was all alone.
With trembling hands, Cas dropped the notebook, feeling numb and empty inside. The pages ruffled in the breeze, flipping slowly back and forth.
The construction worker warned them to get back to the fire.
The car radio reported on the fire.
A car hit Dean as he was changing the tire.
The man who had offered to clean their windows had a gun and shot Dean.
Dean got a call on his cell to come in to fight the fire.
Dean got hit crossing the street after leaving the diner.
Dean got every fire truck possible.
Dean and Cas went in by themselves.
Dean went in the front.
Dean went in the back.
Hundreds of scenarios. Hundreds of times living this day, and every single time, Dean died. There was nothing left to write in his notebook. There was no way out of this maze. No matter what he did, Dean died.
Cas rubbed at his face with the heel of his palm, feeling his eyes burn. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Dean's still form. The beep of his watch shattered the silence, reminding him that sundown was upon him. Cas felt a jolt of panic, knowing that he needed to reset the time loop.
It was time to start the day again. He picked up his pen and his notebook, which felt infinitely heavier with the weight of its latest entry.He took one last look at Dean’s lifeless body, and prepared himself to restart. The cycle would continue, with Dean dying over and over again, until Cas found a way to break the loop.
He would restart the day. Restart his own personal hell, where every step was filled with memories of Dean's death and the overwhelming sense of loss that came with it.
Castiel reset his watch.