Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working, good.
That'll keep you going through the show
Come on it's time to go.

“Okay, start again. And this time, you know, make sense.”

Dean looks up from the table and glances at Sam.

His brother looks worse than ever - his skin has bypassed white, and is now heading steadily into ‘probably an alien species’ territory. His hair is still a bit wet from his shower, but it doesn’t look like it normally would - Dean has shared a room with Sam for thirty years, he knows what his stupid girly hair is supposed to look like. Now it’s lifeless and it still (impossibly, unreasonably) looks matted with dirt. And the air of general misery and impending doom certainly doesn’t improve things.

“You look like Death,” he says, forgetting for a split second where and what they are, because this is what they used to say to each other after bad hunts.

Of course, that was before they met Death. Before their lives turned into ridiculous, grotesque parodies of what they used to be.

Dean frowns, looks down at the map again.

“Well, I am dead,” starts Sam, and, Jesus, does he sound pissed.

Dean can’t have this conversation, so he cuts across him, “But at least he was one stylish bloke. Seriously, Sam, where’s your self-respect?”

There is a sound which could mean Sam has turned around, away from him.

“Well, I don’t have an entire flock of angels to pamper me, so -”

“I don’t have any angels,” Dean points out, and then he decides that, yes, they’re changing the subject right bloody now, because here is something else he can’t talk about (Cas looking at him; Cas’ eyes cold and distant. You mean nothing to me.). “Anyway, the plan is simple.”

“The plan is stupid.”

“Look, it’s not like I don’t trust Gabriel - he’s Mr Reliable, we all know that. But he sort of made clear that eye freak is in charge, and him I want nothing to do with.”

“Well, I fail to see how blackmailing Gabriel into a suicide mission will change anything.”

Dean stops again, his hand on the pendulum, and looks up.

“You like him,” he smiles. “Aw, that’s adorable, Sammy.”

Sam huffs, and he finally abandons his contemplation of the dark landscape outside the window to step back into the kitchen area.

“Is everything a joke to you?” he asks, bad-tempered.

“You like him,” Dean insists, his smile widening. “Well, he’s taken, but open relationships are all the rage these days -”

“Dean, I swear to God -”

“Okay, okay, forget it.”

They look at each other, and Dean thinks he can see the shadow of those other people inside him just for a second - it’s like something shifts inside Sam’s eyes - but by the way Sam moves, by how he comes closer and puts his palms down on the table (weary, resigned; guilty as hell), Dean knows this is definitely his brother.

Shrugging, Dean closes his eyes and raises the pendulum again.

“And this is what Crowley instructed you to do,” says Sam, and it’s not even a question.

“Yeah, and it won’t work unless your shut your mouth and let me focus.”

There’s complete silence for another minute - Dean feels the pendulum grow heavier in his fingers and shifts it, looking - looking -

And then Sam speaks again.

“You do realize -” he starts, and whatever had started to move in Dean’s mind goes away.

“Sammy,” he growls, exasperated.

“- that this is a very stupid plan.”

“He’s right, you know,” says Claire.

She’s currently sitting on the thick carpet, and she’s building some kind of Lego castle with the kids (well: Peter and Gracie are contributing something, but Hunter is mostly knocking stuff down) so she really doesn’t look like the kind of person who has a valid point to make.

“We never came up with a clever plan in our entire lives,” Dean points out, “and yet we haven’t done bad so far.”

“We’re both dead,” says Sam, flatly, after a full minute of wordless outrage.

“For now,” says Dean, airily. “Now, will both of you just shut up and let me finish this?”

Claire rolls her eyes and starts on her castle again, and Sam turns his back on Dean, leaning against the table as Dean closes his eyes and resumes his searching.

The pendulum gets colder, then hotter. Dean moves it over the map just as Crowley taught him - in small, graceful swirls - movements guided by his hands, not his mind, Crowley had said, whatever that meant - but something is definitely happening, something is shifting now, and then -

“Goddammit,” he says. “She’s in Detroit.”

“Detroit?”

Sam turns around, and something on his face makes Dean’s heart clench.

“You’re not going there,” he says at once, and Sam frowns.

“Yeah? And how do you plan on -”

“We’ll ask her to come to Chicago. Crowley can do that right now, in fact,” says Dean, and he's not thinking about how Crowley can manage that, exactly, he doesn't even care, because finally their lives are making sense again, this is a definite sign, right here, because in Chicago -

“Yeah, and she’ll just do that?”

“She will. For the right price.”

Claire’s huff is so loud the children immediately think it’s a game. Grace huffs first, then Peter. Hunter tries to join in, but all he manages to do is a sort of puffing sound which, Dean sternly tells himself, is not adorable at all. Not even a little bit.

“It’s just blood, Claire.”

“Right.”

“Hey, we need a bargaining chip here.”

“And how do I know my blood won’t give her power over me? She’s got the book - how do we know there’s not a spell in there about turning me into a frog or something?”

She’s not wrong, and Dean wishes he could tell her the truth (not an option; not when his brother is possessed by the literal King of Hell). Instead, he abandons his map and pendulum - fucking magic, and thank God this is all it took - Dean would have drawn the line at spitting and/or cutting the entrails off anything - and walks over to her, plopping down on the carpet next to her.

“Claire,” he says, “do you trust me?”

She doesn’t look up at him. The castle in front of her is a bit wobbly, but, then again, it’s built on very unstable grounds. The children have now lost interest in it. Grace walks over to Dean and leans against his back, reaching over to try and braid his short hair.

“Hey, that’s - try with Sammy’s,” he tells her, distractedly, and the child moves away.

Claire picks up a bit of window, tries to find a place to fit it in.

“What happens if we don’t win?” she asks, in a very low voice.

Dean frowns at her. Today, Claire is in full rebel mode - she has a side braid and enough eyeliner on to drown a mouse - and yet she looks even younger than usual.

“You know about Heaven,” he says, levelly. “Cas told you.”

“I don’t care about Heaven,” she says, abandoning the window piece and picking up something that could be half a fireman. “There’s things I -”

She doesn’t finish her sentence. And neither of them mention the rest of it - that Cas is not even Cas any longer; that even when he was Cas, he’d been wary of the Host, unhappy with the whole thing. That Heaven is, perhaps, not Heaven at all.

Dean looks at her again, then away.

“Look,” he starts, and he feels the familiar coldness in his stomach, that slimy thing which starts gnawing at him every damn time he tries to say something that needs to be said -

(I’d rather have you, cursed or not.)

(So, this is it. E.T. goes home.)

(Never do that again!)

- but this is a child, and she needs him. Dean licks his lips, starts again.

“Last year, there was a moment I thought I’d die,” he says, after checking the kids are out of earshot - Peter and Hunter have both moved away to assist Grace with Sam’s hair, and the sight of them, giggling around what is basically a giant, does weird things to Dean’s head. “And I was okay with it. I really, you know,” he adds, making a vague gesture. “I wanted out. But then, I don’t know, I realized - I know what you mean. When we’re not done, we’re not done. Which is why I’m doing this, Claire. I know you want to live your life, to find yourself a boyfriend -”

“I never said,” she starts, blushing slightly, and Dean shakes his head.

He’s been around enough women to recognize this never been kissed look, and seeing it on Claire is making him fiercely protective of her.

Things will not end this way. Not for her.

“Well, if you ever need relationship advice -”

“Right,” she scoffs, looking up at him, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“I was going to say, go to Jody. She seems to be the only person around here who knows how these things are done.”

Claire nods in acknowledgment of the swift change of tack, and then smiles at him.

And that smile, a genuine signal of - friendship, or kinship, perhaps, is what prevents Dean from saying what he’d meant to say next: that Claire should give Jesse a chance, because whatever that kid is, his heart is in his right place.

But Claire is still not over the whole deception and betrayal and spawn of the actual Devil thing, and, also, well, she’s old enough to figure out things for herself.

Cassie had liked to bitch about her mother’s meddling - about her mother prodding and hinting and inviting random boys over for dinner without even asking Cassie first - and Dean had always nodded along, breathing in her perfume and stealing glances of her naked body, because, really, he hadn't understood a word of it. It wasn’t as if Dad had ever noticed what was going on from that point of view.

Or from any other.

(Now that Claire is in their lives, Dean has come to wonder - do fathers stay away from the subject, because they’re men or some shit, or did John simply assume neither of his boys would ever wish to marry, or live long enough to actually go and do it?)

“Just don’t give up yet. We do have a plan, and all.”

“Yeah, and the plan -”

The plan sucks. Dean’s heard it from Sam, from Claire, from Jody. He’s heard it from Donna, and then from Jesse. He’s even heard it from Crowley, and nobody asked him anything.

The plan is to stop the plan.

It’s not like Dean wants the world to end; the thing is, he’s a little shit who doesn’t like to follow orders, and he’s learned not to trust someone who says, My way is the only way, because what that normally means is that everyone else is getting screwed in the process.

Only way tend to suck. Only ways are things like allowing Lucifer and Michael to tear each other apart, and Dean had put a stop to that, and things had turned out okay anyway.

Cas wouldn’t have called it being a little shit, obviously. Once, he would have called it being brave and selfless, and he would have said something about free will and nobility of the spirit.

Once; now, who knows.

And Dean can’t think about Cas.

What he knows is that things are getting shiftier and shiftier. What he knows is that what they have now - a vague promise Sam will be safe if Dean manages to find the Holy Ghost - is not bloody enough. There are four archangels loose on the world, and Dean can’t trust any of them.

So, well, first order of business is to get them on a bloody leash.

Or, well, one of them.

Which means they have to get Leif back.

(Dean has a name, and he knows what the guy looks like - at this point, he could draw Gabriel’s human form from fucking memory - and apparently that’s enough for someone to call him back. Well: not just someone - someone who has The Book of the Damned, that is, because their lives are full of joy and rainbows and the fun just never stops.)

But Dean has a feeling - he’s confident enough he’s betting everyone’s lives on this, in fact - that Gabriel will step back if -

So, yeah, the plan is not ideal. Not by a long stretch.

On the other hand, Dean has come to suspect, is almost certain, in fact, though he couldn’t explain why he knows it (it’s just the way the world works, isn’t it, a never-ending fuckery from all sides) that whatever the archangels are planning will force reality to shut down and start again; and he knows perfectly well they (not Cas, though; never Cas, unless - but he won’t think about it) would be perfectly happy to sit around ponds for a million years or so and just wait for the tadpoles to crawl out again.

Blessed be, the eye guy would say, and Gabriel would add something douchey, something like, Oh, let’s get them to keep the tails this time around.

Well, Dean is not having it. There is still a world around him and it’s this one, right here, the one he wants to save, not an hypothetical second chance world which may or may not come into being; and, whatever those fuckers would say, people aren’t bad - people deserve to be saved, just as they are - because, yeah, so there are reports of lootings in the major cities, and okay, but there’s also this whole other side - echoes of huge networks popping up from nowhere - communities coming together to share food and shelter and information - Dean has always believed, will always believe, that people are essentially good. That they don’t deserve to be destroyed.

And Cas has been the one to teach him that sometimes you follow the rules by breaking them (Our orders - they were to do whatever you told us to do); that angels are not always right.

So there.

Still, Dean is betting big; he’s betting, in fact, everything - he’s hoping Gabriel will walk away from this mad scheme to protect Leif, and that they can all work together to find another way out - something, anything, which doesn’t include working with Lucifer. Or Raguel, for that matter. And there must be another way out, and they must find it, because -

Because the alternative is Lucifer getting what he wants (Sam) and Raguel getting what he wants (nothing good, surely) and Cas -

Dean clenches his jaw, forces himself to sit back, plunge his fingers into the thick carpet and just keep breathing.

He will get Cas back.

Somehow; eventually.

He must.

One step at a time, though. For now, Dean is hoping Rowena will be able to drag this Leif person down from Heaven, and also (possibly, and for the right price - Dean is trying not to think about that) get those people out of Sam before his brother goes insane.

Just then there is an unpleasant, screeching sound, and Dean turns around with a jolt: writing is appearing on the windows, the lines etched into the glass.

“Son of bitch,” Dean curses, standing up.

Barely reflected by the non-light outside are the words, Berkshire Room. Midnight. Don’t be late.

Looks like Rowena got Crowley’s message, then.

Sam checks his watch, which, of course, is not working anymore, and then he winces.

“Crowley says it's twenty past ten," he says, displeased, and then he zones out for a second, in that new creepy way he has, as if he’s talking to the demon inside his mind.

“I can work with that,” says Dean, wrenching himself away from the window - and if Rowena can force her magic through the wards, what else can she do? - to move towards the entry hall.

“Wait - wait, you’re going? Now?” asks Claire, scrambling up from the floor. “Where?”

“Chicago,” says Dean, tersely. “It’s nine hours worth of driving - probably more, considering the closed roads and the accidents. Sammy.”

Sam doesn’t answer, but he still looks at Dean in the same way he’s always looked at Dean in these moments - When I’m away, your brother is in charge. He says Jump, you ask How high? Are we clear on this? - and then he shrugs off Crowley’s presence from his face.

Dean doesn’t want to say goodbye to anybody, since he’s very likely not coming back. Instead, he marches straight out of the front door, examines the cars parked in the overgrown garden. That green horror he used with Cas is lost somewhere, thank God, and Jody will need her car. Alex and Krissy have taken the other good car they had, so it looks like they’re stuck with an old pick-up.

Froude and Sons, House Painters, says a washed-out writing on the side.

Still, it’s better than nothing.

“Come on,” Dean barks, and, again, Sam moves automatically towards the passenger side and throws his bag in. The weapons inside are nowhere near as impressive as what is now rusting in the back of the Impala (Dean almost winces thinking about his car, his Baby, smashed and broken and lost -) but they will have to do.

“Wait,” says Claire’s voice, and Dean turns around, even starts a sentence (“No, you’re definitely not coming, it’s too -”) before Claire comes to a stop right in front of him, and then, seemingly forcing herself to, hugs him fiercely.

“You come back,” she says, against his shirt. “If you leave me here to babysit these brats - I swear to you, Dean Winchester -”

“I’ll come back,” he says, patting her head for a second, his eyes on the huge house behind her. “I’ll try to, Claire, okay?”

Claire steps back without looking at him, and moves around the car to say goodbye to Sam. Dean waits where he is, allowing her to have a moment with his brother, and then he clears his throat, loudly.

“Right,” he says, and he doesn’t look - he can’t look - as Claire reappears on the other side of the truck and runs back towards the house.

When he gets into the car, Sam is already in I told you I didn’t want to do this thing mode - he’s staring stonily ahead, his overgrown feet crammed against the glove compartment.

Dean slams the door, and then he bends down, jumps start the old truck.

“Right,” he says, pushing a cassette into the slot, and a John Denver song starts in the middle.

“We could do what they want,” says Sam, quietly, as Dean starts rummaging around, looking for another cassette.

“Uh-uh,” he agrees, giving up, driving out of the driveway instead. “Sure. That’s a great idea, Sammy. Wonder why we didn’t think of that.”

“Dean -”

“Oh, right. Because Lucifer would - what was it again - carve you out from the inside. Again,” says Dean with an expansive gesture, in a fake-confused tone.

“It wouldn’t matter, if -”

“And also, remember their condition?”

Sam doesn’t say anything to that.

“If you know where the Holy Spirit is, or even what the fuck it is, now is the time to speak up.”

“Dean,” starts Sam, but he doesn’t add anything else.

“Louder, Sammy, can’t hear you,” Dean insists, and he knows he’s being a right jerk, but well.

He cranks up the volume of the old radio, and Leaving on a Jet Plane fills the empty space of exasperation and rancor and love between the two of them.

And Sam doesn’t take the bait. It’s possible he’s fighting on two fronts here - against Crowley, and perhaps Benny and Madison, in his own head, and Dean in the outside world. Without saying another word, Sam turns his face away, and Dean keeps on driving in the desolate, dark landscape around them.

.:.

There is only whiteness, all around him, as far as the eye can see. The snowy owl dips lower, passes like a ghost between the branches of a birch. Every instinct inside it is screaming for prey or shelter, but the man Leif is not having it. What he wants is to find himself. His body, or what is left of it. He has been lost to himself for many seasons now; too many to count.

The owl turns gracefully in mid-air to avoid a branch, and when he sees movement below it, Leif jumps.

When he opens his eyes again, he is a white fox. The fox looks up at the owl as it disappears, then it turns around and runs. Leif has seen a frozen lake about one rast West, but he’d been reluctant to fly there - not enough trees. The owl would have been too weak against the strong winds.

Running is better.

Forcing the fox to abandon its plans, Leif encourages it to move towards the lake. He hasn’t seen anything since he’s been here - there are no villages, not even a single house - but this cannot be. There must be life somewhere, because wherever there is water, his people can conquer.

And his Lord - ice or fire, his Lord sees everything. If Leif keeps moving, if Leif can find his own body again, then his Lord will find him.

Taking advantage of Leif’s distraction -

(Leif had known he wasn’t the only one, or even the first; but he'd also known he'd been the best. He'd been the only one who could jump into any beast who took his fancy - the only one who’d never been overcome with madness or died - but when the wolf had changed in front of him - when fur had turned into dark hair, and the man had stood up, oh so gracefully, in front of him - he’d looked at the deer that was Leif, and Leif had known the man could see him. Which should have been impossible. He’d never known such fear - such awe - in his entire life.)

- the fox seeks to return to the cover of the trees, but Leif blinks himself inside it again, guides it towards the lake instead.

Austmenn were always partial to water, and his Lord had been the most perfect of them all. If he truly can be found somewhere, Leif is sure, it will be on a beach. And this lake isn’t much - he’s only glimpsed it from above, and he couldn’t tell how big it was - but it will lead him to the ocean. And then -

(There are words spoken to him now - praise and promises. Leif had heard stories of Loki Laufeyson, had learned to be wary of him, because he was both kin and enemy of the All-Father, and could not be trusted. But the stories had never mentioned how glorious Loki was. How sweet his voice, how direct his gaze. Leif had run away that first time - he’d turned back, once, had seen the man still standing there, still looking at him, a smile on his handsome face - but the second time - the second time he’d allowed himself to be caught. And the third, he hadn’t even fought back.

How can you resist a god?)

The ground under his paws turns harder. The wind howls around him, but Leif keeps his ears low against his head and runs on.

.:.

In the end, it takes them more than ten hours to get to Chicago. There is a sort of check point outside the city (three tanks pointing outwards) but it seems to be unmanned. Dean slows down when he sees it, eyeing the tanks warily - they’ve seen and fought so many monsters, but men, in the end, are the most dangerous of them all - but nobody emerges from the hastily built barracks, and the old truck is allowed to move forward undisturbed.

“Do you even know where you’re going?” Sam asks.

He’s only just woken up from what, Dean is sure, wasn’t sleep at all, but some sort of conversation inside his own head. He looks bad-tempered and tired.

“Dude,” he says, looking back at the road. “Give me some credit.”

Sam is about to go full bitch face on him - Dean can tell without even looking - and this is why he plays nice.

“The Berkshire Room has the best whiskey in the country. Of course I know where it is.”

Sam shakes his head.

“So now you’re an expert of hard liquor? I always assumed you were some sort of alcoholic.”

Dean rolls his eyes.

“Why can’t I be both?” he asks, reasonably, just to annoy his brother.

Because, well, Sam’s always been a straight shooter, and over the years, he’s scoffed time and time again at Dean’s promiscuity and lax morals. It had mostly been good-natured banter, but the drinking - alcohol had been John’s drug of choice, and Dean knows this is why Sam hates it - why he’d started to drink so late, himself (well over twenty-one) and why this has always been the only thing Sam was unable to let go. Dean being an asshole, Sam can handle; but Dean being John - that’s where the line is.

Dean gets it (now). He's okay with it.

“I worked a case here with Bobby once,” Dean relents. “We scoped the place out, that’s all. Anyway, I doubt it’s even open,” he adds, taking in the view (closed and looted shops; empty streets). “What time is it?”

“Almost nine.”

“It’s creepy, the way he does that,” says Dean, conversationally, and then he slows down to drive around an abandoned car.

“He says thanks,” says Sam, bored.

“No, really, how does he do it? Is it a kind of - is that what dogs do?”

“Dogs can’t tell the time.”

A man suddenly emerges from the broken mess of a shop window on their right. Dean swerves to avoid him as he runs across the street and disappears.

“How are things so bad already?” he mutters to himself. “It hasn’t been that long.”

“People think it’s the Apocalypse, Squirrel, and, frankly, it’s hard to blame them.”

Dean glances sideways.

It’s uncanny, really, how it can be so obvious that Sam is now Crowley - his face looks exactly the same, and yet completely different.

“Long time, no see,” he says, trying to sound annoyed, but he isn’t, not really. “How’s everyone?”

“Is Madison really Sam’s true love?” Crowley asks, curiously, and then winces as Sam probably shouts at him.

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why? Because they knew each other for two hours? Stop that, Moose.”

“No, that’s Sam all right. I meant - Madison was a werewolf. It makes sense she’d be in Purgatory, but why is she human now?”

Crowley tries to smooth down his suit, hisses in annoyance when his fingers meet the thick flannel of Sam’s shirt instead.

“So you don’t know?” he asks.

“Don’t know what?”

Crowley doesn’t answer. Dean drives on, bending down from time to time to check the street names. He remembers where the place is, but the darkness around him is making it difficult to be sure he’s heading in the right direction.

“Come on, out with it,” he says, glancing at Crowley, then back at the street.

“This is a crucial piece of information,” Crowley says, a bit diffidently. “I want you to remember that I’m sharing it with you out of the goodness of my heart.”

“Right.”

“Because we’re friends and allies,” Crowley insists, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“Yes, yes, duly noted, okay? So?”

“Light calls to Light; Darkness calls to Darkness,” says Crowley, and now they’re in the right neighborhood, but Dean drives on, straight towards the lake. “Where are you going? The Berkshire Room is back that way.”

“Never mind that. What do you mean, Light calls to Light?”

“Did Sam tell you about the demons?”

“Yeah,” says Dean, frowning.

Lake Michigan is the creepiest shit ever in this light - it looks like something slimy and evil is going to emerge from its surface any minute now.

And just like that, Dean is pierced by the sudden, painful memory of watching that exact scene unfold with Charlie half draped over his legs - The Fellowship of the Ring, that had been, and Charlie had gone on and on about it and Dean had almost forgotten everything in that moment - the monsters, and his own shitty life - because Charlie -

Yeah, so Charlie’s dead now.

He tightens his hands on the wheel, forces himself to listen to Crowley.

“Well, the thing is - the Darkness swallowed everything.”

“Yeah, that’s clearer.”

Crowley makes that impatient noise he always makes when he thinks Dean is being dim.

“Some creatures, like men, are half and half,” he says, insultingly slow. “But others, like demons, tend to be pure darkness. And those, the Darkness absorbed within itself.”

His mind only half on what Crowley is saying, Dean parks in front of a large, grey building.

“And?” he asks, distractedly.

“God, you’re thick. It means you’re out of a job, sweetheart. It means everything you used to hunt is gone.”

Now, that gets Dean’s attention.

“Jesus - really? Are you serious?”

“Nothing walks the Earth anymore. Werewolves, vampires, shifters - they’ve all been consumed. And so have my people.”

Dean takes it in. If this is true - ganking the Darkness could be his last job. And if he survives it - if he finds a way to get back to life, that is, because he doesn’t fancy this, not one bit - being stuck as an immortal creep for bloody centuries - he could - they could just quit.

The prospect is scary; electrifying.

Sammy could pick up his studies again, and Dean could - he could -

“Yeah, don’t feel sorry for me, or anything,” says Crowley, breaking into Dean’s thoughts, and that brings him back to reality, hard.

And reality is, he’s in the worst fix he’s ever been in, and there’s probably no way out of it, because when is there ever?

“Why are you alive, then?” he asks, unthinkingly, but Crowley doesn’t answer.

“You’ve pissed him off,” says Sam, after a second of silence. “Good job. Now he’ll pick a fight with Benny and I’ll end up having a headache for the next four hours. Thanks a lot, Dean.”

“Did you hear what he just said?” asks Dean, making a vague, dismissive gesture, because, honestly, who cares about Crowley right now?

“Yeah.”

They look at each other for a long moment. Again, the thing is right there. That what if which is as heavy and as poisonous as lead. That reminder that in every other version of their lives, they haven’t been together. They haven’t been close. When Sam had gone to Stanford - when Dean had been in Purgatory - hell, even when Dean had been brainwashed by that Djinn - their messed up childhood and hunting, that’s the only thing that keeps them together. And without it -

And if what Crowley just said is true - if there are no monsters left in the world -

Dean knows Sam would be out of there so fast, there would be barely any time to say goodbye. Not that he would blame the kid: hell, he’d probably push him out himself. There’s so many things Sam could be doing, because that’s who Sam is, someone smart and resourceful and normal.

And what would happen to him if Sam left, then? What would he have?

Because before, well - every time he’d cautiously considered the possibility, Dean had only been sure about one thing: whatever he would be doing, he would be doing it with Cas. He’d had vague daydreams featuring him and Cas at the Bunker - lazy Sundays spent in front of Star Trek reruns, perhaps; Saturday nights in some bar - he’s always itched to teach Cas how to play pool, he’s sure the guy would ace it -

- but now, of course, everything has changed. Even if he could survive all this, then what? Cas would be some Ruler of the Universe - Dean would never see him again, and -

God.

He can’t think about this. Not now.

“What about Benny and Madison?” he forces himself to say, because he can see on Sam’s face that Sam is about to ask that question, that concerned Are you okay? Dean doesn’t want to hear.

Sam shrugs.

“I figure Raguel cured them, or something. I don’t know. Crowley says he knows what happened,” he adds, his mouth shifting in annoyance, “because, of course, he freaking knows freaking everything -”

Dean knows Sam isn’t talking to him, not anymore. He takes advantage of it to rummage in his jacket, close his fingers around the taser. He’s set it the highest voltage: Sam is already dead, after all, so it won’t hurt him, and he’s technically four people now. Better to be safe than sorry.

“Shut up,” Sam says, closing one hand so tight on the door handle his knuckles turn white. “No, I don’t know - just fucking shut up.”

“What now?” asks Dean, uncomfortably aware of the weight of the weapon in his right hand.

“He wants to know what we’re doing here. Isn’t the university around here somewhere?”

Sam sits up straighter, looks out of the window; and Dean forces the taser deep against his side, fires it.

“Sorry,” he says, in a low voice, as Sam twitches silently, falls back against the seat.

Then Dean hops off the truck, walks towards the building.

University of Chicago, says the brass plaque on the door. Classics, English Literature, Creative Writing.

Trying to convince himself he’s doing something smart, and not the biggest mistake ever, Dean walks right in.

The corridor is dark and silent, but Dean can almost feel he’s in the right place. Without even reading the information sheet on the wall, he moves upstairs, finds the office he was looking for on the first try. He raises his hand to knock, but the door opens before he can make a noise.

“Oh, it’s you,” the man says, and he doesn’t sound happy (Dean pushes his way inside the room anyway).

“I thought you may come,” the man adds, moving to one side to let him pass.

“You thought or you knew?” Dean quips, bad-tempered, because now he’s here, he’s suddenly realized how dangerous this is, and how much can go wrong if he’s miscalculated.

“You still have free will, Dean,” the man says meekly, and then he closes the door on the looming darkness outside.