Archive of Our Own

Other-Dean and Other-Sam were beginning to ascend the steps to leave the Bunker, and Dean and Sam (this world’s Dean and Sam) felt an odd mix of emotions to see them go. It was still weird to think about, but despite the fact these people weren’t even really actually them, this was still a version of them, a version of them that was getting a fresh start away from all the fire.

So, yeah. Conflicting feelings. But overall, Sam and Dean wished them well.

“Where you wanna be is Brazil,” Dean was telling the other-world counterparts, a twinkle in his eye that spoke to honesty and the excitement of his promise. “Nothing but beaches, babes, and Carnival. You’ll have a blast.”

Other-Dean grinned. “Hear that, Sammy?” he said to his younger brother. “A whole hemisphere to ourselves.”

Other-Sam gave a small smile. “Yeah,” he said, in that slightly lilting (honestly kind of peculiar) accented tone of his. On the inside, though, he wasn’t sure if he could let himself and his brother have that kind of life. That kind of ease or that kind of freedom. They weren’t made for that.

(And they needed to find their dad.)

“Hey,” Other-Dean spoke up, tipping his chin up at his doppelganger. “You say Brazil’s got babes.”

Dean gave a mouth-shrug, a ‘what can I say?’ sort of look. “That they do.”

Other-Dean put on a vaguely roguish sort of grin at the thought of it. “You know anything about the guys?” he asked.

Dean balked, for a moment appearing completely unsure of what the question precisely meant. There was a moment of taut silence, and then he coughed, hands shifting awkwardly at his sides. “You, uh…” he replied, voice dipping into an awkward chuckle. “You askin’ for a friend?”

Other-Sam gave a subtly confused look, and Other-Dean seemed caught off guard just the same.

“...you don’t like both?” Other-Dean asked, like it’d be that simple to respond in more than just one way.

Other-Dean thought back to the laptop he’d been given, to the stores of porn housed on the drive and the downloaded files that were still zipped. Unopened.

Some of the names those files had had.

(They hadn’t seemed that straight.)

Dean laughed again, crow’s feet pushing out at the sides of his eyes and carrying his whole, fragile expression on their cracking skin’s foundation. “Nah, sorry,” he said. (But the apology caught on its way out, and he was forced to stop and clear his throat. Because god help him, had he tried to apologize for certain parts of himself.)

(And god help him were those parts still there.)

“I don’t swing that way,” Dean finished. “Just… the one way. You know.” He shrugged, trying not to let on how tense the gesture felt. “The first one.”

Other-Dean’s brows drew inward almost imperceptibly, and so did Other-Sam’s, but Sam stepped in and started to give them some details about how to set up in Rio, making sure that currency equivalents were the same here and that they knew “Sam and Dean Winchester” were legally dead and generally on the outs with U.S. law. They were hoping the plot convenience magic that kept their faces from being easily recognized (despite all their time spent on the news and FBI most-wanted lists) would apply to their doppelgangers too. 

Within no time, the other-worlders were gone, and that left only Sam and Dean, standing together in the War Room.

“You know…” Sam spoke up, watching his brother’s vaguely distant, vaguely pensive expression. “I know the whole ‘being your own worst critic’ thing is a big part of you, but… you realize that those other guys weren’t actually us, right?”

Dean’s eyes flicked up to look at him, and his features pulled into a frown. “What?” he asked.

“You didn’t have to lie to them,” Sam said, trying again. “Or be afraid of them judging you, or whatever.”

Dean’s frown deepened. “Dude, I’m not following,” he said, honestly so. “Lying? What the hell did I lie to them about, the global political climate? Okay, so maybe things aren’t actually perfect in Brazil. That doesn’t mean they can’t have fun.”

Sam took a moment to read his brother’s expression, and his lips thinned, in a mixture of bracing himself and sympathetic resolve. “Your sexuality, Dean,” he said finally. “You didn’t have to lie to them about ‘liking both.’”

For a long, long second, everything was quiet, save for the hitch of Dean’s breath in his throat. “Sam, you don’t…” he began, and his voice was raw. Almost choked. “You don’t think I like… guys, do you?”

Why would Sam think that?

Was a nonexistent childhood of trying to make himself in John Winchester’s image, nearly a whole life of being a torch forcibly self-lit in the name of machismo and heteronormativity— was all of that not enough to paint over the cracks that ran so much deeper than just his chassis?

“Dean, you can’t honestly tell me you’ve never let a guy take you home before,” Sam said. He wasn’t being unkind. He was just stating facts.

Dean stopped on his way to a stutter, and Sam looked like he’d just been given proof that he was right.

But it wasn’t that simple. Dean had— he’d done those things before, embraced that dark, searing, cancerous piece of what the world could offer— to feed his brother, not because he wanted to.

He didn’t— he didn’t really feel that way. He couldn’t. It’d been branded into him by the things he’d had to do for the money, and the stain wouldn’t rub out no matter how many scalding showers he took, but that didn’t make it a part of him. Not a real part.

(Because even if it really was a true part of him, it was still undeniably tainted now.)

God, maybe that was part of what irked Dean about that other version of himself. That guy who’d just waltzed out of here got to kill monsters for a monthly salary, wasn’t paid in tears and blood and yet another apocalypse to stave off or dead family member to bury.

But more than that, the things that Dean had done for money weren’t noble.

He’d never had that luxury.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sam,” Dean said at last, his voice shuttered. “I’m a lot of things that the holy rollers don’t like, but I am not that. There’s nothing wrong with people being like that, but I am not one of them. You got that?” He exhaled through his teeth. “I’m—”

He stopped, when he realized that his next words weren’t his, they were John’s.

“You’re not soft. Say it.” The command was rough with whiskey and unrestrained prejudice, and in the dim light and thick air of the dingy motel room, it carried just far enough to reach the ears (and the soul) of the young boy standing just a few feet away.

“I’m not soft.”

Dean was snapped back to reality, his reality, and he remembered every time he’d had to repeat that to himself. That store manager in Boise, for a loaf of bread and some peanut butter when dad had left money for a week, and then been gone for three. The gas station clerk in Billings, when Sam was sick and John was gone and Bobby was on a hunt a whole state over. The man outside the bar in Jefferson City who’d pegged him, and been willing to pay enough that Dean couldn’t have refused or threatened to call the cops.

Even more of them.

Once, in his twenties, it wasn’t even for the money.

Dean couldn’t tell if he’d said the words aloud, but Sam was looking at him like he was staring into an open wound.

Dean shook his head, and got up and turned to go, his fingers shaking and his head going faster than a blade when it was in his hand. Christ, it’d been years since he’d been overwhelmed by any of this. He’d had something of a one-night breakdown after John had come back that time with the Baozhu pearl last year, but he’d stowed it and moved on, just like he’d always done.

Why did it have to be thrown in his face now, that he was this colossally screwed up?

“Dean—” Sam began, standing up. “You don’t have to—”

"Just stop, Sam," Dean said. "It's fine." The word was like bile in his mouth, the opposite of a benediction. "I'm going to check on Cas and Jack, okay? You… do whatever."

Before Sam could try protesting again, Dean was out of his sight, and the younger Winchester made a sound between a groan and a worried sigh as his hands slipped up into the front of his hair.

Sam was used to problems that seemed unfixable. He’d made a life (and saved nearly every life in existence) by solving them.

But with this—

Was there really anything he could do on his own?

-:-:-:-

Other-Dean and Other-Sam had taken roughly five steps out the main door after that awkward little sendoff, only to realize that their car (the last remnant of their old life, really, aside from the clothes they wore and Sam’s man-bun), was still in the Bunker’s garage.

“Sam, hey,” this version of Dean said, stopping in place and prompting his brother to do the same with the back of a hand held up to his chest. “Realize we're forgetting something?”

This Sam thought on it for a moment, then quickly realized. “Ah.”  He turned around, starting to head back towards the door.

“No no no, wait,”  Other-Dean said. “I'm not saying I know other-me well, but I'm pretty sure we just left a lot of very awkward, repressed energy in that room.” His voice turned downcast. “Poor man,” he muttered. “Let’s head around to the garage ourselves. If I remember right, they left it unlocked.” 

Sam nodded, and the two of them quickly made their way around the building. The back door to the garage was, in fact, still accessible, and the brothers let themselves in without issue. It took a moment to locate their smaller vehicle amid the rows of classic cars, (and a solid dose of willpower to leave those classic cars where they were), but they found it, and patted down their pockets for the keys.

Just as they were about to open the doors, get in, and ride out, however, the door leading from the inside of the bunker opened first, and footsteps could be heard walking in.

This Sam and Dean looked at one another, and then both their heads turned in the direction of the sound, waiting for whoever it was to come into view. In case it was this world’s Dean, the older brother’s counterpart had a defense ready on his lips, to assert and reassure that they had not touched any of the clearly precious possessions around them.

But the figure who came into view was not one that either of them had been expecting.

“Oh god,” the foreign version of Dean Winchester breathed.

“Castiel?”

-:-:-:-

So much had happened in the past several days, but right now, Jack was all that Cas could think about. The too-young nephilim had his soul back, and the weight of everything that had happened in the time since he lost it was now bearing down on him with an intensity that made Castiel ache to protect, to shield his son from these undeserved burdens. But he could do nothing.

Because right now, Jack had locked himself up in the kitchen, and he wasn't letting anyone in— not even the angel who considered himself his father.

Sam and Dean were busy with their doppelgangers, he knew. So Castiel came down to the garage, expecting solitude and a place to face his emotions on his own. It was what the Winchesters had taught him, after all. When everything is going to shit, and you feel that inside you too, ultimately— it's yours to deal with. 

But as he began to pace between the first row of cars, what he found were the two men who looked very much like the men he left upstairs, and the one shaped like Dean Winchester had just said his name; and the way he did it made Cas nearly forget everything else.

“Castiel?”

The angel in question stopped in place, a good several feet away. “Do…” he asked, measuring his words. “Do you know me?”

This other version of Dean was looking at him like he'd found something long lost, something that had left him praying and aching in equal measure. (Because sometimes devotion and aching were the same thing, weren’t they?)

“N-no,” Other-Dean said carefully, clearing his throat, lowering his eyes, and stepping neatly around whatever was on his mind. Ever John Winchester’s son, he thought to himself. Never negotiate with ungloved hands on the table.

And every conversation you’re in is a negotiation.

Except when it’s with him.

Other-Dean seemed to take a moment to gather himself, then stepped forward, reaching out to shake the trenchcoated man's hand. Still standing by the car, Other-Sam gave a near-imperceptible nod, one of both approval and silent support.

“Hi,” Other-Dean said as he felt Castiel’s warm, slightly tense grip meet his. “You probably know this already, but I’m… Dean Winchester.” He said his name like in his mind, he was hearing it in someone else's voice. In a memory of another time.

“Yes. And somehow…” said Castiel, slowly. “You know who I am, as well.” He released the handshake, glanced at the other version of Sam, and then back at Dean. “Did you know your world’s version of me?”

The brothers exchanged a look, and with another small nod, Sam rounded the car and began to walk toward the other end of the garage, giving Dean and Castiel some private space.

“I, um,” this Dean said, seeming to be holding on to his hard-bred composure like it was composed of fraying threads. Threads that had unravelled, when his hands met those of the being in front of him, and stopped wanting to hold anything else together. “Yes,” he confirmed, finally. “I did.”

“Hm. And seeing me, you appear…  distressed,” Castiel observed, taking a chaste step closer to gauge the reaction he’d receive. The other Dean seemed to be inviting of it. Castiel then laughed, somewhat darkly, without much humor at his own statement. “Then again, I believe we all are, these days.”

Dean laughed, and hummed in agreement, its energy similar. “Yeah, ‘distressed’ is the right word for it.” His gaze drifted, over and to the side, like he was recalling a fond memory. “But I'm not distressed because of you. I promise.” He broke off as his cheeks began to flush. “You never made me feel that way, not really. Sure, sometimes you were completely, utterly, imbecilic, but…” He shook his head. “No.” He gave a faint, infant smile. “Never really distressing.”

Castiel returned a smile that was similar. “It seems you knew me well, then,” he mused. Almost teased. (And it did make the man in front of him relax a little, because god, Castiel would never not know how to make Dean Winchester feel at ease.) “Sam and Dean told me a bit about the story you relayed to them. I wasn't under the impression that you were raised to befriend supernatural entities.”

This Dean seemed caught between whether to laugh, or deflect. Deflection was a skill he’d honed in the business world, neat dances composed of sentences and timing that made him more agile than the ruling pair of any ballroom. (He had always thought he’d make a good dancer, if he’d had the time to try it). But around Cas… he always forgot so many of the steps, simply losing them to the blue of the angel’s eyes.

“It, uh,” he tried to reply. “Well, you, were something unexpected, I guess.” He gave a short cough, a gesture normally so precise but now almost stripped of everything but honesty. “How did this world’s Winchesters meet you?” he asked. One of the cardinal rules of the calculated cakewalk that is conversation was not to ask a question you didn’t want to answer about yourself. But in this case… he just couldn’t help himself.

And maybe a part of him did want to answer.

“I am the one who gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition,” Castiel said, one corner of his mouth raising slightly at the significance of the classic, memory-rich line. “He’d sold his soul for his brother and gone to Hell, nearly twelve years ago now. I was the angel who pulled him back to Earth. And after that, he convinced me to rebel. Help him save the world.” He hesitated, then shrugged, very slightly. “He showed me how to care about it, as well.”

(It was something that Castiel could never say to his Dean. But saying it to someone with the same face, with such similar eyes and a comparable aura… it made something in him feel warm, feel comforted in a place he couldn’t be touched.)

Other-Dean’s face had softened, in something caught like a sheet out of the dryer on its way to being an ache.

“And what about your Castiel?” the angel asked. “How did you meet him, and know him?” His voice was patient, but it was clear he was curious.

The Dean in front of him thought for a moment, and the silence in the garage around them seemed like a tangible thing.

“Would you like to sit down, at all?” Castiel asked quietly.

Dean blinked, glanced around him, and then hesitantly moved to sit on the hood of his small car. His expensive jacket pulled for a moment, and once again he found himself missing the more comfortable clothing of his doppelganger.

“It’s kind of a long story,” he said, at last. “Are you sure you want to hear it?” Normally, he asked this question with a note of daring, a hint of teasing, the son or daughter of some CEO or government agent leaning into his arm. But now, he just meant it, as it was. As he was.

Castiel nodded. “If you are willing to tell it, I will listen.”

So Dean cleared his throat, and started from the beginning.

-:-:-:-

Hunter Corp, as it was known, was a lot of things. First and foremost, it was the biggest conglomerate of hunters in the world, and the owner of the biggest aggregation of mystical lore, power, and intelligence there was. They’d trumped and absorbed the Men of Letters within a decade of their establishment, and their operations were incredibly precise, perfectly smooth. They were a secret, to most people. As far as anyone new, they specialized in stock trading, and that's where a large portion of their revenue came from. (The rest was off-books government extermination contracts. Once John had convinced world leaders of the existence of monsters, well… most were willing to pay top dollar not to have to deal with them.)

But Hunter Corp, as Sam and Dean Winchester knew it, had been born of destroying grief, and hard work, and incredible amounts of discipline and training. From the age of seven, as soon as he knew enough English and could hold his voice level enough to do it, Dean had been John's partner, helping make phone calls and keeping an eye on Sammy, who —  once he’d grown up — had quickly become the prodigal son of the company. Sam was the brains, the face, the game piece, the one put on present. But behind the scenes, and on the missions, so was Dean. Dean was a fine tool, capable of talking almost anyone into anything. Into his bed, into turning a blind eye to what their company really was, into making an investment, into joining the fold as an asset, into a trap— whatever John Winchester, Sam, and the family business needed from him.

He did a lot of things, and he was damn good at every one of them. 

About eighty to ninety percent of the hunts that came up on their radar, they could peg right away. Vetala, werewolf, shifter, whatever. They'd send a team, and that team would take care of it.

But the remaining few of them— they weren't always so sure. There would be reports, symptoms, incidents and odd occurrences, but not enough to diagnose the disease beforehand. These were the cases Sam and Dean would take, the two brothers being very nearly the only ones their father trusted to do these missions right. It was beyond a large amount of work, sometimes. They got orders at all times of the day and night, and sometimes, they'd have to split up, calling on both their sets of pilots at once. They had to work with whoever was on hand in their ring of company rank, or on their own, more often than they could really work together. Usually, they'd alternate, so one of them could help their dad with the business side of things, and the other could deal with the messes, and cleaning blood off their hands. But as they’d gotten older, Dean often became the one balancing the more involved side of their hunting operation, some hunters in their employ referring to him as John’s Sword. Sam had become something of a master in the conference room, a perfect vessel for their father’s intent, and Dean was content to let him have that. Sam wasn’t the type who enjoyed the types of seduction, sweet talking and subterfuge that happened off the books, anyway, so Dean would handle those for him too.

When he was fourteen and his father caught him holding hands with the son of an influential Wall Street broker, Dean had expected a reprimand, the lash of a silver-buckled belt in a place that wouldn't show up on camera. He’d had to pledge, from childhood, to be the good son, to be the son the company needed him to be. His dad had run out from the fires of his childhood and handed him the roots of this company, had told him not to let them burn, and that was who he’d become. Hunter Corp’s son, and its truest parent. The living soul that was tapped by its veins, whenever John himself didn’t have the steam to power it with his hands and will alone.

And Dean thought he’d allowed himself to become confused. That he’d allowed himself to fail in being the one thing he was; part of the company.

John had had a slight curl to his lip, a sunken brow that never accompanied his perfected corporate smiles. But honestly? Mostly?

John had stared down his son, like discovering a fish in his tank who could both walk and swim, and he looked the way he did whenever he thought he could expand the business.

And so he had.

Dean’s diverse sexuality became yet another tool for him to hone, to perfect the use of in the name of his father’s pursuits. If the person in charge of some agency or bank or Men of Letters outpost didn't want to do business with them, what better way to get their ears open than with evidence of them or their children in a vulnerable position, at Dean’s hands? It was crude, but effective; and getting information on cases was suddenly twice as easy when he was around.

It felt like such a blessing, to Dean, that his deviance could be put to use. Could be accepted, and help him provide for the father and brother and organization that was his purpose. Because if it was something that could be a tool in his hand, that could make him a better tool, that's all he needed to be comfortable with it. And Sam didn’t seem to need more than that from him either.

So, like that, things worked out fine.

Until one day, about a year before God would set his sights on their Earth's end, things began to take a turn for the complicated.

A town toward the west side of Washington State had begun experiencing a small wave of odd phenomena. People were reporting cracked glass, unexplainable sounds, and even mysterious garden fires, all without pattern or tangible link. The local birds and wildlife had seemed to retreat and circle, like something was calling them in, but it was too hot to touch. No one had yet to investigate the center of that area, but today, that's what Dean had gone in to do.

 Dean had convinced his father to let him check it out alone. The findings were scattered, he’d said. We’re not even sure if it's a case, he’d said. I'll figure out if it is, and report back to bring in a team if I need it. I could use a breath of fresh air.

Fine, John had said. Go. Be careful. 

Dean had nodded. He'd agreed.

He got in a car, one of the older ones he didn't get many opportunities to drive, and set a course for Washington.

It was a long drive. Relaxing, almost. Just him, the road, and the memories of his father's Impala from before Hunter Corp was born.

And, in secret, his ulterior motives, for why he'd really taken this case.

See— Dean didn't have a lot of memories from before his mom had died. There'd been a man (not a man, a demon of some kind) trying to get into Sam's crib, but she’d killed him before he could enter the nursery; dying in the process with some odd symbols scratched just beneath her collarbone. In later years, they found out that Mary had somehow siphoned her soul, almost like an explosive. Like a Madonna show. Like a martyr. And all it'd cost was the life of a mother. She and the house had gone up in flames, and John had gotten the boys out after witnessing the last part of the fight. And from then on, it’d been just the three of them.

Dean didn't know much about his mom. He knew that she never did anything without intention, which is part of what broke John in the wake of her death. (Especially once they discovered the records on the Campbell family, which showed that she’d been a hunter.)

And one other thing he knew is that she'd always told him angels were watching over him.

Angels being on Earth was a rarity. They kept to themselves, and the lore on them was dicey; most hunters didn’t believe that they existed. Dean, however, had never been fully convinced that they didn’t. Mary had been a hunter. And she wasn’t religious, at least not like that. So if she thought angels were out there, that they were watching over him, then… didn’t Dean almost owe it to her, to all the times his father had compared him to her, to see if angels were watching?

Sam had never really understood the fascination, outside of the idea that if they could track the angels down, they could study them; determine where they stood relative to the company mission. And to Dean, that was all well and good, but— he didn’t just think about finding angels for the sake of the family business.

He thought about finding angels, because of the past of his family.

And that was what had stood out to him about this case. Rumor had it that when an angel screamed, odd phenomena (like unexplainable sonic events, burning bushes, people hearing things) tended to be observed.

And, from what it seemed like, a screaming angel wasn’t necessarily a dangerous one, if it even was an angel. And if the omens meant something else, he could handle it.

So Dean pursed his lips, and drove right into town, ready to meet whatever awaited him.

He’d parked near the center of where the wildlife had been circling, strategically choosing to stop just across a local waterfront whose bank was relatively secluded from the city. He checked that he had appropriate weaponage on his person, and slipped on a field-standard pair of contact lenses; which were burned with holy fire, to allow operatives to see anything at all that they might be fighting.

He took a deep breath.

And then he began to walk.

He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, really. He was no amatuer; he kept his gaze sharp, and one hand ready over his holster. But still, there was a part of his mind that wandered. Maybe he was looking for evidence of miracles and heavenly beings. Maybe he was looking for proof that the life he had now actually did connect to his childhood.

Maybe he was looking for whatever answers Mary had seemed to hold, because he could never quite find the answers he was looking for in John.

It didn’t matter what he thought he was looking for, though. Because when he found it, he felt it before he saw it.

There was a piercing, desperate wail, coming from someplace down the shore. Something shrill and folding and pained and utterly unimaginable— like the blanketed tail of a divine arrow careening down from the heavens, and crumpling as it met the unforgiving sphere of the Earth. It was a song of grief. Of confusion. Of weeping light and bleeding ears and everything in between that lived and died and could be mourned.

It was a crying angel.

And Dean nearly fell to his knees right there and then.

The trek that followed didn’t quite stick in his memory. He might’ve been crawling on all fours as winds buffeted in grief over his face, pushing him back and begging him forward all at once, or he might’ve been walking, or running toward whatever he could conceive as the source of the sound.

It was like he fell under a trance, and only came to when he was standing six feet away from a box of cardboard, with a shivering human form inside it.

A human with wings, etheric vanes of cosmos arcing from his back where no human was meant to see.

Dean was frozen.

Normally, this would’ve been the cue to pull a blade. To make the creature talk, and then deliver unto it its end.

But through the contact lens that blessed his vision, that made him and his company better killers and cleansers of this mortal world… all Dean could see was how even the wings were shaking, and how they were wrapped tightly around the arms and knees of the person inside.

“Hello?” Dean said. His blade hand was still ready, but he wasn’t bracing himself to draw it.

The creature seemed to tense, freezing mid-tremor, then it slowly looked up, a ring of light momentarily shining in its eyes. Its face was that of a human, male— white, and blue-eyed, and dark-haired. But Dean could tell it was so much more.

It parted its lips like it wanted to respond, but hesitated, like it wasn’t sure how. It was in almost a fetal position, in how closely it was holding itself. One wing was lagging, Dean realized, tucked at an odd angle. Just looking upon it felt like pain.

“Who are you?” Dean asked, trying again. He didn’t step closer, but somehow, he found that he wanted to.

“Ca— Castiel,” the creature spoke after a moment. He offered nothing more, but he kept looking at Dean, like he was seeing into the sun for the very first time.

“Castiel,” Dean repeated. “Castiel… what are you?”

The creature half-frowned, half-grimaced, like it was brimming with shock and emotion. Its emotions seemed so deep. So fragile.

So strong.

“I was an angel of the lord,” Castiel said, carefully, quietly. “But now… I am afraid I no longer know.” He seemed so vulnerable. Gazing up with wide eyes, like he’d just given away everything he had to give.

Dean breathed. “You’re an angel,” he murmured. “Angels, they’re— they’re real.” But then he thought.

And angels can get hurt?

Dean lowered himself toward the gravelly sand beneath his feet, and let his weapon sink to the ground, not giving up eye contact as he did so. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

I can’t believe I’m asking an angel if it’s hurt.

Sam’s man-bun would be shaking with dismay.

But even so, when Castiel nodded, Dean decided to help.

He extricated Castiel from the damp cardboard shell in an awkward maneuver, and got him out of there. The angel’s physical form was mostly fine. But his grace — his life force, it seemed — had been injured. He’d been taken for reeducation, and he didn’t know how many times it’d happened before. He’d gained lucidity, and panicked, trying to fight. He’d been a warrior, he explained. So fight he did.

Until he’d been stabbed through the wing, a potentially mortal wound if not seen to, and been forced to run to Earth. To take a replica from Heaven of his true vessel.

But here, aside from the shell of skin that surrounded him and his wounded wings, he had nothing. He was a lost, keening animal, without the comfort of Heaven or the security of self or purpose. He was alone.

Until he'd met the human on the beach, whose soul had been practically luminous with purpose.

Now, his purpose.

Dean had set him up in the shelter of a church, trusting them to be discreet, and watched the town’s omens dissipate. Castiel was still in pain, but he no longer had need to cry out in the divine wavelength, when the soothing presence of the souls around him served to make the injuries to his true form more bearable.

Castiel needed little more than time, it seemed, until he would be well again.

Dean was wary, knowing that this was a celestial warrior, but convinced himself that he could still serve the family business in this situation. Dean could interrogate the soldier while he was weakened, find out more about the angels. Gain invaluable knowledge of what could hurt them, what their motives were. And… he could talk. They could talk.

And they did talk.

Until things became more than just talking.

Until Castiel was healed, but had finally found himself, in Dean, and didn’t want to leave.

Until they were happy together. (And happy together, and happy together, and happy together, and felt that they would never stop).

Until Dean was away from the company headquarters more than he was ever there.

Until Sam called him out for it and Dean broke down and told him everything.

Until Sam agreed to help him keep it from dad.

Until certain omens they’d been monitoring started to escalate in intensity.

Until Castiel risked everything to go back to Heaven and investigate.

Until Castiel didn’t come back.

Until their world started coming apart.

And until the final moments, wherein Dean couldn’t get his angel into the portal with him in time, because he’d prayed, but he hadn’t been able to find the angel in time.

Because he hadn’t been able to do enough to keep his heart from being left behind.

Castiel had given him purpose, outside of the family business. In the warmth of Castiel's wings, Dean had been more than an instrument for the hands of some other’s intent.

But when it counted, he’d played himself.

And that’d left him lost, in another world, without either of the things he’d come to define himself by. Left him having to pretend, because unless he could convince himself that he had a foundation left amid the crumbling pillars of his life, he knew he would curl up into a ball and cry and he would never be able to move forward.

So that was his story.

It was why, when he saw this version of Castiel, he saw the echoes of who he could’ve been— had nearly been for a little while. The best version of himself.

Something he wasn’t sure he’d ever be again.

-:-:-:-

The tale had been completed, and now the two of them, the storyteller and the audience of one, stood in palpable silence.

“I am not the angel you met and rescued, Dean,” Cas said, quietly. “And you are not the Dean Winchester around whom I have now built my own life. But I wish you to know that I understand you, and the struggle you now face, and… I have faith in you.” Cas rested a hand on his shoulder. “You can and will find yourself. You need only believe that you possess the strength to see yourself in the mirror, and in your every action.”

Dean nodded, silent, and reached up to brush the outside of Cas’s hand with his. Not a true touch, but just enough to trace the edges of the memories one last time.

“Thank you, Castiel,” Dean said. “Your world, and your Dean are… really lucky to have you.”

Those were their final words, and then the brothers from a scrapped universe, now without any definition but their own, got in their car and drove.

-:-:-:-

Cas walked back inside, and circled back toward the kitchen, finding Sam outside the door (which was still locked, with Jack still enclosed inside).

“Cas, hey,” Sam said, once he noticed the angel approaching. “Where were you just now?”

“Your doppelgangers, they… they came back for their car,” Cas told him. “They’ve left now. What about Jack, is he still…?”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “He won’t talk, and there honestly seems to be a lot of that going around.”

Cas frowned. “How do you mean?” he asked.

Sam’s arms were crossed where he leaned against the wall, and his jaw was set in a characteristic expression of thought and simultaneous concern. “Dean,” he said by way of explanation. “The other-Dean said some stuff that rattled him, and he won’t let anyone, including himself acknowledge it.”

Cas’s frown lost some of its intensity, and gained an air of questioning. “What… kind, of stuff?”

Sam’s mouth was a thin line. “Identity stuff,” he settled on.

Cas hummed pensively. “Where is Dean now?”

Sam glanced down the hall. “I think he headed to his room,” he said. “I would’ve followed him there, but I know he won’t let me in if I try to bring this up again.”

Cas cast a forlorn look at the kitchen door, and then squared his shoulders resolutely. “I can go check on him,” he said. “Come let us know, if Jack opens the door?”

Sam nodded. “Be careful with him, Cas,” he said, like there was need to ask for that specifically.

Cas nodded.

He could never be anything but.

-:-:-:-

Dean had been sitting on his bed, headphones pressed tight against the sides of his head in hopes that Angus Young could help drown out all thought from the rest of his brain, when there was a low knock against his door.

“Dean?” came Cas’s voice from outside. “May I come in?”

Dean hesitated, then cautiously slid off the headphones. “Sure,” he called back. “Go for it.”

Slowly, Cas entered the room, and pressed the door shut behind him.

“How’s the kid?” Dean asked, before Cas could say anything that Sam would’ve no doubt put him up to.

Cas seemed caught off guard, but he cleared his throat, and answered somewhat mournfully. “He is mired in guilt,” Cas said. “I can feel it, but he won’t let any of us in.”

Dean looked at him in a combination of blankness and sympathetic dismay. “Sometimes it’s easier to keep it all in,” Dean said. He wanted to offer counsel, but he almost wasn’t sure how to do it. “If you talk, you, uh, you feel like you might never stop, and then there’ll be nothing left.”

“Is that what you do?” Cas asked him, raising a challenging brow and taking Dean back to that day five years ago, when he’d had the Mark of Cain and they’d sat together in the center of a diner, talking about their influences.

Dean cleared his throat. “Sometimes, yeah,” he said, trying to be dismissive.

But Cas, that stubborn bastard, never had been inclined to just let things go. Not when he cared like he did, about everything. (Which, for whatever reason, included Dean).

“Well, I just spoke to Sam,” Cas said, stepping forward and slowly sitting down on the other side of the bed. “And he told me that there was something on your mind that you might benefit from speaking about.”

Dean snorted. “There ain’t nothing, Cas,” he said. "You should know by now not to believe everything Sam says."

Cas merely glared. “‘Nothing’ is the polar opposite of what comprises your life, Dean, and you know it.” The angel paused, and slowly, his gaze softened. “You know you can speak to me, if you wish to.” Dean remained silent, and Cas’s voice subtly went wry once more. “Or I could speak to Sam again, and he could—”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Dean relented, throwing up his hands in surrender. “Jesus, Cas. Fine,” he grumbled. “It wasn’t a big deal. I was talkin’ to Other-Me about Brazil, you know, beaches and babes and all that, when he asked about the dudes, in a way that wasn’t exactly straight. And it just threw me for a second, that’s all. I’m fine, I’m not a douchebag. He can do whatever he wants, he’s not—” Dean had to stop himself before he finished that sentence.

He’s not me.

Cas took this in, and slowly nodded, processing that scenario. “Sam seems to think you were more rattled than you care to admit,” he said.

Dean snorted. “Sam asked me if I was into dudes too, or lying about being straight or some shit. The answer was no.” He clenched one hand tight. “What does Sam know about it anyway?”

Cas pursed his lips. “He knows, when you’re in discomfort,” he answered slowly, “and when you’re choosing deflection over emotional honesty.”

“Being straight isn’t about emotions, Cas!” Dean snapped. “It’s about keeping your dick in your pants unless you’re—” He cut himself off, and his forehead sank into one hand. “Shit. I am not having this conversation.”

“Dean,” Cas said, his voice low. “I believe you underestimate the extent to which I see you.”

Dean went still, and his head sharply rose. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

“I have held your soul in nothing but my grace and wings," Cas said, unfazed. "I have watched over you, seen into your dreams and the worries from which they manifested, and I have been… something like family to you, at least some of the time, for over a decade now.” Cas held his gaze, like he had no intentions of dropping it. “I know your history with… unsavory men. And I know how you were raised, and I know, how one’s conditioning can impact the ways in which they are or are not willing to look at themselves.” Cas’s voice dropped, to something just above a breath. “John isn’t here anymore, Dean. It’s just you, and me, and your family. All of whom love you for who you are, and nothing less.”

Dean looked at him like he was being stripped bare, but he blinked, only barely able to clear the shock of being perceived.

“That’s just it, though, Cas,” he answered, like he was still vaguely removed from the conversation as a whole. “The old man isn’t here.”

Cas tilted his head just so in question. “And?” he asked.

“The old man isn’t here,” Dean repeated. He then looked down at himself, like he knew what he was about to say next, but couldn’t quite bring himself to hold back the words at his lips. “But I am. And I don’t…” He stopped, unsure of how to finish. How to continue.

Good god, why was he having this conversation?

“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas told him softly. “Take your time.”

Dean let out a shaking breath. He thought, and he did what Cas said. “I guess I just... don’t always know how to be okay with that,” he continued finally, swallowing. “With me. Being here, and… the way I am. Not because John wouldn’t be, or because he can’t keep me in line anymore. The times he didn’t leave me and Sam enough money were the reason I had to go out and do the things I did, I know that. But… I’m the one that survived. And it feels like even without him, I’d still have that in me. To… be that way, to think that way.” Dean’s voice drops to something a little haunted. “And god, that scares the shit out of me, sometimes, you know?”

Dean then looked up. “Actually, wait,” he seemed to realize. “You were a holy roller for forever. You probably do know.”

Cas shifted his position on the bed, and sighed. “Dean, I am utterly indifferent to homosexuality,” he said honestly. “And if I have led you to believe any differently, then that was my own fault.”

Dean raised his brow. “Really?” he asked skeptically.

Cas nodded, not letting Dean’s gaze escape his. “Yes.” He said it seriously. Said it with weight. Said it with meaning. “You know that when I held your soul… I became privy to knowledge about you, about your past and your being and the things you hold close. But over time and trial, you have come to trust me with this knowledge. Dean…” He trailed off, shifting closer, and resting hands where they could be seen. “Why is it that you feel you cannot trust yourself with it?”

Dean went silent. He went still, for what felt like the fifth time in the last five minutes.

Because how could he answer that question? How could he ever hope to understand the full scheme of why, let alone put it into words?

“I have struggled with emotions like this myself, Dean,” Cas said in a quiet, tiered rumble. “So I know why. It’s... feeling like you don’t trust yourself to know yourself. It’s having led armies, having fought and won wars, and saved the world, and still not trusting your own perspective on who you are, and why. Not trusting your battered, bruised eyes to be able to see yourself.”

Dean had gone still, and Cas slowly looked up to meet his gaze. “Am I correct?” the angel asked softly.

“How could you possibly know what this is like, Cas?” Dean questioned back. “How does someone like— someone like you, feel like they don’t know what they’re doing when they’re lookin’ in the mirror?”

“Someone like me?” Cas repeated, as if asking for explanation.

Dean’s cheeks flushed. “You’re an angel. You’re one of the first creations, the purest ones, you…” Dean looked away. “Jesus, I mean, there’s no way Chuck made any of you holy rollers anything but straight. You were literally born knowing everything you were.”

“Dean,” Cas said. Almost admonished. “You of all people should know how untrue that is. The angels were born with a set of instructions, yes, and for eons, there was no difference between what we were and what we thought we were. But then… I found humanity. I found you, Dean and I Fell for you, and I…” And then I fell for you. “I discovered all the cracks in my foundation, all the pieces that hadn’t fit, had never fit, the parts Heaven had tried sanding and binding into order. Suddenly, I became myself, free of their influence, and I had no idea who that was. No idea where I fit, or what to do next. I had to learn who I was. Who I could be. What kind of being, what kind of person that all my mistakes and emotions and discoveries have made me. What kind of person I wanted to be. So, yes. After everything? I have felt too untrustworthy to see even myself.”

Castiel then softly scoffed, his voice unscathing. “And, to put it bluntly, there are gay angels, Dean. And bisexual ones, and pansexual ones, and so on. Even Chuck himself, while living among humans, has had partners of different genders. At least, if Metatron is to be believed.”

Dean raised an eyebrow at that. “Seriously?”

Cas nodded, smiling slightly. “You have to understand, gender and sexuality are not concepts that apply to celestials in the same way they do to humans. But after the Fall, many of us came to adopt a more human view of those things relative to ourselves. Several chose not to take on binary pronouns and found vessels that reflected that choice, while others, like myself, have come to view ourselves as one thing or another.” He shrugged, but it was with weight. “Because it’s all free choice, Dean,” he finished quietly. “Our choices, your choices, and no one else’s.”

Cas leaned forward, and rested a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“I know you’re asking yourself right now, if you’re worthy of this forgiveness,” the angel whispered. “But Dean, I promise. There is nothing to forgive.”

“I can’t, just… suddenly get over my hangups, Cas,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I can’t suddenly know what the hell I’m doing, or what parts of my head are real.”

“And I am telling you that that is okay,” Cas told him with conviction. “Wanting to figure it out, Dean, it is not perfect, but it is alright. And you are not alone in it.” Cas took a breath. “The other version of you, Dean— he seemed comfortable in his own skin, but truly? His sexuality was treated as a tool, to further his father’s company’s interests. What he considered deviance was deemed acceptable as a utility, and that was enough for both him and his brother. But he discovered something that he found to be real, and true, and… he began wanting to define himself on his own terms. This world, and your chance at that sense of self are not yet gone, Dean. That life doesn’t have to be someone else’s.”

Castiel stood, then, and pressed his reassurance into Dean’s shoulder one last time.

“If you ever wish to speak about this more, I am always here for you,” the angel told him.

And even though Dean wasn’t sure what to say, Cas didn’t force him to come up with an answer.

He simply offered the gift of sight, and asked for nothing in return.