Chapter Text
It was immediately clear that something hadn't worked quite as planned. The last time they traveled into the fanfic realm, the landing spot looked a lot like a physician’s waiting room. This time they landed in a wooded area.
Dean checked his phone. Just like the last time, he had no signal.
“Hey Cas, mind checking our coordinates with your friend?” He couldn't help putting a bit of salt on the word “friend”. He still hadn't worked out his feelings about Cas and that damn soldier freak's friendship.
“I'm afraid there's no way for us to get in touch with Benjamin,” Cas said. “My phone has no signal.”
“Awesome,” Dean grumbled. “Then we could be one yard or one thousand miles away from civilization for what we know. Also there's no way to know which direction we should start walking.”
Castiel seemed to be concentrating very hard. Dean wasn't sure, but he strongly hoped that he was connecting to his angelic-GPS-thing. After a while that lasted a little too long, Castiel huffed in disappointment.
“What?”
“My senses are tampered,” he said.
“Fuck. No signal, no angel mojo, no compass. Not even those damn yellow sticky notes. We are basically stranded God-knows-where with no means to get help.”
“I think the absence of sticky notes means that this work is at a very early stage,” Castiel explained calmly.
“The hell does that mean?” Dean asked, throwing his arms out.
Castiel glared at him but didn't lose his cool. “It means that the author has just started to write this story. It's like…” he seemed to ponder his next words. “It's like they didn't know where they were going, but they started nonetheless for some reason. Quite abruptly.”
“I thought that Benjamin told you they were in an E-rated fic.”
Something in the tone of Dean's words made Castiel turn fully and face the hunter.
“Dean, before we continue, there's something we need to discuss.”
Dean looked back at him, half turned on and half terrified. He couldn't help it, every time Castiel went all mighty & smitey on him, little-Dean snapped to attention.
Big-Dean gulped saliva, waiting for Cas's next move. Even the birds had stopped chirping, waiting.They were so close already, one more step and they'd kiss (Oh God! Was that him or the E-rate talking?).
Castiel tilted his head, staring intently, seemingly straight into his soul. Dean stopped breathing.
“This is the second time we’ve gotten lost in a foreign realm, specifically in a fanfic realm. Every time it happens you become insufferable. Well, more insufferable than usual. You weren't that grumpy even when we had an apocalypse to stop. So what is it about this realm that sets you on edge?”
“Well for one we have no signal!”
“That's happened a lot of times. You even lost your phone multiple times during hunts. And, the last time I had a signal, but you were still bitching a lot, nonetheless.”
“Exactly, that's why I said ‘for one’,” Dean rebutted, making no sense at all.
“Go on,” Cas said, and – oh God! – it sounded like a direct order. Dean almost fainted with how much blood left his brain in favour of southern regions at that moment.
“Also, we are in a forest with no sense of direction.”
“I believe we've already been in similar situations. And Sam has our back. If we can't find our way out of this forest, all we need to do is wait for the spell to wear off.”
“Awesome,” Dean groaned.
Castiel opened his mouth to rebut, but changed his mind and closed it with an audible click of his jaw. Dean sighed. He really, really needed to work on his anger management.
The hunter wiped a hand on his face, to collect himself. “Ok, listen. I'm sorry. You're right. I can't handle my anger very well. And sometimes I don't even know why I get so angry. But you must know I don't like it. I never want to hurt or disrespect you. You're my… best friend, Cas.” Dean gulped. He almost slipped “angel” in the last sentence. “You're my angel”, that's what he was about to say, which sounded extremely chick-flicky. Fortunately, he was able to adjust the shot in time.
Castiel didn't blink; and, for another unnecessarily long bunch of seconds, he only stared at Dean. Then a tiny (lovely, dreamy, cute – now stop it!) smile graced his lips. “Ok, then let's go. I'd rather try to find a way out than sit under a mossy fir all day.”
“Right,” Dean blurted out. “Let's go. Moss means north. Let's keep that in mind, so we can easily keep walking in the same direction and not get lost.” With that said, Dean started to stomp his way amidst the firs without sparing a glance over his shoulders.
They walked in silence, mostly (unless you count sighing deeply and cursing under someone's breath) until Dean spotted it. The yellow sticky note was on the flat surface of a large rock half submerged in dried fir needles.
Dean stopped, eyes trained to the yellow square, as if it could jump on them at any given moment. Castiel, realizing the reason for Dean's hesitation, walked past him, casual and confident. With the gracefulness that Dean had always secretly admired, he reached for the yellow bit of paper and very solemnly said, “Fuckin’ Hell.”
“What?” Dean said, suddenly alarmed by the angel's outburst.
“Fuckin’ Hell,” said angel repeated.
“Why! What's on the note?”
“Fuckin’ Hell!” Castiel said for the third time, clearly annoyed with Dean's lack of comprehension. He then held out the note for Dean to read.
Dean's brows furrowed. “Fuckin’ Hell,” he read out loud. That's all the little sticky note said. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Castiel shrugged, “I don't know.” Then, with an enigmatic, faraway gaze he continued, “We'd better get going.”
“Why? What's happening? Did your super-sight catch some threat?”
But Cas was already a half yard away, marching like a soldier on a mission, and he didn't turn around, despite Dean bitching for him to slow down and wait for him.
“Do you at least have an inkling of where we are going?” Dean shouted.
“Out of these woods,” Cas said, being very little help.
The rest of the walk happened in silence, with Cas always three steps ahead and Dean jogging to catch up. The hunter realized how out of shape he actually was when he started panting like a bulldog five minutes into the jog. Eventually Cas stopped. It happened quite abruptly, so much so that Dean almost stumbled into the angel's trenchcoated back.
“Cas, what the fuck?”
Cas didn't dignify him with an answer. He stood like a marble statue, scanning the dense foliage.
“What's up?” Dean asked after a full minute of staring at the foliage. All he could see was the richly varied hues of green. He really couldn't fathom what Cas was sensing (and he wished the angel was less dramatic and more pragmatic).
Instead of replying, Cas intensified his glare and thundered, “SHOW YOURSELF!”
Nothing happened for a long moment. Then, with a rustle of leaves, two men stepped out of the bushes. Three pairs of eyes grew instantly wide, but not Cas's. The angel's remained scrunched in suspicion, moving between the two newcomers.
“What the actual fuck?” Dean breathed.
“Soldier Boy?” The taller man said eventually.
“What? No no no, look. Uh. Sam??”
“That's not Sam, Dean.” Castiel interjected without tearing his eyes away from the pair. “And he's not Soldier Boy.”
“I take it the devastatingly handsome blue eyed guy next to my brother's doppelganger is not you?”
“Lucky guess,” Castiel deadpanned.
Dean thought that they had no way to know for sure if it was good or bad luck, but the man was undeniably a treat for the eyes. And he for sure wasn't a man to turn away from a nice sight.
The two strangers were the carbon copy of his brother and his angel; but, if Sam's doppelganger had a hint of mischievousness in his eyes that wasn't in Sam's, Castiel's double was basically a human version of the angel, lost puppy look and all. Dean felt a very familiar heat spread in coils from the center of his stomach. It's not him, it's not him, he started to chant in the back of his mind. Stay focused Winchester.
“If you're not Soldier Boy, who are you?” Sam's double asked. Even his voice was different, more peremptory, lacking in any gentleness.
Before he could think of an answer, Castiel said, “Who are you?”
Sam's double's attention shifted from Dean to the angel, eyes dark and hard. “I'm talking to him. Stay quiet, Pretty-face.”
Dean gasped at the same time as Cas's double did. Cas made a move that Dean had grown very familiar with, the one to summon his blade, but nothing happened. The angel grunted in disappointment at the reminder that his powers were tamped down in this realm. His glare stayed murderous though.
The air was getting charged, and Dean thought that if lightning had struck at the center of the clearing right then and there, neither Cas nor Sam's double would have noticed. Cas's double, on the other hand, looked like he could use a hug. Dean was surprised to find himself more than willing to give it himself.
It wasn't lightning, but something actually struck, or more accurately, exploded somewhere at some point. Before anyone could bat an eye, Dean's double, aka Soldier Boy, strode from the woods to the center of the clearing. He struck a pose, taking in the audience with a smug smile. “Well, hello everyone,” he said, clearly very self-satisfied. Then, turning toward Cas and performing a little bow, “And welcome back, my dear.”
Cas nodded his greeting, saying “Benjamin” and very blatantly blushing. Instead of letting it run, Dean decided to be a little shit. “Hey, Benjy-boy, where's your boyfriend, Alex-something?”
Unexpectedly, Soldier Boy didn't blast anything. He smiled a tiny, secret smile and looked downward for a fleeting moment. “He's a little caught up at the moment; he'll join us soon.”
“Cool, now can you leave us alone? Soldier Boy and I have important stuff to discuss,” Sam's double said. The attention of the majority of the group was on the tall, bearded version of Sam Winchester, but Cas's double wasn't. He was looking pleadingly at Dean.
Damnit.
Dean's built-in instinct to take care and protect, particularly when it came to vulnerable-looking blue eyed brunettes, flared fiercely. Unconsciously, he took a step toward the stranger with the face of an angel (his angel, strictly speaking). Castiel's arm shot up in front of him, quickly aborting his initiative.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, and why do you think you can tell me what to do?” Soldier Boy, Dean had to admit, looked pretty frightening right now.
“My name would probably sound insignificant to you,” Sam's double said, taking a confident step forward, “but this…” he put a hand into the collar of his shirt and extracted a pendant, something that looked like a crystal in the shape of a prism. It was clear and bluish. Soldier Boy's brows furrowed, and he released a little gasp.
“I knew it,” Sam's double said, now decidedly smug. “I knew this would gain your interest.”
“What is that?” Dean asked, curiosity getting the best of him.
At the same time, Soldier Boy looked back at them — well, at Cas mostly, to be completely honest — with uncharacteristically scared eyes. “Go, run as far and as fast as you can,” he said.
Instead of complying, as any sensible being would do, Castiel took a step forward, looking as murderous as he could without his grace backlighting his eyes (of course, Castiel had proven himself to be anything but sensible, over years).
Oh well, Dean thought, when in Rome. If his angel was in a self-sacrificing mood, he'd follow him to Hell's gates, obviously. He took a step forward himself, intending to side with Cas, but he miscalculated and tripped on a hidden protruding root. Chaos ensued.
Dean flew forward and, in a desperate attempt to stay upright, he reached out with both arms. One hand made contact and got tangled with the pendant. The chain gave, and the necklace was ripped off evil-Sam's neck. The other hand grabbed the first solid thing it could find, which happened to be Cas's double's shirt. Unable to effectively stop the fall, they both ended up splayed on the bedding of dried leaves and underbrush, Dean on top of a very confused Castiel's lookalike (and to be honest, the confused look matched Cas’s perfectly; so, if it weren't for the outfit, Dean wouldn't be able to tell them apart).
Laying there on top of the warm, firm body of a man who looked exactly like the angel he'd pined over for ages, felt like a sin and a blessing all the same. Those insanely blue eyes were dissecting Dean's soul, just like Cas's used to do all the time. The plump, dry-looking lips were barely inches away from Dean's, begging for attention. Dean had to look away, lest he fall for the temptation to close the distance. That's how he noticed it, a couple feet away and half hidden under a pinecone. Another one of those yellow sticky notes. It was a little smudged with soil and moisture, but the blue ink was still legible. It read “Fuck or die.”
The surprise was enough for Dean to actually get his brain back online and realize the position he was in. Another thing he realized was that Cas was grappling with evil-Sam, or to put it better, he was beating the shit out of him while Soldier Boy tried to hold him back, yelling breathlessly “stay back, he's dangerous!” (Even if he was supposedly talking to Cas, Dean was prone to think the tall guy was the one in danger at the moment).
Unfortunately, the hunter wasn't fast enough. The advantage of his reason over his instincts was only temporary and — worse — fruitless.
A gentle hand came to rest on his cheek. Cas's double's hand (Right, you're still lying on top of the guy). “Thank you,” not-Cas said. "You're my savior.”
Though Dean wasn't new to being called savior (saving people, hunting things, you know, the family business) the word coming out of those enticing lips in a soft, murmured voice (Cas's voice!) full of awe was the proverbial straw that broke the back of the metaphorical camel that was Dean's self-control.
He should've questioned the guy (who was he? What did he have to do with evil-Sam? What was he afraid of? What did he think Dean had saved him from?). Instead, he surrendered himself to the pull. The skin of his cheek, where the man's fingers had brushed softly, tingled like crazy. Dean let his body fall, their chests press onto one another, their mouths collide, and their breaths mingle together. He let his hands thread through not-Cas's soft dark locks, roam his torso, rucking his shirt up in passing, and find the hot, bare skin underneath. He was growing more desperate with every passing second, brain a useless mush that pulsed intermittently with just one word: fuck.
The friction between their cocks was glorious and not enough. Dean thought that if he didn't get rid of the rest of their clothes immediately he would combust spontaneously from the inside out.
He could hear his name spoken softly, urgently, lovingly, frantically, the sound surrounding him, almost like an echo chamber, except the tone didn't match. It was confusing, but not enough to stop and think it through, try to make sense of it.
What made him stop, though, was a hand at his nape, grabbing the collar of his jacket and pulling backward. Dean cried out loud in frustration, twisted and kicked, trying to get rid of the thing that was keeping him from the object of his craving. It was only once two strong arms clothed in tan cotton and polyamide encircled him from behind and held him tight that he caught a whiff of Cas’s unique scent and gave up the fight.
He came back to reality abruptly, feeling dizzy, like being shaken awake in the middle of a dream. Not-Cas was still on the ground, propped on his elbows, deliciously debauched. Dried leaves stuck out of his messy hair, while tempting strips of bare skin peeked from the disheveled shirt. His eyes were round and full of innocent confusion. His lips, unrightfully pink from their previous activities.
Dean's composure would have undoubtedly disintegrated if it weren't for Cas holding him tight. “Stay back,” Cas was saying “he's dangerous.”
The words gave Dean a strange feeling of deja-vu. What in the Hell?
“He's not human,” Cas explained.
With great effort, Dean averted his eyes from not-Cas's face and took a look around. Evil-Sam was passed out on the underbrush, with Soldier Boy next to him keeping an eye out for any further movement.
“What happened?” Dean asked, still light-headed.
“This fucker down here thought he could use Soldier Boy — the strongest American Sup — like a puppet only because he'd manged to trap a Fae and get his dirty paws on the catalyst.”
“The what?” Dean was grateful to Cas for not letting his hold on him drop because his head was rolling like a crazy spinning top.
“That thing, it isn't human, Dean. It's a Fae. A powerful one.” Castiel explained. He was blatantly glaring at his own doppelganger now.
The “thing”, aka not-Cas, slowly got on his feet, shaking leaves and dirt from his clothes. “Well,” the Fae said. “Can I have my trinket back?” The lost puppy look was gone, now not-Cas looked definitely different. More playful, almost cunning.
“Are you kidding? No way I'm letting go of this.” Soldier Boy said indignantly.
Not-Cas huffed a laugh. The captivating smile on his face reminded Dean of the smile of another of Cas's doubles. One from a hypothetical future that hopefully would never happen.
“It's just a regular piece of quartz,” he said.
Soldier Boy looked skeptical, but he took his eyes off the Fae long enough to double check the pendant. He even chomped down on it for good measure. “Seems like you’re telling the truth,” he said eventually. “So what happened then? Why are you going around with this useless junk?”
“He's an alchemist. He thought he could trap me with his science, but he was wrong. I was bored and decided to play along. I let him believe he'd put his dirty paws on one of the most powerful artifacts a Fae can craft. The catalyst.” Then, noticing the quizzical looks from his audience, “It's a quartz prism charged with the Fae supreme power. There's no man – or Sup – on Earth who can withstand the power of the catalyst. And no, I'm not telling you the secret behind the making of such a powerful thing.”
Soldier Boy huffed, disappointed.
“Anyway, this guy –” the Fae gestured disdainfully toward Sam's doppelganger who laid half-passed out on the underbush, “– was attempting to subdue the powers of Sups to his own whims. I thought it was ridiculous and decided to see how long it would take before he ended up annihilating himself. All in all, it was a pretty uninteresting experience, until we met these two.” Not-Cas, the Fae, looked back at Dean, eyes searching. “Then it became extremely hot and fun.”
Dean's reaction to not-Cas's words was an instant vision of him sandwiched between Cas and the Fae, because — let's be honest — those five minutes in the underbrush with him had been hot as Hell (and if there's someone on Earth who knows a thing or two about Hell, and therefore can legitimately use that metaphor it's Dean). Cas, on the other hand, was the love of his life. So if he could have both, even only for a little while…
“Dean, your thoughts are very loud,” Castiel admonished him.
Fuck.
Abort.
Don't think about that. Don't picture Cas plastered to your back, mostly undressed, grinding onto the crack between cheeks, nibbling at your ear, while not-Cas swallows you whole…
“Dean!” both Casses exclaimed, the angel in a stern voice, the Fae in an excited one.
“No way! Get out of my head, both of you!” Dean yelled.
“No problem,” the Fae said. “Can I get into another one of your cavities?” He added with a lopsided smile.
“Back off, you devious creature,” Castiel growled. “If I had my powers, you'd be a cold pile of ashes by now.”
The Fae shrugged. “If I had my powers I wouldn't be stuck in this nonsensical situation.” He blew a tired exhale and turned around, looking wistfully at the sky. It was starting to darken.
“Who are you?” Dean asked. He sounded almost hurt, facing his unachievable wish.
“My name, I'm not telling. It would be like handing you the keyword to ruling my body, which — hot! But, sadly, not what I meant.” The Fae's eyes sparkled with something hot and dangerous. “I can tell you my nickname though, the one I'm known by among humans.”
"What would that be?”
“Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite, at your service,” the Fae said, bowing graciously.
“Is that a reference to your actual size? Like, you're 15 inches tall in your true form, right?”
“Nope.” the Fae replied, popping the ‘P.’
“Then what…?”
“I think he's subtly hinting at the size of his penis,” Castiel interjected.
Dean choked on air. The Fae laughed uproariously. “So, are you amenable to helping build some good memories for your friend here?” The Fae said, talking to the angel.
“I'm not abiding by your dirty plans!” Castiel thundered, and the holy light spilling from his murderous eyes was a burning bonfire.
“Suit yourself,” the Fae shrugged. Then, “I'm sorry Dean, I thought a little magic would help your stick-in-the-ass friend to let go of that stick in favor of a more fun kind of – uh, pole. But it seems like you're all alone on this one.”
“What are you talking about?” Dean tried to roar, but he realized he was out of breath. His heart rate was unnecessarily high, and he was sweating profusely. His mind was in jumble, but the memory of the Fae touching his cheek and leaving a tingle sensation on his skin flashed vividly before his eyes. “What did you do to me?”
“Just a tiny fuck-or-die spell. Easy to get rid of, provided that you don't die in the meantime.” The Fae glared at the angel, who had seemed ready to walk away from the absurd meeting; but, when he heard the Fae's words, he turned around. His and Dean’s eyes met. They stared at one another for a ridiculously long time (“What with the eyefuck?” The Fae whispered to Soldier Boy, who rolled his eyes and sighed, “Hell if I know. But they do that all the time.”)
Eventually Castiel spoke again, voice soft and dejected. “You know I wouldn't let you die, Dean. I'll do whatever is necessary to keep you safe and alive.”
The spell was really gnawing on Dean's mind now, so much so that the poor hunter could barely form a coherent thought, let alone voice it. His body moved like a puppet led by an invisible string, and his and Castiel’s chests collided. Dean's arms encircled the angel's torso and held onto it for dear life. His mouth paused just shy of his angel friend's lips. “Cas,” he said, voice strained and loaded with unspeakable things. “Are you ok with this?”
Castiel's blue eyes were glistening, not with grace, but something else, something that didn’t belong in angels’ eyes. He turned his gaze downward and a single tear escaped through his long lashes. Dean's heart, which was already on the verge of failure because of the spell, shattered at the sight of his beautiful angel crying, crying because of him, because Dean, once again, was forcing him to sacrifice himself to save his sorry ass.
“Dean, please,” Cas said in a broken voice.
“Cas,” Dean could barely say. His throat was on fire. Longing and lust were consuming him from the inside out. He hated that things had to be like this, but fuck or die spells are no joke. People actually died from them. For a short, fleeting moment Dean thought that he should probably let the spell consume him, sacrifice himself for Castiel's benefit instead of ruining everything by forcing the angel to engage in “sexual intercourse”, as he would say. The memory of Cas's terrified stare when he'd brought him to that brothel all those years back came, haunting him. Castiel, handsome angel of the Lord, utterly oblivious and uninterested in humans’ lower functions, such as eating, sleeping and having sex, was willing to give up his purity to save Dean. Dean, the least deserving among human beings.
“You don't think you deserve to be saved.” The words that Castiel had muttered sounding totally baffled the night they met in that barn echoed in Dean's crumbling mind. Dean hung on to those words like a castaway to a wooden wreck tossing in the waves. He hung on to those words as he hung on to Castiel's coat, to his shirt, his mouth. He clutched at his hair, his skin, wherever he could reach. He started the kiss, but Castiel dove in with him eagerly. Their breaths mingled, their tongues duelled. Words faded into sighs and gasps, and soft whispered nothings. “Sorry,” Cas murmured over and over, “I’m sorry.”
Dean would have been baffled, if he wasn't totally wasted by the spell. His rational mind was beyond reach. He was pure instinct, pure need. A man dying of thirst whilst Cas was a spring of pure, fresh, sweet water.
Seams gave under the insistent tug of two sets of hands. Those of an unrighteous man and those of an angel in a man's body. Touching bare skin felt like a blessing, like breaking a fever.
Castiel hissed at the first grazing contact of Dean's hand on his groin. Dean didn't have enough clarity to analyze the reason behind that sound, to go past a half-assed thought of Is Cas ok? Please let him be ok. He pushed, and Cas went stumbling backward with Dean crowding him until the angel's back hit a tree trunk. There, something yellow in the periphery of Dean's vision caught his eyes. Dean glanced distractedly at it at first, but soon he went back for a double take. Another one of those obnoxious sticky notes, pinned to the bark with a bit of resin. “ABORT” the note read in all caps. Under that, bracketed, “this was supposed to be crack, not porn.”
Dean was staring at the note in total bewilderment. After a long minute of stillness, the Fae spoke, breaking the silence. “Oh well. Seems like the author changed their mind. My spell has been neutralized.”
Dean, who was still clutching his angel as tight as physics would allow, looked between the Fae, the note and the angel. Castiel was all roughed up, lips red and glistening from their recent activities and hair a very sexy mess. Dean felt the very same pull of minutes ago still there, unchanged. Maybe a little less desperate, but just barely (But why, if the spell had been neutralized, he wondered).
“Uh-oh!” said the Fae.
“Fuckin’ crap!” said Soldier Boy.
“Ouch!” said the tied up alchemist that looked like evil Sam who had just been kicked by Soldier Boy for no reason.
“I told you they do that all the time,” Soldier Boy whisper-yelled to the Fae.
“No shit!” the Fae whistled.
“What the Hell?” Dean yelled.
“It's ok guy, take your time, talk it out. We, uh. We got work to do, right, Nine Inches?” Soldier Boy sent a very eloquent look at the Fae, who promptly caught the hint.
“Yes! Yes of course! You said you wanted to show me, uhm, that spot??”
“Sure thing! And Alexis is probably close by now so, uh. Let's go meet him, shall we? I'd like to introduce you two!”
“I'd be honored!” The Fae said with another elegant bow.
And just like that, Dean and Cas were left alone in the clearing, except for the tied up alchemist who started to protest vehemently as soon as he realized that nobody was going to untie him.
“Dean!” Castiel spoke first. His voice was a little bit unsteady, but Dean had too much of his own troubles right now to look too deep into that. “You aren't dying anymore, are you?” the angel asked.
The hunter thought that maybe if he lied, Castiel would forgive him after all because, as he once had said to that very angel a while back, when humans want something really badly, they lie. And, God knows, he wanted Cas really, really badly. He wanted him whole, so to speak. But, even though he could probably say he was still dying and needed to fuck in order not to, he knew it wouldn't be fair. Cas didn't want to be involved in those activities. He’d agreed to it just for Dean's sake, poor self-sacrificing bastard. So no, he couldn't lie to him.
“Dean, you got it all wrong.” Castiel was frowning, head tilted, and it was endearing but also – what the fuck??
“Are you doing the mind-reading thing that I very explicitly asked you not to do? Repeatedly?”
“It's not my fault, you're loud; and, in this realm and under the current circumstances, my control is… slippery, to put it mildly.”
“So what is it that I got 'all wrong’?” Dean quoted. He tried to sound pissed, but he mostly failed.
“For one I'm not a ‘poor self-sacrificing bastard’.” And, of course, if Cas saw a chance to do the friggin’ air-quotes, he'd seize it.
“Debatable,” Dean huffed, earning himself a glare from the angel.
“Second, I very much wanted to be involved in those activities. I just – I thought you didn't want to be involved in them with me! It felt like a violation of your free will, because of the spell. That's why I was reluctant.”
Leave it to Cas to be as blunt as a butter knife and as articulate as a special ed teacher.
“Oh.” (Dean on the other hand…)
To hell with weird, strange realms, obnoxious doppelgangers, Fae and bratty writers. Dean had grown up knowing damn well that second chances are pretty rare, so it's better to take the first than missing out. And take he did. He took the angel's face in his hands and seared another piping-hot kiss to those dreamy lips.
“Hey! I'm right here!” came Evil-Sam's outraged cry.
To hell with cock-blocking evil alchemists who resemble his brother too.