written for @amirosebooks for my 2k follower giveaway <3
They’d known, in all their planning and their weighing of pros and cons, that there was a risk. Dean just… didn’t think it was a risk that they would actually have to worry about.
And yet here he is, standing at the entrance to the rift, a gun pointed at his head and a pair of very familiar hands holding that gun.
“What are you?” the man growls, and Dean cannot blame him for being wary. He would be too, if someone like him had showed up out of a glowing tear in the fabric of reality.
“I’m you,” he says simply, raising his hands to show that he is both unarmed and unafraid. “I’m from a different world. A different universe.”
The man just blinks at him. His gun doesn’t waver, and Dean can’t blame him—he wouldn’t buy that explanation if he was in his position, either. Just his luck that out of all the places the spell could’ve spat him out, it just fuckin’ happened to be right here, right next to the only person in any universe who’s just as wary and cautious as he is.
Himself.
Other-Dean gestures with his gun towards the building to Dean’s right, and it’s not hard to interpret that message. If he resists, Dean’s going to become Swiss cheese quicker than he can say ‘don’t shoot,’ so his only real option is to comply.
He’s led inside, down a series of twisting corridors, and they end up in what Dean can pretty quickly identify as some sort of rudimentary panic room. Wherever they are, other-Dean and his people have only just started rigging this place for use, but they’ve still got strong cuffs and a whole range of shit to test him with.
As other-Dean presses metal against his skin, splashes him with holy water, tries everything he knows (Dean knows this because it’s his knowledge too) to prove that Dean isn’t who he says he is, Dean just steadily holds his gaze. Finally, finally, other-Dean seems to admit defeat.
“Fine,” he mutters, dragging up a chair opposite Dean’s and dropping into it. He leans forward, elbows resting on his thighs, and makes no move to take the cuffs off Dean. “You’re not anything that I can test for, which I hope means you’re not bullshittin’ me. I don’t feel like becoming a monster’s shish kebab tonight. So what the hell are you here for?”
Dean twists his lips up in a quick, bitter smile. Is he always this annoying when he’s interrogating people? Other-Dean looks a couple years younger than he is right now, that’s for sure. Hopefully that explains it. “I’m looking for Cas,” Dean tells him, already impatient to cut to the quick of all this. Every second here is a second he’s wasting. “Fucking idiot got zapped somewhere, so now it’s up to me to go find him, I guess, which is why I jumped over into your universe.”
He laughs, somewhat humorlessly. “Gotta say, it was a bit of a surprise coming face to face with myself, that’s for sure.”
Other-Dean smiles, quick and cold and with not a single shred of sincerity. “I can’t imagine,” he quips. “And c’mon, you expect me to believe that? Cas is a big boy, he can look after himself. Like you’d go running off after him just because he disappeared for a bit.”
Something about that sets off alarm bells in Dean’s head, but he can’t quite put his finger on why.
“I went after him because—“ he starts, but he never gets a chance to finish.
The door to the panic room opens, and in steps Castiel.
He should be the spitting image of the Castiel back in Dean’s universe, Dean’sCastiel, but… he’s not. He’s just different enough to be unsettling—no toaster iron burn on his knuckles, or little curl of hair behind his ears that he keeps simply because Dean thinks it looks cute.
Yes, he’s still Cas, but he’s not the right Cas.
Even though he’d mostly expected this, Dean’s heart still sinks.
And then Castiel makes his way over, standing stiffly beside other-Dean’s chair, and Dean realizes that that’s not the only thing different about this universe.
Fuck. He clenches his left hand into a fist and hides it between his knees—he knows himself, but he doesn’t know other-Dean, and both of those factors mean that it’s probably a very good idea to keep his wedding ring out of sight right now.
Because while he and Cas got over all their stupid hang-ups a long time ago in their own universe… it’s clear that these guys haven’t. Not yet, at least.
Other-Dean looks up at Castiel, and the corners of his eyes soften, just for a second, as they share a look. Married or not, so much information passes between them in that moment. Is this what it looks like when I do that with Cas?Dean finds himself wondering.
And then other-Dean turns back towards him, and the moment is broken. “Because?” he prompts, eyebrows raised.
The sentence that Dean had been halfway through when Cas had walked in comes back to him all at once, and he mentally curses himself out as he scrambles to think of a believable lie. Somehow, he feels like ‘because he’s my husband’ might not be his quickest way out of this situation.
“Because he’s my best friend,” he finishes lamely. “I’d do anything for him.”
Both other-Dean and Castiel stare at him for long time, and Dean is acutely aware of the fact that he’s being sized up, the truth of his words weighed. He does his best to hold his ground, resisting the urge to fidget in his chair beneath the two pairs of eyes. He’s not lying, just… bending the truth a little. He hopes they see that.
Finally, other-Dean says, “Give us a second.” He stands up from his chair and turns away, Castiel following him a handful of paces away. With their voices lowered, they’re out of Dean’s earshot, but he still manages to glean plenty of useful information.
Like the way Cas stands too close, and how other-Dean leans into it instead finding his own space. They talk with their heads bowed close together, words soft and lips barely moving. Dean catches other-Dean’s eyes dropping to Castiel’s mouth at least twice.
Perhaps they’re not far off marriage after all, he thinks with giddy amusement, pulling nervously against his cuffs. Or least admitting how the fuck they feel. It took me and Cas long enough, though.
They must eventually come to some kind of agreement, because Castiel nods his head, and other-Dean gives him a quick, soft smile that Dean recognizes as one he only ever gives to Cas. They make their way back over, and this time, Castiel is the one to speak.
“Your Castiel is not in this universe,” he says, and god, it’s a relief to hear his voice again, but it’s still just not quite right enough to make Dean ache for hisCas. “I would have felt a rift open as I did for your entrance, but yours is the only trespass I have registered.”
“But we’ve agreed,” other-Dean cuts in, “that you’re telling the truth, and you don’t mean us any harm. So we’re letting you go.”
Oh, thank fuck.
~
They don’t take the handcuffs off Dean until they’re back outside. He can’t help but watch other-Dean and Castiel as they escort him out, smiling faintly to himself as he recognizes all the little signs of two people who obviously have feelings for each other but are just too fucking idiotic to realize. Now he understands how Sam had felt, all that time.
“Alright,” other-Dean says, unlocking Dean’s cuffs as Castiel works on opening a new rift with the same spellbook that Dean recognizes from his own universe. It’s weird to see him with mojo again. “Cas is gonna send you back through to your universe, and we never want to see you again. I’ve had to come face to face with myself way too fucking many times, and I’d really like for this to be the last.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Dean says drily, flexing his wrists now that they’re finally free from the cuffs. Castiel gets the rift open, and other-Dean steps back.
Cas hadn’t been here, but now they can cross one more universe off their list, and Dean will keep looking.
He will always keep looking.
Right before he’s about to step through the rift, poised right on the very edge, other-Dean speaks.
“Hey, congrats on the ring, by the way,” he says, gesturing to Dean’s left hand. There’s a slightly wistful look on his face. “She must be quite something, if she could get us to settle down.”
Quite something. You have no fucking idea, Dean thinks.
“Yes,” he agrees quietly, looking over at Castiel where he holds the rift open. “He is.”
And then he steps through the rift, and disappears.
