anew; deancas, reunions, ~300 words. originally posted on twitter.
The car Cas steals breaks down northeast of Tucumcari, not far from the New Mexico state line. The sun is relentless. He's been gone long enough for Sam and Dean to get new phones. He sheds his coat and walks toward Texas.
He can sense them in a way - he can sense Dean, at least. when he first woke in that field, he was overcome by a deep thrum of longing. He walks. heat shimmers up ahead. the sun sets fire to the horizon.
Night falls, and a slow wind pushes across the sand. Cas walks. Restless, his wings ache. The sun is rising again as he approaches Dalhart. He steals another car in the parking lot of a truck stop. He breathes in grease and dust as he twists the wires under the dash.
He calls Dean's number again, but a dull, computerized voice says it's no longer in service. Longing hums under his skin. He drives toward Kansas, east and east and east, following the tug beneath his ribs like a beacon. He drive east until the feeling pulls him off the highway and into Enid, Oklahoma. There, longing ebbs around him like the tide.
He catches threads of a prayer, something muttered out of habit, not belief — <i>I miss you, man. I wish — I wish.</i> He crissrosses the town, searching around the edges, and all the shadowed, hollow places the Winchesters call home.
He finds the Impala parked at the third motel he checks. Dean is standing at the open trunk, and Cas feels — he feels - he —
He expects Dean to yell, to pull a knife, a gun, to throw holy water in his face. But Dean stares. His hands shake. His voice dips around Cas' name.
Cas says, "Hello, Dean," and smiles. He reaches out and touches Dean's face.
There Must Be Some Kind of Way Out of Here - pre-13x03, 2K, G. Cas in the Empty.
Castiel comes to in a place neither hot nor cold, neither beautiful nor ugly. The sky stretches above his head, constellations sparkling in the sky, but the ground he’s lying on is plain dirt with a few withering sprouts of grass poking up here and there.
Someone grips his shoulders and hoists him up. “You’re here, I see,” he says. Castiel recognizes the voice – because it’s his own.
“Yes.” Castiel takes in the image of the other Castiel, once he’s moved around to his front. He has a different coat, and his hair looks more wind-swept. The lines on his face, the smudges under his eyes, they’re less deep. But other than that, it’s the same face. And he has always looked tired.
In the distance, just barely close enough to make out his features, is another version of himself. This one sits on the ground and hugs his knees, pressing his face between him. He has no coat on, just his suit jacket and button-up shirt, and looks very small without it.
“Don’t mind him,” the other Castiel says, looking out the same way as Cas. “He’s been here a long time and he isn’t ready to go back.” He looks back toward Cas. “Then again, neither am I.”
“What happened?”
The other Castiel sighs. He stands up and pulls Cas up. “Judging by what happened to me, and the others,” he says, “I’m guessing you died.”
“I –” Cas couldn’t remember much when he first woke up, but now he does. A blade in his heart, light and grace streaming out his eyes and mouth. The last thing he saw, the horrified face of – “Well. You’re right.”
“It seems less than an exemplary situation.”
“Correct. But it’s happened before, and we came back, and –”
The other Castiel clamps a hand on his shoulder. “What?”
“I’ve come back to life before,” Cas tells him, already feeling impatience worm its way through his body. Does he even have a body here? Always a very complex discussion to have in theoretical realms. “I don’t know how, but if I’ve done it before, I can do it again.”
“Oh.” The other Castiel’s face is nearly white. “I – I didn’t know. This is the first time I’ve died.”
What a sad sentence. Even sadder, then, that Cas must think for a minute to remember just when that was. “When Raphael killed you, right? That was the first time.”
“Killed is a nice euphemism for it.”
Cas remembers how it felt to be undone, every grace atom burnt to nearly nothing and flayed, scattered among the stars up above him, and shudders. “I could give you a list of other words for it, if you’d like.”
“No.” The other Castiel turns away from him and strides forward. “I’m with you. I need a way out of here.”
For the first time since he woke up, Cas smiles. There is hope for – himself – after all.
“Who’s he?” The other Castiel interrupts his thoughts, and nods roughly toward the sitting Castiel. By now, he has tucked himself so deeply into a ball, Cas can barely see any flesh. Just the black of his hair, suit jacket, and pants.
Cas doesn’t look at that other Castiel, the one all but grinding himself into the dirt, for very long. He can’t. It hurts too much. He remembers it too poignantly. He walks on, and the other Castiel, the one standing, he follows. For that, he’s grateful.
“You don’t know this,” Cas says, “but this is just – the beginning. Of everything.”
“It is not,” the other Castiel volleys. “No one was there for the beginning of everything but God.”
Cas has to fight off the eyeroll. “For you, not the universe. You are going to do terrible things. You think you have gone through doubt now, but it will be nothing compared to what you’re about to experience. The other angels are going to hate you. You will nearly cause an apocalypse of your own.
“By the time you reach that point,” he says, gesturing backwards to the third Castiel, who’s now rocking in place, “you aren’t going to want to come back. You’re going to tell Dean that coming back is a punishment, that it gets worse every time.”
The other Castiel has stopped walking. There’s a very long pause. No crickets, no birds, no air in this darkness to fill the silence here. “Then why do I go back?”
Castiel keeps walking. He hears footprints behind him now, the other Castiel racing to keep up. Good. “You tell me why you are going back this time.”
“The world’s in danger –”
“I’m afraid that won’t change.”
“How is such a place even so fragile?”
Briefly, Cas thinks of the babies he’s healed when he’s looking for some kind of redemption, even if he knows he’ll never find it. He thinks of the way he’s made Dean’s face crack along the seams with his own hands, some of the worst regrets of his life, part of why he looks for that redemption. “Because the most precious things have to be, or else we wouldn’t value them so.”
The other Castiel nods. He understands. “I have to help Dean,” he says, in a tone of voice that sounds more like an admission than an assertion. “I left him alone, and –”
Dean would be fine without him, Cas has convinced himself. But there’s something in the way even this Castiel has to stop again, has to put his palms on his knees and breathe the not-air in so deeply, that he wonders. In his stomach, he can feel a deep tug, an enormous maw of pain that is not his own. He keeps wondering, so long that it flips over to hope.
It is dangerous. It keeps him walking, the other Castiel running to keep pace. The edge of this place, it’s almost in sight now.
“Dean,” the other Castiel practically wheezes. Cas hadn’t realized he was going so fast. “Is he – are you still – friends?” The word is a question on his tongue.
Now it’s Cas’ turn to stop. He takes the shoulders of the other Castiel in his hands. They feel so strong, not worn down by the universe like he is. “You take what you feel for Dean,” he says, “and you use it. It’s what makes you different. What you feel for Sam, and the others who will become your family.”
Cas realizes now what Jack showed him. It wasn’t a world without pain; such a world couldn’t exist. It was this place, the Empty, devoid of everything but himself. A place where words and feelings came clearly like they never could in the real world.
A simpler place. But not the place where he belongs.
The other Castiel offers something like a smile. “That’s what the other – the other versions of you, of me, said. They were in a rush to get out of here, too. One looked like you. The other had on something – I believe it’s called a hoodie.” He lets out a bark of laughter. “What is going to happen to me?”
Cas thinks of Jack again. What he did to him, they should discuss it. When he gets back. But there was no malice there, and he isn’t only here to lead himself through the wilderness of life. “I can’t tell you that,” he says, “but you will see. And the world is worth it. Dean is worth it. A family is worth it.”
The other Castiel nods. He walks next to him. He keeps pace this time.
“I have not seen any other version of you from past your time,” the other Castiel says. “Just the times you tell me happened in the past. Well, your past. My future. I am still confused about the – the hoodie, but I suppose it all works out. I guess what I’m saying is, try to make this time count.”
“I will.” Cas reaches out his hand, and grasps on to that of the other Castiel. Their palms are both warm and smooth. Many humans used to read palms, and talk about lines of fate. Cas comforts himself with the fact that that humans, those vessels of free will, they felt a need to believe in a preordained future too. Knowing you are the one that makes the future is a terrifying prospect, but it’s the one he needs. “You, too. You most of all, maybe. Make this time count.”
They both inhale deeply, even if they don’t have to. They walk up to the end of this world, where the cliff drops off into nothingness. No sky, no stars, no night, just nothing and black.
Cas looks at himself. He smiles. He jumps.
**
Castiel comes to in John Winchester’s lock-up. It’s a dull place, concrete walls mildewed with the years. And it’s beautiful.
He vaguely remembers jumping off – a cliff into some darkness somewhere, but even as he remembers it the memory snaps out of his grace. Now all he remembers is Raphael’s white-hot fury, all of it focused on him.
He swallows. Sam and Dean are in front of him, as well as Zachariah. Zachariah has radically reconfigured their internal organs, and Sam’s soul hangs on to his body with desperate claws. But Dean – Cas must not let himself get too distracted by Dean, by the way his soul still sweeps in and out gently across his neurons like a wave upon the shore. Even now, Dean gags and coughs out blood.
Castiel must make his surprise reappearance count. Around a swallow that slides down his throat, he pulls out his sword. The only thing that will kill another angel – and there are three of them in this very lock-up, threatening Dean. Threatening Sam too, threatening the very fabric of existence.
This is the first time he will kill a brother of his. He suspects it will not be the last.
He strides forward. He will make it worth it.
**
Castiel comes to on the beach. It’s low tide and the water smells brackish. The house looks more ramshackle than it did the day of Jack’s birth.
It’s beautiful.
He could go back into the house, but he can tell that no humans – nobody at all – has been here in weeks. Instead he climbs into his truck, still there outside the house.
The mix tape is still in the tape deck. He exhales in gratitude and pushes the play button.
He does nothing but sit there for what might be an hour. He breathes in the air, the salt and the breeze filling his lungs up. The bird cries sound lonely and sad, but they are alive, and for that he’s grateful. For them and him alike.
The tape is on its last song. If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you, the man’s voice sings, much slower and sweeter than the other songs on the tape. When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.
Castiel’s phone is still on the passenger’s seat. He picks it up, goes to recent calls, and dials the first number there without even bothering to look at who it was. He already knows.
The voice that picks up is so rough it sounds like it’s been grated over rocks. It – no, he – speaks in more of a choke than words. “Man,” he says, “I think you have the wrong number –”
Castiel leans back. He smiles with all his teeth. The sun is setting, the sky getting swallowed up by darkness, and he’s never been more grateful to be alive. “No, I don’t think I do. Hello, Dean.”
In which Mary notices Dean and Castiel (self-indulgent drabble set somewhere in the beginning of season 12)
The Winchesters, Mary, and Cas are working a case together, and they split up. Cas and Dean go to finish off a nest of vamps while Mary and Sam resolve things with the locals.
They meet up at a shitty 24 hour diner at some ungodly hour of the night, and Mary is so engrossed in conversation with Sam that she almost misses the way Dean’s hand hovers at Castiel’s lower back as they enter the diner. Almost.
“Finished ‘em off real good, huh, Cas?” Dean says with a tired smirk once they’re seated, nudging the angel with his shoulder.
“Yes,” Cas agrees, opening his menu.
Sam orders a coffee and Dean glares at him so he orders a soup too. Castiel gets the same thing that Dean gets.
“You need to eat?” Mary asks.
Castiel shrugs. “It’s a habit, now.”
And Mary notices the way that there is almost a foot and a half of empty space on Dean and Cas’s side of the booth that they’re not using. She notices the way their arms touch from shoulder to elbow.
“So,” She says to Sam, later, when they are alone, “Dean and Cas?”
“Oh,” Sam scratches the back of his neck. “It’s, um, complicated, I think.”
hey who wants to give me some deancas-shaped life...
1. dean gave cas the first blade, thus entrusting him with his sanity and self-control 2. “let’s go find that idiot and bring him home” 3. dean spent the entire back half of s11 losing his shit over cas 4. they’re in love
jensen: hey mish hows it go–
misha: in case you havent noticed, im weird. im a weirdo. have you ever seen me without these orange underwear on? thats weird.
circular; 1k, pre-coda, inspired by the latest 12x19 promo.
[AO3]
Dean jumps slightly when the bunker's door creaks. It's been over a month, but he still thinks please, please, please before looking up.
"Cas," Sam says.
Cas' shoulders are stiff. "Hello."
"Hey. You're all right. Um ─" Cas turns away and starts down the stairs. Sam glances at Dean before continuing, "Where've you been?"
Dean's pulse is thumping in his ears. "Lemme rephrase that for Sam: where the hell've you been? And why've you ignored our phone calls?"
"Where I was," Cas says, pausing beside the table, "the reception was ─ um. Poor."
Dean's jaw tics; being angry is easier than ─ it's just easier. He grunts, "No bars," and looks back at Sam. "No bars ─ that's his excuse." He takes a breath and meets Cas' eyes. "Wow."
"I was in Heaven. I was... working with the angels."
Dean's mouth moves but nothing comes out. On his third try he says, "You ─ Heaven? You were in Heaven?"
"Yes."
"So you ─ uh. You." Heat crowds up underneath Dean's jaw. "You were - did you -?" He's not sure he wants to ask that question in front of Sam, so he grumbles, "Whatever," and walks out of the War Room.
+
Sam must not interrogate Cas too long because he comes to Dean's room about five minutes later. He doesn't bother knocking, so Dean doesn't bother turning around. The door sighs as Cas pushes it closed. Dean kills the neck of his beer, then clunks the bottle on his nightstand. He grabs a flannel out of the hamper and tosses it at the "darks" pile at the foot of his bed.
When Cas finally says, "Dean," his voice dips. "I ─"
Dean cuts him off with a grunt. "So you've been upstairs this whole time?"
"Most of it, yes."
"And you ─" Sighing, Dean balls a denim shirt in his hand. Blood is spattered down one sleeve. "Could you, um. Did you hear me when I ─ when I, uh."
Cas shifts his feet. Quietly, he says, "Yes. I heard you pray."
Dean drops the shirt on the bed and turns around. "Okay." He'd said the first one sitting on the edge of his bed, picking at a loose thread on his blanket as he asked Cas to give them a call. The second and third had come on the road; one with Sam snoring in his ear and the other with Stay With Me buzzing on the radio. "Okay, yeah." He'd been halfway through a fifth of Jim Beam when he mumbled out the fourth. "It's good to know you give a shit."
"I wanted to come to you. I would've come to you, but ─"
"You were busy, I get it. You ─" Dean waves his hand around "─ you had angel shit to do."
Cas takes a step closer as he says, "Dean," and Dean can smell it now ─ the cold, windswept edge Cas had carried around all the time when he still had his wings. "The angels don't trust me. They probably never will. But we're going to need them to deal with Dagon and the nephilim, and I couldn't risk ─"
"Yeah, sure," Dean says, turning back to his laundry. The hamper nudges the back of his thigh. "We wouldn't wanna upset 'em ─ not the guys who beat you and stabbed you and tortured you. Not the guys who ditched you when you needed an army." He shakes out a shirt so hard it snaps like a tacking sail. "Not the guys who brainwashed you."
"Dean." Cas' voice is knife-sharp, but he doesn't say anything else. He just sighs and closes his eyes. He looks ─ he looks tired. "Dean, please."
"What?"
Cas hesitates for a moment. Then he shakes his head and says, "Nothing. I just ─ I don't understand you sometimes. You don't like it when I go to Heaven, but you don't really want me here, either."
"You ─ what?" Dean sighs and rubs his face. A dull headache is squeezing the base of his skull. "When did I say that? You ─ I never fucking said that."
"Dean," Cas says again. This time, it's weirdly gentle. "Do you remember the night Ramiel stabbed me?"
Dean mumbles, "Yeah," and throws a muddy pair of jeans on the bed. His gut lurches. "Yeah."
"Do you remember what I said to you?"
"I ─" Dean nods. "Yeah. You said that you ─ um. You know. That you loved us."
"You. I said I loved you." Cas tips his head to the side. "And you never addressed it."
"Cas. You - you, um. You ain't─"
"Dean," Cas says sharply. "Don't insult me by telling me I don't know how I feel."
"I'm not," Dean mumbles, flushing. "I'm just ─"
Cas says, "Dean," again, then grabs the flannel Dean's holding and tosses it on the bed. He takes Dean's hands and brushes his thumbs against Dean's palms. "As I laid there, dying, all I wanted was a little more time with you. I've lived for millennia and I ─ I was desperate for one more minute."
His thumbs slip down to stroke Dean's wrists, and it's such a soft, slow touch that it makes Dean shiver. A chill sweeps up his arm and prickles at the back of his neck. Dean stares at Cas for a few seconds ─ at the line of his throat and the curve of his mouth. He still smells like sharp, cold air.
After a moment, he drops Dean's hands. He murmurs, "Sorry," and takes a step back. "I shouldn't have ─"
"You running out on me again?" Dean asks. He doesn't have to fake the edge to his voice ─ anger is easier, always easier. "I was gonna ask if you were staying for dinner, but I guess you got other shit to do."
"Dean." Heat is rising in Cas' cheeks ─ he's fucking gorgeous. "I would stay if I honestly thought that's what you wanted."
"What makes you think it ain't?"
"I told you I loved you, and you ignored it. What am I supposed to think?"
"I didn't ─ um." Dean scratches the back of his neck. "Look, that night was pretty nuts. You almost died, and we had to burn Wally. And then my mother ran off with a fucking ─" Dean huffs out a noise and reminds himself it isn't his business. "And you ─ you skipped outta here first thing in the morning."
"Dean ─"
"You ─ just c'mere." Dean grabs Cas' face in both hands. He curls his fingers in Cas' hair, and Cas breathes out a soft, surprised noise that reels Dean in like a fishing line. He kisses Cas easy and slow, their mouths brushing and catching again and again and again. When he finally pulls back, he rests his forehead against Cas' and asks, "You gonna stick around?"
Dean comes to lying in the still night air of the playground. A cold breeze rushes through the trees and across his mist-covered face, chilling it and making him shiver.
He does not want to get up yet.
The sound of Sam’s even breathing a few feet away is assurance enough that he can afford a moment to lie there and wallow for a while.
Maybe wallow is the wrong word. This isn’t sulking or self-pity. This is that feeling that is so damn familiar to him it may as well be tattooed into his guts.
He aches, pure and simple.
Not his arm, of course. Cas had healed that as he always did, with a hand so gentle that for a moment Dean had allowed himself to hope, just briefly. Hope for a lot of things. Maybe Cas would come home. Maybe for once he’d stop running away and breaking Dean’s heart to save his life.
Hope that he’d actually understood what it fucking means when you give someone a mix tape full of your favourite songs.
Maybe they’d actually get this Kelly thing figured out. Dagon was dead, Cas was alive. The grace extraction thing wasn’t a perfect plan, but none of their plans were ever perfect. They always managed anyway. Team Free Will rides again, like he’d said.
What a fucking joke.
Another gust of wind blows across the playground and Dean curls in on himself slightly, keeping his eyes shut. He’s going to have to get up eventually. Get up, drag Sam back to his car and drive home with the Cas-shaped hole in the backseat screaming out for attention in his rear-view mirror.
How was it that they were here again? How did it always happen that no matter how tightly Dean tried to hold on, Cas just slipped away. Or ran away. Because this was the angel tablet and the crypt all over again, or no, this was after Samandriel died and Cas looked at him blankly with bleeding fucking eyes and Dean knew that Cas wasn’t behind the wheel in there.
Satan Jr had whammied Cas’ head just like he had Kelly’s, and once again Dean is left scrambling to save his best friend. His. . . his whatever Cas is.
Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe this was just Cas, once again making the wrong damn choices for the right reasons, never learning a fucking thing no matter how many times it blows up in his face.
He really is a Winchester.
They can’t ever catch a break.
Their lives are flying apart at the seams, out of control with pieces scattered wide and Dean isn’t sure he’s got the strength to gather them all up again.
He hears Sam groaning as he stirs, no doubt coming slowly out of the unnatural heaviness that goes along with a mandatory grace-nap. Still lying on his back, Dean briefly squeezes his eyes shut tighter, allowing the tears building there to slide down his temples and into the hair at his ears before he shifts himself upright, dragging hands down each side of his face before Sam can make note of the lingering wetness.
“Son of a bitch,” Sam grates out, still heaving himself to a sit.
“Yeah,” Dean says. He doesn’t have the energy for anything more. He struggles to his feet and hauls Sam up, a cursory slap on the arm before he starts moving to the car.
“Dean –” Sam starts, but Dean silences him with a wave.
“Not now, man, okay? Let’s just go home. I need a fucking drink.”
Sam looks as though he’s not done trying to Talk This Out, but one look at Dean’s hard mask of a face and he sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Me too.”
Sam slides into the passenger seat, and Dean’s about to follow suit when something on his side of the bench catches his eye.
His heart seizes up and he can’t breathe, and more tears well up before he has a chance to tamp them down.
Not caring now if Sam sees, he gets behind the wheel, picking up the little piece of plastic and sliding it into the tape deck.
Again it looks like Sam wants to say something, and again he seems to think better of it. Instead he crosses his arms and leans down against his window, although his eyes are open.
Dean stares straight through the front windshield, ignoring the empty backseat and turning the volume dial higher as Ten Years Gone drifts out through Baby’s speakers.
lapse; 1k, dean and his 12x11 amnesia, inspired by the new promo. deancas if you squint very, very hard.
His name. He has to remember his name.
[AO3]
Dean paces the length of the motel room. It's small and dirty; the air is heavy with old cigarette smoke and the carpet feels gritty and stiff under his boots. The vacancy sign is buzzing through the gap in the curtains, cutting a dull, red stripe across the beds. Dean would rather be outside, but Sam ─ his brother, Sam is his brother ─ said he shouldn't leave until they get this figured out. He isn't sure what needs figuring out, or why Sam needed two knives and a gun.
They have a lot of weapons ─ shotguns, pistols, stakes, daggers, knives. Dean walks over to the kitchen counter and pokes around inside the bag Sam left behind. There's an old, rusty crowbar, and an nearly-empty bottle of butane, and an industrial-sized canister of salt. Dean runs his fingers over one of the guns ─ a Colt forty-five with a nickel-plated barrel. He picks it up and tucks it into the back of his jeans. It feels like it belongs there, but he ─ he doesn't know why. After a moment, he shakes his head and puts it back.
He glances at the door. A note is taped below the check-out times, reminding him to stay inside. It's signed "Sam." Sam ─ Sam is his brother. Dean tries to remember it, but it comes to him in a jumble. He's wrapping a bandage around Sam's hand. He's grabbing at Sam's arm, trying to pull him out of a room with blood on the floor. He's setting off fireworks in an empty field. He's kissing a woman with dark hair and red eyes. She's beautiful, but her tongue tastes like a burnt match.
"Winchester," he says carefully. "My name is Dean Winchester."
He peeks through the gap in the curtains. A sleek, black muscle car is parked out front ─ a Chevy from the late sixties or early seventies. Something about it itches his memory, but he can't place it. He just knows he's seen it before. He's seen it a lot. He's ─ maybe he's being followed. Maybe that's what Sam is "figuring out."
"My brother. Sam is my brother."
He walks back over to Sam's bag ─ if he is being followed, he should probably protect himself. After picking through the different knives, he settles on one with weird writing etched on its notched blade. He grabs the gun again. He slides out the clip and counts the bullets like he's done it a million times before. Maybe he has.
Another note is sitting on the counter.
"Mary. My mother's name is Mary."
Mary has blonde hair. She has blonde hair, and Dean is a little boy. He remembers her cutting the crusts off his sandwiches. He remembers hiding his plastic army men in the pockets of her apron. But he also remembers her standing in this room. She ─ she left with Sam. She told Dean to be careful. She took one of the guns.
"No." Dean shakes his head. "She ─ fuck."
Mary died. He remembers her burning on the ceiling. And that's crazy ─ nobody fucking dies like that ─ but he remembers it. He remembers holding a baby outside a burning house. He ─ Sam. The baby was Sam. His brother, Sam.
Dean mutters, "Fuck," again and rubs his hand over his face. His chest feels tight. A dull headache is starting to hum behind his eyes.
Sighing, he sits on the bed closest to the door. He always takes the bed closest to the door. It's safer for Sam, that way. If monsters break in, he ─ monsters. That -- that's not. No.
"If monsters are real, then they could get us. They could get me."
"Dad's not gonna let them get you."
"But what if they get him?"
"They aren't gonna get him. Dad's, like, the best."
Dean ─ he can't picture his father. All that comes to him is the smell of leather and Pall Mall menthols. He remembers a gruff voice telling him to stand up straight. He remembers dog-tags swinging from a rearview mirror and the low rumble of an engine. He ─ the car. The black car outside had belonged to his father. Then it belonged to him. He remembers a man with dark hair putting the keys in his hand.
The note is crumpled in Dean's fist. He flattens it out on the nightstand and reads the last line a few times. Castiel ─ he remembers Castiel. He remembers Castiel wearing a trenchcoat, and he remembers Castiel gripping his shoulder, and he remembers Castiel crouched beside a river. He ─ fuck. "Best friend" isn't wrong, but it isn't right, either. There's ─ something. Something else. Castiel helped Dean with something once; Dean just can't remember what.
"What's the matter? You don't think you deserved to be saved?"
Cas ─ they were standing in a barn. Dean doesn't know why Cas asked him that. He just remembers being terrified. Terrified and grateful.
"Cas," Dean mutters. He looks up at the water-stained ceiling and makes himself breathe. He thinks Cas might've been here earlier ─ with Sam and Mary, Dean's brother and mother ─ but he can't be sure. He doesn't really remember it. He does remember a dark house and a slowly-burning fire.
"You got to look at me, man. You got to level with me and tell me what's going on. Look me in the eye and tell me you're not working with Crowley."
Dean doesn't know a Crowley. The name nags at him a little, like meat stuck between his teeth, but he can't place it. His gut churns. He'd been angry at Cas then, but he doesn't know why.
"I'd rather have you, cursed or not."
"Castiel. My best friend is Castiel."
"And when you finally turn -- and you will turn -- Sam, and everyone you know, everyone you love -- they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I'm the one who'll have to watch you murder the world."
"Fuck."
He has blood on his hands. A hot, writhing pain is gnawing at the inside of his arm. Then it's gone, and he's ─ he. He isn't. His name. He needs to remember his name.
"I'm Dean Winchester." He remembers saying that to a short guy in a bathrobe. "My brother is Sam Winchester." Dean carried Sam out of a burning house. "My mother is Mary Winchester." She's dead, but she isn't. Dead. Isn't. "My best friend is Castiel."
Dean remembers a sudden, blinding-white flash of light. His hands are shaking. Fuck. He ─ fuck.
"My name is Dean Winchester. Sam is my brother. Mary Winchester is my mom, and Cast ─ Cas is my best friend."
