spnfic: map of the world, 8/11

Title: Map of the World, 8/11
Author: Seperis
Codes: Dean/Castiel
Rating: R
Summary: The world's already over and they're already dead. All they're doing now is marking time until the end.
Author Notes: Thanks to nrrrdy_grrrl for beta above and beyond. For two years, even. Set after the events in 5.4 The End.
Spoilers: Seasons 5, 6, and 7

Links:
AO3 - All, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8
DW - Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7



--Day 32--

In retrospect, his comfort level with Dean's presence has grown far greater than he'd have thought possible; it's only when Dean says, "Okay, seriously, sleep, you know it's kind of non-negotiable?" that he realizes he's not alone.

Castiel drags his gaze from Phil's latest attempt to make patrol reports a literary genre--surely if sex was desired, he'd simply say so?--to the far more welcome sight of a sleepy, disheveled Dean waving a prescription bottle with an irritated expression.

Seeing that he has Castiel's attention, he looks at the faded label irritably. "Where do you get your supply anyway?"

Dean didn't sleep well last night, and even most of a pot of coffee didn't seem to help this morning when he finally dragged himself from bed. He was distracted during the patrol meetings, a restlessness that graduated into constant, unending motion, pacing the floor in elongates spirals between brief moments of stillness, migrating between the couch and the kitchen table and the floor, arrhythmic tapping soundtracking every attempt to sit still, rubbing restlessly at his knee, chewing a pencil until it snapped between his teeth.

Evaluating the lavender circles beneath the red-rimmed eyes and the tired scowl, Castiel wonders if it would have been better to ignore Dean's insistence they spend today re-reading the reports and left the camp instead.

"You should be sleeping."

"So should you." Dean drops down on the floor with a graceless thump, rubbing his eyes before staring resentfully at the two neat stacks of reports between them. "Re-reading these all day was just so fucking riveting that doing it all night sounded like a good idea? Don’t tell me," he adds with a glare. "You can read faster than a human."

"If it were a dead language, yes," he admits, unable to ignore the headache growing behind his eyes. From recent experience, it won't dissipate until he finally goes to sleep. Human bodies are ridiculous sometimes in their requirements. Living languages, however, are subject to the changes in the societies that speak them." Dean looks unconvinced. "In other words, your dictionary is always being updated, and I do not mean simply in your official publications. Even the definitions change by the nature of their context and the identity and location of the speaker. It's--different."

Resting his chin one hand, Dean's frown is almost accusing. "I thought you could remember everything."

"I can--" he starts

"So why read them again if you can remember them?"

He tries very hard to remember that insomnia makes humans irritable. "I don't know."

"Sleep might help," Dean says, tossing the bottle into Castiel's lap with unnecessary force and absently running his palm over his knee, wincing slightly. "Or hey, more Adderall, that seems to be working for you."

Picking up the bottle, he sighs. "After the morning patrol leaves, I'll rest for a few hours."

"Face down in those reports," Dean says knowingly. "Dude, take the bed. I promise, I'm not doing anything in it but sleeping."

"I like the couch."

"I noticed," he adds, glancing at the doorway again with a faintly hostile expression which Castiel has yet to decipher. "But the bedroom? Has an actual door."

"Why are you awake?" Dean shifting slightly, rocking forward to pick up another report, bare foot rubbing absently against the rug. Castiel watches in morbid curiosity as one hand descends to the floor, waiting for the endless tapping to begin again.

"Same reason you are, I guess," he answers, straightening to sit cross-legged, almost still if one ignored the fact that he was nearly vibrating in place; it's exhausting just to look at him. Tomorrow, they're leaving the camp. Dean's sanity aside, his won't last another day of this. "Wanna figure out what we're missing."

"And sleep isn't of assistance? How unexpected after your assurances it might help." To his surprise, Dean doesn't respond to his bait, eyes darting down to the floor again. "Can you be more specific?"

"I couldn't sleep," he admits, hands settling uncertainly on his knees and looking at Castiel with an expression he can't quite read before he says abruptly, "Those sigils you're using, the ones that make people not see me. When I was just wearing them around the camp, you said it fucked with their heads, told them nothing was there, right?"

He puts down the report. "Yes."

"You said it was a problem when they had to cover more than one sense." Dean looks down again with a frown. "Just--okay, when I was wearing them around, what if I'd touched someone? How would they have reacted? I mean, how would it feel?"

"For them?" Interesting question. "I don't know."

"But they'd feel something, even if it told them nothing was there. I mean, it'd be weird, right?"

"Yes." Weird would perhaps be the best descriptor possible under the circumstances. "The wards we use in the cabin don't have that problem. Why?"

Dean grimaces, glancing down again. Following his gaze, he realizes Dean's looking at his own hand, rubbing restlessly down the length of his thigh before closing tightly over the curve of his knee, knuckles going yellow-white under the strain.

"What if nothing was really there and it said something was?" Dean asks. "What would that be like?"

He watches Dean's fingers loosen from their hold, sliding back up his thigh and revealing uneven dark patches against the faded olive. Glancing at the bottle still in his hand, he focuses on the dingy label, torn and faded and streaked with something dark and tacky, edged in angry red. Before he can think better of it, he reaches out, catching Dean's wrist mid-motion and easing it away, taking in the streaks of drying blood, patches tacky-wet and still glistened on fraying cotton.

"Cas?" Dean asks, sounding confused. "What's going on?"

"Don't move." Shifting to his knees on the pile of crinkling paper, he turns Dean's hand over, sucking in a breath at the raw, bright red abrasions spreading from just below the fingers to the heel of the palm, fresh blisters forming between gun calluses, patches of skin worn to almost nothing that are seeping new blood. Taking a deep breath, he meets Dean's eyes. "Dean, how do you feel?"

Dean glances briefly at his own hand as if he's never seen it before, eyes glassy and not quite focusing, pupil contracting and widening as if trying to see something that keeps moving in and out of his line of sight.

Finally, he blinks, looking up at Castiel in utter bewilderment edged with something like fear. "I don't know."

"This needs to be treated." As if they're speaking of any wound that required attention. It seems to convey some kind of reassurance to Dean, because he nods in unconcealed relief, slumping as Castiel lets him go and gets to his feet.

Finding his kit in the kitchen, he checks it automatically, even though since Dean's arrival he's done so every day, buying time for his hands to stop shaking. When he's sure he can convey at least the pretext of calm, he washes his hands and dries them methodically, getting a clean cloth and wetting it thoroughly before returning to the living room with the kit.

Dean doesn't move when Castiel shoves the reports to the side and seats himself cross-legged in front of him. "Give me your hand."

Dean extends it without hesitation, and the lack of argument is possibly the most terrifying thing that has happened tonight. Wrapping his fingers around the fragile wrist, he notes the slightly too rapid pulse before placing Dean's hand palm-up on his knee, gently spreading the reddened fingers to check for further damage. Dean winces at the touch against the broken blisters trailing down his index finger but not when Castiel brushes a thumb against the worst of the abrasions at the heel, where the flesh is almost entirely worn away. No wonder he couldn't sleep tonight.

"Does that hurt?"

"Not really," Dean answers after a too-long hesitation, looking down indifferently as Castiel cleans away the rest of the blood. "Probably should, though."

"Your tolerance for pain is very high." Wadding up the cloth and setting it out of sight behind him, he reaches for the alcohol and clean gauze. "Infection is a problem," he adds casually, concentrating his efforts on thoroughly cleaning each abrasion. "As there is a dearth of hospitals, even the most mild wound receives prompt treatment to lower the risk of complications."

"Can you even get infections?" Dean asks curiously, sublimely unaware of Castiel drenching his hand with half the bottle of alcohol, splashing the rug as well as the reports, the smell surrounding them both.

"It hasn't happened yet," Castiel answers easily. "For all intents and purposes, I'm an entirely different species, which may be the reason, but as bacteria and disease are subject to mutation, that could change at any time." Setting aside the used gauze, he reaches for the topical antibiotic and begins to spread it over Dean's palm. "When did your hand begin to bother you? You didn't sleep well last night, either. Was it bothering you then?"

Dean's expression goes blank. "I don't know. Maybe. I kept waking up, feeling like I'd forgotten something. Like an itch or something, but when I noticed it, it'd stop."

Castiel reviews his memory as he continues his ministrations. Today's restlessness, the tapping, last night he slept badly, yesterday--on the roof, he remembers Dean playing constantly with his bottle--the city, Dean asking him about his left hand--sitting on the jeep, watching Dean walk toward the jeep from the crossroad--at the crossroad, where Dean was crouching and reached out to touch the ground and then stood up, rubbing his hand against his thigh as if he'd touched something repulsive and wanted to remove the feeling from his fingers.

"At the crossroad." He closes a hand around Dean's wrist in anticipation of his instinctive flinch, thumb against the suddenly-rapid pulse. "Yesterday, when we were discussing the tanks. You said there was something odd about the road where the tracks stopped. Was there something on it when you touched it?"

"No." If he so much as breathed, he wouldn't have heard Dean's answer. "There was nothing there."

With his free hand, Castiel takes out a pre-cut bandage, listening to Dean's fast, shallow breathing, the slowly escalating beat of his heart, and forces himself to calmly tape the bandage into place, smoothing his fingers over the edges. "You said that the road looked different there. How was it different?"

"It was lighter that the rest." Dean pauses, uncertain. "Smoother, too."

"Stretch your fingers so I can be sure the tape won't pull." As Dean complies with his request, he tries to think of another question, aware of Dean's pulse speeding more with every moment of silence. "The asphalt was worn down from the tanks?"

Dean tenses, breathing becoming uneven as well. "No, it was smooth, like someone had sanded it down or something." He stops short, hand trembling in Castiel's. "Or maybe melted, I don't know. I've never seen anything like that before."

"The tape is pulling and reducing your flexibility." Pulling one side free, he tosses it aside. "I apologize. I'm out of practice treating injuries." Getting another piece, he concentrates on slowly smoothing it into place, trying to think of what else he should ask. "You said it was lighter as well. Was it painted?"

"Dude, why would anyone paint a road now?" Dean answers, reassuringly irritated.

"You'd be surprised what boredom can inspire." He needs more time. "Flex your hand again. I don't want to inhibit your aim. Describe it."

Dean is quiet for a few minutes, flexing his hand obediently. "It was--kind of shiny."

"Like it had been freshly painted?" Castiel asks very carefully, and Dean stills, pulse increasing abruptly.

"Like metal."

Castiel catches Dean's eyes. "It didn't feel like metal." Dean nods hesitantly. "What did it feel like?"

For a moment, he's not sure Dean can answer, green eyes unfocused, then he swallows, focusing on Castiel. "I told you. How the fuck do you feel something when nothing's there?"

All at once, Dean's pulse begins to slow, tension running out of him as he slumps in exhaustion. Freeing Dean's wrist, he repacks the kit from reflex, aware of the steady gaze following him to the kitchen as he puts it away and washes his hands again. When he returns, a glance at Dean's hand, lying still in his lap, is somewhat reassuring, but that doesn't mean it won't return if he doesn't at least witness what it was that Dean saw.

"You should go to bed," he says, stacking the reports together and smoothing down the crumpled edges, more to give himself something to do until Dean is back in bed than because he cares. Dean's hand clenches alarmingly in his peripheral vision, but when he looks up, Dean's expression tells him that it was a voluntary reaction. "You haven't been sleeping well."

"But I'll be able to now."

"I hope so," he answers honestly, unwilling to lie and knowing that Dean wouldn't believe him if he tried. "Dean---"

"You're going back to the city," Dean interrupts. "You want to get a look at it. Whatever--what just happened, Cas?"

"I don't know." Giving up, he shoves the reports to one side to care about later. "Go to bed. I'll be back before you wake up."

"You know what it is?"

That's the problem. "I won't know until I see it."

"Okay." Dean gets to his feet. "Let me get my boots."

"I don't think you should--"

"Cas?" When he looks up, Dean is watching him with a faint hint of amusement. Seeing he has Castiel's attention, he holds up his keys. "I'll get my boots."

"How did you--" Dean's mouth twitches reluctantly. "Never mind. I'll wait."

"Good call." Dean turns toward the bedroom. "Give me five minutes."

---

Lit by the headlights from the jeep, Castiel circles the circumference of what was once a road, fighting down the instinctive recoil that's dogged him ever since he first saw it.

While it has all the visible properties and reflective capabilities of iron and trace properties of half a dozen other elemental metals and what might be human DNA, the actual composition eludes him entirely. Even to the untrained human eye, there's no possible way to visually interpret this as asphalt in adequate lighting. Human instinct is very, very good at identifying when something isn't what it appears to be; to a hunter, to Dean, this would have normally been identified as an immediate threat without question.

After marking out the dimensions seamlessly joined to the unaffected road, he crouches, taking a deep breath before making himself run his fingers over the surface. He registers asphalt, rough despite the visual of a flawless smoothness, traces of dirt that seem to skate along the surface, but when he presses down, it's sickeningly springy, flesh-soft, humid like cooked meat. Jerking back, he barely holds his balance at the sickening rush of vertigo, rubbing his fingers against his thigh as Dean did, vainly trying to rub away the memory that seems to cling to his skin.

"Everything okay?" Dean asks, conveying with his voice alone that answering him is not optional and better happen in five seconds or less.

"Yes." Castiel hesitates, looking at Dean; with the headlights behind him, there's no way to see his expression, but from vocal cues, he's worried. Looking back down, he tries to decide whether or not to try; the migraine from Dean's presence in this world was bad enough, but that's why painkillers were invented, after all. "I want to try something. It won't take long."

Dean takes his time before answering. "Five minutes."

"I won't need more than that." Standing up, he concentrates on Dean for a moment, deliberately letting himself see Dean vibrate in spacetime--the purely visual interpretation of someone out of sync with their environment--and turning it off again before the headache can manifest. He didn't realize at the time--there wasn't reason to--that it wasn't all that was still available to him. Doing this deliberately should be easier; this time, at least, he know what he's trying to do.

Closing his eyes, he takes a deep breath and searches his mind, trying to find it. For a second, bitter beyond imagining, there's nothing--of course there's not, of course, why would he ever, even by accident, be able to do something useful--then something responds, like an immense pressure against an uncertain barrier, and he touches it before opening his eyes and the visual spectrum dissolves before his eyes.

The rush of sensory information alone is staggering; he barely avoids stumbling and alarming Dean, biting his lip as he struggles to control it, trying to filter it into sight alone until the sickening lurch of the world finally resolves into something he can interpret. Even so, overflow scratches sharply along the skin of his back like nails on a chalkboard, joined by a high pitched sound like metal scraping against itself, and a flat iron taste in his mouth that isn't just blood from his bitten lip.

Angels in their vessels don't need to filter their sight through their corporeal body, but like being able to see Dean, it seems it's possible. His entire nervous system is being utilized to carry information that has very little sensory equivalent and isn't sure how to interpret any of it, sharp and hard and the smell of decomposition and possibly screaming and he hopes in a corner of his mind that he's not actually doing that or Dean will be rather worried by now.

All in all, he's had worst trips; this, at least, has the benefit of being useful.

After what feels like hours and is probably only seconds, he finally manages to work out how to organize it into something that makes sense, slowly settling the layers into place that make up the fabric of reality. The world tilts sickeningly in a starburst of colors and sound before it settles again, the corporeal world ghostly outlines beneath a superimposed reflection of the multiplicity of reality of which it is only a single, tiny part.

If he ever could have expected to see anything at all, it wouldn't have been this.

The road is limned in silver-white like clean water and ice, marking out the boundaries of the affected area, a sharp delineator between warm, healthy green-yellow outside it and a band of sickening grey-green corruption that melts into a dull, empty stillness within, a darkness that has nothing to do with the absence of light. There's a sense of endless heat and infinite cold as one and the same, the joining between that absence and reality like an endless squeal of metal on metal and grinding glass, like existence being peeled alive before it vanishes into that dull silence like a physical ache.

How the fuck do you feel something when nothing's there?

"Cas?"

Distracted, his focus on the area slips, and the city itself begins to spread out before him before he can stop it, peppered with more of these, the shape of absence burned through the fabric of reality sprinkled everywhere. The sheer magnitude of it is overwhelming, far too much to process, but there's no way to stop seeing, his vision stretching farther outward with every second that passes, the overflow like nails on a chalkboard and a growing itch beneath the surface of his skin.

Distantly, he can feel a headache flare to screaming life behind his eyes; it would probably be excruciating if his nerves weren't already so overloaded that even pain can't get through. Reaching the city limits--nothing alive in the city except them, good to know, stop now--the taste and smell of iron strengthen with a feeling like a very dull knife carving into the middle of his back, fingers tingling warningly. This form, even as a vessel, was never meant to channel the breadth of what his true form could see without the protection and buffer of Grace. For that matter, it shouldn't even be trying; surely it will stop soon.

Or, he thinks vaguely, he should stop it himself and never, ever do anything like this again.

Taking a careful step back, he tries to remember how he started in the first place, but another spurt of sensory data drowns him before he can find it; he thinks he just reached the county line with a taste of what's definitely blood.

"Cas?" Despite the distance, despite the sheer glut of information, Dean's voice is perfectly clear, cutting through the cacophony like a knife sinking into bare flesh, and he grabs onto it gratefully. "Everything okay? Talk to me."

Turning his head in the direction of Dean's voice. The ghostly outline of Dean shifts, vivid in verdant greens and healthy blues, glowing golden (of course he does, it's only a surprise there's not a musical accompaniment, something in Bach by way of Metallica, with harps), a living refutation of the atrocity only inches from Castiel's boots. It's unexpectedly soothing simply to look at him.

"Under the back seat," he says as clearly as he can, hoping he's actually speaking. "There's a bottle. Get it."

"I'm going to hate this, I just know it." Dean answers in resignation, but the edge sharpens. The ghosts of the real world shift alarmingly, but Dean is very vivid, giving him a decent idea of the location of the jeep in more than theory as the sound of the jeep door shutting again reverberates through him. "Need any help?"

Years ago. "No. Stay where you are."

Focusing on Dean's relative position--passenger side of the engine, probably--Castiel starts toward him, skirting the edge of the obscenity at his feet until he's beyond it. Warily, he reaches out once he's reached where the jeep should be and feels the reassuring firmness of metal drowning the subdermal itching, sliding his fingers down the grate before dropping to the ground in relief, head resting against his knees for a few moments.

Closing his eyes shuts off the visual component and seems to slow the progress, but he can still sense it reaching further, finding more of the holes with every moment that passes, flares of nothingness in a living world scraping brutally across his arms, the shrieking of bending metal louder each moment that passes when the visual isn't enough to hold it all and making the headache much, much worse. Opening his eyes again eases the strain somewhat; humans are sight dominant, they're better adapted to interpreting information, yes, that makes sense. Staring straight ahead, he struggles with how to convey reassurance; it would help if he could think of something reassuring to say.

"You want to tell me why you look--" Dean pauses for an ominous moment. "Look at me, Cas."

He looks up, hoping it's not too obvious that he's not entirely sure where to look. The green-blue of Dean's shape shifts constantly, making it difficult to focus on where his face should be.

"You can't see me, can you?"

"That depends," Castiel answers shakily, "on how you interpret 'see'."

Dean's voice is dangerously calm. "You tell me."

"This is very different in a corporeal body," Castiel observes; it's slowing a little now, not quite so overwhelming, but he's going to reach the state line very soon. A great deal of wildlife has returned, it seems; he wonders if he concentrates, he might be able to identify cows so as to end Dean's endless reminisces about hamburgers. "It seems that a form of synesthesia is accessed to symbolically represent--were you aware you actually appear to vibrate when I see you out of time? It's both nauseating and yet fascinating to watch. Right now, however, you're rather--" Green, and you glow: of course you do. You could light the world if you tried.

"What did you do?" Dean interrupts flatly, an entire novel of emotion beneath it. "You didn't act like this when you saw me out of time. This is something else."

"If it had felt like this when I saw you, I certainly wouldn't have attempted doing more of it."

"Great, glad we cleared that up," Dean says shortly. "Now tell me what's happening to you now."

Castiel swallows, a taste like something rotten coating his tongue, and fights the urge to throw up. "I'd like a drink first. I'm not prevaricating, this is--"

"Got it." A bottle is shoved into his hand. "Top's off."

The burn of the first swallow is almost pathetically welcome, almost enough to pretend the throbbing of his temples isn't increasing to the point of potential aneurysm. Lowering the considerably lighter bottle, he tilts his head back against the grate. "I should have shown you where I kept the Eldritch Horror before we left."

"Cas." Dean's voice is very quiet. "What's going on?"

"Humans who are potential vessels are born with the ability to channel almost all of our abilities and Grace acts as a buffer to prevent damage." He pause for another drink; he's heard the placebo effect can be very useful in times like this, especially since he just reached Kansas's sate line. Making an effort, he manages to slow it again. "When I saw you--I realized I may not have lost everything." Useful, one thing, just one thing: it's not so much to ask. "It didn't occur to me that in this form, using human senses alone would be somewhat--overwhelming."

It would be more accurate to say he didn't think that it would work like this if it worked at all. He assumed--and why did he assumed it?--that it would either work within the parameters of the human body or if it was incompatible, simply fail to work at all.

"What did you need to see that you couldn't do without--whatever you're doing?"

He wets his lips. "To see what it--I needed to see more."

"How much more?"

"Everything and all things," he says on a breath. "But just there, not--everywhere. I didn't think it would work like this." There's a sharp feeling like something cracking. "I just reached the state line. I think I saw cows…."

"Short version; just because you can doesn't mean you should, am I getting this right?" Dean's voice rises in volume with every word. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking," he snaps back, because Dean has no idea how right he is and it's galling, "that if reality is preparing to unravel around us, some warning would be appreciated." He tries to stop it again as they crawl toward the continental edge, trying to force it back to the city alone and realizes with growing panic that he can't. More points appear with every moment that passes, pinpricks of dull stillness in a living world, and abruptly, he realizes what those hundreds--thousands--of pinpricks mean spread unevenly over the continental United States. "They're in groups," he breathes. "What did he--"

The throbbing becomes a searing pain, slicing through his skull in endless, agonizing repeat like sharp knives gouging out his brain. Castiel's head snaps back against the grate of the jeep, and something cold drips across his lips. Reaching up, he touches his mouth and realizes his nose is bleeding.

"Jesus!" Dean's pressed against his side, slapping his hand away as he wipes the blood away with his thumb in an almost painful scrape of skin on skin. "Cas, stop it! Whatever the fuck you're doing, make it stop! Now!"

"I don't--" Focusing on Dean again, he's surprised to feel the pressure ease. "I can't."

"What?"

"Angels can see everything, all at once, everywhere, all times, always," he explains breathlessly, wondering vaguely what first aid suggests for treatment of a bleeding nose--does he tilt his head back? "It didn't occur to me that it would--" all be there, everything, it shouldn't be, a corporeal form shouldn't even be able to access what it couldn't understand, much less what could hurt it. "Everything," he repeats, swallowing a mouthful of blood. "But in this form, on this plane, the only place I truly exist now, everything has to happen in linear time, so it's not instantaneous. It takes time."

"Everything as in the city, the state?" Then. "The world?"

"As in everything." He reaches up to wipe the fresh blood away with his sleeve. "All planes, all that exists right now." All times may be coming eventually--linear time should make that impossible, but what he's doing is also impossible, so there is that.

He can almost hear Dean thinking--for all he knows, he might be doing just that and just hasn't noticed Dean's thoughts with the distraction of everything in the universe trying to pour itself into him--before he says, very quietly, "How much of that can your body handle now?"

The answer to that is currently in progress. "I don't know."

"And you thought learn by doing was a good idea," Dean says flatly. "Christ. What happens if you can't stop it?"

"I'm not sure." It isn't quite a lie; there are many possibilities, each more horrific than the last. "When the amount of sensory information is too great, I could lose consciousness, which might cause it to stop--"

"Might?"

"I did it deliberately," he answers in frustration; the headache faintly recedes, not a surprise really, Dean is impossible to ignore. "I'm not sure it can be stopped without--stopping it myself."

"What happens then?" Dean asks immediately, obviously having already assumed worst case scenario as a matter of course. "If it keeps going after it knocks you out, then what?"

"It will eventually burn out my optical nerve as it is what it is currently the primary channel," he answers reluctantly. "However, it's utilizing all my senses, so it would still have four more to concentrate on. I assume given time, it will burn out my entire nervous system, provided that--"

"So it's gonna kill you."

Castiel nods blindly, wondering in disbelief if his last conversation with Dean will be exclusively devoted to describing the many hideous ways he could die. "A vegetative state is possible, but that assumes the strain doesn't result in a cerebral hemorrhage."

"Yeah, much better, thanks." Dean huffs an impatient breath. "Tell me again why you thought this was a good idea?"

"I thought--" Castiel swallows, startled by his own anger; surely by now, he should have accepted this. "I thought I could control it. Choose what I wish to see, focus on one thing, a single thing among many and ignore the rest of it. I didn't think there would be this much…." Despite himself, Castiel's eyes drift away from Dean, and the expansion continues immediately--there's so much, how could he have forgotten that, and the pain stretching across his forehead increases exponentially, long fingers stretching into the tight muscles of his jaw. "Angels see everything, but humans can see one thing, focus on that one thing and exclude all else. I thought I could do that, too. If it worked at all."

"Cas!" Abruptly, a heavy weight drops into his lap and warm, callused hands cup his jaw, jerking his head up until there is nothing but Dean. "There we go," he murmurs, thumb wiping across his upper lip again, the smell of iron overwhelming. "Keep talking. Why can't you stop it? Break it down for me here. Use small words. Do you know how?"

"I think so, but it's--" He tries to think of some way to explain. "Imagine crossing an entire house you have visited only once filled with hundreds of people constantly getting in your path while you are searching for a single lightswitch with extremely loud music playing at full volume in every room." He hesitates. "The house keeps getting bigger as well. And sometimes the other people beat you with machetes so you forget what you're doing."

Dean makes an unidentifiable sound. "So you're distracted."

"That would be a word for it, yes."

"So you gotta focus." Dean tilts his head up further, fingers digging into the flesh below his chin, and somehow, he can feel. "No, keep looking at me….huh." Dean's gaze, intent and thoughtful and more focused than he's ever managed to be in all his corporeal life, gives the impression of satisfaction. "That's what I thought," he murmurs, almost as if to himself, sounding oddly satisfied. "Keep looking at me, Cas; got it? So you need something to focus on, right? Slow this down so you can catch your breath and figure out how to fix this?"

At this point, Dean's judgment is definitely superior to his own. "Yes, I think."

"Your one thing," he says cryptically. "Let's try this: make it me. Can you do that?" He nods, which gains him the harsh bite of Dean's fingers digging into the bone as if he plans to leave his fingerprints as reminders. "Say it, Cas. Use words."

"Yes," he says obediently, making himself focus on Dean alone, the pressure of his fingers, the weight across his thighs, the sound of his voice. Falling had taken away his ability to see Dean's soul, to read his mind and follow the complicated emotional currents that then he was able to observe, never entirely understand. This is different, filtered through human senses, and different, because this time he understands, at least a little, of what he's sensing. Dean's fear is discrete as he evaluates the situation as a hunter, but the lines keep blurring, leaking worry and anger and a terror under strict control, but over it all is a bedrock certainty you could build an entire world on. "I can do that."

"Yeah?" Dean wipes away more blood, the coarse fabric rough against his skin. "Okay, the bleeding's stopped, that's gotta mean something. You with me?" He waits for Cas to nod. "Good. Now turn this shit off."

It could his imagination, but even the headache seems to recede in the face of Dean's aggressive confidence. He shouldn't be surprised; in all his existence, nothing and no one's ever been able to so effortlessly elicit his undivided attention. Oh.

"I would like you to remember I have yet to attempt to seduce you." More than anything at this moment, he wishes he could see the expression on Dean's face. "So there should be no misinterpretation of what I'm about to tell you: don't move."

He doesn't wait for an answer--in all probability, Dean's still circling that first sentence in baffled horror--reaching up until his fingers circle Dean's wrist and sucking in a startled breath at the contact.

Five years on this world and two trapped within this form, and only now, the vast gulf that always seemed to exist between what he knew of humanity and what they truly were, what he was here, seems so much smaller. The theoretical knowledge written into him since time began, all of humanity and what it, has context in this improbable man who is everything that humanity is, was, and could be in all its limitless potential.

Castiel thinks: if there was ever a good time for revelation, this is the opposite.

"Cas?" Dean's voice is quiet, a contrast to the fast beat of his pulse against Castiel's fingers, the only sign of fear that he can't control. "You okay? Talk to me."

"I need a moment."

"Take all the time you need." Dean is both the mountain that will not come on command and the man who could make it want to. To his surprise, callused fingers wrap around the back of his neck, Dean's forehead a point of bright warmth against his own. "You can do this," he breathes. "I'm gonna fucking kill you when it's over, just so you know."

He nods, careful not to dislodge that fragile warmth. "So noted."

Concentrating, he goes back to the beginning, anchored by Dean, their first meeting, how this began. He remembers the day he first saw Dean out of time, too high to care what was happening or why, only that it stop. There are certain benefits to long-term abuse of mind-altering substances; he's had far stranger trips than watching someone vibrate in spacetime. Then, it didn't occur to him to wonder if it was possible to make it stop; he just did it, thoughtless, as instinctively as he breathed. He didn't consider the possibility of failure, and even if he failed, the consequences would have only been to himself.

This time, the consequences of failure aren't a migraine that won't end or even just his own life. Dean's life hangs in the balance as well, living in a world he doesn't know, the Apocalypse still held in abeyance because of him, and what he saw tonight, what he learned, and the fragile, newborn suspicion of what might have done this.

The headache increases immediately: don't think about that, good idea.

Fingers dig into his jaw again as if in emphasis, and he drags his attention back to where it should be. "Uh huh--keep it right here. You're doing fine."

Dean thinks he can do this, and he's so tired, so very tired of disappointing him. Just once--this one time--he won't. "I can do this."

"I know." Dean's fingers tighten briefly, reassuring, possibly to them both. "Now do it."

Focusing on Dean, he thinks of the world as it can only be seen with human--no, with his own eyes, the body that he no longer simply wears but has to exist within as well--separating out what belongs to it--sight, hearing, feeling, taste, smell--the boundaries of a corporeal form it's meant to see.

It's shockingly easy; he's lived this way so long, living in the world as a human does, the limits so sharply delineated they're impossible to mistake and he wonders for a moment why he thought it was hard. Carefully, he folds everything else up and tucks it into the place in his mind he first found it.

It doesn't quite fit yet, leaking around the edges in rainbow coronas around the slowly focusing blur of Dean's face, but the green of his eyes are unmistakable, light incandescent, as if by will alone he could force this to work. Staring into them, Castiel tries again, waiting for the tap--almost like the snap of something falling into place, set aside and away--and he closes his eyes, hearing Dean's slow, even breathing and matching it, the beat of his own heart, the soft sounds of the city at night, the smell and taste of the air, the ground hard beneath him, the jeep against his back, and Dean's hand on his neck and the anchoring weight of him in his lap.

When he opens his eyes again, it's full night, and Dean draws back far enough to peer down at him suspiciously, face a pale oval but the green eyes are still impossibly bright, as vivid as Creation itself.

"You were glowing," he hears himself say, and Dean's eyebrows jump in alarm. "You did, I mean. You don’t anymore."

Taking a deep breath, he realizes belatedly his fingers are numb and carefully unfolds them from Dean's wrist, letting his hand drop to the reassuring solidity of the asphalt beneath them.

Dean's frown deepens. "Cas?"

"I--," He stops, his voice rasping unpleasantly in his ears and wonders if he's sounded like this through their entire conversation. Clearing his throat, he tries again. "I apologize for…"

"What?" Dean follows his gaze to his wrist, now circled in already-bruising purple in the shape of Castiel's fingers. He could have broken it, he thinks in distant horror, still getting acquainted with his body again, senses still somewhat jumbled and almost painfully visceral, like Falling again and finding himself in a human body without the benefit of being human, but no, it's nothing like that.

It's familiar: no longer an unknown, hostile territory in which biology seemed to be constantly attacking him from nowhere, engaged in a constant, grim battle that he had no choice but to lose. He's fought it so long that he forgot he was even doing it, much less how to stop; it feels like something wound tight loosening, easing.

"Cas, talk to me," Dean says, dangerously flat. "You okay?"

He clears his throat again, and this time, his voice sounds more normal. "I didn't mean to--"

"It's fine." Dean's eyes narrow. "Answer my question. You okay?"

"Yes. It worked, thank you." Without the distraction of imminent sensory overload, the pain from biting his lip, the beginnings of what will be a spectacular headache, and lingering ache in his right hand from far too much writing make themselves known, followed by exhaustion, the cold of the night, and horrifyingly--because biology does this--that Dean is sitting in his lap.

Castiel thinks, trying to keep very still: I don't believe this.

"Good." Dean's eyes close, shoulders slumping in patent relief and shifting in place as if to emphasize the horror. "Don't do it again."

"That will be difficult to promise," Castiel tells him, feeling lightheaded and trying to find the motivation to ask Dean to move before he notices anything--would 'awkward' be the correct term? "Fighting to keep from burning out my own senses is such an enjoyable way to pass an evening. But if you insist--"

"Shut up." Sliding back to the ground beside him, Dean picks up the bottle, oblivious to Castiel's mix of utter relief and regret. "And fuck you. I need another drink."

---

It's almost fifteen minutes before Castiel can think clearly again, organizing a mind that feels bruised and tender. Concentration is almost impossible, but that's nothing new. Dean is slumped beside him, one arm draped across his upraised knee, still gripping the not quite empty bottle.

"May I--?" He almost reaches for it, but Dean's glare isn't encouraging. After a moment of resentful attention, the bottle is shoved in his hand and Dean's head drops back against the jeep. "Thank you."

"Don't do that again," Dean says quietly, not looking at him. "Tell me you won't ever do that again."

Castiel finishes the bottle, licking his lips before he sets it down, relieved his hands are no longer shaking. "The Apocalypse may not be such a pressing problem as we assumed." To think that may be a preferable subject of conversation at the moment.

Beside him, Dean goes still for a long moment before he blows out a breath. "Right. How are we going to die this time?"

Death is the least of their concerns at the moment. "It's complicated."

"It always is," Dean answers with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Okay, what is it?"

"You were right," he says finally, regretting the empty bottle more with every moment that passes. "There's nothing there. It's nothingness at its most essential; it's the meaning of absence."

Dean's eyes flicker to the road, evaluating. "So what we're looking at is what?"

"I'm not sure how to explain." Dean frowns at him and Castiel tries again. "After you look at something that's very bright, when you look away, you still see spots, correct?" Dean nods slowly. "Think of this as the equivalent that extends to all senses, and even as we speak, it is in the process of fading."

"That's why it looked like metal?"

"No. That--what it appears to be--happened before it was dissolved." He can feel Dean's frustration and tries again. "Two things happened in sequence. Something destabilized the molecular structure of everything in this place and it was reformed in an undifferentiated mass an instant before it was dissolved from existence."

Dean licks his lips. "So the tank and everything around it was destroyed."

"Creation itself was dissolved," he answers deliberately. "There's nothing here, Dean: it's absence. Not just of everything, but of all that was and is and will be, and on every plane of existence. There is nothing here, not even reality itself." Almost involuntarily, his eyes drift back to the road, remembering all those points of darkness. "This isn't the only one."

Dean nods; it always gets worse. Always. "How many?"

"I'm not sure." Even now, he can see those points of glowing light surrounding absence sprinkling the entire world. "They seem to be confined to metropolitan areas, however. More specifically, at least in this continent, in the areas zoned as infected, but they're worldwide, I think." He's fairly sure he didn't get any farther than the outer stratosphere before it stopped.

Beside him, Dean is uncomfortably still, probably waiting for him to explain what did this and how to fight it, but to his surprise, he asks, "Okay, is this gonna kill us tonight? I mean, we drove over it yesterday, so…." He trails off invitingly, which Castiel assumes means that he should answer.

"No." Honestly forces him to add, "At least, I don't think so."

"Good enough." With a grunt, Dean pushes himself to his feet before extending a hand. "Come on," he adds impatiently when Castiel stares at it blankly. "You're about five minutes from passing out; I know the signs. Let's get out of here."

Blinking, he tentatively takes the offered hand and is dragged to his feet so quickly his vision blurs, black spots dancing in front of his eyes.

"Whoa," Dean murmurs, catching him when he stumbles and sounding weirdly satisfied. "That's what I thought. You can pass out in the jeep, promise."

He's aware of being pushed into the passenger seat and starts to protest, but Dean shuts the door in his face, waving his keys cheerfully in front of the passenger side window. Giving up, he leans his head back against the headrest, trying to organize his thoughts enough to explain to Dean what this means, but what he really wants to know is when Dean became such a skilled pickpocket. This is becoming embarrassing.

He's out before Dean starts the engine.

---

Castiel awakens in a bed surrounded by walls painted in dull, dying orange that's almost familiar. He waits for the instinctive panic at the weight of his mortal body settling over him, binding him to a single place and time, the helpless terror of being trapped with no hope of escape, always brand new and always horrifying and always, always present the moment he awakens from slumber no matter how quickly he suppresses it.

He's still waiting when a voice interrupts. "Hey."

Startled, he pushes himself upright, fighting back an unexpected wave of lethargy, and sees Dean leaning into the doorway, the smile stretching his lips not quite reaching his eyes. Feeling unbalanced, he searches his memory and then glances at the slowly growing twilight and realizes it must be dusk. "How long did I sleep?"

"You woke up at dawn for a few minutes," he answers, pushing off the doorway and pacing to the foot of the bed. "Got you some water and a painkiller, asked how you felt, but you fell asleep before I got an answer." The smile fades. "You okay?"

"Yes," he answers automatically, perfectly willing to lie if it means removing that expression from Dean's face. However, a rapid internal inventory confirms that it actually seems to be true; the tender, bruised feeling has settled into a low ache, and physically, his body seems unharmed other than a sense of unfamiliar tiredness. It's nothing like the hard, blurry exhaustion that usually precedes sleep; this is softer, more gentle, a comfortable blur that tempts him to sink back into the mattress and indulge the pleasant lassitude.

Gazing at the window, he counts the hours since dawn; in all his mortal life, he doesn't think he's ever slept so long without the benefit of injury or medication, sometimes even prescribed to him for that very purpose.

"Thank you," he adds uncertainly into the waiting silence. "I don't remember anything after getting in the jeep yet."

"That's because you'd passed out by the time I got in." Dean's shoulders relax even as the green eyes narrow, mouth tightening in a narrow line. "You slept eighteen hours. Hungry?"

Castiel shakes his head at the question; he never is.

Dean frowns. "You should be. Give me a minute."

Dean disappears out the door, giving him the opportunity to decide what he should do. Get up and perhaps shower, follow Dean to the kitchen and sit at the table as Dean has insisted is the correct way to consume regular meals: he's still debating moving blankets that are inordinately heavy when Dean reappears, holding a tray--one of many objects that Castiel has noticed appearing in the cabin without explanation, origin unknown--and sitting it on his lap. Besides the unidentified, thin yellow substance in the bowl, the tray also has two pieces of toast, a full glass of water and two more painkillers that he recognizes from his own supply.

"Sam would get these headaches after he got visions," Dean says, seating himself on the edge of the bed, one knee pulled up to rest on the mattress, socked foot occasionally tapping air. "The really bad ones, he'd sleep forever, but it was hard for him to keep anything down. We learned fast how to deal with it. Figured it'd work for you."

Tentatively, he picks up the spoon, not entirely surprised that he's being carefully watched. Dean's caustic observations on his eating habits isn't entirely unwarranted; even he knows his maintenance of a human body can only be considered successful in the sense he's kept it alive and relatively functional. It may be annoying on some level to be treated like a child, but not any that he cares about exploring, and the results inarguable; he's officially eating more in a single meal than he used to over the course of entire day.

It's not until he's finished the entire bowl--Dean makes a production of checking--and both pieces of toast that the tray is taken away, and he seems to decide that conversation is in order.

"Good thing you're still pretty much skin and bones," he says, as if picking up an earlier conversation. "I had to carry you to the cabin. Didn't even twitch until you woke up at dawn. I figured since you could see well enough to drink a glass of water before you went back to sleep, you probably weren't a vegetable yet. Not like there was a doctor around for me to ask if you were gonna wake up again, so I had to go on faith there."

Castiel's perfect memory helpfully replays the entire conversation regarding the potential consequences of his actions last night; from the look on Dean's face, he remembers it as well.

"How close?" Dean asks roughly. "How close was that to killing you?"

Looking into the clear green eyes, he thinks how easy it would be to lie. He wouldn't even have to try and be convincing; Dean would do all the work for him. "It was worth it."

Dean goes dangerously still.

"It would have been worth it if it killed me," he continues steadily, hideously aware of the ache in his head, the lethargy that keeps tying his tongue in knots, the words he needs eluding him, and right now, he needs to think most of all. "I can explain, but--" He needs Dean to leave for a few minutes if he has any hope of accomplishing that.

Something hits his chest with a thump, landing in his lap. Slowly, he reaches for the half-empty prescription bottle still stained with Dean's blood.

"I'm gonna make coffee," Dean says flatly. "If you're gonna shoot up in the bathroom, take a goddamn shower so I can at least pretend you're gonna stick to what's in the bottle."

---

He actually does take a shower, leaning back against the cracked, dingy tiles under the weak spray of lukewarm water, still feeling more tired than he thought possible. The lethargy would be worrying if he could summon the energy to care; every limb feels impossibly heavy, movement belated, as if he's moving through honey, and his mind feels like it's encased in solid lead.

Closing his eyes, spots dance hazily before his vision before bursting into sudden brilliance against the backs of his eyelids. His head snaps back against the tiles with an audible crack as they multiply into dozens, hundreds, thousands, screaming across the surface of existence like bending metal. Fingers scrabbling desperately for purchase on the slick shower wall, he opens his eyes to infinity shattering in white-limned holes spinning outward before his eyes. When he looks down, an abyss stares up at him that swallows each bending shriek of living light into silence, the entire world opening up again around him as it starts again.

A shock of pain reverberates up his arm, and he realizes he's crouching on the floor of the shower, knuckles buried inches deep in broken tile and splintering wood, candy-pink insulation puffing in scratchy wisps almost to the wrist.

Head clear enough to think, he concentrates on the memory of Dean: one thing. Stop.

Distantly, he hears the harsh sound of his own gasps for air as his body slowly closes back around him in a warm cocoon of flesh and bone, spitting out a mouthful of fresh blood as water falling across the surface of his skin, joining the sharp throb of his hand. Pulling it free from in a rain of slivered ceramic and wood, he mechanically flexes his fingers, checking for broken bone, relieved that even now, his body remembered how to throw a punch appropriately.

Sitting back against the curve of the tub, he takes a deep breath, then another, absently swiping a thumb beneath his nose, blood bright against his skin before it's washed away, swirling in fading pink trails down the drain. When he's certain the dizziness has passed, he gets to his feet, reaching for the soap with renewed energy and tries to think of how he'll explain the hole to Dean before he needs the shower.

---

Tramping out of the bathroom in a cloud of dispersing steam with the first aid kit, Dean glares at him but restrains himself until, freshly clothed from the basket of laundry he did yesterday, he sits obediently on the bed.

"I swear to God, Cas--" He cuts himself off, shaking his head tightly as he sits down, slamming the lid open and unpacks the necessary supplies with absent ease before he stares at Castiel in silent command until he extends his hand.

Curious, he watches as Dean, with surprising gentleness, unwraps the washcloth from his knuckles, hissing at the half-coagulated blood speckling the split skin of his knuckles, swollen reddened skin just beginning to darken into what will be some truly spectacular bruising.

"Do you know how to repair bathroom tile?" he asks as Dean expertly cleans it, reaching into the kit for a fresh piece of gauze and rewrapping his knuckles, thumb securing the bandage as he tears of a piece of tape with his teeth.

"Looks like we're gonna find out," Dean answers grimly, concentrating far too intently on the most effective placement of the tape. "You sure nothing's broken?"

"I did learn how to throw a punch without injuring myself," he answers as Dean turn his hand palm-up, smoothing the last of the tape into place, automatically checking the tightness before nodding and sitting back, the better to unleash the full force of his glare as Castiel withdraws his hand. He has to admit, evaluating Dean's work, there are advantages to having someone else do it; it's much neater than anything he could have managed himself.

Settling cross-legged against the headboard, Castiel watches Dean's face flicker through a plethora of expressions before he finally settles on exasperation. Brandishing his right hand, he shakes his head. "Looks like we're bandage buddies. Jesus, why the hell are we worried about the Apocalypse killing us anyway? At this rate, we'll kill ourselves before it gets around to doing the job."

"Not unless we inexplicably acquire hemophilia to inhibit coagulation." Ignoring Dean's narrowed eyes, he sips from the cup of coffee, still warm, that Dean made while he was in the shower. Looking down, he studies the lighter color, sweetness washing away the lingering taste of iron; despite his anger, Dean still took the time to add the optimum amount of cream and sugar.

Abruptly, his cup is pulled out of his hand and replaced with a piece of clean gauze. "Your nose is bleeding again."

"Oh." Wiping away the tiny trickle of blood, he fights the urge to sigh. "This isn't a cause for concern. The damage last night isn't entirely healed, and I hit my head in the shower. It's residual."

"Probably wanna wipe your mouth if you want to be more convincing. Unless you're into drinking blood now."

"I bit my tongue. Do you want me to show you?"

Dean cocks his head, like he may be seriously considering it, bandaged hand moving to rest against his knee and drawing Castiel's gaze. Dean glances down, fingers flexing reflexively before he looks up again, eyes filled with a question he isn't sure he wants to ask, because the answer may not be something he wants to hear.

"Has there been any further--"

"Me being crazy? Nope. You, though…." He unconsciously makes a fist, knuckles pressing against the bones of his knee. "Good place as any to start, I guess. What happened last night?"

"What you saw at the crossroad…." He pauses, searching for a way to explain something that he's not sure he understands himself. "The comparison to the sigils you wore to hide you from sight is perhaps the most accurate analogy. As a human would feel dissonance should they come in physical contact with you while you wore them, so did you when you touched the ground at the crossroad."

"Because there's nothing there even if it looks like there is." Dean begins to nod before frowning. "Wait, so if I hadn't touched it--"

"You shouldn't have stayed there long enough to want to, much less want to at all. It took a great deal of effort for me to do it, and it was even more unpleasant than I expected." He fights the urge to look at Dean's hand again. "That's probably the reason you felt compelled to--"

"Rub all the skin off my hand?" Dean looks at him challengingly. "So that would happen to anyone who touched it?"

He licks his lips. "What you touched was antithetical to Creation, to existence itself. The human mind isn't designed to retain a memory of nothing, which is the definition of what you sensed. Patrol's probably seen it several times by now, but they wouldn't have remembered anything unusual about the crossroad, even if they had touched it. Their minds don't want to."

"But I did."

Leaning back against the headboard, Castiel tries to think. "You didn't remember it as what it was. You remembered it as what it wasn't, which, while effective in retaining the memory, isn't something most people would think to do." That anyone would do, if they were capable of even knowing there was something to retain. "Do you know how you did that?"

Dean blinks at him incredulously. "How the hell would I know? You're the--" he makes an elaborate gesture that is eloquent in its lack of meaning. "You! Infinite knowledge, angel--former angel whatever--this is your territory! You tell me!"

"Former angel," he agrees, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice. "Not current. Also not a god or oracle. If I were, I wouldn't have a headache."

"You deserve it," Dean says venomously. "So guess, make something up, not picky here. What if it happens again? Jesus, what's next? Disembowel myself to remember my birthday?"

"I'm almost certain that disembowelment to encourage memory retention is counterintuitive to the purpose; you have to be alive to share what you remember."

"Then what--"

"It stopped after you told me all that you could remember," he interrupts. "As the symptoms haven't returned, you were successful."

"Yeah." Dean hesitates, glare turned searching. "Last night, you knew what to do."

"You were exhibiting all the classical symptoms of a powerful compulsion last night; that's why I knew to question you. When you responded appropriately, you confirmed I was the object. Essentially, the goal was to tell me what you saw as best you could." At Dean's silent request for clarification, he shrugs. "It's a fixed thought, sometimes involving a set of instructions that must be completed. Deviation tends to be…." he stares at Dean's hand for a moment. "Discouraged."

Dean follows his gaze, nodding slowly. "Yeah, that'd do it."

"Not if the instructions weren't clear enough for you to know what to do. Or drastic measures were necessary to get my undivided attention." He closes his eyes, wondering how he missed it. "You were trying to tell me since you left the crossroad. You just didn't know what it was you were supposed to tell me; it was my responsibility to ask."

"Uh, Cas, not to…." When he looks up, Dean makes a face. "Just throwing this out; how would you have guessed before last night?"

"Your behavior was unusual since you were at the crossroads. I noticed, but obviously--"

"Yeah, insomnia and…."

He huffs a breath, annoyed. "Restlessness, irritability…you were tapping."

"Tapping." An entire universe of disbelief fills the word.

"On everything," he explains. "Including me if no other surface was available."

To his bewilderment, Dean's expression progresses through an assortment of contortions before he says, "If you start getting paranoid when I have insomnia or--tap, I guess--and randomly questioning me on--think about what you're saying here. I think we can set the bar a little higher than that." A hint of amusement creeps across his face. "You're not an oracle, remember? Though why the hell that would have helped with this, no idea."

"I don't either," he admits reluctantly. "I must have missed something, however. You shouldn't have had to do damage yourself to fulfill the compulsion. That's generally only implemented to force compliance when all else fails."

"I knew." Dean frowns into the middle distance. "I mean, I wanted to tell you about it--Jesus, more than I wanted to sleep--but I couldn't figure out why I wanted to so much. It bothered me." Almost in unconscious confirmation, Dean stretches his hand briefly before shaking his head. "Okay, so next, this compulsion--"

"Yes, I was about to get to that, but I was sidetracked." Castiel sighs. "The only problem with that theory is that usually, that requires someone to set it. They're not difficult, provided you lack even the most rudimentary ethics, but knowledge is necessary, as well as opportunity, and Dean, not only have you not been out of my sight long enough for someone to do it, there's no one who could, not here. I could," he adds in the spirit of honesty. "Provided I decided to embrace evil very abruptly and for no particular reason, but…."

"I think we can safely exclude you." Dean blows out a breath, but he doesn't look nearly as alarmed as Castiel would have predicted. "Could I do that to myself?"

He frowns. "Why--"

"Lack ethics, evil, shitty side effects to force behavior…" He glances down at his hand with clinical interest. "This is amateur. Get someone to slowly disembowel themselves because they can't carry out the instructions, now that takes skill." He meets Castiel's eyes. "Not that I remember or anything."

"How often does that happen?" he asks quietly. "What memories you were able to retain shouldn't have been--"

"The skillsets?" Dean takes a breath. "Not often. More the last year or two, but Cas, come on. There was a reason you called me in to question Alistair. You knew I kept some of it."

"What you demonstrated then was all you should be able to remember enough to accurately reproduce."

"How much did Dean demonstrate to you with those demons?" Castiel stiffens, swallowing. "You didn't think about what he was teaching you? Did you ever wonder why he even wanted to?"

"No," he answers unevenly. "I didn't ask."

"Yeah, he probably counted on that," Dean answers, something unrecognizable edging his voice before it vanishes. "Compulsion--if it's something a demon knows, I got it in my head somewhere. I don't remember much of what happened at the crossroad except what I told you, but if it was enough time--"

"To do it to yourself? Yes, there was." Enough time to set the discipline in response to deviation; it could have been anything, and there were dozens of more effective options available, but something slow and painful with no risk of permanent damage, and indirect enough to assure there would be time for damage before it was broken--it was nothing, really, except for the reflexive malice that inspired it when there were only moments to decide what to do.

Dean nods shortly. "Mystery solved. So, about those holes--what are the chances that we got a completely new monster fucking shit up when we've got one of those already working the Apocalypse angle?"

"Occam's razor," he agrees. "The only thing that can dissolve Creation is Creation itself. That narrows the possibilities to those who can control the forces of Creation, and in this world, there is only one individual with the power to turn it on itself to its own destruction."

"Lucifer," Dean says, leaning his chin on one hand, tone implying that he thinks Castiel's treating him like an idiot. "He used his Grace to do it."

"Only Grace could do this, yes." While he wouldn't put it past his Father to decide to wipe out existence, He would do a far better job of it. Those thousands of lights are seared into his memory, beacons flashing their warning of destruction.

"Okay, so give me the bad news," Dean says, breaking into his thoughts. Frowning, he looks a question on what Dean thinks could be worse than holes in Creation. "You told me what they are; now what are they gonna do?"

"They don't do anything," he answers in surprise, then realizes Dean's bandaged hand is clenched into a fist against his knee. "Touching it didn't cause you any damage. They're where reality no longer exists; they can't do anything right now."

"And what about later?"

"In themselves, they simply reflect where reality no longer exists."

"Get to the 'but'," Dean says in resignation.

"I'm trying," he says, not entirely untruthfully. "The afterimage you can see and feel acts as an inadvertent form of protection by giving human senses something it understands to redirect attention. When that fades--and it will eventually do so--there will be nothing there to distract attention."

"You stare into the abyss, what happens when nothing stares back?"

"A remarkably apt description. The human mind can't conceptualize it, which is why memories can't be formed, but without something to distract it, it will keep trying to do so."

Dean stares at him for a moment. "They'll just keep looking at it until something gets their attention or someone stops them?"

"Yes, and the longer they look, the more it will take to do that."

"And then?"

"I don't know." He thinks for a moment. "Other than compulsion-caused, have you ever--been unable to stop thinking of something?"

"Like a shitty song? Indy music," Dean says in disgust. "Sam thought it was funny."

"I hate when that happens," he agrees, remembering the first time that had happened to him; eventually he'd been able to stop, but the experience of two lines of a very annoying song constantly playing in his head isn't one he'll ever forget. Dean's mouth curves into a surprised smile, and he's almost distracted by wondering why that seems to please him, other than shared suffering.

"In this case, it's not something you remember, but that your mind hasn't been able to define so you can do so. Human minds react to that in two ways; they ignore it entirely, as they did with the sigils you wore to redirect attention, or if there's no distractor, they keep trying. In this case, there's no way to know which it will choose to do. The risk would be the same each time there was exposure; instead of dismissing and forgetting it, the human mind will attempt to understand it. Possibly even after the exposure is ended."

"So they'd just keep--trying? Even if we dragged them away? For how long?"

"Seconds, minutes, hours, the rest of their lives, I don't know. The human mind is complex, but it's not built to understand what's the opposite of reality itself, and because of that, it may simply continue to ignore it."

"Best case scenario." He nods. "Now worst."

"Worst case, they keep trying. Like a fixed thought, but without anything to trigger it to stop. Depending on the progression, it might be days before cognitive function is noticeably disrupted because their attention is so focused on trying to define what they saw," he answers reluctantly. "Perhaps two weeks before they enter a catatonic state, at which time their nervous system will begin to degrade due to brain function being distracted from maintenance of the body. They'll be unable to sleep, to eat or even process any form of nutrition, and eventually, their autonomic nervous system will no longer receive commands, leading to a cessation of respiration as well as pulmonary function."

"They'll forget to breathe and their heart will stop. Just seeing this can kill people?"

Castiel reaches for his coffee cup, ignoring the splash of cold liquid across his wrist and finishing it in a single, breathless gulp. He only realizes he's shaking when he drops the cup, fingers unable to grasp the handle any longer, and he watches numbly as it falls to the floor with a muted thump.

"I don't know," he says, staring at the overturned cup. "No one could, because this--this absence was what there was before there was anything at all. Before all things, there was nothing. Existence defines everything it's not."

"Fuck." Dean sits back, looking helpless. "So what, now Lucifer's bored with the conquest thing and is just gonna destroy everything? You said he wouldn't destroy the world, but this? Looks a shitload like just that."

Tearing his eyes away from the cup, he focuses on Dean's pinched face, skin drained of color, lips a tight, bloodless line. "He's not trying to destroy the world."

"Then what the hell do you call this?"

"If I were to make a comparison," he answers, "I would wonder if the kitchen was covered with broken dishes because someone had a terrible day."

"What the fuck does Lucifer hypothetically trashing his kitchen have to do with…." Dean trails off. "He lost his temper."

"This has never happened before," Castiel answers obliquely. "He has no idea what is supposed to happen when he won at Dean's death other than potentially a great and nightmarish celebration in the bowels of Hell--"

"So he threw a temper tantrum that night?" Dean finishes grimly. "So what was he targeting?"

"Not the cats. That was just a side effect due to location."

Dean blinks at him. "What?"

"Your observation regarding the absence of cats, the wildlife fleeing, I should have realized--" Castiel breaks off, aware of Dean's steady gaze and tries to put it into words. "The holes aren't evenly distributed across the earth; they're in clusters in specific places. Places that he's claimed, that he considers under his control, mostly urban areas. All of them are in the infected zones."

"Why would he destroy the places he controls?"

"Not so much the places--the buildings are intact, insofar as they were before--but anything living within them. If Grace were released without much in the way of instruction to what it should destroy--kill all living things for example--"

Dean looks blank. "Instruction? Why would it need instruction? I mean, it's not like it can think for itself…." He stares at Castiel. "It can think?"

"Of course not. If it could think, it would know to choose his enemies," he answers reasonably, which inexplicably makes Dean look more alarmed. "In this case, it was indiscriminate and seemed to be limited to the animal kingdom, which would include Croatoans and humans in those places he controls, as well as cats and rats. In the absence of that--Dean, if you shoot into a crowd without looking, you can't pick what the bullet hits."

"An accident." Dean shakes his head, looking stunned. "He destroyed his own goddamn army by accident."

"And all the animals and people within those discreet spaces as well. The wildlife outside the cities, unlike humans, wouldn't be affected the same way by seeing those holes in reality; however, they would have sensed a release of Grace like this as inimical to them without bothering to wonder what it is, and they wouldn't need to be in the city to sense it occurring."

"So they made a run for it."

"Away from the unleashed power of Creation, yes. They have much better survival instincts than we do."

Dean lets out a breath. "An accident."

"It should be impossible for an angel to lose control of their Grace like that. We can't make those kinds of mistakes. That he did…." He's not sure what's more terrifying; those holes, the possibility that Lucifer managed to overcome the strictures of his own creation in a fit of rage, or--worst of all--that he didn't.

Dean frowns at him before his gaze slips down, focusing on Castiel's bandaged hand. "If he didn't have Grace, he'd have punched through a wall by accident when he lost control of his strength."

"I doubt you can use me as an accurate model for what an angel would do," he says, reluctantly amused.

"Yeah, you're more than that, but you're kinda all I got to work with." Dean lets out a sigh, unaware of Castiel blinking at that last statement. "Jesus, okay. The fading thing, how long do we have on that?"

"I don't know, which I'm as tired of saying as you are of hearing it," he answers. "If I'd been observing it from the moment it occurred, I'd be able to calculate the exact rate of decay, but at rough estimate, probably a year at minimum. Two weeks of daily observation will give me a better idea of--"

"Uh, no."

"Not that way," he tells him, seeing Dean marshaling arguments for what he can tell will be a protracted war if he's not careful. "It feels wrong, Dean, and believe it or not, I can actually quantify that objectively just by being near it."

"I don't want you near that thing." Dean's expression doesn't change, but the awareness that there isn't any choice is clearly visible in his eyes. "How long?"

"A few hours--" Dean's eyes widen, so probably not that much. "An hour."

"Thirty minutes, and since I'm going with you to watch, good time to ask you any questions I have."

Every minute, probably: yes, he should have known. "Agreed."

"Good. It wasn't worth your life."

Startled, Castiel looks at him. "What?"

"What you did last night--what we found out, nice job, I get this is something we should know, thanks--but getting it, not worth your life. Promise me you won't do anything like that again."

"I can't promise that."

"Yeah, you can. You can break it later, I get that, but you're gonna promise anyway, so I can pretend to believe it. Give me that much, Cas. It's not so fucking much to ask." Dean looks away, licking his lips. "Your life, your choice, I get that, but it's not zero sum, never is. You're not the only one who has to live with them, Cas; I do, too." He's still circling that statement when Dean adds, "Anything else about this I need to know?"

"If it's any consolation," he says uncertainly, "it is unlikely this will happen again."

"So we only have to worry about the holes already here. Lucifer acting like toddler with phenomenal cosmic powers, sure, but he'll limit himself to shit that won't destroy reality. Jesus, here I thought this might be hard." Dean stretches elaborately, shirt riding up to reveal a half-inch of smooth golden skin, stop looking, stop looking--then checks himself. "So I was thinking."

"Please don't," he says, alarmed by Dean's expression.

"You sure you don't want to conquer the world?"

"What?"

"I liked your plan," he says sincerely. "Proselytize to the masses, happy stoned sex cult? We could do that. Be fun to try to pull off, anyway. God knows, this Apocalypse could use some of that."

Castiel is startled by his own smile. "I'm not a general, Dean."

"I could learn," Dean says, grinning back. "I've got some time."

"And my army?"

"We got a militia to start." Dean considers that for a moment, then make a face. "We'll leave Sid here. The world has a fuckload of bridges. We hurry, we have time for the victory party before Lucifer finishes up the Apocalypse." Stopping, he looks briefly appalled. "Think Lucifer would have a party in Hell when this is all over?"

Castiel tries to conceptualize his Brother's idea of a party and fails. "I'm sure everyone would have an utterly horrifying time."

"Ours would be way better. Less torture, more drinking." He thinks. "Then get a sandwich and sleep for a week content in the status quo. What about you?"

More than anything at this moment, Castiel wants to say sex, and a lot of it, but the truth is so surprising that instead he hears himself say, "Milkshakes."

Dean head comes up sharply. "What?"

It's almost embarrassing. "I have never--I don't remember ever sampling one, not since I Fell. As refrigeration takes a great deal of power--"

"Making milkshakes is not a component of the mission, so yeah, no opportunity these days." Dean laughs quietly. "I just realized--your entire exposure to food since you Fell has been, what, canned or--"

"Had only an hour before been running desperately away from us, yes." He can't believe he's thinking about this right now. "When I Fell, I had far too much to learn to pay more than the necessary attention required for maintenance of this body. It wasn't relevant, it still isn't, but I remember you and Sam would order milkshakes often and you enjoyed them. When you cook, you seem to enjoy the results of it. I don't have context for that, but maybe--"

"Context. For food?" Dean says blankly. "Hold up, for enjoying food? You don't--dude, you don't know what you like? Is that why you don't eat?"

"I eat," he answers defensively. "Food is a necessity for survival. I've never grasped how it could possibly be enjoyable, however." For a moment, the memory of hamburgers in three digit quantities lingers, but Famine's influence makes that experience with food suspect. "I found more accessible sources of pleasure."

"Life is more like Pringles; you can't have just one." Dean gives him an appalled look. "That's sad shit, Cas."

The comfortable silence stretches long enough that he almost forgets what they were discussing earlier. Rousing himself with surprising difficulty--the edge of the exhaustion is eased, but without intervention, he'll need to sleep again very soon--he sighs, getting Dean's attention. "I can reproduce the locations of the--"

"Not tonight you're not," Dean interrupts, looking him over critically. "You remember where they all are?"

"The holes? Yes."

"Much as I appreciate your willingness to hand draw our maps, we're gonna need something bigger for this. I'll get Joe to get whoever's free and find a few world maps for you. Let's figure out where this shit is before we get around to worrying about the fact we don't know how to deal with it."

"It's likely that Lucifer will complete his conquest of earth before they become a problem," Castiel offers, then unexpectedly yawns, startling himself.

"Get some sleep," Dean says in a strange voice. "Seriously, you still look like shit. This'll wait until tomorrow."

It's such a common statement, and so ridiculous in this world; even more ridiculous is that he's starting to believe it. "I can't remember ever sleeping this much at one time before without sedation being a factor. Or so often, for that matter." He shrugs at Dean's frown. "Something I noticed recently regarding my sleep habits."

"You get tired, you sleep," Dean remarks. "It's not rocket science."

"Of course it's not; rocket science is something that can be learned, and infinite knowledge fortunately covers that in some detail." Fixing his gaze in the space between them, he says with studied casualness, "The track marks are almost entirely healed; I was very careful. I assume you saw them last night."

"Six, seven months old, yeah." For a few moments, there's only the sound of Dean's breathing. "I checked your collection out the other day after what you said about Vera and Jeremy."

"You thought I'd confined myself to hallucinogenics and prescription stimulants." Why Dean would assume that is a mystery. "I've tried everything at least once--even now, very little can't be acquired provided you can meet the price--but it was far simpler to limit myself to what could be easily and regularly obtained or what I could make myself."

"Infinite knowledge," Dean says softly. "Comes in pretty handy."

"All of human history, all of existence in its entirety, and I use it to manufacture high quality MDMA, hallucinogenics, and amphetamines."

"And the alcohol of the Elder Gods," Dean adds, mouth quirking. "Can't fault you there. At least once the hangover's over."

"I didn't shoot up. Earlier." Dean stills, eyes intent. "I generally don't--the effects can be unpredictable, but heightened aggression combined with lowered inhibitions are only advantages when I'm in the field." His eyes are drawn to Dean's bare wrist, purple darkening to black; he can trace each individual finger without effort. "I couldn't risk accidents when I wasn't."

Dean frowns, following his gaze and then looking at him again in confusion. "This? Not a problem. Got worse getting out of bed."

"Not unless when you got out of bed, something was trying to hurt you," he answers, voice breaking despite his best efforts. "I wasn't even trying."

"You know how to throw a punch," Dean says in a tone implying agreement, though with what is a mystery. "So you'd know how much pressure it takes to break bone. Makes sense."

"I could have crushed your wrist past any possibility of repair, even if we had someone who could repair it and the facilities to do it."

"You didn't." Dean cocks his head, unimpressed with the potential for emergency amputation in his future. "So you learned something new; going crazy from the definition of too much information and you still didn't hurt me. Awesome. Anything else?"

It takes several seconds for Castiel to remember how to speak. "Not at the moment, no."

"Get some sleep. Yell if you need anything. I'll be around." He jerks a thumb over his shoulder before turning away too quickly for Castiel to read his expression. "Night, Cas."

Castiel watches him reach for light and finally manages to speak. "Good night, Dean."

---

--Day 33--

Despite having showered, Castiel feels only marginally more conscious than when he woke up to the sound of Joseph's far too enthusiastic greeting to Dean at his arrival. Despite that, it's still a massive improvement over dawn, when Dean took one look at him and ordered him back to bed with a painkiller and a glass of water. From the quality of the light coming through the window, he's fairly certain that it no longer qualifies as morning any longer.

Leaning drowsily against the frame of the open bedroom door, he watches Dean engaging Joseph in enthusiastic discussion, gesturing broadly to punctuate each statement. Joseph's usual reserve is almost absent, worn away by the sheer blunt force of Dean's personality deployed with all the subtlety of a battering ram, all the more effective for the fact that Dean has no idea how powerful it actually is or what he could do with it. Worlds have burned to ash in the name of people who could do far less than what Dean does as instinctively as he breathes, and his major use of it is to make friends of his own soldiers.

Joseph bursts into laughter, collapsing into his chair, years of wariness washing away before his eyes, and Dean isn't even trying.

He clenches his hands in the edge of the soft flannel overshirt and can almost pretend they aren't shaking, feeling the burst of pain across his knuckles beneath the bandage. The ghost of a headache ripples across his forehead, the memory of pain; he can only blame the opiates for the fact that until now he didn't think about what he almost did to himself last night.

"Hey," Dean says suddenly, turning to look at him, and the force of that smile is blinding, overwhelming, destroying everything in its path. "You want some coffee?" Getting to his feet, he glances at Joseph belatedly. "You?"

"Sure, thanks," Joseph replies with an admirable lack of visible surprise, as if Dean offers to get people coffee all the time. His "Good morning, Cas" however, is followed by a long pause. Joseph's face goes through a bewildering series of contortions--it's far too early to try and interpret even if it is noon--before composing itself into what might be polite interest. "You okay? You look…." There's another extended pause before he gestures at the couch. "Sit down already."

An excellent idea: he wonders why he didn't think of it himself. Surprised by his own yawn, he makes his way to one end of the couch and sinks gratefully into the cushions, aware of a lingering lassitude pervading every cell of his body. It's rather pleasant, all things considered.

"I'm not used to--" He's startled by another yawn, along with an inexplicable desire to avoid movement in the foreseeable future and perhaps acquire a blanket and pillow. "I usually don't sleep this late."

"Looks like you might need a few more hours," Joseph observes, cocking his head.

"Which is what he's gonna be getting when we're done," Dean tells him, returning to the room with two cups and handing one to Joseph before dropping into a crouch, studying Castiel's face critically before saying more quietly, "Feeling better?"

Are you going to bleed to death from your own stupidity, yes, he understands the question. "Much," he murmurs, fighting back another yawn as he focuses on the coffee cup; the aroma is somehow both enticing and soothing.

"You need to eat something," Dean says, inexplicably still holding the cup just out of reach. "I'll see what we got. Forgot to raid Chuck's yesterday for more supplies, but we got enough for another meal."

"Fine, yes," he says immediately, and Dean smiles smugly as he hands over the cup. Gratefully, Castiel takes a drink and fights back a sigh of sheer satisfaction as Dean, retrieving his own cup from somewhere, drops onto the couch beside him. When he looks up, Joseph is staring between them as if he's never seen them before, cup forgotten in one hand. "I like coffee," he explains. "No one told me it improves with the addition of sugar."

"Sugar makes everything better," Joseph agrees, taking a sip as if to prove the point, but the brown eyes dance with amusement before he looks at Dean. "So--"

"You convinced me," Dean tells him sincerely. "You're back on duty."

Joseph raises an eyebrow in polite disbelief.

"And to celebrate, I have a job for you--two, actually. First, I need some maps, biggest you can find. Cas covered the state already, so get me country and global. Anything else?" he asks, glancing at Castiel questioningly.

"Things you use on maps to show locations--"

"Map pins?"

"Those, yes. And more pencils--I'm almost out."

"Might as well as Chuck if he needs anything if you're knocking over an office supply store," Dean says. "Think you can get that done by dusk or you need another day?"

"No problem. I saw some last time I checked the central library," Joseph answers, taking another drink. "What's the other thing?"

"You're leaving for the border tomorrow morning. Who you taking?" At Joseph's confused look, Dean grins. "You've been promoted, effective now. Who do you want for your team? Not Vera: I need her for something else."

"Ana." Joseph answers after a moment, valiantly attempting to hide his surprise. "Leah and Mike. Uh, what about Sid--"

"I'll talk to him." Dean sits back, giving Joseph an evaluating look. "How long will it take? Ballpark?"

"Three days including travel, probably less," he answers. "Last time, it took them about a week to get everything. I'm using the estimates from last time on what we'll play, but if they want more, I'll send someone to clear it with you."

Dean waves a hand. "I trust your judgment. Cas is gonna give you access to all our accounts; I need a balance check while you're there, see what we got to work with. I'm guessing if you can break into the DMV, you can figure out how to get that without them seeing what you're doing?"

"Uh, yeah." Joseph shifts in his seat. "So anything I should add to the list…"

"We'll go over it again before you leave, but add this now," Dean says. "Any sign of the military entering or leaving Kansas."

Joseph stills briefly before nodding. "Got it."

"And by the way, officially, this is going to take you about two weeks," he says. "Check with Chuck on rations."

Joseph lowers his cup. "It will?"

"You got another mission when you're done. Secret," he adds, grinning at Joseph's expression. "In case that wasn't clear."

"Sure," Joe says, straight-faced. "What am I doing?"

"You're going to Wichita, Topeka, Olathe, Overland Park, and Kansas City. You get two days per city, so pay attention. I need two things: first, go to where the military was bunking, see if anyone's left; if they are, leave. If they aren't, I'm sending Alicia with you, and she'll report to me." Leaning forward, he rests his elbows on his knees. "Can you get a camera?"

"Yeah," Joseph answers, intrigued. "Chuck has one."

"Perfect. Second thing: if no one's there, don’t touch anything." Joseph nods firmly. "Get someone to photograph every room and do a full inventory of what they've got first. Better if you can get it off their systems, but if their generators are out, we'll worry about that later. When you're done with that part, this is a salvage operation; start with rations, gasoline, ammunition, and weapons, all you can get in one jeep, but take good notes. Eventually we'll get everything they got."

"Right." Joseph regards them both for a moment. "And if they show up while we're there--"

"If they're not there, they're not coming back," Dean says, picking up his half-empty cup again. "So might as well put what they got to good use."

"Just one thing--I don't know where they were bunked."

"Have a little faith, Joe." Reaching over the arm of the couch, Dean retrieves a rough stack of papers, some crumpled and with visible water stains; on top is a series of faded Xeroxes, much folded and worn. Startled, Castiel straightens, just remembering not to ask where Dean got them. "Locations, floor plans, and where they kept everything, or as much as I could see during my visits. Think I'd send you out blind?"

Joseph's mouth cracks into a smile. "You got keys, too?"

"Dude, why would I make this easy? I got the passcodes, but most of the doors just need a lockpick. Take enough C4 in case the codes are outdated or need power and for the armory."

"Ana can set the charges," Castiel inserts blandly. "She was trained in explosives during her time in the Marines."

Dean tosses him a quick, grateful smile before turning back to Joseph. "Alicia will be assigned to bring me daily reports and any supplies you get, so someone needs to record everything--hey," he says, looking pleased. "I think Phil's just found his true calling. I'll talk to Sarah. Make your bathroom breaks short, though; he's got some kind of thing about that."

Castiel closes his eyes. "He's entered the realm of the novella."

"God bless him," Dean says maliciously. "Anyway, report to me tomorrow morning after patrol and I'll go over the details with you. You've done patrol in the cities, but take Cas's maps with you anyway. Get Phil to do any updates if they need 'em."

"Right." Joseph looks down at his empty cup regretfully. "Anything else?"

"One thing," Dean says casually, taking another drink of coffee to hide his discomfort. "Only people who need to know what you're doing is your team, but not until the negotiations are done at the border. Then you tell them everything you know. Anyone else asks, this is just a border run."

"Yes, sir." Joseph hesitates, brown eyes flickering to Castiel briefly before visibly bracing himself and looking at Dean directly. "You're sure they're not coming back?"

"I'm pretty sure they're dead, and from what I know about their deployments, even if the military knew they were gone, they weren't gonna be replaced."

Joseph snorts. "Surprised they kept it up this long. They wrote off the zones when they made 'em. They're just waiting for everyone in here to die." Looking at Dean, he hesitates again. "Does this have anything to do why it's been over a month and everything's quiet on the western front?"

"And the lack of squirrel stew in our lives? Probably, but I can't be sure. What you find will help figure it out." Dean gives Castiel a brief glance. "Joe, if anyone reports something feels weird when they touch something, get away from it. Take a picture and make sure you put it in the daily reports."

"All right." Joseph visibly tries to decide how to ask his next question. "Weird, like something the military is experimenting with or weird as in bad feeling?"

Dean stares back at Joseph a little blankly, and Castiel realizes only belatedly the danger just as he opens his mouth. "A feeling," he says quickly before Dean can speak. "They won't want to touch it or will avoid it entirely. They might not even notice that they're doing it if there is nothing visibly unusual. If possible, have someone required to act as an observer at all times and document where it is occurring."

"Is it dangerous?" Joseph asks neutrally.

"At this time, no, or I would evaluate it myself before sending anyone else."

Joseph nods again, slowly getting to his feet, expression schooled to polite interest. "So anything else?"

"No," Dean answers easily. "See you tonight."

When he's gone, Castiel reaches over, taking the papers from Dean's hand, paging through them until he finds the notes on the military. Frowning, he glances at the Xeroxes, wondering how on earth they were acquired, much less why. "Where--"

"Everywhere. The bottom ones were holding up the table leg," Dean says, then abruptly slams his coffee cup down. "So Joe thinks we're being secretive dicks."

"No, you think we're being secretive dicks," Castiel answers, scanning the next page, filing away the information at a glance for later thought. Dean made notes: contacts, names, ranks, locations, tracking his meeting with surprising regularity. It makes sense, he supposes uncertainly; in case he was unavailable, one of the team leaders could take his place. "He thinks that we have information that we're not yet ready to disclose for good, albeit unknown, reasons. Which has the benefit of being true."

Dean glares at him. "And that doesn't make us secretive dicks?"

"It makes you," Castiel answers as evenly as possible, "his commander, whom he trusts has good reason to not tell him yet. It makes me a hypocrite, which is nothing new."

"Fine, I think we--plural--are secretive dicks. So tell me why the hell we can't tell him about this?"

This discussion would benefit from either more coffee, a class two stimulant, or perhaps Dean having it with someone else. Any would do. "For one? Because then everything will feel 'weird', as you put it. To confirm their existence, relative objectivity is needed, and unless there are very obvious visual disparities, all we have to work with is 'a feeling'. I'd prefer to go myself--"

"No."

"I understand your reservations, so I won’t insist," he agrees, though he doesn't, not at all, but the way Dean looked last night gives him pause. He's regularly tested another Dean Winchester's temper and patience as a matter of course: a solution to boredom, a way to pass the time, or simply to prove he could, and knew exactly how to elicit the response that he desired, as predictable as clockwork and reflexive as breathing. This Dean, however…. "Practically speaking--you're still thinking like a hunter in a world where what you do is best known by a series of bestselling novels that are considered fiction. Here, those things are not only fact, but assumed to be a clear and present danger of immediate death until proven otherwise."

"Paranoia," Dean says sourly, crossing his arms. "I get it."

"Survival," he corrects him. "Considering our mission, it's also generally a valid concern. Which brings me to my second point; this is a militia of hunters. Whether or not it was possible to win the Apocalypse, Lucifer was something concrete that we could fight and could, in theory, be stopped or killed, preferably killed, of course, and humans can be ridiculously optimistic. While it's known an archangel's Grace is very powerful, the worst that could happen was he'd win and wipe out humanity. Or possibly become the new god, I'm still unclear on--"

"God?" Dean straightens in alarm. "Lucifer wants to be a god?"

"I doubt he was serious," he answers impatiently. "Which is beside the point."

"I really, really think this should be a point somewhere."

He closes his eyes, wondering why counting to ten is recommended for moments like this. It never works. "So decided, later." Reluctantly, Dean nods, slumping back into the cushions. "The worst potential ending was the destruction of humanity, and as you may have noticed, his weapon was more or less visible and we could kill it. Telling them that Lucifer's Grace, released upon the earth, can create permanent holes in the very fabric of reality would lead to the obvious question of can he do that to the entire world--the answer is yes, it's possible--and if the war goes badly and we seem to be winning, he'll take the eraser method of dealing with it."

"How is the end of humanity better than punching holes in existence?" Dean demands.

"It shouldn't be." There's no way to explain his own visceral reaction to idea; even if he wanted to do so, words haven't been invented yet to define what he felt when he'd see those holes. "But it is, and I don't think you actually disagree with me."

To his relief, Dean grimaces, conceding the point. "Yeah, I get it. Keep going."

"At this time, the problem is relatively contained and completely harmless, and it will remain so in the near future."

"And if there's more of them because Lucifer has another temper tantrum?"

The headache gets worse, and Castiel wonders vaguely if perhaps he was wrong about damage. "I almost killed myself getting you this information," he says, and distantly, he hears Dean's breath catch. "I think it's very little to ask of you in return that you delay disclosure to everyone in this world until we know more about it."

He regrets it immediately; easing into a subject is far more difficult when you don't usually care about the audience enough to have practice doing it.

"I mean--"

"You're right." The couch shifts, and to his surprise, Dean tips his face up, an inexorable pressure that might define the futility of resistance. Green eyes peer searchingly into his, worried. "Headache?"

"A little," he whispers, clutching the cup. "And tired."

"Hungry?"

"I'm never hungry," he answers without thinking and freezes at the admission. "I suppose I could eat something. Maybe sleep. Someone told me once that it helps."

Dean's worried expression lightens. "I got some reading to do before Joe shows up tonight anyway. I'll get you something to eat, then you can get some rest while I research the fuck out of myself. Sound good?"

He doesn't trust himself to do more than nod, which seems enough. Plucking the empty cup from nerveless fingers, Dean gets to his feet. "And more coffee." A trace of smugness threads its way through his voice as he adds, "Fridge is working, by the way."

Castiel looks toward the kitchen and then at Dean, who radiates satisfaction. "Can you make the dryer stop beeping? It's annoying, and now I have to deal with it on a weekly basis."

"Joe offered me all the beer I want if I fix his range," Dean says thoughtfully.

He sits back. "What do you want?"

"Where's the Eldritch Horror?"

"Top of the utility closet behind the stack of Farmer's Almanacs," he answers immediately.

"And the still?"

"Please." He crosses his arms. "What are you offering?"

Dean rolls his eyes before starting toward the kitchen. "I'll think of something."

---

Map of the World, 9/11