wip amnesty: like a metaphor, spn, Dean/Castiel

So every day is WiP Amnesty Day. Or so I tell myself. I have come to the (mostly) reluctant conclusion that I will never finish these, and that two will let me test the post limits in dreamwidth.

I kind of want to create a tag in honor, called ghosts of failures past. But eh.

Title: Like a Metaphor
Author:Seperis
Codes: Dean, Castiel, Dean/Castiel, Dean/Other
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: through 4.10 season four
Summary: This is Dean's myth.

ETA: Holy God, 42,000 words posted in one entry. It's like Christmas.



WiP Notes: 42,064 words. Ironically, this one was once done. Then while talking to svmadelyn about it, she thought, and I agreed, it wasn't--as done as it should be. So I commenced central rewriting, starting around page ten to about page eighty. It has a beginning, a plot, an ending, and porn. There is some uncertainty how they fit together, as there's a fairly massive chunk of the middle never finished.

Part of it is the heavy mythology--I had a vague idea starting when Castiel starts telling the stories of the people he was guardian to before. Part of it is, cold feet. There's nothing quite like realizing you are hybridizing your Lutheranism with your mother Baptist background and marrying the result off to Dante's Inferno to make you highly self-conscious about what the hell you are doing.

My favorite moment was realizing I'd written Las Cruces into this one as well, which I used in All the World Beneath. Very cool.





Dean can't say that he's spent all that much time wondering what Castiel did when he wasn't being mysterious and irritating--and right, an *asshole*--but if he'd made a list, he's pretty sure "playing in the sandbox" never would have made it.

He doesn't know the guy--angel--whatever well enough to work out if this is bizarre coincidence, some kind of complicated and headache-inducing plan to show Dean he's really not that bad an angel--no, guy. Angel sounds freaky.

While life wasn't less complex before Castiel--because seriously, no, it wasn't--at least his (lack of) theology wasn't being tested on a daily basis by a living so-not-a-myth-what-the-fuck wandering around in a trenchcoat and lecturing on God's eternal love. Because really, give him a werewolf any day of the week. At least they made *sense*.

Whatever, Dean's at a playground, and while he's on the fence about Castiel's motives, he's fairly sure the guy's not actively evil, and Dean should get back in time for Sam to make a transparent excuse about research that only holds water if you're blind, stupid, and completely unaware Ruby's checked into a motel down the street.

Dean is none of these things. Subtlety in condom purchases, thy name is not Samuel Winchester.

He teeters on the edge of turning around and walking away, taking his Twinkies and all the processed sugar he could manage to fit in a single bag with him, but there's just too much not-normal going on in a disturbingly normal scene. Leaning into the tree beside him, he takes out a Twinkie and tears through the cellophane with his teeth, watching as Castiel, jacket and coat stripped away, sleeves partially rolled up pale forearms, patiently assists a small girl as she tries to build a sandcastle without the benefit of water or much in the way of hand-eye coordination. A dark-haired woman sits on a bench nearby, torn between her book and watching the sandbox, who Dean assumes to be the kid's mother.

It's got to be some kind of freaky angel-ness; normally, a mother would be thinking "pedophile", not "assistant builder of crappy castles" when a guy wants to play with her kid.

Dean stands there long enough to watch them build half a turret, a failed drawbridge, and hear the girl laugh when Castiel stopped a wall from collapsing with what is definitely not anything like his *hand*. Freaky angel-powers used to keep sand in place; Dean's not sure what he's supposed to do with that. Starting in on the Hostess cupcakes, Dean watches the mother finally stand up reluctantly as the sun dips toward the horizon.

"I'm sorry," she says with an apologetic smile, reaching for her daughter. Castiel stands up, not bothering to so much as brush the sand off his pants. "We'd better get back. It was nice to meet you, Castiel."

"And you as well," he says gravely. The girl, pulling away from her mother, wraps one small hand in the bottom of his shirt, pulling insistently. Obediently, Castiel crouches for the messy hug, all sand and loose black hair and gap-toothed smiles before she returns to her mother.

Castiel watches them leave, expression unreadable, before he absently brushes the sand from his pants. Dean wonders, a little maliciously, how long it will take before Castiel discovers that sand's migrated into his underwear. Dean knows all about that; it's some creepy law of sand. Goes straight for the sensitive spots. Assuming Castiel has any, which Dean just doesn't think he's prepared to speculate on, like, *ever*.

Dean half-expects Castiel to turn around, look straight at him, tell him with a single glance that yes, he knows Dean's there, as he is a superior being, and maybe start in on something involving the words "work", "God", "plan", or "Hell".

Castiel does none of these things. Picking up his coat and jacket from the neat folds he'd left it in on the wooden beams of the sandbox, he doesn't do much of anything for a while, face showing something new, something Dean recognizes with a shock that pushes him away from the tree before he can think better of it.

Angel, Dean reminds himself grimly, but he's already out from under the tree, boots crunching on gravel, and Castiel looks up, a most uncelestial look of surprise spreading across his face, chased with something a lot like embarrassment.

"Got a plan for her, too?" Dean says, because smartass is his default. He doesn't--quite--regret it, but he kind of wishes he'd just settled for a frown or hell, went back to the motel and found zen again in a thousand cable channels and nothing to watch, pretend Sammy's not--

Anyway.

"She has recently lost her father," Castiel answers without heat, and if Dean were the sensitive type to notice that kind of thing, distracted. In their short acquaintance, Dean's become used to a certain amount of *attention*, and it's not like he'll be crying into his beer tonight over the lack, but it's irritating anyway.

"Oh." Dean drops the rest of the cupcake in the bag, licking filling from his lower lip. "Recent?"

"He was--possessed--before his wife gave him peace," Castiel answers flatly.

Dean looks sharply the direction they went, but they're long gone. "She's--"

"A hunter, yes. So is her daughter."

Dean glances at the sandbox again, then frowns, moving closer. Around the edges of the pile of not-castle are familiar symbols; circling it is a line of pure crystal white. Kneeling on the edge, he reaches a finger into it, recognizing the feel of table salt. "She--"

"To protect the princess that lived within," Castiel says softly. Dean jerks his head around, but Castiel is looking at the path the small family took from the park. "Her mother prayed for the strength to continue her fight, for comfort for her daughter."

"And you showed up?" Dean couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice if he'd wanted to, and he didn't. Two thousand eight years of human history have passed and easing one--two people's pain doesn't do shit for the millions that have suffered before. "She's a little young for the Lord's work, isn't she?"

"We've been permitted to walk the earth again; what I do now is nothing less than my purpose."

Dean doesn't like where this is going and he's got no one to blame but himself. Getting up, he grabs his bag, tucking it beneath his arm; with any luck, Sam's long gone and there are hours ahead of him to walk away the night that reminds him too much of everything he pretends he can forget.

"Do you think it was easy?" Castiel says, so softly that if Dean had been a single step farther away, he wouldn't have heard him. Turning around, he wonders if Castiel even meant him to.

"Nothing's easy in this life."

"No." Castiel's eyes fix on some point beyond Dean's shoulder. "I--we watched. For two millennia, I prayed for them, for their pain to be eased. I was *created* to care for humanity, and to be denied--" Long fingers clench into white-knuckled fists before Castiel stops with a surprised look; yeah, Dean knows all about his mouth getting ahead of his mind.

"I thought you were a soldier."

Blue eyes flicker down and away. "There are many kinds of war."

"Was Anna supposed to be a casualty?"

When Dean was ten, he learned to drive the old fashioned way; getting in, turning the key, and figuring out which pedal controlled acceleration and which one didn't by pushing them as hard as he could. Ten minutes and five trash cans later, Dad had dragged him out and treated him to a spanking he wasn't *ever* gonna to forget.

There's not a lot that Castiel and John Winchester have in common, but Dean remembers the phrase "test the patience of angels" and thinks Dad may have hit the nail right on the head.

"Anna's decisions were her own, made in full knowledge of the consequences," Castiel answers, which isn't an answer, but then again, Dean's not sure what the question meant, either. Castiel hunches into his coat in a way that the late November wind doesn't entirely justify, and for the first time, Dean wonders of Castiel is lonely. Uriel does not count as company.

"She said she was you and Uriel's boss." There are worse ways to spend an evening alone than poking an angel, but probably not many.

Oddly, Castiel hesitates, the flatness turning curious, which Dean's not sure he should consider an improvement. "She told you this?"

"Yeah." Dean feels himself start to flush beneath Castiel's gaze. Wrathful, flaming-sword-bearing angels would be nice; where the hell was Uriel when you actually *wanted* the guy around? "Talked to her. About stuff."

"I see." Like Castiel maybe *did* see, in technicolor, pornographic detail how that conversation ended. It's like being fifteen (sixteen) all over again and how Dad had known the second he saw Dean that he'd totally lost all claim to virginity less than thirty minutes before a hunt.

It was a good hunt, minus Dad's glowering, but it was a bad night, because John Winchester's version of the sex talk had led to six months of celibacy due to sheer terror.

"So was she?" Dean shifts his bag and starts toward the street, only glancing back when he realizes Castiel hasn't answered the question. For that matter, he hasn't moved either.

"Well?"

It's as close to an invitation as the guy's gonna get; luckily, Castiel's as asshole (maybe) but not stupid. Turning back toward the street, Dean waits until they reach asphalt before he asks again. "Was she--"

"Yes, in your terms, she was."

"Who took her place?" But Dean kind of thinks he knows the answer to that one, and fights the urge to feel sorry for Castiel. Going from Anna all-humanity-is-awesome to Uriel's kill-them-all-and-hope-God-doesn't-sort-them-out must have sucked.

"Uriel." Castiel's hands are in his pockets; if you didn't know what he was, he could almost pass for normal, some guy after work, loose tie, rolled sleeves, and the distracted look of someone wondering if they were late for dinner. Barely worth a second look, except maybe Dean, in a completely different time and place, would have looked more than once.

And conversation change...now. "So you do that a lot now?" Dean waves a hand toward the park behind them as they cross the street. "With the comfort and everything?"

"When I can, yes." Castiel's silent for a second. "Some appreciate my help."

Dean slow-blinks how very much he doesn't care, digging into his jacket pocket for his key. He hates these cards; even the motels are using them now. "That's great. Here, take this." Shoving the bag into Castiel's arms, he checks his other pocket, then his jeans. Stupid fucking *cards* of all godforsaken things; what the hell was wrong with metal keys? Some could do double duty as cold iron, or a quick way to get a bag of chips open when alcohol and coordination stopped mixing.

Castiel looks at the door over the top of the bag. "You will be able to open your door."

"I don't--" Then he stops, because, hey, angel. "Right." Reaching out, he pushes open the door, stepping over the salt by habit, looking around a room that feels more empty when he knows where Sam actually is. It's weird, weirder that he feels the absence of Sam now more than he did those long years he was at Stanford, even when his brother's sitting right beside him.

That's him, though, not Sam; Sam *tries*. Dean just can't. Not now. Maybe later. Maybe never. And it's not like there's much choice between Ruby and Dean as company for Sam; the difference between them is no difference at all, not anymore.

Dean hears the door close, bracing himself for an abandoned bag on the floor, but Castiel is just standing there, watching him like there's nothing more pressing to do than wait around motels while Dean does emo, Winchester-style. "Thanks," Dean says, taking the bag before Castiel can see his gratitude, dumping it out on the bed. One half-eaten cupcake tumbles out that he picks up, shoving it in his mouth as he prioritizes his sugars; fried cherry pie, fried apple pie, donuts, dunkers, pink snowballs (delicious enough to ignore the color, which Dean does, blatantly), one more package of cupcakes, pixie sticks…if Dean were a girl, there'd be ice cream, but he'd totally blown off the frozen food aisle. Christ, he's an idiot.

"Have a seat," Dean says over his shoulder, picking up a pie and unwrapping it. "You want anything?"

"No, thank you." Castiel takes a seat by the headboard, as straight as a ruler, looking at the pile of deliciousness with the kind of concentration Dean's more used to seeing during major spellcasting, or Sam trying to speak Babylonian without a Hebrew accent. Hint: it's a lot harder than it sounds. And really, *really* funny.

Pushing the pile toward the center of the bed, because Dean's a good host and also, for the easy-reach potential, Dean sits down, leaning back against the headboard. He isn't surprised that Castiel doesn't ask where Sam is; if anyone would know what his brother's doing at night, it would be an angel.

Dean wonders where he left the whiskey. It's full night, orange long faded from the sky, and there are a lot of hours between here and morning. Exhaustion doesn't stop the dreams, but by then, he's too tired to care.

And fuck Castiel if he looks disapproving. Dean reaches down, knocking against the bedside table before he feels the cool glass of the bottle.

"Dean," Castiel says softly. Closing his fingers around the bottle's neck, Dean pulls it up, turning on Castiel, ready to tell him to get his ass out if he doesn't like it, but then Castiel's hand curves around his jaw and Dean forgets what he was going to say.

Dropping the bottle, Dean wraps his hand around Castiel's wrist. "Castiel--" he hears himself say, barely recognizing his own voice, thick and breaking; he's never learned how to ask.

"You don't have to," Castiel whispers, and two fingers trace the hard crease between his brows, softening the skin as they pass. "You never have to. Be at peace."

When Dean wakes up, dawn is spreading pink fingers across the dingy blanket covering his legs and Sammy's snoring in the other bed.

There were no dreams that night.

*****

Heavy rains always bring out the worst in Sam; he'd been fussy even as a kid, and while getting dirty for the greater good was fine, slogging through mud for hours most definitely was not.

And yeah, wandering around in cold, wet socks with mud squishing between his toes despite boots and two pairs of socks isn't exactly what Dean would call fun either, but there's something about storms that's always attracted him. The heavy pound of rain, the flash of lightning, the rumble of thunder that trembles the ground beneath his feet, that he can feel through his entire body--it's like the second he dug free of that grave all over again, that first breath of clean air, that second of wonder--*I'm free*--when nothing else mattered.

Too bad that didn't last too long.

"Why are we doing this again?" Sam asks from somewhere to the left; ducking under a branch, Dean ignores him, drawing up a mental map of the forest that will invariably have at least one extra monster to send at them just for kicks. Dean's starting to suspect his life is more like a video game, complete with extra lives, than he ever wants to think about too much.

It's forty-five seconds before Dean feels the first stirring of something *off*--he's never been able to explain it, and luckily, both Sam and Dad never thought to ask--but he shifts their direction, following the faint sense that's been oddly stronger since he came back. Or maybe he's just more aware of it, the fragile tug like a finger pressing against the back of his skull. *This way.*

Dad hadn't had it, but then again, John Winchester didn't need it. Single-minded obsession worked just as well to develop the instincts and the reflexes. Sam didn't either, but Sam was super psychic demon Jesus don't think about it and anyway, and anyway--
"Dean?"

"This way," Dean answers absently.

"You sure?"

*Yes*. No. Dean almost says it, startled by the certainty that he's almost sure has never been there before. But there it is, pulling harder, and Dean stops short, blinking the rain from his eyes and reaching backward, getting a handful of Sam's jacket before he jerks them both to the ground.

"Dean!"

Sam face-first in mud would be funny--oh hell, it is funny and he's saving that image for later--but right now, mud worked into his jacket and soaking his knees, Dean knows they have to leave, leave *now*, do not stop, do not collect two hundred dollars, do not *walk*. "We gotta go."

Sam wipes the mud from his face, eyes wide, but he only nods, looking around them warily. Dean closes his eyes and reaches for Sam's arm. "Now."

Mud, grass, sand, *quicksand*, the sons of John Winchester know how to get away; Sam's barely ahead, stupid long legs that had given him an unfair advantage in every race they've ever run offset by Dean's utter certainty that whatever is behind them should not *should not* catch them.

Dean feels the gun pressed in the palm of his hand and already knows it's not going to work. He turns anyway, not seeing anything but not caring all that much, firing off three shots without losing much speed. "Get to the car," Dean manages in a single breath. "I'm going to--"

"The hell--"

Dean stops short, turning around, taking aim at absolutely nothing. "Sam. Get to the car. I'll be right behind you."

"Dean--"

"Go!"

Abruptly, the forest around him goes silent; even the thunder is gone. Dean turns around, chest tight, but Sam's gone, and Sam's just not that fast.

He wonders if he should be relieved; he also wonders how a thick forest suddenly developed a wide, circular clearing without him noticing. There's also a lack of mud he's not finding reassuring.

"Well?" If this is Castiel--even Dean can't figure out why Castiel would go through all this trouble when he can dreamwalk or show up at the door if he wants to chat. It doesn't feel like him either, or Uriel, but hell if Dean can figure out what it *does* feel like.

Keeping his gun up when there's nothing to shoot feels stupider by the second; he'll happily feel stupid to avoid feeling dead. Turning in a slow circle, Dean watches the deepening shadows between the too-close trees, shivering when the rain abruptly cuts off, grass growing greener beneath his feet and an unlikely cloudless sky opening above his head, endless black unrelieved by moon or stars.

"What do you want?" Dean asks tightly, hating how his back is exposed; there's no way he's going near those too-healthy trees, verdant leaves too vivid for what's supposed to be full night. The entire clearing isn't light, not anything like it, but the flora apparently haven't gotten the message.

Abruptly, a man steps out of the trees, and Dean's breath catches in his throat. Brown eyes regard him in amusement from behind a mop of messy black hair choked with dirt, mud beneath the broken fingernails on the hand that smoothes down the length of a mud-smeared shirt and jeans, caking his boots.

"You recognize me." It's not a question. The weird thing is, Dean thinks he should.

"No."

The man tilts his head. "You have seen my daughter. And my wife," he adds on an afterthought thick with malice, and Dean flashes back to the park and the little girl playing with Castiel in the sand.

"She killed you." Fucking up an exorcism wouldn't lead to a burial; why she didn't salt and burn is anyone's guess, but if the demon was still in there, he would have killed her. The kid, too.

"If I'd been what she thought I was, she might have succeeded." The man takes another step, and this close, Dean can see the first signs of decomposition, livid patches in yellowing skin, moving like his flesh is too loose for his bones.

Dean fires a shot at the next step, but he doesn’t expect it to work. The universe obliges him by proving him right, but Dean keeps going, backing away for every step the man takes toward him, not stopping until he's hovering at the very edge of a tree's shadow; something in him (in a voice kind of like Sam's, but with Castiel's irritating edge of smug superiority) saying that whatever's watching them--and something *is*, he knows it like he knows his name--isn't something he wants to meet.

The thing stops finally, tilting its head nothing like a man, unblinking eyes fixed on Dean.

"I come with a message. And an offer."

"Not interested." Dean edges around the circle of grass, keeping clear of the shadows, trying to find a way out.

"Tell him nothing dies forever," the thing says, like Dean hadn't spoken. Dean opened his mouth to ask who on earth he's supposed to tell that shit to, when the thing smiles with teeth that look like razors in a suddenly inhumanly large mouth. "There are other ways to escape Hell than the grace of an angel, Dean. We can help you."

"I'm good." There's got to be a way out. "But thanks. Can I go?"

A thick pink tongue wets its lower lip; blackish blood flowing sluggishly when flesh scrapes teeth. Dean mouth goes dry, skin chilling despite the fact the clearing is pleasantly warm. He's never faced anything that felt so wrong, like it didn't belong here at all, like the body that contained it was being changed before his eyes into something else entirely.

"Even Hell fears us, Dean," it says with another slow lick, another gush of black blood. Dean swallows hard, jerking his arm down before it can see how much he's shaking. "We'll be in touch."

Before Dean can react, he's enveloped in the smell of something long-rotted and dragged into air, two rubbery fingers pressing into his forehead that feel filled with something filthy, edges of hardness that might have once been bone floating inside, and he hits the ground so hard that he would have yelled, but he's too busy throwing up. Cold, wet lips press against his ear. "You still smell of your grave, Dean."

Stomach cramping, Dean jerks away, mouth sour with bile and feeling like he'll never be clean again.

*****

Time's lost somewhere; Dean thinks he's surrounded by earth, by the scent of his own rotting body, by a darkness that never ends. He'd taken Hell over this; there's nothing here. He wishes he could remember how to be afraid.

*****

"Dean! Snap out of it!" Hot water hits Dean in the face like a punch; sputtering, Dean opens his eyes and smells mildew and a wet, terrified Sam, still in muddy clothes now drenched from the shower. Dean meets wide, frightened eyes and tries to figure out--

"Shit." Struggling to sit up, Dean takes stock of the world and finds it weird; he's sprawled across Sam's lap fully dressed with the shower raining down water hot enough to boil key body parts all over them both. "Shit. What--"

"Dean, where are we?"

Dean twists around to stare at Sam; it's like he thinks that's an actual question. "What?"

Big hands close over his shoulders, shaking him. "Dean! Where are we?"

"The shower, asshole." Dean tries to pull away, but trying Dean really means he acknowledges that even thinking of moving any more just makes him more tired. Sam stares into his eyes, wet hair plastered to his forehead and scraped crazily from his eyes. He looks like an idiot. Dean feels himself start to smile and has no idea why. "Better ways to kill me than drowning in the shower."

Sam jerks him close, big body surrounding him warm and solid, like he wants to protect Dean from everything. It's weird, but Dean's not in the mood to try and care. Closing his eyes, he buries his face against Sam's shoulder and gives up any kind of interest in doing anything.

Luckily, Sam's all over that; in seconds, Dean's stripped, tossed into clean boxers and a t-shirt, and in bed. If Sam's using telekinesis, Dean's going to just not give a shit. The room feels too bright despite the fact it's full night and storming besides, too loud with the sounds of rain and their own heartbeats, their own breath, and Dean can't concentrate on any one thing when there's just. So. Much. Even Sam's voice is too fast, too loud, raising and falling in unbearable extremes of pitch, sheets scraping his skin raw with whispers like shouts.

Sam's talking to him, but Dean can't find the words to tell him--well, anything. They're trickling away, along with the desire to figure out what's got Sammy so upset, or move, or even breathe.

"Son of a bitch," from someone, somewhere. Dean feels his body begin to still, breathing slowing but still far too fast, the noise, the energy he doesn't have wasted, when all he wants is silence, is *peace*--

"That is not peace." A hand covers his forehead, smooth but burning with heat he doesn't want, dragging him back into this chaos, this chaotic *disorder* that clutters the purity of empty space and *what the fuck is he thinking*? "You do not want it, Dean Winchester. You *reject it*."

With a gasp, Dean opens his eyes to a world that makes sense and time starts again; Castiel's sitting beside him, blue eyes wide and filled with something huge and terrible, the way Dean thinks that maybe, Castiel looked when he carried a flaming sword and fought his fallen brothers for the sake of the future of humanity.

It's an interesting image; he lingers on it, feeling the draw of stillness again, but this time, he doesn't give into it, forcing words between numb lips. "Wanna see your sword."

Castiel's fingers trail down his cheek like liquid heat; Dean moves into it, teeth beginning to chatter. Christ, can't Sammy use a thermostat *yet* or did Dad scare him that badly? "You will," Castiel says, and maybe Dean imagined the softness that edges every word before Castiel strokes gentle fingers over his forehead. "Sleep now. You are safe."

Dean kind of thinks he is.

*****

At some point, Sam had curled up with him, and Dean wakes up with a sweaty younger brother attempting to suffocate him with love. He pushes at Sam's bulk half-heartedly, but he can't really muster annoyance when the memory of last night's cold is still enough to make him shiver.

Sam jerks up on one elbow. "Dean?" Backing away, he pulls at Dean's shoulder until he's flat on his back, the better to hover annoyingly. Dean blinks up at him, noting the dark circles beneath Sam's eyes, the almost invisible twitch of one cheek. "Dean, answer me."

"Yeah, present, here, whatever." Dean shifts uncomfortably, then blinks, staring up at Sam, memory hitting like the shower last night, but so much less pleasantly. "What the fuck happened?"

"That's what I was hoping you'd tell me," Sam says grimly, eyes unblinking as he stares down at Dean like he came back from Hell all over again. "I--you were gone. I couldn't find you. Then you just--you were laying there and you weren't moving--you weren't even *breathing*--"

"Like a corpse." Dean swallows. Sam continues to hover, expression grim, and Dean takes a breath. "There's another hunter in town. We need to find her."

Sam's expression shifts between anger, exasperation, then sudden understanding like changing channels. "She have something to do with this?"

"Not her." With an effort, Dean sits up; its easier to move, to think, with every second that passes, every time he *tries*. "Her husband."

*****

"...and then he's just standing there in the room. You'd stopped breathing, I couldn't get a pulse, and he just sat down beside you." Sam's voice is calm and even, but his body's anything but; Dean, working his way through his third short stack, pities the next demon they meet. They won't even get a chance to brag with Sam in this kind of mood. Stuffing a sausage in his mouth, Dean closes his eyes at the flavor of perhaps the greatest sausage ever made bursting on his tongue; *everything* tastes amazing, even the grits, and grits taste like *shit*. "I thought--"

"That I was dead? Wouldn't be the first time." He regrets it the second he says it; Sam's not near ready for that. "Sorry. I--" Dean thinks of the clearing and shudders. The almost obscene color of the plants, the grass, the stillness that had seemed to fill him down to his bones, the smell of earth and rot surrounding him. "I don't know what happened there."

Sam nods, hair hiding his eyes; Dean wishes he'd get a haircut to make the process of interpreting Sam's emotional equilibrium just a little easier. "What did it want?"

Dean opens his mouth, then hesitates, because while the words had said one thing, he thinks what it meant wasn't the same thing. "Gave me a message," Dean answers, spearing the last forkful of eggs and shoving them in to hide what he can't quite tell Sam. At least, not until he knows what it was.

"A message?" Sam's fruit plate looks a little too full; Dean helps correct that. "Are you ever going to stop eating?" A fork hits the back of his hand, but Dean gets the strawberry and Sam's smile, so he frowns for the sake of form and rolls his eyes.

"Dunno." Dean taps his empty fork on the side of the plate. "I don't know who the message is for, even if I wanted to be his secretary."

"What was it?"

Dean puts down his fork; for some reason, his hand feels a little less steady. "Nothing dies forever." For a second, Dean can smell rotting plants and wet, dying earth. Shaking his head, he picks up his coffee with both hands, warming suddenly chilled skin. "Unhelpful dead thing is unhelpful."

"You have *got* to get over macros already."

"When cats stop being funny." Dean takes a drink, coffee hot and rich on his tongue; it's like the whole world is just *better* today. "She thought it was a possession."

Sam frowns, playing with his fork. "She's a hunter, but didn't burn him after?"

Yeah, there's no way to get around that. Not embalmed either, which didn't do shit; the guy'd been tossed in the ground, and Dean's not sure there was even a coffin involved. That shitty a job would have gotten her killed a long time ago. "We need to talk to her. Whatever that was, it wasn't a standard possession."

"You sure it wasn't a demon?"

Dean hesitates; there's no way to explain how sure he is that it wasn't. Demons didn't let their meatsuits get that bad, even for shock value. And they sure as hell wouldn't let themselves be buried alive after a bad exorcism.

It's more than that, though; the thing hadn't been just borrowing the skin, it'd been changing it. Whatever it was, it wasn't human or demon; it hadn't felt *there* at all. Like--like something was using the body but not in it, not exactly--looking *through* it, maybe. Like a remote control corpse, or something.

Shaking himself, Dean puts down the his fork, pushing the empty plate back. "I never met a demon who could do what it did," he answers, because no matter how he tries to frame it, it sounds crazy. It felt wrong, Sam. It didn't feel like something that belonged here, or ever had. Like it didn't belong *anywhere* that something living was.

Dean remembers the dark silence it left him in with a shiver. And he's pretty sure it wasn't trying to kill him.

"I'm sure." Dean smiles as the waitress sways by, coffee pot in hand. Sam takes the bill with a frown at Dean to just deal with it already, which he will, because he left his wallet in the car.

"So," Sam says, looking around the small town, sunny and cool in a late fall Saturday, few people on the streets, "you have any idea where she is?"

"No." Dean scratches his chin thoughtfully. "But I'm betting she's here the same reason we are."

"The disappearances?" Sam frowns. "Why?"

"I'm thinking her husband was one of them."

*****

It's not hard; there are only three motels, and from the way she dressed, and carrying a kid along, she'd go for something a little classier than cheapest available. Dean leaves Sam to run the names again of the people who have disappeared, parking in the lot in full view of almost all the doors, and waits.

It doesn’t take long.

"Dean."

Dean grins, leaning back against the hood. "That didn't take long."

He can feel Castiel settle against the car beside him; he's getting more comfortable in his borrowed skin, and a few times, Dean swears he's seen him trying to slump. Dean scans the door, checking out the cars, trying to decide which was hers.

"Did you know it wasn't a demon?"

"No. I became aware--later." Dean sneaks a look at his face, but he's doing general unaffected-by-the-world, which doesn’t tell Dean much. "When you were attacked, to be specific."

Dean hesitates. "What happened?"

Dean can almost *feel* Castiel thinking; Christ, he's getting used to the guy. Slight tilt of his head, blue eyes distant, and body relaxing just a hair into something that, if you squinted hard, could generously call the beginnings of a slouch.

"You vanished," Castiel says finally. Dean frowns, twisting around. "From everywhere."

"What does that mean?"

"I am not--" Castiel frowns, obviously trying to make a decision. "There is no time or place I could not find you," Castiel says reluctantly. "You are there, whether I wish to find you or not. Last night, you were gone, and it left a hole behind."

"And that's--bad."

"I would have said impossible. We are not omnipotent, but what was done should be impossible, especially with you."

Dean crosses his arms, feeling suddenly cold. "So you can stalk me anytime you feel like it. Great." Though he can't really find much irritation anymore at the thought. "I don't remember what happened."

"I felt your return and Sam's call," Castiel says, sounding more sure. "And I felt you begin to disappear again. When I returned to the forest, there was no trace of anything other than you and your brother."

"I don't think I was in the forest the whole time." Dean tries to remember. "There was this clearing--"

Abruptly, he's got Castiel's undivided attention. "Describe it."

There's not much to describe; put in words, Dean can't explain how the plants had been too green, it had been too bright for the lack of say, light, the black sky devoid of stars and moon, the way the smooth green grass had felt like Astroturf under his feet, the deep shadows between the trees that felt like the holes for eyes that watched his every movement.

Describing the guy is easier, but even zombie doesn't come close.

"Like a dollhouse. I mean, a kid's toy farm or whatever," Dean says abruptly, working it out. "Like something someone made that was *like* a forest, but they hadn't ever really hung out in one. It wasn't alive."

There. "And that body wasn't either. It--I don't know what it was, but it wasn't a corpse anymore."

Castiel's expression doesn't change, but he's sure not relaxed anymore. "I see."

Which doesn't tell Dean shit, but he got the feeling Castiel didn't know either. From the corner of his eye, he sees one of the doors open, turning in time to see the woman emerge, bag over one shoulder, daughter held firmly by the hand. She sees them immediately, and even with Castiel standing there, Dean can see her hesitate.

Then she takes a deep breath, she leans down, murmuring something to her daughter, turning slightly to open the door and sending the girl back inside along with the bag. Closing the door firmly, she crosses the parking lot, and if Dean's reading the body language right, ready to fight even wearing heels and a pencil skirt.

She stops a few feet away, smiling tightly at Castiel. "Mr. Castiel." Her eyes flicker to Dean.

"Dean Winchester," he says, smiling in what he hopes is reassuring not-craziness. Her eyes widen, mouth dropping open slightly.

"Mary Campbell's son?"

Not what he'd been expecting. Dean pushes off the car. "You knew my mom?"

"Of course. My parents were very close to the Campbells. Janet Haverty." She hesitates, looking him over. "You're a hunter," she says slowly. "Were you in the park the other day?"

She'd seen him; he's betting that's the reason she cut that visit short. Castiel may have been the only thing that kept her from running sooner, with a guy lurking in the shadows staring at her kid playing in the sand. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"Mr. Castiel said you were a friend." Relaxing, she looks between them. "I'm sorry, is there something wrong?"

"I saw your husband," Dean says flatly; she doesn't look like the type that wants the sugar coating.

Janet licks her lips, paling, but she doesn't seem particularly surprised. "He wouldn't burn, after," she says slowly. "You wondered why I didn't finish. When I couldn't get the pyre to do the job, I tried the crematorium next town over. He came out--" She swallows hard. "Rotting."

"How'd you bury him?"

"Six feet under with lead and salt laced sand, then dirt, a couple of general binding spells until I could get a professional. I called a friend to see if she had any ideas on what to do." She motions behind her. "I was getting Sandy out of here and going to get some help."

"Now you have some. Me and my brother are here--"

"For the disappearances." Pushing back a strand of dark hair, she smiles slightly, and Dean's surprised to see the light blue eyes. "My husband--perhaps you'd come in? I think this will take a while."

Dean nods, glancing at Castiel, who nods politely. "Yes, thank you," he says before Dean can answer. "I appreciate your willingness to speak with us."

"Any kid of Mary's is family," she answers warmly with a glance at Dean. "And it's not often I'm honored with the presence of guardians." The smile she gives Castiel is completely different, lips curving up in a slight, teasing smile. "I know angels when they make my daughter smile."

To Dean's shock, Castiel smiles back, stepping back to let Dean precede him. "I am not surprised," he answers.

*****

"…so I came myself. He'd said he'd be out of touch while he tried to work his way into the cult, but we had a regular call in time. When he missed it, I waited three hours, then packed up and came myself."

Her eyes flicker to her daughter, currently completely uninterested in grown-ups, fighting zombies on what looks like a Wii. Dean can see the second controller and fights the urge to join her.

"We usually work tandem," she explains. "One stays with Sandy at home and does the research, the other the legwork. Usually James stayed home, since he's the one with the obscure history degree and all his professors on speed-dial, but Sandy'd been sick, and I thought he'd be okay on his own." Her mouth tightens. "He didn't grow up hunting, so it was still new to him. I didn't think this job would be much of a danger and it'd get some solo work done without me hovering over his shoulder."

Castiel nods, turning all that intense sincerity on her like a spotlight, which Dean finds so annoying he wants to kick him. "It wasn't your fault," he tells her, radiating so much reassurance that Dean wonders if either of them even remember, hey, he's *right here*.

"So you got here…" Dean breaks in when the staring goes too long. Right, they did forget; both of them look startled, and Janet sits back with a slight flush.

"I wasn't really worried," she says finally. "He's very good at fitting in. Better than I am," she admits with a little laugh ending in a sigh. "I just thought he'd fallen asleep over his books. When I got here, I went to the motel and he wasn't here. Nothing was. When I asked the front desk clerk, they didn't remember him being here at all."

Huh. "You sure it was here?"

"It was here. We have webcam; I saw the room. I have the phone number. I have the *receipts* he faxed me. For taxes," she explains at Dean's raised eyebrow. "But when I checked the motel log, there's nothing there, not even the phone records." She gestures to her computer. "There's nothing for those times, just blank space."

Dean doesn't want to ask, but he has to. "You sure he wasn't already--"

"Maybe." She thinks about it, running short nails restlessly over the material of her skirt. "But I don't think so. I would have known."

"If he was possessed," Dean starts, but Castiel shakes his head, and Dean loses the thread of conversation.

"She would have known," Castiel answers with the kind of certainty he uses when he talks about God. And that just irritates Dean all over again.

"There's no way she could be sure. She wasn't *here*."

"She would know." Castiel and Janet exchange an unreadable look. "For now, Dean, assume she is correct."

And that, apparently, is that. "How long between calls?" Dean says shortly.

"Every other day, nine pm after Sandy goes to bed." Frowning, she clasps her hands; Dean can see the ragged edges and dried blood of freshly bitten nails, out of place on hands that look like they belong to someone who's never used them for anything more taxing than typing into a computer. "He emailed me Tuesday, said he was going to check out a nearby hangout of some teenagers that had been acting oddly. There've been five disappearances reported so far, all fifteen to twenty-one. Most people put it up to runaways or kids leaving a dead-end town, so not much coverage. Or interest," she adds acidly. "That's what got us wondering."

"The police reports were cold-filed," Dean says, feeling vaguely competitive. "No follow-up, no parents calling for news, no articles in the paper after the disappearances are reported. It's like they forgot."

"No school records," she says, leaning forward slightly. "Bet you didn't track that down."

Dean doesn't answer. They hadn't gotten that far. What with Dean *almost dying*.

"I made some calls and whatever it is, it's erasing them straight to birth certificates and social security cards," she says grimly. "That's why I said five. Even the papers are changing. The five I have now are the ones since my husband vanished. The four we were investigating, as far as the world's concerned, never existed at all. Including the original clerk at this motel."

Dean stiffens. "How fast is it happening?"

"Three days, maybe four before things start disappearing. Eight days for a complete wipe." She stares down at her hands. "It's been two weeks since my husband vanished. This morning, Sandy's birth certificate didn't have her father's name." Biting her lip, she looks back up. "I've been getting out of town every three days for a while. I couldn't tell what was affecting everyone's memory, but--"

"Good call." It was, too, and Dean totally gives credit where credit's due. "We've been here two days." Dean makes a note to get Sam and go for a nice long drive tomorrow.

"--but it doesn't matter. I called my husband's parents. They don't remember ever having a son."

Dean stills. Across from Janet, Castiel is watching her thoughtfully. "But you remember," Dean says slowly.

"And I remember the spaces left by those who have gone," Castiel says, voice low. "There are many more than you know of."

"How many?" Dean makes himself ask.

"Twenty within the last month. Small tears compared to the billions that populate the earth, but growing."

"Families," Janet says dully. "It's picking up siblings. The last two were a brother and a sister of two of the ones we were investigating."

Dean takes a deep breath, letting it out. "Janet, you remember."

Janet looks at him blankly, then she pales, eyes narrowing. "I remember," she says. "And I don't know why."

Castiel nods, abruptly standing up. "I will need to--consider this," he says formally.

"I'll be back as soon as I drop Sandy off," Janet says, standing up as well. Dean gets to his feet quickly, but she ignores him, focusing on Castiel. "It's presumptuous, I know, but I--"

"I will be in touch." Dean watches in shock as Castiel takes her hands, a gesture that's very human, but when Castiel does it, it looks like something else entirely. With another of their completely mysterious looks, Castiel steps back, and Dean mumbles out a goodbye she accepts with a frosty nod.

Once outside, Dean half-expects Castiel to vanish, but he follows Dean to the car, and sure, Dean's petty, but he's not stupid, so he pops the lock and looks in bemusement at an angel sitting in his car.

"You going to tell me what's going on or wait until I forget about it?" Dean says, turning the ignition, trying not to gape at Castiel putting on a seatbelt. It's too surreal; putting the car in drive, he hits the gas harder than he needs to, feeling relieved when they leave the lot and hit the road.

"Your memory will not be affected if Janet's is still intact," Castiel answers, almost absently, like he's thinking of something else entirely. "Your brother I am less sure of, but what was done to him was after his birth."

Dean tightens his hands on the wheel to avoid reaching across the car and getting his ass smited when he tries to strangle an angel. "You want to explain that?"

"It's--complicated." And finally, Castiel's back in the car with him. Dean doesn't admit that something in him relaxes, but he drops from eighty. "If we could defer this conversation--"

"And how the hell did she know what you were?"

Castiel looks surprised at that, actually going so far as to turn and look at him. "Not everyone doubts our existence," he says, with the kind of mildness Dad used to use that was even worse than shouting. Kind of a combination of dumbass and God, how did I raise such an idiot with a little how is this my life sprinkled on top. Dean hadn't liked it from Dad and it's not any better from Castiel.

Plus it's freaking unanswerable, like the cherry on the top of the fuck-all cake, and Dean shuts his mouth, staring at the road. "Do you know what this is yet?" he says finally, when the silence goes too long and Castiel checks out again, distant and not here at all except for flesh.

It's creepy and irritating, and Dean hates it, and hates it even more because he knows he's reacting to the fact he's gotten used to Castiel's undivided attention and he has no idea what going on with that.

"Perhaps." Castiel says, sounding uncertain. "I--have not encountered something such as this, but I feel as if I have."

"Yeah," Dean echoes. Castiel looks at him. "In the clearing. The guy. I'd--not the body, but I felt like I should have recognized whatever it was. Like I just--"

"Could not remember."

Dean stops the car before he runs into a tree. Putting the car safely in park, he turns in his seat. "It's affecting you," he says flatly. "And me."

Castiel doesn’t deny it, and Dean takes a deep breath, aware his hands have started shaking again, because this is (maybe)(really) *a messenger of God* and he knows, he's seen they aren't omnipotent, but if something can affect *them*….

"No. Perhaps." Castiel looks like he wants to use the word complicated again, but then he sits back with a slight frown. "I have shared your memories, Dean. It is--likely you--absorbed some of mine before you were resurrected while we were together."

Dean has no idea what to say to that. "So I'm not remembering something you also don't remember." This is how a migraine starts, Dean *knows* it.

Comfortingly, Castiel doesn't look any happier with that than Dean is. Licking his lips, he puts the car back in drive, maneuvering carefully back onto the road. "So what now?"

"I will speak to my brothers," Castiel says, not sounding particularly thrilled with the idea. Dean may be imagining that Castiel's getting more comfortable wearing a body. Maybe wishful thinking; it makes Castiel something less unimaginable, more--relatable. "I would suggest no further investigations into the forest until I return." There's a very slight edge to his voice that you'd have to be dead and buried not to recognize as an order.

Dean keeps his eyes on the road.

"It can remove you from my sight," Castiel says, and this time, the edge is stronger. "As well as your brother," he adds, because hey, it's not like Dean's weak spot isnt' known to everyone in creation by now. "I would prefer you did not go."

And that last part is almost a plea. Dean sighs, nodding. "You got it." Then, "You trust me that much?"

"I would trust you with my life."

Dean jerks his head around in shock, but Castiel is already gone.

*****

Sam pushes away from the laptop with an expression halfway between frustrated and faintly relieved. "There's almost nothing left," he says, slumping in the chair with a frown. "That would explain it."

Dean flips idly through Dad's journal, but there's not a lot that looks applicable to something not demon and has a grasp of both magic and current technology. Magical computer virus, maybe, but Dean gets the feeling it's more than that.

"Janet said it was taking families."

"Particular ones?" Sam turns back to the laptop, looking a little helplessly at the screen. "There's no way to be sure which ones or how many."

"Castiel might know," Dean says without thinking and gets a frown from Sam. "Look, I'm thinking something that can *erase people* may be a little more than our usual." But it's more than that, and it's about the feeling of that forest, glossy unreality that was just that hair off of something his mind could accept. It reminds him vaguely of that article about the uncanny that Sam had read him once, what the human mind could deal with. Demons who badly integrated into human bodies had a nails-on-chalkboard reaction from normal people that was like a spotlight on them as far as hunters were concerned; they stood *out*. And they got killed fast.

This thing wasn't quite like that, but it was the same feeling, except the thing wasn't just bad at mimicking humanity; it was more than it didn't know how and didn't care to learn. It wasn't *trying* to be anything but what it was, and that scared Dean. Things that could think, that wanted something, at least usually tried to appear less off than they were.

Dean realizes he's been rubbing the skin below his ear where he remembers the thing's lips press and stops himself. The skin feels raw and hot.

"What do you think?" Sam asks finally. "About Janet?"

"A hunter." Dean hesitates, fixing his eyes just over Sam's shoulder. "She knew Mom. Mom's family."

"Huh." Sam turns from the laptop. "Dad always said hunters were loners."

"*Dad* was a loner," Dean answers thoughtfully. "He didn't like getting too attached. Too dangerous." And that would attract the same type; Ellen's husband had had a living wife and kid. "You know, I used to joke it was the family business. Not sure it was a joke after all."

There's something tugging at his memory about the park, the way Castiel described mother and daughter. About the kid. "He said she was a hunter," Dean says slowly, raising a hand before Sam can interrupt. "Hey, check something for me. Grandpa's arrest record. Who was with him most often and who bailed him out when it wasn't his wife. Maybe his parents, or her parents when he was younger, but I'm betting there's some others. See if there's a pattern."

"Do you think Mom told him…" Sam starts, then stops short. "I mean, how *much* did she tell him?"

"Not enough." Dean's memories of their earliest years aren't all that clear, but he doesn't think Dad had started off knowing much more than a normal person. "She didn't want us to be part of this. Maybe--maybe she didn't tell him any more than she had to." And by the time he had enough experience to know what to look for, by the time he figured out there *were* other hunters, he'd gotten used to doing it on his own.

Hunters had families, and the job tended be passed down, with exceptions (see Sam Winchester), but hey, then there were kids like Dean, who picked up a gun and realized like it or not, they found their life's work. And Dean can admit, at least to himself, that he's not convinced he wouldn't have ended up here even if Dad had had a radical change of personality and decided not to spend his life hunting down the thing that killed his wife.

"Did Bobby know about Mom's family?" Sam asks. "He never said anything--"

"He wasn't born into it either," Dean answers, then shakes himself, picking up Dad's journal. "You'd think by now someone who have hit the twenty-first century and put up a website already for this shit," he says, making himself comfortable on the sagging mattress that smells faintly of bleach and mothballs, which sadly he tends to associate with home. "Cross-reference gorgon with Mississippi, so those kind of surprises don't show up when you're trying to burn a damn corpse."

"I don't know," Sam says thoughtfully. "I think she just liked you."

Dean shoots a glare at him and starts to read, ignoring Sam's lingering smirk.

*****

Just to be safe, Dean drives them out of town the next day, going three over to the nearest Wal-Mart for restocking, where they run across a tall, supermodel-class woman buying a lot of cheap silver jewelry along with .48s and rock salt. Sam rolls his eyes, but they end up at a nearby diner comparing scars and talking about Las Cruces, which still rates as the weirdest non-destructive haunting in history.

"Never have found their graves," she says regretfully. Dean's searched too, spending ten days tracking down every likely site. It's something of a legend among hunters; watching that kid is enough to make anyone want to give him some peace. "Been back twice."

"Three times," Dean admits, playing with his coffee cup while Sam rolls his eyes.

She's running down a nest of trolls, but says she'll stop by if they need any help afterward. Dean gives her his number and watches her leave, but it's not until he sees Sam staring at him that he realizes that she'd asked him back to her motel three times and he hadn't even noticed.

"I'm on a job," Dean says defensively when they're back in the car, chewing petulantly at beef jerky. "Big shit. Don't need the distraction."

"Uh *huh*."

They ride by Janet's motel, but her car's still gone; when they back to their room, Sam goes back to the computer while Dean pretends to study Dad's journal and naps most of the afternoon away.

"Cult," Sam says suddenly. Dean rolls over, wiping his eyes quickly and attempting to look alert. "You said she mentioned a cult? What kind?"

"She didn't say." Dean pushes up on both elbows, staring at the ceiling. "So let's go out on a limb and say teenagers acting like idiots and playing around with magic in the forest." As they invariably did; it's the weirdest thing, but teenagers plus forest always, always equals some kind of ritual that's weird, dangerous, and involves beer. Usually, it doesn’t work.

Then again, sometimes it does, and it's rarely what they were going for in the first place; take Bumfuck, Kansas, population *five hundred*, where Dean arrived to a scene involving large, strange gourds filled with wine, girls dressed in flowers, and some guy with goat legs playing a flute.

So maybe it's not all bad, Dean thinks, taking a second to savor that memory. But really, the chances of summoning Bacchus are pretty low when anything comes at all, and pretty invariably, they're trying for something evil, destructive, or, strangely enough, something that will fix their homework grades.

"Might be clues in the forest," Sam says, typing something into the search box. Dean hesitates an entire second, then rolls onto his feet, grabbing his jacket.

"Let's go."

*****

In daylight, the forest looks fairly normal, but Dean's jumpy anyway, and either he's passing that on to Sam, or Sam's remembering the last time they were here.

When they get to the general place that Sam remembers him vanishing, they both stop short. There's being thorough, and then there's being stupid, and while Dean loaded up on everything he could think of, he was armed the other night, too, and that did jackshit to stop that thing.

"Go left," Dean says, taking out his gun. "Five minutes."

"Turn your cell on." Sam watches until he does. "Five minutes, Dean, or I come and find you." He smiles maliciously. "Or call for Uriel."

"Whatever. He hates you more than he hates me. Probably check just to make sure we're good and dead." With that, Dean turns toward the expanse of trees and foliage, ignoring the jittering edge of discomfort. It's a normal forest right now; there's nothing here. It's not that. It's more the feeling that that could change at any time.

And it's just too damn quiet.

"I thought you had agreed not to come here."

Dean swallows the sudden, heady relief, turning around to see Castiel, immaculate and looking less than thrilled to see him. "Just checking the perimeter. We didn't go back in where Sam found me. Find out anything?"

Castiel eyes him thoughtfully. "I am wondering if it is wise to share this when I cannot convince you to take basic precautions until I could return."

"I've been hunting all my life," Dean starts, not really feeling the urge to argue right now. "This is a hunt. There are people missing. It's what I *do*."

"I understand." And weirdly, it's like he *does*. Dean waits, then crosses to sit down on a convenient stump, settling in with an expectant look. It works on Sam.

Castiel's slight frown deepens, but luckily, he doesn't seem to be feeling particularly wrathful. "It is very old."

Dean waits, then waits some more. Then, "That's what you got?"

"No. I was curious how long it would take you to ask again. It seems the limits of your patience is not in excess of thirteen seconds." Dean feels his mouth drop open in shock, but Castiel's already talking again. "It is very old, even by our measures. Older than most of us."

"Older than creation?" Dean has to take a second to imagine that. "Big bang, beginning of history, work with me. What kind of scale are we talking about here?"

"I am not entirely certain. The earliest are the most likely to remember."

"And the earliest--" Dean stops short, staring at Castiel. "Wait. Aren't your earliest brothers kind of--" In Hell? Dean blows out a breath. "Tell me that there's someone who can give us an answer."

"They seem to be unavailable." And right there, that look; fascinated, Dean watches what seems to be not a righteously angry angel, which is terrifying, but an angel who just discovered he's been stonewalled and *really* not liking it. "I was told it did not concern us, as it did not affect the plan."

Dean's got a theory; sure, it's not a good one, but he's calculating he's the first to spend extended quality time with an angel since roughly the death of Christ. Academics may get hot and bothered counting the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin (and one day, Dean's going to look up what that shit even means. Who has that kind of time to worry about crap like that?), but actual field interaction is pretty minimal. A few have been wandering around earth, doing things, Dean figures, even if Castiel won't admit it (though he's never said it's an out and out lie, which is as good as confirmation), but he's betting it's been sort of stealth strikes at specific things, either under orders or not.

Castiel wasn't one of them, and Dean's thinking at this juncture it's become a sore point. Obedience has a price, Dean knows. But there's the *spirit* of the law, and the letter, and he's beginning to think Castiel's getting a hard and fast lesson at the difference between the two.

"What are you thinking?" Castiel says suddenly. "You seem--amused."

Dean tries to erase the smile and fails. "Nothing. Just never seen you so--" Dean looks for just the right word. "Cranky."

Castiel tilts his head, eyes a little distant, like he's running the word through a translator. Then with a slight swish of coat, he takes a seat on a stump a few feet away. "I admit some frustration," he says finally.

Dean grins. "Stonewalled. Sucks, huh?" Castiel gives him a flat look. "Right. So the people--oops, angels--who would know can't be found and no one else is worried. So what's next? Is there a chance this has happened before?"

"Undoubtedly, or there would be no reason for any of us to know of it." Point. "Uriel was not particularly--forthcoming."

"Is he older than you?"

"Yes. Those who were sent to guard humans were among the last brought into creation. Compared to many of the host, I am considered a child."

Dean tucks that bit away for later thinking; it's not like Castiel is all that forthcoming about anything, and Dean's still not sure what the questions are that he wants to ask. He gets the feeling sometimes that Castiel is leaving a lot of disclosure up to him to decide if he wants to know.

"Is that why he's such a dick?" Dean waves it away when Castiel looks like he may feel the need to protest. "Whatever. Anyway. So I need sources on this. Where do I get them?"

Castiel hesitates, which means that there *are* sources, and that he doesn’t like it. Dean considers that for a second, then works it out. "You mean Hell."

Castiel winces. "I do not think--"

"Yeah, no." Dean feels himself shudder and grits his teeth; not the time for flashbacks, breakdowns, or losing the thread of this conversation. "So there's really nothing new in the world, or so everyone says. Assuming this happened before, someone would have written it down."

"Hunters would have encountered it."

Dean gives it a second. "Maybe certain families kept records."

"Ah." Castiel doesn't sit back, but he gives the impression of someone who had been waiting for something a while. Waiting for Dean to ask, maybe. "I had wondered if you would want to know."

That's the thing; Dean wonders if it even matters. "Mom's family were hunters. For a while, I'd guess. Am I right?"

"Yes. For a very long time. Even for humans."

Right. "Like, before Christ?"

"When demons came to earth and found it to their liking." Castiel's expression changes, almost wistful.

"You guided them." And Dean isn't talking about the entirety of the angel kingdom anymore here. "You did."

Castiel looks up. "And my brothers created to serve here. When we were ordered to leave the earth, they were all we could leave behind to protect it, and we made them ready to bear the burden we were no longer able to share."

Dean licks his lips, looking away. "Did you make it so they couldn't--so there wasn't anything else for them to want?"

"Of course not." The surprise in Castiel's is reassuring. "We would never undermine human will. We gave them knowledge of the creatures they needed to fight, the weapons that would destroy them, the ritual that would cast them back to the darkness. But we did not take their choice from them. No child would ever be expected to carry such a burden unwilling. Only those who had both the desire and the ability were permitted to do so. Many choose another path in their lives."

"And a lot don't. And some get shoved onto it anyway." Dean thinks of his father.

"It is not an easy path to take," Castiel agrees. "And many go on it without knowing what they have chosen, like your father."

"Or my brother."

Castiel's head tilts, but he doesn't answer. "Speaking of, your brother is approaching."

And Dean's phone is--in his back pocket. Vibrating. How the hell had he not noticed that? Standing up, he jerks it out, glaring at Castiel. "Sammy! Sorry, I--got distracted. Where are you?"

"Standing behind you."

Dean jerks around, pasting on a quick smile, but Sam's not looking particularly willing to be charmed. "Lost track of time. I was--" Dean turns toward Castiel, but the bastard's already taken off. Gritting his teeth, he shoves his phone back down his pocket. "So, Cas stopped by."

"Really."

Dean narrows his eyes. "Good news, it's probably something we can track down on earth."

"Bad news?"

Dean sighs. "He doesn't know what it is, either."

*****

Dean leaves a message on Janet's phone, wondering all the while if Castiel's going to pay a visit and give it to her in person. He could probably remember her great-times-fifty grandmother; maybe they look alike. Maybe she reminds him of the people he had to leave here alone or something.

"Something as old as angels?" Sam says blankly. "That's--"

"Terrifying, yeah." Dean flops back on the bed. "And not a lot of information on them, either. But there's got to be something here." Because Dean just doesn't believe that there's not something, somewhere about it.

"Bobby may know something," Sam says, frowning slightly in concentration.

"I left him a message last night." Dean stretches lazily. "He called to say he's checking around and will go through his books tonight. It's got to be around somewhere." Taking a breath, Dean braces himself. "What's our count on the missing?"

"Including the ones Janet told you about and ours, which by the way are already on their way into obscurity, thirteen." Sam frowns, turning in his chair as Dean sighs and rolls toward the edge of the bed, reaching for his bag. Might as well do some maintenance. "Two yesterday. A husband and wife. Their kid three days ago."

"Huh. So it's families." Dean considers that thought. "Maybe certain families."

"Tried that." Sam sighs, rolling his neck. "I don't know how, but this town has never had any kind of supernatural activity. Ever. And I went back to their earliest newspapers. They're born, they live, they die. Nothing."

"Huh." Dean unzips his bag, frowning when he sees the oil isn't in its pocket. Sam's packing leaves a lot to be desired. "That's weird."

"What's weird?"

Taking it out, Dean checks the lid to make sure it didn't leak. Oily guns are not anyon'es idea of a good time. "That there'd be nothing. Every town's got a ghost story, real or not."

Sam's silent for so long that Dean looks up in the middle of disassembly. "Something wrong?"

Sam's frowning at the wall. "Not even a revenant. I mean, it's a normal town. They have murders and unexplained deaths and everything, but not one ghost stays behind to enact revenge? In over two hundred years?"

Dean picks up the oil, unscrewing the cap. "It's not like it would be exciting to stick around."

"I never noticed they ever cared about the nightlife, Dean." Sam rolls forward and kicks off the bed; rolling chairs will always be Sam's not so secret weakness. It's just so dorky that Dean has to take a second to watch. "Okay, fine, they get Vegas odds and no ghosts. But what I’m saying is, there's nothing else either. A werewolf, a troll, brownies, *something* would show up, somewhere. Some sign. But we have a town here with no supernatural history that has a sudden, dramatic level of *something* going on that manages to be invisible because no one knows its happening to them."

"Think the amnesia thing affects non-humans?" Dean asks as he opens the oil. Sam's chair stops squeaking abruptly, so Dean assumes that he's got his attention. "Cas isn't affected."

Dean gives Sam an entire second to roll his eyes at the Cas bit.

"You want to go question a unicorn?" Sam asks like he's serious. Actually, he could be.

"Nah." Dean looks over the barrel of the gun to meet Sam's eyes. "Ask your girlfriend when you see her tonight."

*****

Janet calls right after Sam's out the door; Dean waits until he's sure he's gone, then gets the car, leaving a note on the bedside table because he's angry but not actually stupid. It's a short drive, and Dean wonders the entire time if he wants to ask her about his mother.

He also wonders if Castiel's already there and stops that thought short, because he can see the writing on the wall where that could lead, and no, being possessive of one's guardian angel is higher on the crazy meter (Hunter Edition, revised) than Dean's comfortable with going right now.

When he arrives, she's alone, but from the grim line of her mouth, yeah, he's been here. Dean tries not to take it personally. "Anything?" he asks as she closes the door behind him. She offers him coffee, and he almost refuses until she drops in a shot of whiskey.

Suddenly, he likes her a lot more. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Perching on the opposite chair at the small table, she sighs, taking a drink. "And not more than Castiel told you. I put out word, but I haven't heard anything yet."

"Same." Dean takes another drink, trying to study her without being too obvious. "When's the last time you slept?" He's going to say three days.

She laughs a little sadly. "The night before I took Sandy out of town." And once again, Dean is right and all is well with the world. "Tried to pretend that I didn't ever have a husband."

"Huh." Dean takes another drink. "So how did they think you got a kid?"

"That's the funny part. They didn't seem surprised or anything. I thought about trying to get a history, but explaining why I wanted to know who the father of my kid was supposed to be--" Her smile wobbles a little, but she brings herself back under control, shaking her head. "They accepted something was wrong. They're used to it."

Dean imagines having people like that around; it sounds too much like a fairy tale. Having more than Dad, people to stay with when he was on a hunt, people who knew everything and could help. Dad had had Bobby and Jim and Caleb, a few others, but nothing like this. "It must be nice to have people like that."

Janet looks down at her cup. "Your father didn't trust us. He didn't have any reason to; Mary was the one who would have been able to tell him who he could go to, and I suppose she never did. After a few years, he started making regular contact, but never with you boys. It was a while before he stopped thinking it was Mary's family's fault that this happened."

Yeah, Dean can see that. "I don't think she told him very much. She wanted out."

Janet sighs. "My brother was an accountant in Texas for a while. He'd send Christmas cards when he remembered we were around. He used to say we were like Hotel California--you can check out--"

"But you can't leave." Dean swallows. "People get out, don't they?"

"Sure. But getting out of the business isn't the same as denying it exists. My brother went to college and met a girl. He told us he was leaving and not to contact him ever again, told her he was an orphan."

Past tense. "What happened?"

"Standard possession. Not even--" Janet stops, mouth tight. "He knew. He's not stupid, he knew what happened to her. But he lived with a demon for three years and let her kill him and the kids, because he didn't want to believe anymore." Janet's eyes narrow, eyes almost black. "I hunted the bitch down myself. She was screaming a long time before I sent her ass back to Hell."

Jesus. Dean takes a breath. Sam had never made that mistake. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't have one day. "I'm sorry."

Janet shrugs, but the faint pain lingers. "Sometimes--it's funny. I went to college, too. My brother came down for my graduation. Wanted to know where I was going. I told him back home. He didn't understand. And he hated my husband for walking away from a doctorate in history for this. He couldn't imagine anyone choosing to do this who had any other choice. I couldn't imagine living a life that wasn't doing this." She giggles. "My dad gave me my first solo job when I graduated college. That meant more to me that a piece of paper ever could."

"How'd you meet him? Your husband?"

Janet leans back, looking wistful. After taking another drink, a faint smile curves the corners of her mouth. "Ancient Civilization. Terrible section on Egypt. Bored out of my mind. He noticed." Her eyebrows raise slightly. "Got his feelings hurt, since he was teaching the course."

Dean snickers.

"We argued a lot; like I said, he's a history major and he was still working on his Masters. Then he came over to my apartment after he finished grading essays to bring me mine and saw the salt lines. No one else had ever noticed. He did. And he knew what they meant. It was--the thing is, he told me later that's when he realized what he'd been waiting for. We waited until I graduated and he got his Masters, and I took him home and introduced him to my family as my husband--and my partner. Future at that point, since he still didn't have any training. And that's--well, that's how it started."

Dean lifts his cup; with a smile, she touches hers to it. "To finding what you're looking for," he says, voice tight.

"And killing every evil motherfucker that crosses your path," she answers.

"I like that better."

*****

Dean finds himself talking more than he has in years, talking about things that he's never spoken of to anyone else. Not just Sammy, not just the big things that are easy; big things always are. The small things, that's the shit you keep tight behind your teeth and taste for years. The constant moving, Dad's suspicion, but not just the bad things. There was also--everything else.

"Sammy hated it, I mean, *hated it*. Everything about hunting, and it's not like he knew any other life." Somehow, they had migrated to the floor, slouching in a pleasant haze against the foot of the bed, and the coffee is a lot less coffee than whiskey. "I did. But it felt--"

"Right," she says a little blurrily, leaning a little into his shoulder. "College was like that. Dorm life drove me crazy; I could barely sleep because my roommate kept fucking up the salt lines. Never did figure out what she thought they were, either. And I mean, classes were there, but I could have been following up on leads and seriously, werewolves or finals?"

"Werewolves."

"And I lost a letter grade on my final. It was a stupid class anyway." Sighing, she stretches out denim-covered legs, and Dean can see the wear high on one thigh on the material where she probably wears a sheathe for a knife. "James was--he used to say what a relief it was when he found out about me, when he knew what was out there. He'd taken history but really took to the folklore classes and minored in religion. Had an encyclopedia in his head of supernatural occurrences, mythological monsters, legends, and never knew why he was so interested."

"Huh." Dean wonders if he would have turned out like that, knowing something was out there that was *his* and not knowing what it was. Glancing at the clock, Dean fights to focus his eyes, since Janet's weight against his shoulder makes moving impossible. It's--wow, nearly four, and he should get back.

"Janet," he says, turning his head into a snore. "Oh." Well, that answers that. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he eases himself onto his knees, taking her weight carefully before he stands up.

He sways, but he's never dropped a woman yet. Carefully, he turns to the bed, using his foot to push back the blankets and lie her down. She sighs a little, eyes half-opening. "Sorry," she slurs. "I didn't--"

"No problem." Dean toys with the idea of driving and gives it up as a bad idea. And it's safe here, safe as his room. "Can I--"

She flops out an arm. "Bed's yours." After a second, she forces her eyes open again. "I need to--"

"I'll lock up," he assures her, and something in his chest warms as she nods and drifts off. Trusting him to know what he's doing.

And he does, too; drunk, sober, high, in so much pain he can barely see, he's the son of John Winchester and he can do basic security in his sleep. He calls Sammy's phone as he checks every salt line, but it goes straight to voicemail. He says something--not sure what, but he figures Sam will figure it out--then pulls off his boots, tucking in socks inside, sliding the gun and knife beneath his pillow, a familiar, faint hardness he's not sure he's ever slept well without.

Janet's not Sam, but the slow, even sound of her breathing is reassuring; closing his eyes, Dean falls asleep.

*****

"It could drive you crazy. Knowing you're supposed to help and not being able to do anything."

Improbably, Anna's drinking coffee with a kind of pornographic joy on a worn couch that reminds Dean of all the ratty little independent coffee shops that Sam treats like some kind of shrine. And every time Dean thinks they've seen them all, Sam is finding another one, and there's Dean again, struggling to order something that doesn't foam or involve the digestive juices of a cat, and man, he could have lived a long time not knowing about that shit.

Anna, though, is kind of treating her latte like a sex toy, and Dean can't help but wonder what coffee sellers put in their coffee to get people to pay that much for something like that. It's got to be black magic.

"So I've heard." He has one of them too; Dean takes a drink and tries not to grimace. This is definitely not his dream. "So I guess you're okay?"

She nods at him, mouth quirking in a smile, and Dean gets up, stepping over a weird, low coffee table to sit beside her. She's like he remembers, right down to her smell. Pushing her shoulder against his, she gives him a smile edged in foam, and Dean wants to lick it off so much he can't move.

"I'm good. There's a lot I forgot. Human mind and all that." She sighs. "I do miss coffee."

"Hey, anytime you're here, you can have all the coffee you want."

"I'll hold you to it." Finishing the cup, she puts it aside, so Dean feels good about setting his down, too. He's not sure what to do; he wants to touch her, but he's not sure how, and he's not sure that's actually what he wants anyway. She's okay, and sure, this is a dream, but it's her, too. "Been rough, huh?"

Dean shrugs. "Usual."

Her smile says he's full of shit and they both know it. "I'm tired," he admits finally. "Maybe I need a vacation."

Anna arches an eyebrow. "You mean the one where you didn't surf and went after some sirens? That you went *looking for*?"

"They were dangerous," he says half-heartedly. "I knew something was wrong with that cove. I couldn't just leave them there." And once he knew what he was looking at, he couldn't turn away, either.

"Purpose," she says with a nod. "Imagine if all you could do was watch, and wait, and pray. Tied to a chair in front of a TV playing twenty-four seven and you can't change anything."

Dean wonders if she'd ever learned subtlety or thought maybe he needed the two by four approach. "Do you want me to pat him on the head, too?"

Anna smirks. "He's very young--"

"I like how you measure time. As in, it's crazy--"

"But he was the first to heed a call and was the last to leave when we withdrew from earth," she continues relentlessly. "This is very personal. He is trying."

Dean cocks his head. "You know, I don't remember you being all that understanding when you talked about them."

Anna sighs, head tilting back. "Everything changes, even us," she says finally. "We aren't--the same as when we walked among you before. And the ones of us who went among you aren't like the others. Our purpose was humanity. We were meant to walk beside you, to fight for you, to fight *with* you. We were your first and last line of defense. We were what stood between you and the darkness. We were--we *are* God's messengers to humanity, his sword and his shield to protect you. And then we were suddenly without purpose and ordered to watch. You don't disobey the will of God. That doesn't mean you don't wonder why."

Anna hesitates. "Uriel wasn't purposed to this. I should have been the one to join Castiel here, to guide you on this path." For a second, Anna's expression reflects something like disbelief. "It was the will of the host that sent Uriel with Castiel on a mission for humanity with someone who has never understood what we are. And--" She stops again. "I really have to find out who gave that order. Soon."

"This is very enlightening," Dean says, wishing for whiskey, and not in that coffee either. Waste of good whiskey. "I will be nicer, I promise."

"No," she says. "Be harder. This is his purpose. It has been so long, and we waited until we almost forgot what we were. Remind him. He was meant to fight with you, to stand with you."

"Uriel doesn't see it that way."

Anna tilts her head. "We aren't subject to the judgment of the host. We're soldiers, Dean. We are subject only to God in the pursuit of what we were created to be." Anna grins, and Dean thinks she may be glowing. "And I wish I could be the one to tell Uriel that."

Dean tries and fails to imagine Castiel saying anything like that to Uriel. Anna laughs, bright and as musical as bells; Dean wonders suddenly what her true voice sounds like.

With a bright grin, she shifts, sliding into his lap. "He will. Just give him time."

Then she kisses him, and clothes suddenly vanish, and Dean has to wonder if this is part of their purpose, because wow. Way to go, God.

*****

Janet's still asleep when he leaves; he's careful not to try to be too quiet, because he doesn't want a bullet in his head before she remembers who he is. She opens one eye, body tensing beneath the blanket, then closes them with a smile. Getting his keys, Dean almost knocks over the small portrait by the lamp, giving it a brief glance as he straightens it again. It's a good picture of her, maybe a year or two old.

Being a nice guy, he leaves the coffee pot going.

Driving back to their room, Dean's aware he had some kind of enlightening dream, but Anna had been right, in what she said at the end. "All you're going to remember is the sex, aren't you?"

Sammy's waiting, looking not entirely nuclear, and a little too relaxed, with faint circles under his eyes suggesting that it's not from a full night of sleep. Dream sex is a lot more efficient, Dean thinks, going to the shower with a yawn. Cleaner, too.

When he comes back out, there's coffee, so Dean takes that as a sign of peace. "We talked," he says, because he doesn't want Sam getting the wrong idea about Janet. The truth is, he never considered it, which combined with the girl yesterday and pretty much everyone since he got back, has to mean something. There's a really small but irritating voice reminding him that Anna had pulled him like a magnet, and hey, who else has that effect on him anyway?

Dean doesn't want to think he only gets it up people who aren't entirely people, but it's beginning to look like he doesn't have much of a choice.

"I bet." For the first time, Sam's skepticism gets on his nerves. She's a widow, for God's sake.

Dean cracks his neck. "Okay. Worried." Dean tries to think of how to tell Sam what she told him, about hunting and family and finding your path, but he's not entirely sure there's any way to do it without reminding Sam he's back here where he never wanted to be instead of living a boring suburban life somewhere with some kind of dog. Instead, he's got motel rooms, is banging a demon, and carrying around demon blood while certain angels look at him like they are measuring him for a decapitation by flaming sword. There's just no way that conversation can go well. "She's checking around to see what she can find out from her contacts." Dean pauses. "Speaking of--"

"She doesn't know. But yeah, she doesn't remember anything ever happening here either." Sam's irritation is more surface than real; he's thinking about something. "I don't know. Weird."

Dean looks at him for a long second. "What?"

Sam isn't the type to flounder, but watching him trying to find the words, Dean's torn between worry--because this is Sam, Mr. SAT Scores of Scholarships Everywhere and inarticulate isn't a one word descriptor of him--and hilarity because--well, see above.

"It's everything about them," Sam says finally. "I mean, erasing your identity, sure, but you know, it's not just birth certificates. These people have *houses* and businesses and played sports."

"So we check the houses--"

"That's the thing. I checked out the first one. The house is there. Just standing there, with the stuff still in it. But no one seems to see it." Sam blows out a breath in frustration. "There aren't any personal papers, there's no receipts, not even an ID, but there's stuff. So it's not changing time. It's like it's erasing people."

And there's a chilling thought to carry around with him. Thanks, Sammy.

"There was nothing in the forest," Dean offers, waving off Sam's instinctive frown. "Look, I checked, and Cas didn't see anything either."

"So now you think it has nothing to do with the forest?"

"Maybe." Cult. Dean looks down at his phone thoughtfully. "Janet said that was all he really had; the disappearances and what was like cult activity, but he never caught anyone at it."

"And then she came back and had to kill him. After she found him in the forest."

Dean shrugs, dialing her number. "Maybe he went somewhere else first."

*****

Janet meets them off the highway, looking a lot less magazine-glossy in jeans and worn leather coat, gun discreetly hidden at the small of her back. A well-used backpack is slung over one shoulder, dark hair tucked up in a ponytail out of her way. With a nod, she leads them to the place she'd found her husband.

"Or he found me," she says with a hint of tired amusement. "It was the last place I remember him saying he'd been checking."

"Did he find anything?"

Janet shakes her head, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. "Beer cans about a mile north, some signs of kids hanging around getting wasted on weekends. Nothing unusual." They're coming up on the area Dean remembers best, slowing down, one hand hovering slightly, ready to grab for her gun.

"But he thought it was a cult?"

"It had the right signs at first; people disappearing, small town silence on the subject, some odd books turning up that aren't usually found outside a very specialized library or an extremely specific collector."

"Books?"

Janet shakes her head regretfully. "Gone with everything else. He'd found them fairly recently and was still studying them. I don't even think they were titled; handwritten on blessed leather or something like that." Coming to a stop, Janet surveys the normal, uneven clearing that's nothing like the place Dean was taken. "This is it," she says slowly, frowning. Taking a step, she drops to one knee, running a hand over the grass. "But it wasn't like this."

Dean glances at Sam. Yeah.

"He tried to convince me to come with him," she says, a slight shudder rippling over her. "So I shot him."

"Then what?"

"It was getting dark, so I did the exorcism there and then." Janet pulls her hand from the grass. "But it was--I thought it was darker after I shot him. And the grass--" She shakes her head. "I should have paid attention."

"I think at that point, paying attention to what he was doing was the priority," Sam says comfortingly. Before Dean can say anything, or hell, even figure out what he's planning, Sam steps by her, walking into the tiny, uneven clearing. "Was it bigger at first, though? Brighter?"

"Greener," Dean says flatly, following Sam in with a shiver. "And hey, next time, don't walk into evil magic without warning, okay?"

"There's no magic," Sam answers with a frown. "At least, nothing I can sense--"

Dean rolls his eyes. "Sam--"

"No, I mean, there'd be something. Residuals, or tree damage, or *something*. You don't change a forest and then change it back for no reason without expending a lot of power, and why the hell bother?"

"Because logic isn't any of these things' strong suit?"

Sam shakes his head, looking at Janet. "He wanted you to come with him?"

Janet nods, frowning slightly, eyes distant. "He said it would be okay. And that nothing would ever hurt again if he did."

"There's a ringing endorsement," Dean mutters, fighting the urge to go for his gun. "Peace, no pain, no death--"

"Wait." Janet turns to face him. "When I pulled the gun, he said to give him a message."

Oh hell. "Who?"

"No idea, and I didn't bother asking. I shot him before he could say anything else. When he went down, I did the exorcism and then tried to salt and burn." She frowns, looking at the grass. "No burn mark."

Dropping to his knees beside her, Dean studies the grass. Scraggling unevenly over the earth, there's no sign of char, much less a full-scale burn, no browning of plants from exposure to salt.

"It was here," she says slowly, running a trembling hand over the grass. "I mean--"

"Here?" Sam says from behind them. "Or in that glade?"

Janet stills, fingers pressed to the grass. "It was past sundown and I could still see well enough to search him." Dropping down on her knees, she punches one fist into the ground. "God*dammit*."

Dean thinks if there's ever a time that you can be forgiven not paying attention to your surroundings is trying to burn your possessed dead husband.

"So if it didn't happen here," Dean says slowly, resting a hand on Janet's tense shoulder, "why did it come back?"

"Maybe because you were here."

Dean twists around, looking at Sam. "It was looking for me?"

"Maybe. Or anyone. We were here, and so if it was looking for humans, that's where it came. Correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation."

That makes a stupid kind of sense. Coincidence can be like that. "So we still don't know where this shit started." Goddammit. Standing up, Dean wipes the dirt from his knees, offering a hand to Janet. "Or where to look." They tried the cemetery, but there was nothing new going on there, and with the sheer lack of supernatural activity, there's not even a decent lead.

"Siblings," Janet says abruptly, shaking her head. "It's taking siblings. Sam, you said--"

"So far, yeah. I mean, the ones we know about are related. Goes for the older, then the…" Sam trails off. "Then the younger one. One of them has a younger brother. We talked to the kid when we got into town."

Creepy kid. Dean rubs at the back of his neck, checking around him; coincidence or not, this conversation can be carried out somewhere else. "He didn't seem too broken up. Kind of out of it."

"Deep grief can do that," Janet answers grimly, going back out of the glade. Dean waits for Sammy to go ahead of him, smiling sweetly when Sam frowns.

"And so can forgetting," Dean says, keeping an eye on their surroundings. So maybe it's coincidence, but if it's looking for humans, well, here they are. "He's still around?"

"As of today, yes. I saw him when I was coming back into town." Janet answers, reaching into the pocket of her coat.

"Let's get back, get the address," Dean starts, but Janet cuts him off.

"Don't need to," she answers, bending over a small, glowing screen. Coming up beside her, Dean tries not to envy her the iPhone. "Farm Road 33. Two miles east of here."

As they come up on their cars, Dean does the calculation. "How long has it been since the brother disappeared?"

"Eight days." Janet cocks her head, tapping her phone. "Sound familiar?" Glancing between the cars, she cocks her head. "So, rock, paper, scissors?"

*****

"Nice car," Dean says, trying to be gracious and failing. Sammy, sitting in the backseat, snickers, and Dean carefully avoids looking at the iPod hookup or the DVD player imbedded in the dashboard. There's nothing right about that; cars and TV are good things that were never meant to meet like this. "You got Spiderman III?"

"In the back?" she answers with a smirk.












*****

"When--" Sam stops, shaking his head. "It's stupid, man. Just--when I got your voicemail? For a second, I didn't recognize your voice."

Dean freezes, turning the conversation backward until he hits Sam's skeptical look. "Sam, what do you remember about Janet?"

Sam stares at him blankly. "Hunter, tall, pretty hot, family in the business? Why?"

Licking his lips, Dean forces both hands down onto the surface of the table before they start to shake. "Husband?"

Sam's surprise is painful. Dean takes a deep breath and tries again. "And a kid."

Sam frowns. "She has a kid?"

*****

Dean is outside and in the car before Sam even gets up, leaving with a "Don't you fucking move, amnesia or not, or I swear to God I will shoot you in the knee." It takes him two tries to get the key in the ignition, and from the corner of his eye, he sees Sam coming out, but he can't stop, can barely think.

The two miles last years, but not long enough to slow the panic, and he slides into the parking lot and is out of the car almost before he can get it in park, pounding toward the open door. The room's a mess, a cell phone ground into the carpet, but that's not what he looks for.

That damn picture. Picking it up, he looks at it and wonders why the hell he didn't wonder why she was the only one in it.

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." Getting out his phone, Dean dials for Sam, wondering when the MO changed--it hasn't been three days. Or maybe the time period doesn't matter. Families, he remembers her saying. Sandy's Dad hadn't existed. Sandy couldn't either. And now Janet--

"Dean?" Sam says, pissed as hell. Dean closes his eyes. "What the fuck--"

"We gotta go back to the forest," Dean says. "Look, the memory thing's getting you. You didn't remember her kid, her husband--"

"Okay, calm down, I got it!" Sam says, but Dean can hear the fear in his voice. "Dean, listen, what are you--"

"Going to the forest and getting them back." Dean closes the phone and turns it off before it can ring. Even Sam can't get two miles before he can get away.

"You are not."

Dean looks at Castiel. "I don't have time for this."

A hand closes on his arm, and Dean's reminded of all that strength hidden in a deceptively human body. Jerking around, he gets in Castiel's face. "You said we wouldn't be affected!"

"Sam's vulnerability is due to the demon blood he was given. His humanity gives him some protection. He can be reminded."

"And Sandy?"

Castiel looks away. "I did not consider that with the removal of her father, the child's existence would be compromised."

"Family," Dean spits out. "Take one, and the rest get erased or go after them? Fuck that." Dean jerks helplessly against the restraining hand, then pulls back and punches hard enough that he can feel bones try to crack.

Castiel's head snaps back, grip loosening, and Dean ignores the flash of regret, already out the door. He pulls out his keys, already half-way to the Impala--

And slams face-first into the inside of his motel room door.

Dean drops like a rock, head aching, then Sam's beside him, staring at him in shock. "Dean! What the hell--"

"Son of a bitch." Dean pulls away from Sam, reaching for the door, but the doorknob doesn't move. "I don't believe this. Castiel! What the *fuck*--"

Dean goes for the window, leaving Sam to try the door with a bewildered expression. Nothing. Sure, angels had freaky powers, but Dean thinks it's cheating when they can lock you up without even being around. "You can't keep us in here forever! Mission, remember!" Dean yells. It's stupid, but he feels better saying it. "Work for me, apocalypse, and God help you when I get out of here--get back here, you son of a bitch!"

Giving up trying to get an elbow through the window, Dean turns to look at the chair, which he suspects won't do much better, but it'd feel good to throw. Then he looks at Sam, who is torn between staring at the door and then at Dean. "Dean," he says slowly, "what's going on?"

Dean sits on the bed, feeling the energy running out of him. "He's taking his job seriously," he answers and collapses back on the mattress. "I'm going to kill him."

*****

Castiel was right about that part, at least--Sam can be reminded. And retain it, going back to the laptop with the details Dean hastily scrawled out, since maybe if he writes it, it won't disappear and Sam will have a point of reference if he starts graying out on the details again.

Dean tries to settle to something, but locked in a room just isnt' working for him. Taking out his phone, Dean thinks about calling Bobby, then stops. That's all related to Janet, and with Janet gone, the conversation might be, too. And he's not up to explaining this to more than one person.

Settling with his back against the door, Dean's aware of the beginnings of what feels like a spectacular headache.

"Hey," Sam says unexpectedly. "Is that Uriel out there?"

Oh great. Dean almost bangs his head into the door. Just what they need here. "Maybe he wont' see us," Dean says hopefully. Sam frowns, like he always does when he thinks Dean is being too irreverent. "Oh please. You see Castiel with him?"

Watching the bewilderment on his brother's face acts like a shot of adrenaline--getting to his feet, Dean wraps a hand around the doorknob and at that second, all he can hope is that it won't open.

But it does, and Uriel is inches away, staring at Dean like he just wiped out the entire Host for fun. Turning away, Dean grabs a pen and writes two lines at the bottom, turning it for Sam to see.

*Castiel.

He saved me from hell.*

Sam reads it slowly, then looks up at Dean. "I thought that was Uriel," he says slowly just as Uriel says, "I can no longer find him."

Son of a *bitch*.

*****

Uriel's an dick, but losing your partner probably doesn't look too good. Dean goes to the bathroom to check the handprint, but it's reassuringly the same. That has to mean something, and he suspects he knows exactly what. It might be the only thing that's keeping him from screaming or shooting something.

When he comes out, sleeve still rucked up, Uriel looks at him in question so close to hope that Dean nods quickly. "Still there."

Sam, luckily, is back on the right page. "That was--weird," he says, keeping two fingers on the paper. "For a second there, I had no idea what you were talking about."

"That would be two of us," Uriel says grimly. He's as forbidding as usual, but Dean's pretty sure he's freaking out, if only because he hasn't stared at Sam once and promised death if he did anything demon-y. "If you would, Dean Winchester--"

"He told you about the thing in the forest and the disappearances," Dean answers, equally grim. "And I think you told him the equivalent of fuck off, so yeah, this is totally a mystery. Wonder where the fuck *he* went."

Uriel's eyes narrow. "I told him that this was not our concern."

"Maybe not yours, but it's his. What the hell did you think he'd do? Go take a celestial nap when there are people in trouble?" Anna's remarks suddenly make a whole lot of sense. "This is what he *does*. I just--okay, it's been a while, and this isn't your field, but you remember when your kind used to hang out here *all the time*? Back in the day of locusts or whatever?"

"Who are you to question--"

"I'm the guy he threw in here so I wouldn't get myself killed trying to figure out what the hell that thing is!" Dean can't remember the last time he was this angry, and so much of it is fear. He could forget too. Janet, her husband, Sandy, all these kids--Castiel. Dean rubs his forehead; the headache's getting worse. "Why did you blow him off?"

Uriel doesn't seem impressed, but Dean's well beyond anything like discretion, even if Sam's starting to look constipated. And is the room getting warmer? Dean jerks at his collar, feeling drawn to the door.

"It was not our concern," Uriel answers coolly. "He was ordered to leave it."

"Since when is a messenger subject to your will?" Dean thinks anyone else would maybe not ride so much on a dream, but he's not anyone else either. "You know he not. It's a direct order from God. And you know that. You *know* that."

Uriel stares at him, and Dean has a second to think, okay, so maybe he was just dreaming, but there's a tell-tale twitch at the corner of his mouth. Uriel's been riding meat too long; he's giving out tells by accident. "It was decided it would be more--prudent for there to be some restraints upon--"

"And Castiel thinks I doubt the will of God."

"Dean," Sam hisses, and yeah, it *is* getting warmer, and Dean wants out that door like he wants air. Somewhere cooler, and quieter, and no, he's not stupid. That handprint is the reason. It takes family, pulling at the bonds between people, and he and Castiel have been bound since he was taken from Hell. It wants him there, and the truth is, that's right where he needs to be. "Call Ruby," Dean says, surprised by the words coming out of his mouth, even more surprised that he means them. A choice between Uriel and Ruby isn't any kind of choice at all. "Get her here."

Sam opens his mouth, then shuts it, shaking his head. "No. I'm going with--"

Dean hopes not; once he's there, he'll figure something out, keep Sam from being dragged into this.

"Oh hell no. You stay here, and your demon bitch can prove she's in this for more than a few kicks." Dean is pretty sure this is the worst idea he's ever had, but it's going to take him; it's going to or maybe he can ride this out somehow and when it's over, he won't remember the guy who rescued him and they'll be left with Uriel and while sure, Dean hadn't reacted all that great to Castiel, he's pretty sure Uriel as a guide is a disaster in the making. Might as well give up and start thinking what looks good with hellfire, which is nothing at all.

Seriously, who gave that order? Who thought that was *a good idea*? He hopes Anna kicks their ass. Dean realizes he's already drifting toward the door and stops himself. "I need--" He grabs for the paper and adds a line. "I gotta go. Even if--" He loses the train of thought altogether, and is his hand looking a little pale? Taking a deep breath, he reaches for the pen, scrawling down one last line before he grabs him. Sam gasps, trying to hold on. "Dean. Your brother," Dean says in his ear, repeating the words he'd just written. "I love you. Don't--" He sucks in a breath; he can't feel Sam anymore. "Do anything I'd do."

Dean has a last look at Sam's horrified eyes, sees Uriel stepping toward him, a most unangelic look of shock on his face, and then it's dark and he remembers this, the calmness of the dark and the nothingness of it, and then he doesn't remember anything, even himself.

*****

--and then he's on something hard and coughing so hard he thinks for a second that it wasn't too bad there.

"Dean," is murmured in his ear, in a voice he knows and doesn't, calm rippling with fear, with something under it that's new, and maybe he just hasn't been paying all that much attention.

"Christ," he wheezes; someone's pounding on his back and he's leaning against something warm and a little scratchy, button pushing uncomfortably into his cheek. But it feels real and he rubs against it a little, then stops, because being real is good, but that's embarrassing.

After a few seconds, he's able to get a full lung of air and open his eyes. The view isn't inspiring--cave, standard, extra dust--but he's okay with that, because Castiel's the one holding him up and Janet's the one who is trying to knock his ribs out.

"Oww," he says. Then. "So that was weird."

Janet nods, coming to sit cross-legged on his other side. It takes longer for Castiel to let him sit up on his own, but he's not against that. And he didn't imagine the way Castiel said his name, either, so there's that.

When he takes a second look, it's still a cave, though a big one. "So this is--okay, I give up, where is this?" This isn't a circle in the forest. It's a cave. A weird cave, though, and Dean has to take a second to figure out why it bothers him. "This isn't a real cave."

"If by real, you mean, actually of earth, then no," Castiel answers. He looks dusty and tired and that kind of calm that covers utterly freaked out. It's a pretty common expression among hunters; Janet's even got the vague unimpressed look that takes practice to get just the right amount of been-there, done-that around monsters and assorted beings who really get pissed when you don't show you're terrified. "However, it is, at least in my perception, material."

"So--not a dream." Dean dusts of his jeans, then wonders why he's bothering. "So is this it?"

"There's other rooms adjoining this one," Janet says, like she's giving a field report to Dad. "I went about two miles before I tracked back and found Castiel."

"And we had not yet decided how to proceed before you appeared." Castiel's looking at him a lot like Sam does once the adrenaline has worn off when Dean's done something incredibly dangerous and he stops being glad Dean's alive and starts threatening to kill him himself. Okay, Castiel may just be getting used to being in skin and dealing with inconvenient human bodies and their inconvenient tells, but Dean also has the feeling he hasn't been really seeing Castiel either.

"It's kind of anticlimactic, isn't it?" Dean says, pushing up off the floor and looking around. "I was expecting--" Actually, he'd been almost sure this was going to go how it did when that thing found him in the forest. "Okay, I'm confused. What's the point? Starve us to death in a fake cave?"

Janet dusts herself off with small, precise movements while Castiel frowns at his coat. Dean rolls his eyes and pretends the dust isn't starting to work inside his shirt. "So, two miles--"

"Just like this one," she answers. "In all directions. I wasn't even sure I was actually going to a new room, but I didn't have anything to leave here. So stay here for a second, would you?" Before Dean can wrap his mind around that, she's already turning away, approaching a wide opening so dark that Dean's reminded of that clearing all over again. It also makes him wonder where the light in here is coming from. Looking down, then around, he notices that he and Castiel aren't throwing shadows, though the rocks are, in the same precise geometric shapes that scream how fake this really is.

After a few seconds, Janet comes back, a triumphant expression on her face. "Different. You weren't there."

Dean's not sure that's an improvement, but he goes with it. "So they made one model and just copied. That's--efficient." And boring. Evil shouldn't be this mundane. "Hey, you notice--"

"The light and the lack of shadows?" Janet answers. "Yeah. I climbed up to see if I could find something, and it's just rock." She winces. "Or it's supposed to be."

Dean notices Castiel is studying the cave thoughtfully, turning in a slow circle. "I have seen this before."

"What? Seen this?" Dean schools himself from getting too excited. "Where?"

"I'm not--sure." Castiel turns again. "It's familiar."

"Like you thought the clearing was familiar, or like you saw this within the last ten thousand years familiar?"

Castiel raises his eyebrows. "Recently, Dean. Within your lifetime."

Dean supposes to Castiel, that would qualify as recent.

"I--" Janet stops, frowning. "It was easy to climb."

Dean tries and fails to find this informative.

"Like a rock climbing wall."

"At the mall," Castiel says, and Dean had really thought nothing could surprise him again, but he was wrong, so wrong. Janet turns to look at him with what Dean suspects is the same utterly bewildered look.

"You--went to a mall," Janet says, like she's sure she heard that wrong.

"I was exploring your world," Castiel says, and Dean knows that makes sense, but somehow, that doesn't help. "I am supposed to--I think your term is blend in. It seemed prudent to visit places with high concentrations of humans to observe their interactions."

Dean thinks of Castiel picking up pointers from teenage girls--or God, teenage boys--and his imagination fails. "So a mall."

"Mall of America," Janet says, still sounding a little faint. Dean can't blame her. "There's--now that you mention it, it is. It was an easy climb; that's why it felt so familiar."

Dean rubs his forehead and fights the urge to sit down. "This cave is based on the Mall of America." Just saying it makes him want to have a headache, it's just that stupid.

"It's based on observation," Castiel answers, close to his shoulder, and Dean realizes all three of them are orbiting each other as closely as possible. Janet presses briefly against his shoulder as she studies the ceiling. "It would be similar to someone taking a picture and attempting to reconstruct an object using that and their perception of what it was." Castiel glances up at the ceiling. "The pattern is repeating every fifty feet, I think."

"So we get rock that's not really rock and a wall turned into a set of identical caves. And a forest clearing that's like--oh, like those displays they do of artificial plants in stores. To sell--" And there Dean goes blank. He's never been interested in home improvement. Being he didn't have a house and all. "With fake grass and--"

"No, I know what you're talking about." Janet looks around again, then sighs. "So what are we *doing* here? And where's--" She swallows hard. "Everyone else?"

That's a good question. Dean looks at four identical, ink dark openings and almost sighs. Yeah. This is going to be fun.

*****

Dean keeps count of the caves by dint of the pen he somehow brought along with him after writing down who he was for Sam before he left. He didn't trust his memory, even if this wasn't something that was affecting memory, and made a mark on the inside of his arm as they left each cave. By the time he's starting a second line beneath the first that reaches from wrist to elbow, he's pretty sure that they're dead (or however that works for Castiel), but how this is an afterlife Dean can't imagine.

Pausing just before the next opening, Dean rubs absently at the stitch in his side and looks back in time to notice that Castiel's moving a little more slowly than he would have thought.

"Just a sec," he tells Janet. Going back a few steps, Dean takes in the slight flush. "Wait. Are you getting tired?"

Castiel doesn't roll his eyes, but Dean suspects that's because he hasn't observed it yet and linked it up to people asking stupid questions. Except it's not stupid. "This is a human body," Castiel points out, trying to distract Dean with logic.

"But you--I mean, I've seen you fight. You don't have--" Dean trails off. "You're also sweating." So is Dean. So is Janet. It's too warm in here, like a hair above what would be comfortable. "You're not telling me something."

Castiel doesn't answer at first, and Janet drifts over, looking Castiel over with sharp eyes. "What's it doing to you?" she says bluntly. "Don't tell me it didn't do something."

"I would say, what *did* it do, and I’m not entirely sure. I feel--different."

Dean looks at his face, where he'd hit him earlier and not even left a bruise. "If I hit you again, I'd break something. And you couldn't heal it."

"Yes." Castiel hesitates again, but more like he's searching for words than avoiding the question. "I cannot feel my host."

Dean sucks in a breath. "Wait. Did it--" And this sounds insane, but he went searching for grace in the middle of a field, so this isn't that far off. "Did you lose your grace?"

"Like a set of car keys?" Dean hadn't realized Castiel had been working on sarcasm before; tone is what really made it work and Castiel has it down. "Not--precisely. It is more that I am now limited to the restrictions of this body."

"Could you leave?"

Castiel shakes his head. "I felt the change when I arrived. Everything became very--close. And I cannot hear my brothers." His voice is careful, but Dean doesn't need to be told that's bad; that confirms what Uriel said about him being gone.

"Oh." Janet's voice is soft. "I'm sorry. I didn't--"

"I did not wish to worry you further."

Of course he doesn't; Dean would do the same thing. So would Janet.

"Tired," Janet says, sounding worried. "And there's no water."

Or food, but they can go longer without food than water. Dehydration's never been high on Dean's list of ways to die. "Why the hell would it bother to bring us here and then starve us to death?" There's nothing about this that makes any sense.

Castiel's the one who answers that. "Perhaps it does not know we require food and water," he says. Dean thinks about that--a cave from a mall store, a forest from a store display--and gets it.

"So--what? How's it going to figure that out, assuming it cares?"

Dean sees Castiel's eyes narrow, head turning sharply toward the doorway. "Do you hear something--"

And the freaky thing is, Dean *does*. Castiel's already moving ahead of them, but Dean gets a handful of coat and Janet's hand slides into his before he gets away. As they cross into the next cave, Dean looks at the wide pool of water carved into a perfect square into the ground between two doors. It's bigger than a swimming pool, with vague concrete-like edges that remind Dean from something out of a magazine. Going closer, he takes a deep breath, but it doesn't smell like chlorine.

Castiel comes to a stop at the edge, and Dean tightens his grip, ready to pull him back in case he wants to go exploring *in* it or something, but it can't be anything that simple. Castiel drops, neatly as a cat, and before Dean can say, "Oh fuck no," he reaches into it and tastes the water.

With a jerk, Dean and Janet jerk him back from the edge, but Castiel is just looking at his damp hand, the glistening water with a look both speculative and--weirdest of all--amused.

"It seems," he says, righting himself. Dean fights the urge to tackle him, because *Jesus Christ*, what the hell, would Castiel walk into fire just to prove it's hot? "that it was waiting for us to ask."

Dean stills, hand tightening in the back of Castiel's coat so he can't get too far. From the look on Janet's face, she didn't miss that either.

"That sounds--familiar," Janet says slowly, eyes drawn back to that perfect pool of perfectly blue water.

Castiel seems to be embracing both irony and understatement in a big way. "Yes, it does."

*****

They're all tired; Janet does a quick measurement of the cave and goes back to count the number on Dean's arm, working out their total covered distance.

"Thirty miles," Dean says flatly; he's a little tired, but this isn't hunting, and he suspects Castiel's been riding that body in an effort to bring it up to speed even minus special powers. "That's--" Dean stops, trying to put this in perspective. "Okay, I give up. What the *fuck* is going on?"

Castiel looks up from where he's been studying the pool, like it's all that complex and requires that much thought. He'd taken off his coat, dusting it carefully before offering it to Dean and Janet to sit on. It seemed to make him feel better, so they both went along with it, and hell, it's an improvement over bare not-really-rock and dust.

"So you think this is something trying to pretend its' God?" Dean asks finally, because someone has to say it.

He half-expects Castiel to make some kind of protest or eye him darkly with blasphemy on his mind, but all Dean gets is a thoughtful look.

"Not--pretend, exactly," Janet answers with a slight frown. "More--" She trails off, glancing at Castiel. "You're a force of Creation. What does this feel like?"

"Simulacrum," he answers, sounding pleased to be asked. "More precisely, it is mimicking creation." He looks at the pool again, with a peculiar look like he's still tasting the flat, uninspiring taste of the water, like it had been boiled heavily, then stripped of all that makes water worth the effort of drinking. "And quite badly."

"Like it doesn't know precisely what it's copying, it just wants to make the copies." Dean thinks of the thing in the glade that wore Janet's husband, the wrongness of the body it had inhabited. "It started off with corpses, maybe for a while" he says, trying to grasp a thought that wouldn't quite settle. "This town's dead for supernatural activity, no pun intended. If it's been collecting up the bodies, the ghosts wouldn't be bound to the town." Which, Dean's mind offers up uncomfortable, means that if what it did didn't break the link between body and soul, they're probably here. A kind of an afterlife. And for some reason, that wasn't working, so it started calling people--"

"Families," Castiel says, making Janet jerk, eyes wide. "Perhaps chosen at random, perhaps simply by circumstances."

"For what? To build an army?" Dean looks around again, thinking about a creature with an army, invading the world to recreate *this*--it's like extrapolating McDonalds onto all food, onto *life*. Everything in him flinches from the idea of it. "That's--" Sick, he thinks, not sure where the instinctive revulsion is coming from.

Castiel looks at him. "It feels that wrong to you?" he asks, sounding curious.

"Yes! It's like--the--what's the word--the *antithesis* of pretty much--of everything." Even demons aren't like this; just sitting here, looking at that pool, at these walls, is making Dean's skin crawl. "Don't tell me this doesn't feel ten kinds of wrong to you."

"Oh, it does." Castiel's eyes flicker to Janet, who nods agreement. "Everything I am rebels against this."

He sounds pretty zen for someone in rebellion. Dean narrows his eyes, but Castiel is looking at the water again. "Your malls are extraordinary," he says, so completely off topic Dean's not even sure how to answer that. "The limits of human imagination never cease to amaze me. Your cities--" Castiel pauses, looking suddenly very young, a little breathless, and Dean's reminded suddenly of the first time he'd seen Time Square, the screens and the lights and the buildings soaring high over his head like they would pierce the sky itself. "It's amazing, what humans have created. You are achieving so much of what God intended you to be."

Dean opens his mouth, then shuts it tight. Janet blinks, shifting.

"That's--that's not the same thing," she says, sounding half-way between shocked and a little scandalized; Dean thinks those rosary beads he saw in her motel aren't there just for spells. "Humans can't--we aren't--"

"You are the product of creation, and in your turn, you create from what you were given. Your only limit has ever been your mortality." Castiel pulls his knees to his chest, hooking his arms around them with a slight frown. "This is against everything you were meant to be; if this creature intends to build an army of humans for whatever purpose, it will not find it easy. This is--abomination," he says, infusing the word with every profanity Dean's ever heard and some he thinks he should learn. "You should rest," Castiel says in a gentler voice. "If I am correct, it's been nearly a full day since we arrived and I suspect that you will require the rest."

Janet rubs her forehead. "I know. I just--" She shakes her head with a little laugh. "I'm just--I dno't think I can."

"Would you like me to assist you?" Castiel asks. Janet blinks, then nods, surprised, and Castiel shifts, settling cross-legged beside her, "Lie down."

Dean moves off the coat, giving Janet the room; she gives him an amused look but doesn't argue, and Dean watches as Castiel presses two finger to her forehead, breathing "Be at peace."

With a smile and a sigh, Janet's out like a light.

Dean waits until Castiel uncoils himself, then moves a little distance away, not wanting to wake her up. When he settles again, Dean rests his head on one hand. "Still got the mojo?"

"I think so," Castiel answers, unruffled. "This place cannot take away what I am. I suspect it is my contact with creation that has been severed and so causes this--dissonance. It could not have expected to receive a messenger here."

"Uh huh." Dean shakes his head when Castiel looks like he might be considering giving Dean a little peace, too. "You need to sleep, too. Even out there, you couldn't go on indefinitely."

"That is incorrect. I could have, but that would have burned through this vessel until there was nothing left of it." Dean flinches. "Which would be an act of sacrilege when I was offered this gift without good reason."

"You know what I'm talking about."

Castiel doesn't answer.

"And this isn't a good reason either. We--" Dean forces himself to say it, "--may need you later. We *will*. All of us. So if you're getting the bright idea to stay up and guard us from the climbing wall and the--" Dean tears his eyes from the water again. "Pool thing. Yeah, get over that."

For a second, he thinks Castiel's going to fight him, but then he nods reluctantly. "I understand your point."

Yeah, it was a good point. Dean sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "I sound like Dad," he says sadly. "Or Sam. Next I'll be telling everyone to eat more salad and brushing their teeth."

"Such are the burdens of leadership," Castiel answers with something like a laugh in his voice. "Very well."

Dean cocks his head hopefully. "Do you still have to follow my orders?"

Castiel needs to learn to roll his eyes, Dean decides.

*****

Dean dreams; he's not sure. Waking with a start, for a second, he thinks he must have forgotten to open his eyes, then that he's blind.

Sitting up, he reaches across the dusty floor, trying to find someone else. What if they're gone? For a second, he can smell his grave again, the emptiness surrounding him, making even eternal pain something to long for, because at least it's not *this*--

"You are safe." A hand touches his cheek, and Dean turns, reaching out desperately and feeling smooth, dusty cotton and human warmth. Breathing something that sounds humiliatingly like a sob, Dean burrows closer, needing to be sure, finding warmth and welcome weight and something real, wrapping his fingers in Castiel's shirt. He'll feel embarrassed about it later; right now, he just can't bring himself to give a shit.

Castiel's hand draws slow circles on his back, and Dean can feel him breathe, the slow, steady beat of his heart, and concentrates on those things until the panic finally eases away.

"What--"

"I believe it came to the conclusion that since we were resting, it should be night," Castiel says. Dean wishes he could see his face; from the sound of his voice, Castiel is really finding his feet in irony. Dean wonders who he learned it from and has an uncomfortable suspicion that Castiel's modeling himself after Dean and Sam, which is kind of a relief, because no one sane would think Uriel was someone you wanted to emulate.

Or maybe it's his personality finally settling in, or both. Getting comfortable with the job. Remembering, maybe, how this went when he hung out with people before electricity, when the big new invention was the four horse chariot. It's such a weird thought that Dean starts laughing and stifles himself.

"Something amuses you?"

"Chariots," Dean answers helplessly. "Man. It's just--oh hell, no idea."

"I see," like he doesn't really, but isn't sure how to frame what he actually wants to say. "Would you like to return to sleep?"

"No, I'm good." With an effort, Dean backs off a little, and Castiel's hand instantly falls away. "I was thinking about what it was like last time you were here."

"Ah." Castiel luckily doesn't take being released as permission to move away, probably because Dean's still keeping one hand wrapped in his shirt. "What do you wish to know?"

"I'm not sure," Dean admits, rolling on his side. He can't see Castiel, but it feels better than talking to the ceiling. "What it was like, I guess. What they were like."

"A great deal like you are now. Though I must admit, the advent of the automatic weapon has simplified some of the more onerous duties." Castiel is silent for a second. "And recording an exorcism was interesting."

Dean almost sits up, but he's too relaxed, and the not-rock of the floor has some advantages; he's not poking himself every second. "How much do you know?"

"A great deal, but very little is what you would consider accessible. What you have spoken of that seemed useful."

Dean feels himself smile. "And because you were curious."

"I admit some of my research has not been in pursuit of practical purposes. You have come very far, and have lost so much. There are gaps in your knowledge due to the lack of continuity among you. Part of our function was to give you that continuity and connection that mortality made difficult. Much has been lost."

"There's the internet," Dean says with a sigh, because someone should get on that already.

"I've wondered why no one has begun to explore its uses to connect more of you together and further pool your resources," Castiel answers seriously, and Dean can't stop laughing.

*****

It's weird; Dean closes his eyes when Castiel tells him about shepherds with their charms, the first hunters who watched the creatures steal their sheep and then their families, desperate and terrified as they prayed for help.

"They were afraid," Castiel says, voice hushed. "But they still wished to fight. They came before us to learn, then brought us their sons and their daughters to learn from us, and their children after them. We forged them into weapons to protect the world. It was a comfort to them; our immortality was their hope. Even if they died, they knew we would not. They could call on the one who their grandfather had spoken of and he would come."

"You fought beside them," Dean says.

"I did. The gates of Hell do not often break, but when they do, my brethren and I would arm ourselves and walk among our charges and offer up our lives with theirs." Castiel's voice softens. "After, we would wait with them until they moved beyond us, and stood with their families to mourn at their pyres."

Even here, Dean can hear the grief in his voice, old and still fresh, fighting this endless war that in the end will cost you everything, including yourself. What makes it worth it is sometimes hard to see, but Dean's never imagined being able to stop, let one life be lost that he couldn't save. Just knowing that would drive him crazy.

"Were you pissed when you were called back?" Dean asks, regretting it almost immediately; this may not be a question Castiel is able or willing to answer. Feels like it might come up to close to God's will and obedience.

"Yes," Castiel says, surprising him. "Though that is not the word I would use. When we received our order to withdraw, some left immediately. Some refused. And some of us--delayed."

"Refused?"

"They Fell," Castiel says calmly. "They would be reborn in human flesh, without memory of what they were. Those of us who--delayed--took what time we could capture to find the women who would bear them, prepare them for what their children would be. Anna manifested what she once was later than some, but whether or not this was a time of war, she would have one day, even if she never understood what she was. And we told them what we were told; that we would return. That we would watch. And that they would never be alone."

Watch, yeah; a million channels and everything to watch that you can't ever help. Dean's beginning to think that Anna's Fall wasn't a surprise to Castiel at all.

"Anna said you were the last to leave," Dean says, and though he thought he'd been quiet, the words seem to echo around them. "You were the first to come back, too." And what a dramatic way to do it; not showing up in a flash of light, no, went to *Hell* to start this off with a shift of the cosmos; Dean gets that. Elvis comes back to the building with a *bang*.

Before Castiel can answer, there's a sound behind them, and Dean abruptly remembers Janet's *right there*, around the time he realizes that he's been shifting closer to Castiel this entire time. Rolling on his back, Dean forces himself to let go and grabs for Janet before she can panic.

"What--why--"

"Night," Dean says. "You know, when you sleep."

"Right." He feels Janet sit up and pulls her toward them, waiting until Castiel's fingers slide over his on her arm. Dean sucks in a breath and feels Castiel still, then Dean lets her go and stands up.

"I want to try something here," he says. He feels a little light-headed and kind of stupid, like when you're drunk and feel pretty sure that flying isn't out of the question. "Okay, always wanted to say this--*let there be light!*"

Nothing. Dean frowns. "That means *now*."

Something seems to shift, a nauseating roll of reality around them--God, Dean's glad he was asleep if this is how it felt to darken the world--and then it's as bright as a new morning.

Dean looks down into the dust streaked faces looking up at him and grins. "So. What's next?"

*****

They get cleaned up after checking that there's a pool in the next cave, which isn't even a surprise. It's like the symmetry of the walls and the doors; it's copying the same thing over and over. Dean tries to work out how to ask for food, but he's worried what it will come up with.

"Dean," Castiel says, as they all eye the doorway; Dean knows they need to keep going, but he's beginning to wonder what exactly that will accomplish. Castiel and Janet have been talking for a while, though Dean hadn't been paying attention, but something must have clicked, because they're both looking tense. Well, Janet looks tense. Castiel's just looking curious.

"Hmm?" Drifting back over, he sits down with them, noticing the dust is already clinging to them again, and he's starting to itch. What kind of monster can't keep their work area dust free? Jeez.

"You said--he must have tried with the dead," Castiel says, glancing at Janet. "Why?"

"No ghosts." Janet blinks, looking startled. "Sam was reading back and there's nothing here. I mean, everywhere has a ghost story, right? Not here. Whatever dies here, it stays dead."

"Or it can't stay," Castiel says. "Ghosts are tied to their bodies--"

"Right. So if their bodies aren't around, they aren't either. Didn't think to check the cemetery either." And without the presence of ghosts, Dean wouldn't have thought to check for bodies. "So maybe it's been taking bodies. Trying to start with--"

"Resurrection." Janet pales. "It's--what, trying to copy life?"

And that hadn't gone well, if that corpse in the forest was anything to go by. Janet looks ill, turning away, but Dean's seeing that thing that was once a human body, moving with something that wasn't life. "And maybe that didn't work," Dean says slowly, testing the thought. "So it got some people, *living people*, and was studying them to see what went wrong. Maybe he thought if it was--if they weren't dead so long--"

Dean looks at the water again and then away before he can think too closely on that.

"That's obscene," Janet breathes; she's looking at the water, too. "He brought them here--brought them to--" Covering her mouth, she takes a deep breath. To Dean's surprise, Castiel reaches for her, and he watches as she leans against him, closing her eyes, the shaking body all the worse for her silence.

"That's why we're here. It--it must think it missed something. It's studying us."

Dean looks around, panic bubbling up tight in his chest, trying to keep calm. It's been over a day, maybe even two by now, and all they have is Sam and fucking *Uriel*. Sam's going to forget, won't know to look for them; hell, he wouldn't know where to start if he remembered. And Uriel--

"U--Uriel," Dean manages. "He'll look for you?" Dean won't even pretend that Uriel will give a shit what happens to him, but he's out there with Sammy and Christ. Uriel is *alone with Sam*. "He's going to kill Sam," Dean says flatly. He could be dead already.

"He will not," Castiel answers, looking up from over Janet's hair. "He--"

"He hates him. He calls him--"

"He will not. That was not within the scope of his orders. Not without--extenuating circumstances. And certainly not now." Castiel brushes a thumb against Janet's face, a gesture almost absent, but the shaking eases. She sits up, wiping red-rimmed eyes, but looking a lot calmer, and Dean finds himself envying her that. "He will search for us."

"If he asks around, will they answer him?" When Castiel's mouth quirks, Dean can't help echoing it, because it's there all over his face. Sure they will. He's not caring for a *human*. "This isn't helping my faith."

"Like all things, it is complicated. Only God is perfect. All else is flawed." Castiel then sits back with a sigh, getting both Dean and Janet's undivided attention . "Being so constantly subject to undiluted humanity, however, is enlightening."

Dean stares at him, trying to work out what that means. "It's--oh." Anna had been born into a human body, cut off from her kind; that didn't make her entirely human, even if she wasn't an angel. Castiel didn't fall, but-- "Oh. Like--"

"Resentment. A very petty desire to smite Uriel with his own sword. A sense of the unfairness of all of this. It's fascinating."

Janet covers her mouth to stifle a giggle, eyes wide. "You never--"

"And a curious lack of distance from my charges," Castiel continues, sounding intrigued. "Above and beyond my own imperative to protect you."

Dean wonders if that's a singular or a plural, then pushes the thought aside. "Is it uncomfortable?"

"It's familiar." Castiel straightens, looking more--no, less like himself, suddenly. More like the angel he first met, bathed in light and distance, but the edges don't quite meet anymore. "It was always said we were too close to our charges, too much like them, that we grew too--" Castiel stops there, frowning. "Too much like the children of men. They were right, of course. There was no other way. That was our purpose. That does not mean we did not have certain--problems arise from this."

Dean watches in disbelief as Castiel colors, just a little. And right then, Dean wants to ask so badly he can actually feel the question on his tongue; it's pretty much the only thing he can think of. It's so not the time. And from the look on Castiel's face, half-amused, half-resigned, he knows it.

"We should get going," Dean starts, saying the first thing that he can think, then frowns. "Wait. Why should we?"

Janet starts to say something, then pauses. "Because we aren't going anywhere," she says, standing up to stare at the door. "It's just letting us go and watching to see what we do."

"Modeling humanity."

"Until we die?" And isn't that a great thought; wandering endless identical caves with identical pools of water until they either starve to death or, if it eventually thinks to give them food, die of old age. Die of *crazy* old age, at that, wandering here for decades. "Why us and not the others?"

Castiel seems to find something fascinating about the wall; Janet abruptly turns to look at the pool. Dean--isn't--isn't--

"Oh *fuck no*." Dean looks between them. "Fuck that. We're not--I mean, it can't think we're going to--"

"To get an accurate model," Castiel starts soberly, "it would probably like to see both of you engage in--"

"If you finish that sentence," Janet says with a kind of hysterical calm, "I am in danger of committing a mortal sin and I don't have a confessor. And I don't think I'd be sorry."

"Not to mention, all *three* of us," Dean says maliciously, staring at Castiel, who is rapidly losing the impersonal look of interest. "Subject to that *human body*? I give it a day before you start being really subject to *a lot* of undiluted humanity. A learning curve, so to speak. Feeling anything new?"

Janet buries her head in her hands; Dean wonders how her next confession is going to go.

They're both waiting for Castiel to deny it, Dean realizes, but Castiel doesn't, though the alarmed look is rapidly fading, replaced with something Dean can't quite identify.

"Cas?" Dean starts, because okay, so it was funny, but he didn't mean… "This is the part where you look superior and tell me I'm full of shit. You know, you're a dick and--" he trails off.

Easing himself down, Dean considers their cave. This isn't Eden, but he's getting the feeling that he just shoved an apple down Castiel's throat.

"Okay," Janet says. "I think we should go now."

Yeah. It's not like Dean's all about the good ideas right now.

*****

They're fairly quiet for about ten caves. There's not just that there isn't much to say; it's that everything now is edged with something new.

Dean remembers puberty being a hideous combination of miserable embarrassment and equally hideous realization that what he was going through wasn't a secret to Dad or Sam, but he'd kind of *known* what was going on, or at least, everyone else his age was going through it, too.

This isn't the same thing, no, but it may be worse. When Janet stops them, being one of thse people who can freak out and still lead a charge, indicating the new bathroom is to their left, Dean knows he needs to say something here. Leaning against one of the walls, Dean takes a deep breath and hopes whatever comes out of his mouth doesn't make it worse.

"Okay, so I was a dick," he starts, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead as he makes himself sit down. "I didn't mean--"

"Do not trouble yourself."

The expressionless voice isn't reassuring. Dean curls his hands into fists and makes himself continue.

"I didn't mean to just--say that. Any of it. Though you started it with the--about it wanting to see--"

"No, I understand. It was inappropriate of me to comment on the situation." Dean feels movement, glancing over to see Castiel leaning against the wall a few feet away, arms crossed, face utterly unreadable. "The warning was valid. I had not considered--"

"I shouldn't have said anything." Dean sucks in a breath and stares at the ceiling for inspiration. Christ, he hates talking about his feelings. "You don't need to--"

"It was funny," Castiel says abruptly. Dean stops short. "This is a very bad replication of creation from its start, if that is what it intended to do." Castiel gives the room a look, acknowledging this is a substandard Eden in the making. "It is watching, because it does not understand why it cannot create. It seemed logical. It's obscene. And yet, it's--"

"Funny." Well, it is. In that way that Dean thinks it'll be years before he'll be able to laugh about, but it is.

"Yes." Castiel's mouth tightens. "I am not unaware of human attraction. This is part of what you are and were created to be; it is neither more nor less shameful than requiring food and rest.

"Nor have I ever been oblivious to how many think that our withdrawal from earth was a blessing. We were too close," he says, voice softer, and if Dean could have hated himself just a little more, he would have right then. Uriel said he was supposed to be *restraining*, and there's only so many ways you can take that, from bad to shitty.

"Dean." Gentler this time, the tight control easing. "You did not say anything I had not suspected. Be easy. You did not--soil my virtue."

Dean buries his head in his hands. "Please shut up."

"And there is little that I cannot guess regarding human sexuality," Castiel says, warming to the topic, and oh God, this is Dad all over again except it's not, because Castiel is--well, nothing like Dad at all in ways that this little chat is *wrong*. "But perhaps, if you are worried, I could ask you questions on some situations I have found incomprehensible and you could explain them?"

Dean jerks his head up, and though Castiel's expression is all placid calm, the blue eyes aren't calm at all. "You're fucking with me."

"Yes." Pushing off the wall, Castiel crouches, one finger against Dean's chin, tilting up his head. "It was funny."

*****

They stop again when they consult Dean's arm and decide they've gone far enough. Plus, they're tired, though oddly not hungry; Dean eyes the placid blue pool and wonders. "Do you think--"

"I suspect so." Castiel frowns. "Though the taste could be improved. I would not suggest trying to indicate that, however."

Dean shudders; he doesn't want to see it try to experiment with the concept of taste the way it thinks the material world is supposed to be.

Janet falls asleep almost immediately; Dean looks at the ceiling worriedly and gets a handful of Castiel's jacket that Janet's lying on, unsurprised that the lights abruptly go out. Staring up at the ceiling, Dean almost wishes there were stars, but in this place, he's not sure he could deal with the thing trying to recreate a night sky.

Dean feels Castiel settle a vast five inches away, for the sake of propriety, or maybe just because Dean's an idiot and some things you just shouldn't say.

"How long do you think it'll keep us here?" Dean asks finally. He could ask for sleep, but he gets the feeling Castiel won't be sleeping either.

"Until it feels it has learned all it needs." Castiel doesn't sigh, but the tension radiates from him like heat. "You were wondering about food earlier," Castiel says slowly. "Do you remember?"

"Yeah. Though I'm not really all that hungry." Dean sighs. "Maybe it's really efficient with the liquid--"

"No, it's not. That would require imagination, and it has none. It cannot create." Dean has a feeling that this isn't going to be good. "Before you thought of water, were you thirsty?"

Dean hesitates. "I'm not sure."

"And are you tired?"

He *should* be. But he's not. And he bets Janet wasn't either, not really. "Yes," he says firmly, lying through his teeth. "Really tired. With all the *walking*. Let's change topics; your sex life. How's that going?"

"Dean."

"Don't--"

"Dean. There is no time here."

Dean rolls on his side and wishes he could see well enough to throw a punch. "You can't know that."

"I think you already knew."

Maybe he did. Dean lies quiet for a few seconds. "There's no way out."

"If Uriel--"

"If they remember. We don't know if--if the effects take longer. And Sam--" God, Sam. Dean tastes adrenaline bitter on the back of his tongue, panic breaking through him like the ocean. "It can keep us here forever. If you call this living, which I fucking *don't*--"

"Dean. Breathe."

"*You* breathe!" Dean hisses. "You are saying there's no time in here, and we're stuck--that means forever with a cave and a pool of water and I bet we can't even kill each other--"

"I do not want to kill you, Dean."

That's it. Dean reaches out, finding material, makes a fist, and jerks. Castiel makes a surprised sound, but he reacts a hair too late, and Dean gets both his wrists pinned to the dusty floor, using his weight to keep Castiel from throwing him off. "Give it time. There's no one yet who hasn't tried. Hell, I'm not placing bets on this thing once it realizes it only needs two of us to get things started."

It takes a second to penetrate that Castiel isn't moving, and Dean gives himself a second before letting go, dropping back to the floor, faintly aware that his hands are shaking. He hears Castiel sit up after a few seconds, then shift closer, enough so a knee presses against his, warm and solid.

"Dean." So gently that Dean almost hates him for it.

"Don't." The thing is, death doesn't seem like too high a price to pay. Not now maybe, but Dean doesn't rate his chances of continuing like this all that great.

"We will escape," Castiel says softly, and Dean wants to believe it so badly it scares him. Dean feels fingers brush his forehead, asking him a silent question.

Dean reaches up and catches his wrist. "You've only slept once since we got here." It's not a question.

"No."

Dean nods, breathing out, lowering his hand, but not letting go. "Tell me about how it started. The first hunters. What they--what they said when you showed up and started going on about God."

Castiel makes a sound very like a laugh. "You might be surprised that they were not as easily impressed as you might think."

Dean concentrates on the warmth of Castiel's wrist in his hand, the press of his knee, closing his eyes. "Did they try to stab you?"

"There were great quantities of sheep's blood and a sharpened scythe. Perhaps I should start at the beginning, however. The son of Eve's eldest daughter was wakened untimely and went to investigate his fields…."

*****

Janet's panic isn't nearly as spectacular as Dean's, lasting less than five seconds, to be replaced by dawning hope. "So everyone they took is still alive."

Dean bites down on his tongue. He'd forgotten about Sandy.

"It's possible," he manages, while Castiel nods agreement. "Maybe it's doing the same thing to them; corralling them up and watching them to see how we work."

"So they're here. Somewhere." Janet tapes a discordant rhythm with one finger on the floor. Dean thinks of listening to that forever and has to grit his teeth. "In a place that even ghosts and angels can't escape," she adds depressingly, which hey, they all knew, but why not say it anyway? "What are the chances someone not here is going to figure out what happened?"

"Sam won't remember unless Uriel reminds him," Dean answers, knowing his voice reflects just how likely he thinks that is. "Uriel doesn’t know--or said he didn't--"

"He would not lie," Castiel inserts. An eternity of Castiel defending his dick partner. This is just getting better every minute.

"So he has to find someone that does, and who the hell knows how that will go." It's nto that Dean thinks Uriel is going to leave them here for eternity--wait, he just *might*. "So you know, chances are low to zero."

Janet nods blankly, looking around them again. A cave. A pool of water. The limits of their creation. "This is--" She licks her lips, turning back to look at them. "Are we going to forget, too?"

Dean thinks of Hell. It had taken a long time--in human terms. Less than a second in the life of a universe to start to forget. Castiel had been exiled from earth for two thousand years, and culture shock or not, it *showed*.

"We'll be out of here before then." Standing up, he reaches for Janet's hand. "We need to keep moving."

"What on earth is the point?"

"I don't know," Dean says roughly, jerking her to her feet. "I just know we have to."

*****

Dean keeps count at first pretty easily--there's nothing else to *do*--then as they reach the end of the second row, when they'd usually look at each other and mutter about rest, Dean shrugs, pushing ahead, pen in hand. "Let's see how far we can go."

It's like a challenge and a dare both; to his body that's not tired, to his stomach that's not hungry, to the lack of thirst and the endless lack of change.

There's a fourth row, then a fifth, and Dean can't remember the last time any of them talked--when Castiel suggested they stop, and Dean had pretended he didn't hear him--when Janet froze in the center of one of the caves, eyes closed, head bowed, her lips shaping the names of her husband and her daughter--and half through the six, Dean twists his arm around, looking for a new row.

Castiel's hand closes over his, trapping the pen between their hands. "Dean."

"Let go."

Castiel's hand tightens; behind him, Dean can see Janet sinking to the floor, face buried in her hands. "Stop."

"Let. Go."

"I will not allow you to--"

Dean doesn't remember lifting his arm, balling his fist; he doesn't even remember being angry. Abruptly, he's holding his hand and looking down at the awkward sprawl of Castiel's body, and the blood is the first real thing he thinks he's seen in forever, bright red smears over a hand that doesn't hurt, splashed across Castiel's shirt and face, and darkening the dust.

"Dean!" Janet drops down beside Castiel, cupping his face before looking around intently. Dean's nto sure what she's looking for before she pulls off her shirt, hands closing along the seam lines and ripping it neatly in two. "Hold still," she says to Castiel, knocking one hand away. "I need to stop the bleeding--"

"It does not hurt, Janet," Castiel says, sounding muffled. "I do not think--"

"Shut *up*," she snarls, using the heel of one hand to hold the cloth in place as she uses her teeth on the second. "Basic first aid, been doing this all my life, so let me *do it*."

Dean drifts a step closer, then another, staring at the blood streaking Janet's hands, trying to remember the feel of impact. Flexing his hand, he looks at the red, swollen knuckles and wonders if they could be broken from the shift of bone beneath the skin.

"It doesn't hurt," Dean says. Janet gives him a single, furious glance before she shifts behind Castiel, easing him up against her chest. "It--"

"Not interested." Removing the first blood-soaked bandage, she replaces it with the more neatly folded pad of cloth made from half of the remains of the shirt. "Go, stay, knock yourself out. I don't give a shit. We're not going anywhere until we figure this out."

"We have to keep looking--"

"For *what*?" Angry blue eyes stare into his. "What's the fucking *point*? Nothing's changed. We've been walking five fucking *days* and nothing's *changed*."

Dean blinks, looking at the marks crawling along his forearm with a frown. "It hasn't been--"

"Dean," Castiel says thickly. "Your other arm."

Like he's moving in honey, Dean turns his head, lifting his other arm. Beneath flecks of blood, there are neat rows, as tiny as ants feet crawling up his skin to the elbow, stretching from wrist to elbow.

Dean abruptly realizes he's not holding his pen. Dropping in the dust, he scrabbles through it desperately, feeling nothing but too-soft dust and rock. It has to be here. There's nowhere else it could *be*.

"Dean."

Son of a *bitch*, where the fuck did it--

"Dean." Quieter.

"I can't find--" He combs his fingers over the ground brutally, feeling fingernails tear painlessly away, dark dust clinging to his fingertips. "It's got to be here--"

"Dean." Abruptly, he's scratching against denim and Janet is grabbing for his face, jerking his head up. "Dean. IT's here." Reaching behind her, she takes the pen that Castiel extends to her. "It's fine."

"Give it to me." He doesn't recognize his own voice.

Licking her lips, Janet hesitates. "Dean, don't--"

Before she can finish the sentence, he twists her wrist, wondering in some part of his mind if that's the sound of bones shattering--Christ, what is he doing?--backing away on his knees while Janet cradles her wrist, staring at him in shock.

"You can give up," he says, getting to his feet. "I'm not." Turning, he walks through the cave door, emerging onto clean, unbloodied dust and starts a new line.

*****

He mixes it up this time--a left here, a right there, and his lines become dots when reaches his bicep. For a while, he runs, just to see what it's like, and it's not like anything at all. No rush of adrenaline or burn of muscles, no rocks to stumble over or block his path, just speed that doesn't feel like he's moving at all, the monotonous passage of identical rock and identical doors.

None of it changes. There's a pool between two doors, a perfect circle of blue water, dust, and the limits of a single cavern room over and over until he stops and realizes he's holding the pen but cant' remember the last time he used it.

Sam, he thinks, and for a second, he can't remember who that is or why he cares.

"Son of a bitch." Dropping by the pool, Dean scrubs away the ink marks until there's nothing but red, abraded skin left. Pushing the tip of his pen as deeply as he can, he writes Sam's name, welling blood almost covering the sharp black lines.

*Sam. Your brother.*

That's the most important thing. The only thing. In Hell, he remembered Sam's name long after he forgot his own. He won't lose that.

After a while, staring into water that shouldn't be that blue, Dean writes his own name beneath. His father's and his mother's on his wrist. The town he'd been born in across the pulse of his elbow. Hunting, underlined in a slash that might have needed stitches in another place and time. Hell, jagged letters that wrap around his bicep to remind him of the horror he'd thought once he'd do anything to forget. Bobby, Jim, Cassie, Caleb, Ellen, Jo, names he can almost feel fading away even as he writes them. Wiping the blood away, Dean tries to think, because there's something else, something--

Pulling off his shirt, he leans over the water and looks at his own reflection, the faded red of the handprint and closes his eyes for a second, because he knows this, he *knows* this. Blindly, he stabs the tip painlessly into his skin and writes the name that's fading so quickly he's not sure he'll be able to write it all before it's gone.

Opening his eyes, he turns enough to look at it.

"Castiel," he breathes into the echoless cave. He always came before, even when Dean hadn't wanted him, though Dean can't remember why or where.

Curling up beside the water, Dean closes his eyes and forgets that he doesn't need to sleep.

*****

"Dean."

Dean opens his eyes blearily, looking into two unfamiliar faces. Frowning, he pushes himself up on one elbow, looking between them, then realizing his hand is still wrapped around a pen, knuckles white.

Letting go, Dean sits up, staring at them blankly. "What?"

The man--not quite, though he's not sure what that means--reaches for his arm. Dean lets him take it, frowning at the tickle of skin as a finger traces over the fading scars that spell out--

"Sam," Dean says, staring at it, trying to put the word into some kind of context. And beside it--

Sam. Dean. Mary and John Winchester. It's a faint trickle, but he grabs for the memories, clinging as he follows the man's direction, reading each word and settling each memory into place. Hell. Kansas. Hunting. Bobby.

At the first touch on his bicep, Dean doesn't need to look. He looks into Castiel's eyes. "Castiel."

Fingers clutch his arm for a minute, then Castiel nods, and it's like Dean can *feel* the tension drain away. Beside him, the woman--Janet--reaches for the pen. Dean lets her take it, watching as she extends one bare arm and starts to write. *Sandy* stretches from elbow to wrist. Dropping it, she looks at the name for a long moment, then at him. "I'm forgetting, too."

*****

There's not enough space on her arms, covered in the names of people and places; Dean stretches her out on Castiel's coat and writes her history into the expanse of her back. Elementary school above the shoulder blades; her best friend in third grade following the line of her spine; her favorite book by her left hip. College. Vampires. The first time she got drunk, the first time she had sex, the first time she fell in love, the first time she hunted on her own.

Then she pulls away and Castiel takes the pen. Dean tells him:

"I was six when my mother died," and remembers the bright heat of fire, his father's desperate voice, and the warm weight of Sammy in his arms with every stroke of the pen across his back.

*Stanford* for the three years of loneliness that felt like eternity before he knew what eternity meant. *Azazel*, for the obsession that ruled his father's life. *Cassie*, for the blighted hope that was the first and last time he thought he could fall in love.

Finally, he reaches back, hand closing over the pen. Turning around, he looks at Castiel. "Tell me what you want to remember."

Castiel hesitates, blue eyes searching, then the long fingers begin to unbutton his shirt, sliding it down long, pale arms, free of narrow wrists, folding it neatly before putting it aside. Dean reaches for his arm, turning it carefully and writing the memory he needs Castiel to keep across the bare skin.

*Dean* he writes. *You saved me.*

Castiel runs careful fingers in the air above the words. "I won't forget," he says, voice low.

"I won't either."

*****

Three days is the limit, though they can't mark time without moving, and there's no clock to track the seconds. Dean knows dusk and dawn, the wax and wane of the moon, the rhythm of the earth in his blood, but there's no earth here to touch.

Janet breaks the pen in her bare arm, pushing until it grates on bone, hand shaking with the pain she doesn't feel. Dean forgets to react, watching the bright swell of blood, the first new thing they've seen in days, the quick, competent movements as Castiel bandages the wound with the torn shirt that never stays soiled, and cradles the broken pen with a feeling that should be despair.

"We can't go on like this," Janet says, sounding desperate, like she already knows they can. "Fifteen, I was fifteen and I saw the movie Rambo at the--at the theatre--"

"With your boyfriend," Dean says. Sometimes he thinks if they could remember, they'd know each other well enough to live in their skins. Castiel told him about a mountain and girl who hunted at night, selling her soul to prevent a marriage she dreaded more than Hell. Janet watched a meteor shower in Greece on her honeymoon. He has a brother.

Everything else can burn away like dry paper; that, he has to keep. Turning it, he surveys the fading ink and vanishing scars, because no matter how deeply he cuts, they never stay. "Shit," he murmurs, tracing over the remains of Sam's name. "Water and night. Can we get a fucking *pen* here? Is that too fucking much to ask?"

Dean sees Castiel shiver, frowning as he raises his head, looking around the cave. When he shivers again, Dean realizes he feels it too, a shift that feels like looking through water, and then it stops.

When he looks down, there's a new pen on the ground in front of him, straight and inky black, chrome-edged and with the name of a motel (that he knows, he's sure of it) in gold across the side.

Licking his lips, Dean stares at it. "Is that--"

Janet's the one that finally picks it up, rolling it between fingers still dusted with drying blood. "It--feels real," she says, but she holds it like a dead thing, willingly handing it over when Castiel reaches.

"It is identical to the old one," he observes in a stunning feat of obviousness. Dean holds his hand out, and Castiel hands it over almost gladly.

It's smooth, like the first one, and there's no difference he can see. Too light, maybe, not quite fitting into his hand, rubbing awkwardly against his palm. Writing Sam's name in crisp, black ink, Dean tries not to think of the slither of the liquid against his skin, and how he never knew ink had a smell, because this has no smell at all.

"So we ask," Janet says, blinking slowly. "That's it?"

"So it seems." Castiel looks at the pen on Dean's hand with a faint frown. "Perhaps that is what it is waiting for. To be asked."

"Beats prayer." Dean stands up, looking around the cave. "Grass. Trees. A fucking *sky*." He can hear his voice edging on hysteria, but he can't bring himself to care because he wants to see something, anything that isn't this, and he might be desperate enough to beg. "You want to copy the world? Fucking *do* it already. Just--anything but this."

"I do not think--" Castiel starts, and Dean gets a glimpse of Castiel's face, blue eyes flickering close, swaying before Janet catches him, easing him to the floor. Then she gasps.

This time, the nauseous tilt of reality lasts much, much longer.

*****

"Oh my God."

It's grass--at least, that's what Dean thinks he remembers of grass, spiky and brilliantly green, an even stretch of carpet that stretches around them, the walls of the cave making way for thick, hearty brown trunks with heavy branches bending toward the ground.

They're in a forest. Or something so close to being one that Dean can't (can) tell the difference. Trees branching over their heads like a cathedral (arched with the precision of a mathematician with a compass), sky wide and blue (the color of a crayon, uniform and oddly shallow, like looking at painted glass), and warm like late spring (a thermostat set to almost perfect).

Janet vanishes into the trees; Dean starts to go after her, but his hands keep sliding the length of the grass that feels so real (glossy and a little hard) that he could almost think he was back home (he's not).

(This is wrong, and he tells himself he doesn't care. There's color and light and it's good. It's good. It's good enough.)

Castiel hasn't moved, though, and Dean lets Janet go to cross smooth green grass that whispers regularly with every step, looking down at the man (angel) hunched slightly, arms, pale and slightly sweaty.

Maybe it's the coat. "Cas," Dean says, sitting down without a cloud of dust; it's amazing. The air even feels better (tasteless). "Cas. What's wrong?"

Dilated blue eyes scan their world, then stop at Dean, wide and shocked, edged with a revulsion that Dean doesn't (won't) understand.

"This is--" he stops, swallowing hard. "It feels--"

(Obscene. It is. Dean can't feel the earth in any of this. It's like living in a television. He can't feel anything at all.)

"Obscene, yeah, you've said that before." Dean takes a deep breath, looking around them again. "I get it. It's not--"

"It's a perversion of life."

There's no way to answer that, so Dean doesn't try. "You got a better idea?" When Castiel's eyes narrow, Dean snorts. "Sit there day after day until we can't even remember how to breathe?" Dean's not even sure they really need to.

(He's not testing that anytime soon, though; he's not sure whatever he has left of sanity would make it through knowing for sure.)

"Dean," Castiel says, voice so low that a breeze would have stolen it.

(There aren't any breezes here, and maybe, maybe that will help, make it easier to look around and not be so afraid.)

"We give it what it wants, it may let us go."

(But it seems to want to know what they want. Everything they want. All they have to do is ask. Just. Ask.)

"You have a better idea?"

(And this is better than that cave. Anything is better than that, even Hell.)

(He thinks.)

Castiel shivers again, but he doesn't answer.

"Yeah." Dean pushes himself to his feet, fingers pressing firmly into the grass. "Come on. Let's find Janet before we lose her. We'll figure something out."

Castiel hesitates, looking slowly between Dean and his outstretched hand. Janet's voice floats toward them, unmuffled by whatever distance she's gone, but Dean doesn't feel any real urgency to move, explore. He's pretty sure he could wait here forever if he had to. It wouldn't be hard.

Then Castiel's hand slips into his, strong and hard and almost painfully real; for a second, the garish colors of the forest and the sky, the neat lines of tree trunks and glossy bushes, the bright, smooth carpet of grass fill his mind, and appalled, he thinks this is nothing, nothing like earth, nothing like home, how the hell can they stand to *see this*….

Then it's gone and Dean tugs Castiel a reluctant step toward the sound of Janet's voice and the bright sounds of splashing, then another. It gets easier with every step.

*****

"It's amazing," Janet says, awe in her voice. She's peeled off her jeans and shoes, sitting in just her underwear and tank top, stretching out on the grass to stare up at the cloudless, sunless blue sky. "It's--so much like home."

Dean's worked his own boots off, expecting a flood of dust, but they're as clean as usual. Setting them and the socks aside, he leans back on both arms, keeping his eyes closed. If he's still, it's almost like being home. All he needs is Sammy--

Dean shoves the thought away before it can break the surface of his mind, forcing appreciation for the view of endless green and perfect blue.

"It's quiet," she says softly, and Dean opens his eyes. She's still smiling--hell, even he's smiling--but yeah, quiet. It's quiet. "No wind."

"Or animals," Castiel says, sounding hard. He'd been coaxed out of his coat, too heavy for such a warm day, but that's all the concession he's made, and Dean resents it, the stiff, straight body and occasional flinch, the way he says without words there is nothing here he can accept. It's a constant irritant, rubbing at Dean's peace like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Janet sighs, stretching, and Dean's surprised to find himself watching her. Long body and dark honey skin, eyes almost the exact color (the exact color) of the sky, and thick black hair pulled into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck.

Scratching the back of his neck, Dean steals a glance at Castiel, who's watching her, too.

Something about that pulls at his mind, but he ignores it, content to wonder what else they could have added if they ask. A lake maybe. Water skis. A diner and pancakes by the hundred, cheeseburgers, fries….

"Is it getting darker?" Janet says suddenly.

Dean blinks, straightening. It does seem a little darker. A gradual change in shade, maybe, like a dimmer switch on a light. "I guess it's night," Dean says. Lying on grass in the shade of trees on a warm night; this beats the cave all to hell. His body still wants sleep, even if it doesn't need it. Lying back, Dean folds his hands over his belly, hearing Janet and Castiel settle themselves nearby just as the light dies.

The darkness is just as absolute as the cave, and above them, there are no stars.

Dean doesn't (does) miss them at all.

*****

He dreams of pain, intense and shattering, and it's been so long he'd forgotten what that was like; is this what he's fighting to keep? Why?

It goes away when he asks.

The world closes around him as closely as his skin, cradling him in solid, warm earth, buried in peace so absolute that nothing can penetrate it, even memory, even thought.

Endless silence fills his mind. It's good.

*****

Dean wakes to someone's hand wrapping in his shirt and thinks about opening his eyes. For a second, he can't imagine why he should.

Then he feels the hand clench tight and reaches down. "Castiel?" And like that, Dean sits up, almost reaching for the gun that he doesn't have, beneath a pillow from a life that he's not sure he can remember. "Cas?"

He can hear Castiel's too-fast breathing, just on the edge of panic, almost hear the fast beat of his heart. Scooting over, he curls his hand around Castiel's and looks into the darkness where he thinks Castiel's face should be. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Castiel whispers, voice like ground glass. "There was--"

"You feel asleep." Dean grasps the thought and holds it down. "Angels sleep?"

"The body, yes." That's not quite the same thing. "I have never--there was nothing." He shudders, hard enough for Dean to reach for him, stroking a soothing hand down his back. "I couldn't remember anything, even myself."

Dean tightens his grip, smoothing slow circles into the small of his back, murmuring comfort against soft hair, thinking of his own dream, the slowness of waking. "It's doing it when we're sleeping," he says finally; why didn't he notice that? Castiel's memory was the best of the three of them, and maybe it wasn't him being an angel that was protecting him.

"I believe so," Castiel answers, breath warm against Dean's skin. "Dean--"

Dean takes a deep breath; Castiel has a *smell* and Dean hadn't realized he'd been missing that in a world that had none. That he hadn't even *realized* had none. Sweat, slightly salty, the faintest hint of cotton and detergent, and a smooth, musky male warmth that made him want to push Castiel over, breathe him in.

Dean wonders how much every night he and Janet are losing; it's terrifying. "Tell--tell me something," Dean says desperately, clutching a handful of Castiel's shirt, the material smooth and slightly damp beneath his hands, vividly real. "About--about--" Christ, about what Castiel *is*, what he does, what he-- "Before you left earth. The people. That you--"

"Hunters," Castiel says, and there's a sickening second where Dean can't remember what that means.

"Tell me you still remember."

Castiel hesitates, and Dean feels his stomach clench--that's it, game over, that's *it*--then he seems to relax, the desperate grip on Dean's shirt easing. "Babylon," he says. "It was beautiful then, before it grew corrupt. For a time, it was the center of the world. When I first saw it, I wondered at humanity's gift of creating such beauty."

Dean keeps his hold on Castiel's hand. "Tell me what happened."

*****

Dean asks for a lake the next day, watching it appear from nothing without any sense of wonder. It's huge, formed from vague memories of Lake Superior, and this time, he remembers scent and asks for it, breathing in something like salt and almost believing it was real.

Janet asks for a house, a bed, a kitchen with brightly metal appliances on flawless grey granite with neat, flat edges and almost mathematical pattern of grain. She pretends she doesn't notice the picture window that centers on the joining of lake and sky where a sunset should go; Dean wonders, wandering through each room, if this is her house. The rooms are neat, perfect blocks, furniture arranged with careful precision, and walls a chilling shade of pale blue.

There's nothing about it that's imperfect; Dean's eyes search for uneven patches of paint, cracks at ceiling corners, overlaps of windowsills and walls that aren't symmetrical and right angled, for curtains askew and blinds half-pulled.

He's shaking when he leaves, going back out onto the smooth grass with hands clenched into fists, the broken edge of his pen pushing into his skin so he won't start to yell.

Castiel, waiting stiffly where they slept the night before (now a shoreline with water that flows to a meticulous three feet from Castiel's shoes), doesn't look up at Dean's approach. Dropping beside him, Dean looks out over the lake, the soft laps of water that don't have a moon to pull them, and take his hand from his pocket, smelling the acrid, bitter scent of his own blood with relief.

Castiel looks at his hand without surprise, passing him a piece of Janet's always cleaned shirt. Dean takes another breath before he covers the wound that will heal by the time he lifts away the cloth. "It looks okay," he says, feeling defensive, because how it looks isn't the problem. Janet's pleasure had been oddly muted; the frantic dart of her eyes as she looked at her chair, her fireplace, her bookshelf, had been the only living thing about her.

"There should be animals," Dean says, then sucks in a breath in horror.

Castiel shudders. "No," he breathes, and Dean pushes the thought away as quickly as it came. "That would be--"

"Yeah." Dean looks down at his bare feet against the grass, wondering if he should ask for sand. An ocean instead of a lake, lifeless blue with perfect waves riding the shore. "You should go look at it," Dean says half-heartedly, motioning behind him. "Janet's--she's excited about it."

Castiel licks his lips, looking out over the water. "I know."

Dean just wants to get away; from Janet's frenetic show of excitement and Castiel practically emanating his hatred of everything they see. It's too much to deal with. Getting to his feet, Dean sees his boots sitting alone near one of the trees.

"Dean?"

"Go make Janet happy," Dean says roughly. "It's not that hard, is it? Be nice? Tell her it's okay and it's--that it's good." Three steps bring him to his boots, and grabbing them up, Dean takes off down the shore line, wondering how far it goes.

When he turns slightly, Castiel's still standing there, unnaturally neat in his suit and loose tie (a tie, of all things), out of place in a world like a paint-by-numbers picture. For a second, Dean doesn't move, and neither does Castiel.

"Dean," Castiel says, voice low, just as the door opens and Janet comes out, saying "My books are here," and sounding so bewildered that Castiel turns toward her.

Dean starts walking, as fast as he can; he doesn't look back again.

*****

The shore doesn't seem like it will end; after a while, Dean remembers there are people that might be waiting for him and turns around. From here, he can't see the house.

At some point, he asked for sand, and the breeze that washes across the back of his neck could almost be the ocean, blue-green water like glass rising and falling in identical waves. If he closes his eyes, it's nothing like the Atlantic, nothing like standing on the edge of something huge and eternal; he's not sure what it's like. Glassy blue water like a puddle that goes on forever, no matter how deep it pretends to be.

Opening his eyes, Dean wonders if seeing a sun would drive him nuts. Sam would--

And like that, Dean stumbles on soft, flat sand, seeing Sam as vividly as if he was standing right there, watching the ocean with the same sense of displacement, how he'd shudder. With Sam here….

Dean stops short, looking down at his arm. The only thing he hasn't given up is Sam's name, carved back into his skin every time it fades back to smooth, blue-smudged skin. Licking his lips, Dean traces the pale white scars that tell him he needs to do it again. He has the broken pen in his pocket, aware of all the bare skin around it that no longer carries a single reminder.

With Sam here, they'd figure a way out of this.

With Sam here….

Taking out the pen, Dean looks at the broken tip, the wear from constant use, then at the fading name on his arm. He doesn't remember asking for sand, either. Crouching by the water, Dean reaches for a handful of wet sand, hesitating for only a second before starting to scrub at the space, skin abrading red to bloody, until there's no way to tell there was ever anything written there. Picking up his pen again, Dean doesn't hesitate this time, tossing it into the ocean.

For a second, Dean isn't sure what he feels; like dropping something heavy that he knows he can't stand to lose, like diving into the water and floating to the top with something left behind; like something in him has hollowed out. A rise of panic, *No, stop, I didn't mean…*

It's gone in an instant, and everything, *everything* seems clearer and so much brighter.

By the time he sees Castiel and Janet on the beach, his arm's almost completely healed. He notices, though he's not sure why, that there's nothing written on Janet at all. He wonders why he thinks there should be, fingers rubbing up and down smooth, unmarked skin like a blank piece of paper.

*****

Castiel still fights something; passive, silent, and unbending in the face of an eternity of everything they want. Dean doesn't like the feeling that he's expected to try and do something; no, he doesn't like the feeling that Castiel is doing something Dean *should* be doing, or trying to do.

He's not even sure what that is.

There are moments, though--right before Dean goes to sleep, when he wakes up, when he thinks of a sunset and can't remember the colors it spreads across the horizon--moments where Dean can feel something inside him crack like dry earth, spilling horror through him, followed by an anger that makes him shake. For those few seconds, he looks at a world like a cheap painting and wants to tear it apart with his bare hands and hunt down the creature that could make this and think it could ever be anything but a travesty of life.

That fades; it always does. Slipping away like sand, taking even the memory of feeling with it. It happens less and less; Dean wonders if it will stop happening at all, and if he'll even notice when it stops.

Janet walks by him from the ocean in shorts and a t-shirt from the closet in her house, dripping pale blue water into the sand behind her, pushing wet hair behind her ear as she pauses, looking at him for a long moment. "I don't need to breathe," she says without further comment, turning to walk back up the neat gravel path that one of them must have asked for. Dean watches her with the vague feeling that this is supposed to mean something, but he's not sure what. Sometimes, he forgets to breathe, too.

She stumbles once, going down awkwardly; Castiel is beside her before she can do more than push up onto her knees. Helping her up, Dean watches without interest as they talk, noting the strain around Castiel's eyes.

Since that one night, Dean doesn't think Castiel's slept. Dean wakes sometimes to feel Castiel beside him, seated on the sand, the world a dusky grey with a view of darkly blue, perfect water in the distance. None of them have slept in the house; Dean thinks there's some reason for that, but right now, he's not sure why when there are perfectly functional beds inside.

Turning back to the water, Dean hears the sound of their feet on the gravel, then on the porch, the door opening, and a long hesitation. Dean waits, sand sifting slowly through his fingers, listening to the door close, pushing the sand into a hill.

His mind flashes images of things made of sand, on beaches so bright they hurt his eyes, all vivid color and too-fast motion; the vertigo makes him vaguely nauseated. He tries to follow the images, shaping the dry sand, concentrating on the scrape of sand against his skin. For some reason, all he can build is hills.

"I'd like a sand castle," he says, or maybe thinks. Pale sand forms into concrete-like walls and towers, ruler-straight turrets and a moat that for some reason makes him think of silver-white crystals and a high, delighted laugh and crumbling walls that refuse to stay. Absently, Dean runs a finger along the wall, leaving a groove behind that fills in as he watches.

It's an awesome castle.

"Please," a voice says, and the utter desperation in it slices through Dean's thoughts, cutting into the warm peace with something he's not sure he recognizes. Standing up, Dean turns to look at the house, and the voice comes again, Janet's, low and intense. "I need to feel something. Anything. Just--"

"Janet." And Castiel's voice has never sounded like that before, rippling with the same desperate intensity. Then, "I know."

Dean follows the voices, walking up the suddenly too-long path, jogging when the voices lower, running when the words stop and turn to nothing but sounds. Skidding to a stop by the screen door, Dean looks at Janet's discarded underwear, at Castiel kissing her as she wraps her legs around his hips, arching as he pulls back, blue eyes dilated black with surprise as she pushes him into a chair, slides herself down onto his cock with a gasp.

"Yes." Hooking her arms around Castiel's neck, she rests her head against his. "I forgot--how this--" She gasps, rocking slowly, a shiver rippling through her. "How could I forget…." She presses her feet to the floor, lifting up slightly before sliding back down. Castiel's hands flex on her hips, long fingers tightening. "Cas--"

"I didn't know it was like this." Tilting his head back, he pushes a hand into her hair, drawing her down for a kiss. "It was never--I never thought to--"

"Not even when you wore a human body?" she says against his lips, and Dean's hands clench into fists. "You fought beside us for millennia and never wondered?" Glossy lips part in a startled smile; Dean tries to remember what that feels like. "Your brothers found us fair to look upon; didn't you?"

Castiel licks his lips, eyes dark and focused on her, as if nothing else existed. Dean thinks Castiel answers, but he can't hear it; all he can hear is his own breathing, too fast and too hard, a bitter taste in the back of his tongue, and has to turn around and go back to the beach, because he's not sure what he'll do if he stays.

The castle still stands, despite the water that splashes up around it, the wind that doesn't tug away even a single particle of sand; Dean stares at it, at the water, at the smooth sand all around him, and thinks of Janet's hands on Castiel's skin, the fall of hair over his hands, and wonders if he asks, if she'll be taken away.

The burn of anger doesn't end, and this time, he chases it; the memories are enough to hold it, stoke it higher. Dean remembers this; how could he have forgotten? The way he'd learned to hone it into a weapon, the satisfaction of turning it on someone other than himself. Celebrating their pain and terror, the desperation that filled their voices; they cowered before him, groveling at his feet, begging for the mercy he would never give.

Dean doesn't sleep that night, the core of anger enough to burn away anything like peace, watching the pile of sand that had been a castle that collapses every time it begins to build, listening to their voices until they fall asleep.

*****

They don't come out come morning; Dean can feel the peace pull at him. Staring at the close door, though, it's not hard to ignore it.

*****

Dean can't mark time with exhaustion, because he's never tired. There's no clock to break the day into segments to follow, no sun to chart in the sky.

There's wood, though, and Dean creates time in piles of wood, sixteen logs to a set. The trees are ideal for logging, cutting in perfect segments every time. It's been years (he thinks) since Dean's had to cut firewood, but some things your body doesn't forget, and muscle memory leads him through it, even if he doesn't know why.

There's no reason to do it, except Dean wants to feel time and that's something that this place can't give him. Something that isn't the anger he can't quite let fade, something to focus it on.

After a while, Dean wipes away sweat from his eyes and sees Castiel watching him from the shade of the uncut trees. Dean straightens, looking at the untucked shirt, the body that's no longer wire-tense or supernaturally calm, the invisible marks of someone's hands on him that Dean can still remember as perfectly as if he was still standing there, watching. Dean sets down the axe, wiping blisterless palms against his jeans.

"Hey." Dean doesn't know when awkward became something so new and strange, when a human's lifetime can be spent without the lack of it; like the anger, it's something he feels like he's learning all over again. "Everything okay?"

And here, that is literally the most inane question anyone could ever ask. Dean counts his piles, translating wood to minutes, to hours. It's been twenty, he thinks, and maybe his body can't remember the passing of time, but the logs do.

"What are you doing?" Castiel asks, sounding curious. Leaving the shade of the tree, he circles one stack, eyes flickering to count the others. "We do not need wood."

"Maybe we should." Getting out a new pen, Dean makes a mark on his arm for the final number.

Castiel doesn't answer, head tilted away, and Dean surprised by the rush of anger all over again, the surge that keeps jerking him back into noticing the perfect grain of every cut log, the clarity of the blue sky, and the way that acceptance hovers over him again, trying to pull him back under.

"Dean?"

Dean picks up the axe again. "I want to do something," he says roughly. Just wanting something, *wanting* to want something is enough for now. He'll get to the rest later.

"But you do not need to--"

"Yeah, I really do." Looking at the last tree that went down with almost insulting ease, Dean studies it, knowing however he cuts it will be perfect, but he plans it anyway.

Behind him, he hears Castiel shift. "Dean," he starts, and Dean turns on him, feeling the axe suddenly huge and heavy in his hand, that surge again that twists his stomach and makes him want to do--something.

"I'm busy," Dean says sharply.

Going back to the wood, Dean concentrates on the next tree; after a while, Castiel must have gone away, because when Dean has twenty-two piles of logs, he's alone

*****

Eventually, Dean decides he has enough, though he really doesn't know what enough would be. The forest starts trying to grow back, but Dean cuts away the new growth until it stops; confused, maybe, that he wants something it can't identify. After a while, he stops needing to check; it stays clear.

Once, he remembers a cabin in the woods from--something, he's not sure what--and for a second, there's a cabin in the clearing he made, smugly replacing tree stumps, grass growing up around it, a path forming toward the beach, and if Dean had looked inside, comfortable rooms would be filled with furniture from memories he can't quite grasp.

"When you can have anything you want," Dean tells Janet, who came to look at it with a faint frown, "what you can't have becomes really attractive." He tests the wood with his knuckles and can almost believe it's real. "This has got to go."

"Why?"

She doesn't help him burn it down, but Castiel does. Dean waited for the crumble of ash before he answers the question. "I want something that's mine."

The cabin doesn't come back, but the ashes stay.

*****

Janet says, "Why do you want blisters?" when he contemplates his hands one night, palms smooth and unmarred. Dean remembers pain as something you tried to escape, but now he wonders if escaping was the point, not the absence of anything to escape from. His body has no memory, skin a blank canvas.

They don't understand, and watching them hurts too much; it's so much easier to leave, and even easier to stay away, surrounded by logs that have no purpose in a clearing that has no reason to exist.

There's something more than this, there's got to be, and eventually, Dean goes back.

It only takes seconds to understand he stayed away too long; it's hours (days?) before they can remember him.

Later, lying in Janet's extra bedroom, listening to the sounds of something he can't have, he thinks maybe blisters aren't necessary after all. He doesn't need his skin to remember this kind of hurt.

*****

Castiel stops looking out of place; it's a slow erosion Dean recognizes only in the results. Dean has dim memories of protests and disapproval, of the instinctive rejection of this place, even if they can't remember anywhere else.

There was a before, Dean knows; a place that what they see and ask for comes from somewhere else, that nothing here didn't belong to somewhere (someone) else first.

Dean can't carve wood worth a shit, but he tries anyway, knife awkward in his hand. He's not sure what he's trying to make, feeling clumsy and stupid with every peel of wood that falls to the ground beside him.

"Do you remember hating it here?" Dean asks Castiel almost desperately; it hurts to see him, but it hurts so much more when Castiel forgets. Every time he comes here, Dean's chest loosens. He still remembers.

Castiel looks up from watching the peels of wood; they're all slow, now, everything dipped in honey, even thought, and it takes everything in Dean to resist the pull that leads to Janet's blank, quiet peace, Castiel's numb disinterest.

"No."

Dean feels the slice of the knife through his skin, the reflexive jerk of the muscles when the tendons sever; the blood still surprises him, a startling red that makes everything else seem flat, like a movie set that will fall apart with a push.

Dropping the knife, Dean doesn't stop the bleeding. There's a part of him that wonders if a world that has everything can really stop death. It's a fascinating thought.

"Dean!" Abruptly, Castiel is cradling his palm, pressing new gauze against the wound. Dean looks from the staining material up at Castiel, surprised by the sharpness in his voice. "This project is dangerous for you."

"So what?"

Castiel hesitates, long fingers wrapped around Dean's wrist. "You--"

"If I died, you'd forget," Dean continues brutally. "Same as if you didn't come up here, or I didn't come down to you and Janet. This doesn't matter. Hell, that," Dean points to his piles and piles and piles and *piles* of useless, pointless wood, "doesn't matter. None of it matters."

"Dean--"

"So I have to make it matter." Jerking the gauze off, Dean looks at the unmarked skin, the easy movement of fingers that were paralyzed seconds before. Pulling his hand away, Dean picks up his knife again, looking at the wood that would carve itself if he asked. "So I can feel something. Isn't that what you do with Janet?" he asks, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Trying to remember how to want something? Feel something?" It's hysterical when he says it, because it's true. Janet has Castiel. Or he has her. And Dean has logs, an axe, a knife, and a clearing.

"Is that what sex is supposed to be?"

Dean stops before he can cut himself again. Looking at Castiel's expression, almost curious, almost interested, Dean fights down revulsion; sex is a lot of things, but it shouldn't ever be reduced to something you *do* without feeling, without wanting. Obscene is the only word that fits.

"No," Dean answers, focusing on the wood so his hands don't start to shake. "It's not."

After a while, Castiel leaves; Dean doesn't watch him go.

*****

Castiel doesn’t come to the clearing again; Dean makes himself remember to go back, marking time with misshapen carves of wood. Dean wonders if Castiel wants to forget him.

*****

The world abruptly goes dark half-way through something that Dean thinks resembles the carving of a tree. Dean blinks, trying to orient himself; he can't remember how long its been since it was night.

For a second, he doesn't realize that he can still see, standing up to put away the knife, dust off his jeans, then he does, and looking up, Dean sees stars like round holes punched in black paper, lighting the night in pale, cold grey.

Curious, Dean turns toward the beach, following the path he'd unevenly smoothed with his own hands, lined with rocks from the beach, and is unsurprised to see Castiel alone by the water, sitting on a bare stretch of sand and staring up at the sky.

"I don't remember why I didn't want this," Castiel says without turning around. Dean sits beside him, looking up. He knows his constellations; the clear white of the stars makes it stupidly easy to trace each line; there's no variation in brightness or size to his amateur eye.

"I don't either," Dean admits. Leaning back on both arms, he keeps his eyes on the sky because Castiel's rumpled and warm beside him, close enough to touch and Dean wants to so much he digs his fingers into the sand to stop himself.

"It's unsettling," Castiel says in an oddly detached voice. "Is this what you meant, about something mattering? Feeling something?"

Dean thinks of his thousands and thousands of logs, and thousands and thousands of stars. "There was something before this," Dean says finally, unable to articulate it any other way. "This can't be everything."

"There was," Castiel answers coolly; Dean blinks, looking at him in surprise. "There was misery, and pain, and loss, and anger, and there was the constant knowledge that nothing could be done to ease them. There was duty that would continue with no ending. There was knowing that you would grieve, and move on, only to grieve again."

Dean flexes his hands in the sand; his skin feels too tight, something terrible like understanding trying to push its way out. "And this is better?"

"Some might call it peace," Castiel answers flatly.

"This isn't peace."

Castiel looks at him, and Dean sees something in his face that's like that crack inside him, that he tests and prods and is scared to push for too long. Sometimes, he wonders if the answers he's looking for are there, and that scares him most of all.

"The stars make me feel angry," Castiel says, voice low. "And yet I asked for them. I watch you return to your endless, pointless piles of wood and often wished to destroy them. And yet I don't."

Dean jerks around to look at him. "You want to destroy my logs?"

"I would stay away until I could feel it matter less, then return." Castiel looks back at the water. "Then once I did not go, and you did not seek us out, and I forgot."

Yeah, that had been a stroke of brilliance there on his part.

"Yet--you didn't forget us."

Dean straightens. "What does that have to do with--"

"Why didn't you forget us?"

Dean licks his lips; the answer to that isn't one he's prepared to give. Because it hurts to be around them, but forgetting is so much worse. "Because I wanted to remember."

Castiel smiles, and for a second, Dean almost thinks that maybe he didn't want answers after all.

"You--wanted to forget me."

He wonders if it was always that simple, if he ever knew it was a choice.

"You *wanted* that," Dean says slowly, and at that second, he thinks he remembers how it feels to hate, the sickening twist of anger and hurt that he can't control. "You stayed away, and you--you--*chose* to forget."

"That's what this place is. It's not taking anything from us that we aren't willing to give. When you returned, when you reminded us who we were, for a second I was--angry--that I had to remember you."

There weren't, Dean thinks vaguely, three people in Eden.

"Fuck you." Dean stumbles to his feet, feeling himself start to shake. "You know what? I'll make it easy for you--"

"It was easy," Castiel says flatly; the guy hasn't so much as moved. "And you can make it even easier if you leave. How long do you think you would keep what memory you have claimed with nothing to sustain you but anger? Do you think you would continue to *want* when that is all you can feel?"

"How long did it take for you to give up?"

Castiel looks up at him, eyes bluer than that ocean could ever be. "The length of time it took to understand that what I wanted was something I could never have. It was--easier--to forget it."

Castiel's expression changes, looking behind Dean. "There is so very little here that was bearable. You began to forget, and so did Janet, and while I could not allow myself to do the same, you were still here. Then you were not, and there was nothing bearable left."

Castiel mouth quirks up slightly. "I do hate your logs. They gave you something that I could not."

Dean sits down abruptly. "You made that cabin show up, didn't you? I knew I didn't--how could you--"

Dean doesn't see Castiel move, but abruptly fingers trail down the side of his face; Dean leans into the touch instinctively, startled by the warmth radiating from that simple touch.

"I wanted your company," Castiel says, ignoring the entire question of how he got that cabin *from Dean's mind*. "That was the one thing this place could not give, the one thing that mattered, and you denied it to me."

"You could have asked," Dean answers, trying to sound angry and failing utterly. "I would have--"

"You told me to leave. You ignored my presence. You avoided me. The company of *trees* was preferable to mine."

"It was better than listening to--" Dean bites down on his tongue, but it's way too late. Castiel pulls away, and Dean remembers abruptly how unpleasant cold is, concentrated in all the places Castiel had touched him. "--the ocean," Dean finishes bitterly.

Sitting back, Castiel looks at him for a second, and Dean can't even begin to follow the speed of the thoughts that flicker behind his eyes. Then Castiel leans forward, and even seeing it coming, Dean's still surprised by the kiss.

For a second, he even lets himself believe it, because Castiel's right; Dean's not sure how long he can keep wanting anything when all of it hurts.

Then he jerks away, pushing Castiel away. "That's not--" Dean breaks off, licking his lips and regretting it; he can taste Castiel there. "Janet--"

"She does not remember. She chose not to." The second kiss isn't careful; Dean digs both hands into the sand to stop himself from touching, but he can't stop himself from responding. "Nor am I certain I would know to care if she did."

"You can't know that."

Castiel pulls back abruptly, mouth red and wet, eyes flat. "I know it did not matter."

Dean realizes he's been eased back onto his elbows and this is going somewhere he might not be able to stop. Dark excitement rushes up with that, familiar and new at the same time, laced with bitter jealousy and resentment and frustration all three. Pushing himself up, Dean gets two handfuls of Castiel's shirt and licks open his mouth. "I'm not a replacement."

"And I am not a convenience to be used when the mood strikes you and ignored when it does not." Long fingers cradle the back of Dean's neck, a warm forehead pressing against his. "There was something before this," Castiel whispers, words fast and breathless. "I do not remember what it was, but I remember you were there." Abruptly, Castiel reaches for his shirt, and Dean lets him pull it away, wondering what Castiel is looking for . Then a hand smoothes up his arm, and Dean turns his head to watch Castiel fit his hand over the reddened skin that's never changed in all their time here, the history that Dean's been searching for. "And I know I placed this on you."

Dean sucks in a breath, suddenly so hard he can barely think. Pushing Castiel back into the sand, Dean knees his legs apart and goes for his mouth, warm and wet, curling his fingers in his hair and thrusting against him, shuddering at the glittering heat that winds up his spine. "I hated when you went with her," Dean breathes, aware of Castiel reaching between them, fingernails scratching his belly as the jeans are unfastened, the zipper surprisingly loud over the sounds of the ocean. "That it wasn't me." Then Castiel's hand closes around his cock, and Dean sucks in a breath and grinds down helplessly. "It should have been me."

"Yes," said so mildly that Dean pushes his tongue into Castiel's mouth to silence them both, slapping his hands away and unfastening the button of his pants, impatient and stupid with need, pushing them down until he can press them together and feel Castiel shudder, making inarticulate sounds that Dean swallows.

Dean doesn't want to forget this; not the bright heat with every thrust as Dean holds their cocks together, not the sand grinding into his palm, not the twisting of the body against his, and certainly not the racing, startling pleasure of touch, of sharing something that can only be given by someone else.

Panting, Dean rests his head against Castiel's shoulder, hand slick as he curls it around Castiel's cock, rubbing into the slick, soft skin beside his hip, chasing sensation like running down a beach toward something he can almost see, wanting to get to there, but more than that, wanting Castiel there with him.

Castiel sucks in a breath, going still, and Dean's vaguely aware of the wet slickness in his hand, spilling through his fingers, the sharp, musky smell, and shudders, and comes, burying his groan against salt-slicked skin.

Dean doesn't move, and Castiel's arm across his back doesn't seem interested in letting him go either. After a while, though, Dean pulls away, dropping to the sand beside him, a warm lethargy filling his body. When he remembers to open his eyes, he pushes lazily up on one elbow and looks at Castiel, who is so far from pristine that Dean grins, reaching out to brush away the sand clinging damply to his skin.

The blue eyes look unblinkingly into the sky, and for a second, the warmth inside him seems to chill. "Cas?"

Castiel doesn't respond for a moment, but long fingers slide through the mess on his bare stomach in something like wonder. "This is what you meant," he says finally, and Dean can hear the ocean in his voice in all its depth and mystery, making the thing that throws water onto the sand behind them nothing that can claim that name. "About something to want."

"Yeah." Though Dean's thinks he had no idea what he was talking about, because he sure as hell hadn't known (remembered) it like this. And just thinking about it makes him want it again; it's better than anger, better even than those damn logs.

"You hated my logs?" Dean says, and Castiel licks his lips, rolling on top of him, and Dean's hard again just from the feel of Castiel's weight covering him.

"I would have created a bonfire of them," Castiel says, pushing Dean's jeans down far enough that he can kick them off. Dean watches him unbutton his shirt, tossing it carelessly behind them, rising to his knees to remove the pants. Mouth dry, Dean reaches for him, surprised by the simple pleasure of someone else's hands against his skin, the burn of stubble against his cheek and sand grinding against his back: tilting his head back, Dean grins into the sky.

This is worth remembering.

*****

Janet lets Dean pull her out of the house without much of a fight; Dean can't be sure she even remembers him. Looking around the beach, she stumbles slightly when Dean deliberately pulls her off the path, tramping down the sand toward Dean's steady attempts at deforestation. "Why do we--"

"Because it's there," Dean says patiently, trying to figure out if he'll make her come if she pulls away. It has to be all three of them, that he's sure of, even if he doesn't know why. "I don't know, okay? Just try it."

"If you want a cabin, you can ask for one," she answers in utter bewilderment.

"Or you can make one." Dean's still working out the details, because while he can imagine the whole, the parts are fuzzy. "Something that--" Dean searches for the right words, but none of them apply. "Before this, sometimes, there were things that you couldn't just be given. You had to work for them."

"Then why would you want them?"

Dean thinks the philosophical questions can wait. "That's what I want to find out," he answers, and somehow, it's the right one. Janet stops fighting him, looking ahead to where Castiel's been eyeing Dean's logs with a blank expression, like he has no idea what to do with them.

Janet pulls away, but only to go ahead of him, jogging up the sand, and Dean wonders with stab of jealousy if it's Castiel, but she stops short at the first pile of logs, running her hand over the smooth, impossibly splinterless surface, eyes flickering to the axe, then the mass of trees. Reaching down, she picks it the axe, hefting it easily in one hand.

"You can start with logs," Dean says, not sure why she's staring at those trees. "You don't have to start with--"

"I don't have to breathe, either," she answers shortly, bare feet picking their way through the detritus of Dean's attempts at trying to remove branches. "But I do it anyway." Stopping at the first tree, she pauses, looking at it with an expression Dean can't even begin to read. "Dean," she says, turning around abruptly, and this time, he knows she recognizes him. "How many?"

"Many?" The plan seems to be going in a direction he didn't expect.

"Trees." She turns back and raises the axe in a single smooth moment, burying it in the wood. Mouth curving upward, she pulls it out. "I want a *goal*."

"Twenty," Castiel answers abruptly, sounding intrigued.

She nods carelessly and makes another notch in the wood. "That's a start."

*****

Janet takes to wholesale wood destruction in a big way; Dean follows along, because for some reason, it hadn't occurred to him how much easier it was to do something when there was a reason for it. He'd chopped wood for something to *do*, to create a sense of time; Janet chopped down trees in sets of twenty to do something *with*.

"A cabin," Janet says thoughtfully, looking around the clearing that has tripled in size, rounding out by sheer persistence. Setting the axe against a tree, she looks between them. "Do you even know how to build one?"

Dean looks at Castiel helplessly. "I have this idea--" and then stops. Janet raises an eyebrow. Dean grits his teeth. "Do you?"

"No. But I think I can learn." Looking around the clearing, she frowns slightly, then snaps her fingers abruptly. "Something simple first. Something--"

"To learn from."

Janet points at Castiel, pleased. "That. Something we *can* do, to teach us how to do what we can't now. Something like--"

Dean knows where this is going when she looks over his shoulder.

"Sand."

*****

They're failures. Dean looks at the lump of sand. It's weird; Dean thinks this should be *easy*. Sand plus water plus hands and the whole thing should do something. He can't tell what the problem is, but he remembers trying to carve wood, and recognizes the feeling. It'd be so much easier just to ask.

Abruptly, Dean's face is full of sand. Choking, Dean spits it out, wiping his eyes clear; when he can see again, Janet smirks at him over the top of the pile, holding a handful of sand.

"But would it be worth having if you don't have to work for it?"

Dean grits his teeth and starts again, ignoring Castiel's smile. "Fine."

Later, Dean pulls away from Castiel's mouth and reaches for his wrists, pinning them above his head in the soft grass of the clearing. The blue eyes look up into Dean's in confusion as Dean wipes his mouth, pushing up experimentally against Dean's grip. Dean doesn't give an inch.

Leaning over, Dean presses a kiss against the side of his throat before breathing into his ear, "If you want it, you have to work for it," and feels Castiel's body tense between his knees, cock hard against his thigh. Dean grinds down, once, just because he can, shifting his weight when Castiel twists experimentally against him. "It won't be easy."

"Somehow," Castiel says breathlessly, looking up at Dean with eyes that seem to be filled with light, "I do not think I expected anything less."

*****

The sand becomes--something. Dean can't in any honesty call it a structure, but it has a shape and a purpose, and that's something. Somewhere along the line, Janet acquired a vision, and a second axe, and Dean discovers that a world with goals, even shared, comes with disagreement on how to reach them.

"It's a foundation," Janet says, holding the axe she's started carrying around with her everywhere like a part of her clothing. "We need something to build *on*--"

"It's level ground," Dean says, waving toward the smooth grass. "It's not like there's a lot of concrete around here," and they're not asking, not for a single thing that they don't have to, unspoken but crystal clear between them.

"That's not what I meant." Janet waves the axe toward the pile of wood beside Dean, and Dean suddenly wishes he hadn't left his on the other side of the clearing, because it feels unsettling to have his hands empty when she very much doesn't. "I mean, we use the uncut trees and cut them long for the foundation--"

"Which are hard to maneuver and you know it," Dean answers, because they've had this discussion and had this discussion, and Dean's sick of it. "Even with all three of us--"

"Perhaps--" Castiel starts, looking vaguely troubled, "we should--"

"What, now it's too *hard* for you?" Janet says with syrupy sweetness, and Dean's eyes narrow, feeling himself tense, a rush of energy spiking through him. "If you want it *easy*--"

"Don't even fucking start," Dean says, surprised and oddly pleased by the sound of his voice. Janet's entire posture changes, relaxed and watchful, and Dean realizes abruptly they're circling each other and he's trying to work her away from his axe. "There's easy and then there's *impossible*--"

"Or you're too much of a pussy to try."

Dean forgets his axe--his and hers. Later (much later), they'll both be relieved she did, too. One second, he's staring at her and the next, his knuckles feel oddly warm and she's sitting on the ground, one hand covering her eye.

Dean has an entire five seconds of utter shock--what the hell just happened?--and then she sweeps out a leg, knocking him to the ground with a grunt.

Somewhere distant, Dean hears someone saying, "Dean! Janet!" and ignores it, because this feels *good*. She's not as strong as he is, but she's so fast it almost doesn't matter. He can taste blood from her punch to his jaw, the memory of her heel slamming into his knee, the weight of her body before he pushes her off.

He doesn't know how long it goes on, but it feels amazing, and he hears himself panting, everything crystal clear and focused on her, on *winning*, making her give up, give it up. She's coiled only inches away, looking for an opening, and he imagines suddenly how she'd feel on top of him, all that energy focused and directed at him, wrapped around him, burying himself inside her.

From the way dilated blue eyes look into his, he thinks she's thinking the same thing.

And then he hits a tree so hard he sees stars in the full light of day. That should hurt. A lot.

Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, Dean shakes his head, looking up to see Janet pulling herself up from her own abrupt meeting with a tree and Castiel standing in the center of the clearing.

After a few minutes, Janet finally says, "What if we cut the trees in half?" and Dean knows compromise when it throws him into a tree and says, "Okay, yeah."

*****

In a place of arbitrary night and day, the abrupt change to night when they're still trying to move half a tree isn't exactly surprising.

Janet eyes them, mouth curving into a smirk before she picks up her axe, swinging it over one shoulder. "I'm going to go build a sand castle," she tells the clearing, wandering away.

He has just enough time to begin to wonder where Castiel is when a hand trails down his sweaty back. He starts to turn into it and gets pushed against a tree, smooth bark pressing against his cheek. Pushing back against is less than useless; he might as well fight gravity. "Uh,"

"Be quiet," Castiel says, sounding very close, though the hand pressed against his back is the only contact between them. Dean tries again, but there's no give; somehow, he hadn't realized Castiel was that strong. His breath catches, and it's like fighting with Janet all over again, but better, because in the end, he's almost sure he could have beat her, and here he's not sure of that at all.

"Something bothering you?" Dean asks the bark, smiling when the pressure increases, pushing the air from his lungs. Gasping for a breath, he digs his fingers into the tree and turns his head. He can't see Castiel's expression, but he doesn't need to; he thinks he's been waiting for this since Castiel threw them apart. The pressure eases briefly, but before Dean can take advantage of it, Castiel unfastens his jeans and pulls them down, and Dean sucks in a breath at the feeling of bark against his bare cock. His shirt is next; and that's so fast, he doesn't even realize he's been let go until it's over.

He thinks he feels breath against the back of his neck, the trail of invisible fingers over his hip, a butterfly brush of lips against the small of his back, each an echo of sensation too fast to track. He can't move enough to follow, and there's never enough time to anticipate, just a build of heat until he's sweating, trying not to shake.

The hand trails down his ass, and Dean pushes his forehead into the wood. "Gonna make me work for it?" Dean asks huskily.

"I would like to hear you beg."

*****

By any normal sense--whatever the fuck that is--it's not a cabin. Dean's not convinced it qualifies as an actual structure, which is what happens when three people who have no clue what they're doing decide that architecture is for wimps.

Dean looks at the tilting roof and feels vaguely sea-sick. "So it's done."

Janet gives him an odd look, arms crossed over her chest. "Could use a door. And a floor." Sighing, she looks around. "Maybe a fence next."

Dean shrugs. "For keeping out the carnivorous plants?"

"Maybe."

















*****

"Did we try that?" Janet asks. Dean jerks his gaze from the way Castiel's fingers spread against the darker material of his pants. Somehow, it's utterly fascinating.

"Try what?"

"Asking. It's trying to create. Maybe it wants to be like God, or be God, or whatever. So--ask." Before either Dean or Castiel can think of a response for that--and if Dean's honest, there really isn't one--Janet stands up, head tilted back to look at the ceiling. "Hey We want out."

Janet waits for a second, hands clenched. "What--what does it take?" she says, voice rising. "What do you want? What the hell are you trying to do here? You can't think you can be God."

Dean feels an ominous rumbling beneath them; moving to a crouch, he sees Castiel do the same, looking at the ground beneath them, the dust rising up in choking clouds, obscuring their vision.

"This isn't working!" Janet yells; from the corner of his eye, Dean sees Castiel shift to his feet as the dust starts to increase, Janet's form becoming indistinct. "You can't watch people and figure out how we're made! This place you made isn't real and this *isn't living*."

Dean stops short.

"You don't understand any of this, do you?" Janet says, turning in a slow circle, the dust obscuring her expression. Castiel moves toward her, then comes to an abrupt stop. "This is going to kill us, do you understand? We can't live like this. We're not meant to."

"Janet," Dean tries. He can't hear his own voice. A break in the dust shows Janet again, dark hair twisting around her face. "Janet," he tries again, something gnawing at the back of his mind, looping back to the forest and the thing standing there, that had reached for him, touched him, and said--it said--

"I don't worship you! I don't believe in you! Give me my daughter back! *Let me go.*"

Abruptly, Castiel has a hand wrapped in the back of his shirt, jerking him back; Dean doesn’t have time to fight it, and he's not sure he wants to anyway. There's an odd, sick glow filling the room, pale yellow shot with nauseating orange, and Dean has a second to process the sudden rise of heat before Castiel jerks his head around, looking him in the eye.

"Don't watch."

Then there's impossible heat and even though he's pressed against solid flesh, it's so bright he almost thinks he's looking anyway.

Dean slides both hands under Castiel's shirt and holds on.

*****

A long time later, Dean thinks about moving. He's half-kneeling, half-crouched between solid stole and Castiel; in theory, that's pretty uncomfortable. Something's happened, and he's pretty sure it's bad. On balance, though, Castiel's stroking his hair and that kind of makes the rest pretty unimportant.

"Are you keeping me calm?" Dean asks the cotton under his cheek.

"A little. It was necessary." The hand eases down, cupping the back of Dean's neck. It's not motivating Dean to move all that much.

"What happened?" It's a compromise; hear about it first. Then he can just not move.

Castiel takes a deep breath. "When we speak of it, we use metaphors with humans; you don't have the context to understand something that has no relation to the material world."

"Uh huh." He almost feels drugged. It's got to be pretty bad, then. "Context."

"Even Anna couldn't describe it as it was--she could only use human terms, because she had a human mind." Castiel sounds--weird. "Humans can be so literal; it took a very long time to understand that you wouldn't understand what was meant when--"

"I'm pretty sure I should be scared now," Dean offers. "Just cut to the chase."

"I think she Fell."

Dean sits up. "Okay, stop the mojo now. Try that again. She *Fell*? She's not--" Dean stops, staring at Castiel. "Is she?"

"No. But I'm not entirely sure that it knows the difference." To Dean's regret, Castiel removes his hand. Dean glances over to where he last saw Janet, but the cave hasn't changed at all.

"Know the--" Dean stops. "If I could get a headache, I'd have one now. So shes' not here. Where did she go?"

"Wherever it created its own version of Hell. Where I assume it thinks she will--" Castiel hesitates, exasperation creeping over his face. Dean can relate. "Will raise an army against him."

"Right." Dean takes a deep breath through his nose. "Think it would let us go too?"

Castiel looks weirdly tempted; Dean can't imagine what it thinks Hell should be like, but getting away from these walls actually makes it sound worth it. "I'm not sure that would be wise--yet," and Dean has to take a second to remember this. He's in a cave with an angel and tempting him to Fall. He's the snake in Eden.

Castiel doesn't comment when he can't stop laughing.

*****

Even though they both know that there's nothing to see, they check where Janet was anyway. Dean wants to think the not-rock is slightly darker there, but he's pretty sure its wistful thinking.

"So it takes corpses, then people, but not to kill the people," Dean says with a frown. They haven't left the current cave, because Dean just can't see the point; it's stupid, but he wants to stay near where Janet disappeared. "Just to keep them. Around. Forever." Leaning back on both hands, Dean glares up at the ceiling. "So nothing ever dies here."

Oh Christ. Dean drops back on the floor. "That. In the forest. Tell him nothing dies forever," he says, reaching up to rub the skin where it had touched him. "Tell him. And I'm betting him would be you?"

Castiel looks up from where he's been contemplating the pool. It's almost eerie, how calm he looks, because Dean has the feeling that he's not calm at all. There's a simmering tension that's been stretching thinner with every minute that passes, as Castiel stares at water like it contains the entirety of his hope for peace and Dean contemplates how very much this entire situation resembles fundamentalism gone so very wrong.

"Tell me what?" Castiel says with disturbing mildness. Long fingers slide through the water, creating perfectly round circles flowing with a pattern so predictable Dean knows it by heart.

"In the forest. When I met--it, I guess. It said to tell him that nothing dies forever. And that--" Dean watches, hypnotized as Castiel pulls his hand from the water. "--that there are other ways to escape hell than with an angel." Paraphrased.

"I see."

"I didn't think about it," he says quickly. "Me and Sammy talked about it, then I went to find Janet--"

"Yes."

"--and we--" And hey, he told Janet. "And she wasn't sure what it meant. The first part. I didn't know what the second part meant."

"Of course." Hand folded neatly in his lap, Castiel suddenly makes the ten feet between them feel very, very close. "Did you call your brother's companion--" which suddenly sounds a lot like *abominationy whore* for some reason, "--and inform her as well? Perhaps you shared these thoughts with Uriel? Perhaps you posted it on a messageboard for assistance?"

"I should have told you." Yeah, that was a mistake.

"Far be it from me to question your wisdom, Dean Winchester," Castiel answers, drawing out his full name with a twist at the end that also sounds like abomination. Dean could be projecting, but he's really not. "I can understand why it would not occur to you to inform me of what had transpired."

"A lot happened! I wasn't *hiding* it from you! I just--I forgot about--."

"Because there is nothing here to remind you of it."

"I fucked up, alright? Happy? I. Fucked. Up. Guess what--this entire angel thing? Still new. Still weird. Still *fucking impossible*. So pardon me for having some doubts about some guy who shows up--"

"--after dragging you from Hell. I can see how that would not lead to--"

"Don't even *start* that shit. Nothing, *nothing* has ever offered us help that didn't want to kill us. And your Uriel isn't the exception to that one, so you know, you know a guy by his friends." Did he just say that? Really?

And Castiel's not playing calmly with water anymore either. Dean doesn't think he's usually that tall, or that--scary.

"I am neither a pet nor an inconvenience," Castiel says, voice so precise that each syllable feels razor-edged, like getting too close could draw blood. "Whether I am of use to you or not, you show me neither respect or courtesy and I find myself tiring of it."

Dean gets to his feet. "Right. Because this is totally about me. Not getting me ready to send me out to kill my brother for you and die in the service of something I'm not even sure I believe in!"

Through the haze of possibly the fastest zero to deathmatch Dean's ever felt, Dean finds himself staring at the pond just behind Castiel. Those symmetrical circles of water are still going, and neither of them are touching it. The soft rumble beneath their feet is not, in fact, Dean's imagination. Something is happening. Even the dust is starting to rise.

"Cas," Dean says, fighting down his anger; how did this happen? How did this shit even *start*? "Cas, something--"

"Do not attempt--"

"Cas." Dean feels a rush of air around his legs; looking down, he watches the dust rising around *him*. Chest tight, Dean tries to move and his feet remain right where they are. "Cas. Something's--"

For a second, Dean's not sure if Castiel heard him. The dust thickens, swirling toward his waist, and Dean thinks of Janet and wonders if that's where he's going. It's not like he's never been to Hell. But--

Abruptly, Castiel turns, planting both feet and looking up with an expression that Dean would interpret as homicidal. "You will stop. Immediately."

Nothing. Dean watches dust swirl up his chest, sharply edged and biting into the bare flesh. "Not working. Cas--"

"This is ridiculous," Castiel says. "You violate all the laws of nature and seek to make creation out of facsimile--we are *done here*."

Dean's not sure what happens next--the dust gets higher, the ground starts to shake like it's the new California, and then Castiel's hand reaches through and *pulls*. For a second, Dean can feel something wrap around his legs, cling to his feet, a rubbery stretch that makes him nauseated just *thinking about*, and then abruptly he's tossed against a not-rock wall and hitting a not-rock floor, and Castiel reaches into--something like dust, but strangely dark and pulls abruptly, like something grabbing a curtain. Blinking through the haze (and an actual headache; hey, so he can still have those), Dean watches as rock tears like thin paper, revealing--

--absolutely nothing.

"Huh." Dean squints. "What--"

"We are leaving," Castiel announces. Dean squints, not sure who he's talking to. "I was speaking to you, Dean. We are leaving now."

Dean pushes himself up, checking for scratches that aren't there. "Where are we going?"

"I will protect you."

Slowly, Dean gets to his feet, staring at the ragged edges of absolutely nothing, surreal against the backdrop of rock climbing cave wall and the stillness of the pond. "Where are you taking me?"

Castiel take a breath, and suddenly, all that righteous angelic fury is gone. "Dean," he says finally. "I can't make this choice for you."

"Does everything have to be a test?" Everything in Dean wants to back away from that; it's where that thing left him in the forest, that emptiness and terrible peace that allowed nothing, even thought. It was-- "Cas."

"Here, yes. That's what free will means."

Dean takes a deep breath, forcing himself to take a step, then another. It's dark and huge, taking up his entire field of vision, and maybe it's his imagination, but Castiel's small compared to that vast emptiness that goes on forever. Closing his eyes, he wraps a hand in Castiel's coat. "Okay." Chest tight, he takes a deep breath. "Really. I just forgot."

He feels Castiel's breath against his ear. "And I would like an explanation."

Dean turns his head. "Why I forgot? That's called *human memory*."

"No. I have questions I would like for you to answer."

Oh. *Oh*. "You *asshole*," Dean breathes, and they're so close that he barely needs to move, a kiss fast and sweet and incredibly stupid and totally necessary. Pulling back, breathless, Dean looks back at the hole in reality and reaches for Castiel's hand. "Okay. Let's do it."

It's very dark, and Dean can't feel Castiel's hand, his own hand, his own body. But there's a warm burn on his shoulder and he's never felt less alone.

*****

Dean hits the ground like skydiving without a parachute--Christ, what a rush, and not ending in death. "Wow." Sitting up, he takes stock, but nothing's broken, and Castiel's crouching beside him, looking faintly surprised. "Okay. That--worked?"

"I thought it might."

Dean, pushing himself to his feet, stops short. "You *thought*?"

"There were several possibilities, none of which were of danger to you. This was fastest. The others were more complex. I've grown to prefer simplicity." Putting a hand under Dean's arm, he pulls him to his feet.

"What did we do?"

"Something very like dying, if this wasn't an obscenity of creation," Castiel says, sounding distracted. "But there is no death here. And even he is bound by the rules he creates."

Dean lets himself be pulled along through something that's not cave like and badly illuminated. "Where are we?" The stuff around him is kind of black and slightly shiny, like volcanic glass.

"What it thinks hell must be like, I assume." Castiel turns abruptly in claustrophobically tight halls, and Dean looks around him, feeling faintly offended.

"This isn't anything like Hell."

"And where we were trapped is nothing like Earth." Castiel seems to know where he's going, so Dean doesn’t' fight the pull, more interested in the nearly square stones that make up the wall. "I remember this now."

Dean digs in his heels. Castiel notices about five steps later when Dean's considering going limp. Turning, he frowns. "Dean?"

"You know what this is."

For a second, Castiel looks at Dean like he's being deliberately stupid, then checks himself. "Oh. This is Limbo. Or so he has called it."

Dean lets himself take a few more steps, turning that over. "I thought the Catholic Church disclaimed limbo--"

"How comforting. Then we are in a motel in Peoria, I suppose."

Dean squints at the back of Castiel's head. "You're actually being sarcastic. I mean, you have been before, but you're not even trying to hide it."

"It has been a very trying few days." Right. "When one discovers that Hell has been claimed and one doesn't want to go to earth and attempt to set up your own religion and accumulate worshippers, as one has neither the talent or the charisma for either one, there are few options for gaining power. So creating for yourself an area to clear and create your own version of life--"

"Badly."

"Petty gods come and go." Dean tries to wrap his mind around *that* and give it up. "They rarely if ever interfere with the will of God. And then there is this." Abruptly, they emerge into a huge, forbidding cavern, where Janet is sitting on another piece of volcanic rock.

Standing up, she stumbles toward them, straight to Castiel like Dean's not right there and being shoved out of the way. Ouch. "Castiel! What--"

"Limbo, gods, this is--" Dean looks around and shudders. "Where is everyone else?"

"I suspect with him."

Dean feels himself start to smile; it's so incredibly obvious. "Don't tell me. In his Heaven. By his throne."

"Trying to induce rapture, no doubt." Castiel studies the walls, apparently ready to go tearing through reality again. "Are you ready?"

Dean nods, grabbing Janet's hand. "Like you wouldn't believe."

*****

It's not like falling this time--though now Dean kind of gets what Anna was talking about in the Falling thing, but in reverse. Dean has to close his eyes at the glaring brightness, ringed in pure white, like an operating theatre the size of a universe.

"God," Janet whispers, head buried against his shoulder. "What the *hell*--"

When Dean opens his eyes, even Castiel looks vaguely glazed at the overwhelming whiteness. "So. He knows we're here, right?"

"He is not omnipotent. Though he certainly will have guessed by now where we would come." Castiel hesitates. "There is something--wrong here."

"All of it?" But Dean can feel it, too, and Janet's staring down the hall with a faint horror. Like knowing someone, somewhere, is running their nails over a chalkboard, very slowly. "Nothing dies forever," Dean starts, then sucks in a breath. "The bodies." Dean follows the feeling down endless marble-like white, fighting down the rising nausea, trying to believe that what he already knows. It lasts forever and seconds, and it's still too short, emerging into something wide and endless and white like the glare of a spotlight, the floor crowded with bodies abject before something that shines like cheap glass.

"He bound the souls into their bodies," Dean whispers. Thousands of them, in all stages of decay, trapped in timeless rot for all time. "He took them and made them stay, in their own corpses. Surrounded with their own death." For centuries, Dean realizes in horror. He's been working on this for *centuries*.

Dean feels the not-marble start to crack beneath his fingers; looking down, Dean pulls his hand away and watches as the crack vanishes. He'd always known the reason behind salting and burning, but before now, he'd never really understood it, why hunters did it, to those they hunted, to each other.

"Cas," Dean says. When he doesn't get an answer, he looks back. Castiel is staring down at the expanse of bodies, face blank. "Castiel."

"They--" Castiel stops. "They are my charges."

Dean looks down at them. His, too--the spirits who should have been freed of their bodies and sent beyond, trapped here for all time, living when they should have long been allowed the peace of death. "How do we end this?"

"You can't."

Dean doesn't turn around; Janet's shoulder presses against his briefly, and Dean wonders if her hand itches for a weapon like his does.

When they turn around, Janet's dead husband looks back at them. Janet sucks in a breath, but she doesn't say anything.

"His soul had already moved on," the thing says, smiling at them with razor-edged glee. "Or I would offer him back to you. Here, there is no loss."

Dean glances at Castiel, but there's nothing there to work with. He could be carved from the same marble as this room. "You have no power here, Castiel," it continues, apparently giving up on them. "I had thought you would see the benefits of what I have created--"

"This is nothing like creation," Dean says, wanting a gun so badly he can taste it.

The thing jerks slightly, eyes flickering to Dean before resting on Castiel. "Humanity is safe here. There is no suffering, no want. No waiting for salvation of whatever kind that is offered. There is eternity spent free of pain and anger and hatred. You of all people should understand what this means."

"And no free will," Dean says, mouth dry. "They werent' given a choice."

The thing frowns, trying to work the unfamiliar muscles into something like anger. "You are nothing but human. You could not possibly comprehend--"

"I am not." Castiel tilts his head. "I am the will of God manifest. They are not yours. You have no right to them. And you will let them go."

"There is no will here but my own. And I will they stay. I will raise them from their suffering, elevate them to my side, and they will live forever in--"

"Nothingness."

Abruptly, something closes over his throat and pushes into his mind; Dean feels the emptiness again, the pull that drags him away from everything that makes him what he is--Sammy, Bobby, the Impala, rain, the smell of summer, the heat of the fires he uses to free spirits from long dead bodies, the memory of his father, his mother's smile, and the brilliant moment that was being reborn into flesh that lasted only a moment and the life of a universe--and Castiel, who watched for two thousand long years before he was allowed to come home--

--oh.

"You will be silent."

Dean feels the ground again with both feet, like he just feel a thousand miles, breathing the memory of a world that lived.

Shoulder burning, Dean pushes a hand into the ground. "That shit only works on people who haven't seen the real thing. You can't remake creation and say the rules have changed. They have a choice."

They don't have salt or fire, and who the hell knows if that works here anyway; Janet follows him as he circles the wide edge of the cavern, looking at the perfect stairs, then at the horror beyond, people bound up in that darkness without sound or self. Worshipping something that had taken everything they were and ever could be and left them without the knowledge of what was their birthright.

Something's happening behind them, but Dean fights the urge to turn around. "He can do it," Dean says, because thousands of years ago, angels fought with hunters at the very gates of Hell, and Dean's on the fence about God, but this, this he believes. Looking down at the first body, bones wrapped in this sick copy of life, Dean thinks of Castiel leaning over his bed and says, "You can go home. He has no power over you."

Janet kneels, reaching out with a pale, long-fingered hand, closing her eyes briefly as her skin touches bare, greyed bone. "Go with God. Be at peace."

There's something like a sigh, breathless, the smell of rot, and the white around them seems to dim. Dean licks his lips and steps into them. Slowly, they move, rotting bodies brushing against his legs, hands forever rotting crawling up his thighs, looking up with a terrible absence of hope.

Crouching, Dean ignores the weak, pitiful pull of their hands, wondering in some part of his mind what he thinks he's doing. "He lied. This isn't what you were meant to be. You have a choice."

Dean feels the floor begin to shake, ignoring it as he steps over another, through them, wondering if there's enough of self left in them to even understand. It's more than thousands; they stretch endlessly into the distance, and he can't tell them all, he'd need hundreds and Christ, how is he supposed to--

"Dean," Janet whispers, grabbing his arm. Wiping his eyes, Dean lets her pull him, turning him toward the front, as the bodies stir, rising, looking around them before they start to rise.

Something pulls at his shirt; Dean looks down at the remains of a girl, and thinks he can see the face she once had, brown hair and wide brown eyes. Kneeling, Dean watches her struggle from the centuries she's been trapped here in time and space, her voice barely a whisper. "I don't want to stay."

"You don't have to."

The floor jerks out from under him, but Dean doesn’t really care--the whispering rises like the sound of a bird's wings, and there's something that's not anything like falling, because he doesn't move at all.

They do.

Janet grabs his hand, fingers clutching so tightly that in a place that wasn't a sick copy of reality, would hurt. The whiteness fades, graying into rot, and then Dean hears Castiel like he's standing beside him, breathed against his skin. "Close your eyes."

Turning, Dean reaches for Janet, pulling her head into his shoulder, closing his eyes as the room begins to brighten around them; burying his head in her shoulder, he feels light surround them, a second that's a roar like something long held captive and finally, finally free, and, for just a second, something massive and huge that dwarfs even Castiel, reaching out with long arms and wrapping around them, raising them up, and joy so strong that Dean can feel Janet sobbing with it and thinks he may be, too.

Then it's over, and Dean opens his eyes on a darkened, dingy room, and Castiel, faintly rumpled, standing over something that had long since gave up its light.

Dean watches blankly as Janet gets to her feet, letting her pull him up. Dean wonders vaguely if this is what a celestial hangover feels like. Stumbling up the stairs, Dean look at it, then at Castiel. "So he--goes to Hell?"

Castiel looks down at it, a faint smile curving the corner of his mouth that contains nothing like mercy.

"You wished for a kingdom; you will have it. All of this emptiness is your domain, and here you will remain, sealed within the nothingness you desired until the end of time. This is the judgment placed upon you. There is no reprieve."

"You don't have the authority."

"I am a messenger of God. I am the manifestation of His will. All that affects humanity is my domain." Castiel looks up; for a second, Dean thinks he can see the faintest outline of Castiel's true form, like a memory of looking at the sun.

Then everything dissolves in light.

*****

Dean opens his eyes on a sky of stars and hurts so much he almost wishes he hadn't woken up. "Fuck," he manages, rolling onto his side and regretting it. "What the fuck--"

When he manages to stop curling up from pain, Dean sees Janet, trying and failing to sit up.

"So we're alive. On earth," Dean says, trying to believe this is a good thing. Janet glares at him for a second, then takes a deep breath, getting to her knees awkwardly. Looking around, she frowns.

"Where's--"

"Mom?"

Dean jerks around to see Sandy stumbling to her feet, looking at them with wide, surprised eyes.

"Sandy," Janet breathes. Getting to her feet, she stumbles across the ground separating them, catching her daughter in her arms. "Thank God," she whispers, and Dean thinks maybe she's actually saying it. "Baby. You're--"

"Dean?"

Dean doesn't try to move, but he smiles. "Sam." Arms go around him, pulling him upright, which requires nothing of Dean but lying there and letting it happen. "Hey. Remember me?"

He's squeezed so hard he thinks his ribs are reshaping from the strain. Yeah, he's home.

*****

So the story goes something like this:

Uriel had some kind of moment when Dean vanished, and while Sam doesn't say freaked out, Dean thinks that's pretty much what happened. Sam kept rewriting Dean's paper in between trying to find out what this was, and then Uriel came back and--

"Did something." Sam shrugs uncomfortably. "It was--unpleasant. But I stopped forgetting."

Dean winces. "How long were we gone?"

"Three days."

Huh. It had seemed longer.

"Then there--Uriel suddenly just vanishes, then comes back and says you're in the forest. He looked--weird."

Yeah, Dean can imagine if Castiel was still--what he was when they left. Dean half-wishes he could have seen that meeting. "And you came to rescue me." Dean smiles up at his brother, saccharine-sweet. "You're my hero, man."

Sam gets a constipated look on his face and tosses a pillow at him. Dean lazily deflects it toward the floor, way too comfortable to think about moving. After a few minutes, Dean gives up and looks at Sam. "Go ahead and ask already."

"Just--" Sam shakes his head. "Faith. Did it change your mind?"

Dean looks at the uneven, dingy ceiling. "Get back to me on that one." Rolling over, he buries his head in the scratchy pillowcase.

Sam, being Sam, doesn’t let up. "That's it?" but he doesn't sound all that surprised. Dean grunts into the pillow and pretends to fall asleep. Sam's not fooled, and Dean falls asleep anyway.

Comments

[bratfarrar]

Oh man. So awesome. So very very awesome. *waves hands incoherently* Just--awesome.

Maybe later I'll be able to come back and say something sensible, but it works for me, now, as is. I wouldn't call it a WIP. Just a finished story that's a little sketchy at points but hangs together quite well.

[seperis]

This one, I regret so much not finishing, and worse, it's not the story or the idea I stopped loving or wanting to write; I just got basically hugely self-conscious with writing hybridized theology. I mean, personally, I'm Christian, and I seriously doubt God is staring down going "I am so going to flame you for getting it wrong. Did you not read Revelations? N00b." Yet.

The original didn't have anything starting from the trees--I left them in the caves altogether and didn't take it far enough, so on one hand, I'm glad I was stopped from finishing. Even this form is so much better than the first one. (And also twnety something thousand words longer. But still.)

[bratfarrar]

Well, the hybridized theology works okay for me, which is reeeeeally rare in my (admittedly limited) SPN reading. You're the first author who's managed to handle it in a way that doesn't make me cringe (hence the limited reading). While it doesn't match up with my personal theology (which is a sort of smushed blend of Presbyterianism and Episcopalianism) it runs in close enough parallel to ring true, and works within the world of the story.

Actually, I have the urge to write a treatise about why it works within the world of the story, and Castiel's development throughout, so that's probably a good sign for you. But I won't, because I'm nearing the end of my lunch break.

Also, THANK YOU for not leaving them in the caves. That would have been pretty much the most depressing thing ever.

[seperis]

Seriously, thank you. I honestly get frustrated with myself about that; I don't know why religion is the one thing I both really find fascinating when people use it well and just flinch when writing. I think it's too personal sometimes. Or in this case, as I was rewriting, stop, and say, "I am writing about an angel having sex in Limbo. Really?" Which yes, wasn't even the point but there you go.

The other thing was the stories of the early hunters before angels withdrew from earth; I mentioned in passing a story about a hunter who sold her soul to avoid marriage, and I'd started writing that out as a frame for their time in limbo (and to explain why Castiel, in general, is not fond of Ruby but does not go into fits every time he sees her; also why he avoided intimate interactions with humans).

Thanks for the bit on Castiel, btw. I love him ridiculously. The actor just did brilliant things with him, and I loved how he described his feelings for humans and God's creation. For so little, he infused that sentence in a lot of his interactions on the show, and it worked.

Also, THANK YOU for not leaving them in the caves. That would have been pretty much the most depressing thing ever.

God, yes. It was. And it was boring. Where they ask for a forest and a world is about where the second part of the rewrite started after I extended some of the Janet stuff early. If you stop right before they call and skip down to where Janet is calling on the false god to give her daughter back, there *was* only a page between them that was removed. So that's how much was added middle-wise and then the ending.

[bratfarrar]

Rereading this after Map of the World, I was really struck by this:

The thing frowns, trying to work the unfamiliar muscles into something like anger. "You are nothing but human. You could not possibly comprehend--"

"I am not." Castiel tilts his head. "I am the will of God manifest. They are not yours. You have no right to them. And you will let them go."

and this:

"You wished for a kingdom; you will have it. All of this emptiness is your domain, and here you will remain, sealed within the nothingness you desired until the end of time. This is the judgment placed upon you. There is no reprieve."

"You don't have the authority."

"I am a messenger of God. I am the manifestation of His will. All that affects humanity is my domain." Castiel looks up; for a second, Dean thinks he can see the faintest outline of Castiel's true form, like a memory of looking at the sun.

I think this is the closest anyone's come to capturing on paper how I think of angels in my head. This feels true, somehow.

[sorrel]

That was fantastic. I was forcefully reminded of astolat's Time in a Bottle, only gone horribly, horribly wrong. No one even remotely similar to Dean Winchester could ever be happy without something to rail against, without a fight to be lived through. That's not what peace means.

[seperis]

Yes. This. Definitely. Thank you!

[norwich36]

Thank God this one had an ending, because if you had stopped writing when they were trapped in Limbo, I would have freaked out.

I guess I can see why you're still calling this a WIP, but I thought it was an absolutely fascinating theological premise, and a very compelling story, just as it was. I thought the villain was *amazingly* creepy--especially at the beginning when he was just erasing people and then at the very end when it became clear many of the poor souls had been trapped in their rotting bodies for centuries. *Shudders*

And I love that it's Dean's jealousy that keeps the spark of himself alive in limbo, and that the three of them decide to build a house because making something real in that place of ultimate fakeness was most important, and how Janet challenged the false god and fell.

Janet, btw, was a *rocking* OC. I especially loved that Dean could talk to her about things he'd never been able to talk to other people about, and I loved that she knew the Campbells. And the idea of hunting families going back practically to Adam and Eve is a very cool one.

[seperis]

Thank God this one had an ending, because if you had stopped writing when they were trapped in Limbo, I would have freaked out.

Hee! I put that in the author notes just to reassure in case someone stared at the word count in horror.

I guess I can see why you're still calling this a WIP, but I thought it was an absolutely fascinating theological premise, and a very compelling story, just as it was.

Oh yeah. Well. It's--the transition between where I stopped and the ending probably could have been covered in a couple of pages, and then edited. The problem is, in my head, there's a lot more that goes in there, with remembering, and rejecting memory, and the choice made to remember even when it hurts. Castiel was right about pain not being a great motivator to want to keep memories when you can discard them, and they all have a lot of pain to get through even with the good things. So it also has to be more--for Dean, Sam, for Janet, her daughter, and for Castiel, God and faith. And all of those things have built-in pain. So in theory, it could have been fast, but in practice, the story was already in my head one way, and I couldn't write it or get past it. My neurotic is very neurotic.

I thought the villain was *amazingly* creepy--especially at the beginning when he was just erasing people and then at the very end when it became clear many of the poor souls had been trapped in their rotting bodies for centuries.

The funny thing is, during rewrite, a page was cut because it was part of if they had never asked for a world to be created that was the transition between the cave and when Janet Falls, which was Castils' realization of who was holding them; an angel that didn't rebel, but later wanted power, etc. I wish I had added that back in; there was some context that was lost in that Castiel knew this guy, because they'd all known he'd gone there. Not precisely Fallen, just checked out.

And I love that it's Dean's jealousy that keeps the spark of himself alive in limbo, and that the three of them decide to build a house because making something real in that place of ultimate fakeness was most important, and how Janet challenged the false god and fell.

Symbols of home, family, and things you want to keep because they make part of life and are worth living for. *g* There would have been a picket fence, I swear.

And the idea of hunting families going back practically to Adam and Eve is a very cool one.

Oooh yeah. That fascinated me. I love the idea of it.

[20thcenturyvole]

Oh, I freaking LOVED the ideas in this - and I'm glad that it had an ending; I kept watching the bar scroll down and thought, if this cuts out mid-sentence and I don't figure out what happened I am going to do VIOLENCE. But mostly, I keep flailing because, hello: hunters going back to the dawn of time; Castiel being a kind of heavenly ambassador, then suddenly unable to do anything but watch; a... whatever the hell that thing was, trying to be a new, more satisfactory kind of God with a shitty themepark Heaven - this is one big bundle of brilliant ideas. I hope that, one day, you finish this to your own satisfaction - but as WIPs go, it's pretty damn satisfying.

[seperis]

Ha! I double checked to make sure I hadn't slaughtered the ending yet so it would at least be complete, if not finished.

a... whatever the hell that thing was, trying to be a new, more satisfactory kind of God with a shitty themepark Heaven - this is one big bundle of brilliant ideas. I hope that, one day, you finish this to your own satisfaction - but as WIPs go, it's pretty damn satisfying.

A page that was cut during rewrites was Castiel figuring out it was an angel who didn't Fall and was irritated and wanting to prove he could do creation better, which is why both Castiel and Dean knew it was familiar before they got there but didn't know why. Kind of embarrassing that an angel went so crazy and weird.

Thank you very much. I'm very glad you enjoyed it!

[jujuberry136]

This was really awesome. Even with some bits missing, it holds together well and is an intriguing bit of theological discussion. Thanks so much for sharing with all of us!

[seperis]

That last one was me, I forgot ot login. Sorry for the dleay in answering, and thank you!

[anniehow]

What a mind-trip! I was so captivated by this that I couldn't stop reading! When I finally tore myself away to forage for food I was lucky enough to find the shop closing (but not actually *closed*) so I could grab a few things and pull together a meal, but it was a close call.

Somebody else mentioned "Time in a bottle". I kept thinking about that too, only this is much, much creepier.

[seperis]

Thanks very very much!

And I'm so sorry for the delay!

[(Anonymous)]

This is BRILLIANT (even if I had some WTF! moments once in a while). I'm gonna rec this everywhere, and hope for you to finish it someday :-)

~KaraQ

[seperis]

Thank you very much! (And sorry for the delay in answering!)