Time travelling pt. 6

[rahmi]

Dean's still sitting next to Sam on the bed when the door opens and someone says, "Sorry about this, Dean," and then he's sliding into darkness faster than anything he's ever felt before. No pain, no slow darkening of his vision, just.

One second, he's thinking about poking Sam to see if it'll make him wake up, and the next he's out.

He wakes up in a dingy room. His head comes up, because, Jesus Christ, what if they grabbed Sam too, what if they hurt his baby brother.

But there's nothing here but him, some rotting wood, and his hands, tied behind him.

"Oh, this is just lookin' awesome," Dean mutters to himself. Then he jumps about ten feet into the freakin' air, because someone is suddenly right there in front of him.

"I'm glad you think so," the guy says. He's black and heavyset and there's something about his eyes and the way he carries himself thats screams supernatural at Dean, and up to no good too.

One day, Dean would like to meet something supernatural that was, you know, good. Like. A unicorn or something, something that didn't kill people or eat kids or suck the life outta babies for shits and giggles. Although with the way his luck went, he'd probably meet a unicorn and have it gore him to death.

"Yeah," Dean says, "Nice place. Cozy. Mind letting me go?"

The guy gives a him a mocking little smile. "This isn't actually about you, Dean." He turns away from Dean and looks out of one of the windows. Dean can see his reflection in the shattered glass. "I can't touch your brother in the before. But I can kill him in the now."

What the fucking hell. "Let me guess," Dean says. "You're Uriel."

Uriel tilts his head slightly at Dean. "And you are the brother of an abomination," Uriel says. "When I've gotten rid of that stain, I shall return you to your timeline."

Dean wants to know why the fuck someone would call Sam an abomination. Sam's the normal one in their family, the one who wants school and a family without hunting in it. By the standards of most of the population, Dean was the one who was more than a little funky in the head.

If not outright insane.

"You do realize you're gonna have to go through me to get to him," Dean says. He pauses a second, staring at Uriel's back and flexing his wrists, then adds grudgingly, "Or future me, at least. I'm badass, dude."

And wearing a barfed on shirt last time Dean saw, him, but, whatever. He's sure he's pretty damn awesome anyway.

"I'm planning on just going through your brother, actually," Uriel says. He turns back around and bares his teeth like he's trying for a smile and missing by more than a country mile. "You're of no consequence. I have no reason to hurt you."

"You wanting to hurt my brother? That's reason enough for me," Dean says.

"Funny," his voice says from across the busted up room. "I was gonna say the same thing, skippy. It's not enough that you've Fallen, Uriel, you've gotta go play with time too?"

Dean has never been so glad to see himself. He's pretty sure he'd have gotten himself out of this shit somehow (he has no idea where Dad is, in this timeline, but he's pretty sure Dad'd find him if Dean really, really needed him. He's sort of scary like that).

Future Dean waves at him with one hand and keeps a gun trained on Uriel with the other. Dean's no expert, but he's never heard of a gun that did fuck all with something that can bend time. This guy'd sent Sam back and forward and sideways in time, what the fuck was a gun going to do?

"Relax, man," future Dean tells him. He doesn't take his eyes off Uriel, but he flicks a smile Dean's way. "This gun? You do not want to mess with this gun. Trust me. And I've got back up coming." The grin turns nasty as Uriel makes an abortive move like he's...

Well, Dean doesn't know what he's trying to do. Flexing his shoulders and looking stupid, from where Dean's standing, but he's seen the most harmless looking shit turn around and take a chunk out of someone he loves more times than he can count and he's tied up to a post.

So. Not gonna understimate the weird thing that can shift time and wants his baby brother dead.

"Lemme see your eyes," the other Dean says lightly. Uriel narrows his eyes at him and Dean shifts some more, attempting to rip his arms out of the binding through sheer force of will. "Oh, come on. Lemme see those pearly whites, Uriel. Least you can do is show off your new ones."

"I haven't Fallen," Uriel growls out.

Other him smirks. "I got a buddy that says otherwise. And you can't run from him anymore, so." He shrugs, the gun still trained on Uriel. "You gonna spew? Prove what you are?"

"I have not Fallen," Uriel bites out again. "I am doing what is best for Heaven and you can go to Hell where you should have stayed."

Dean sits there blinking, trying to process. It sounds kind of like a Bible's decided to vomit into his life, all this heaven and hell and falling with a capital f. "You guys are friggin' kidding me, right?" he asks.

"It would be much easier if we were," somebody else says and, okay, seriously. Dean was under the impression that this was supposed to be an in and out job, you know? The less people that knew about it, the better, and he's glad he doesn't have to kick his own ass for bringing Sam here, but that didn't mean he should have brought other people.

This guy's not a hunter, Dean sees right away. In fact, Dean's pretty sure this guy is probably the same guy that was talking with Sam earlier. It's in the way he stands, like he can't quite figure out what to do with his limbs and his head is hanging weirdly.

"Castiel," Uriel mumurs.

Dean wants to know what the fuck is up with all the -iel endings.

"Fallen," Castiel says back evenly, then, "Dean. It would be best if you removed yourselves from this area."

"No torching whole sections of my town," his other self says. "Sam likes it here and I don't wanna move the brat before he starts school. He's got friends. Sort of. Well, kids he eats worms with, anyway."

"If you run," Castiel says blandly at Uriel, "I won't be pleasant forcing you to hell."

Dean's other him coughs, holsters his gun, and saunters over to Dean in a kind of controlled, "What? I'm not runnin'!" movement he does when he's forced to retreat. "Yeah, that's our cue," he says. He flicks out a knife and saws through Dean's bindings with a few quick strokes.

Castiel and Uriel are still standing there staring at each other when future Dean hauls his ass up and gives him a shoulder to lean on when it turns out Dean'd been on the floor longer than he thought.

"Hey," Dean says on their way out. "Thanks for your hospitality, dude."

Two pairs of eyes turn to look at him. Castiel's are blue. Uriel's are white, pupil-less and freakin' scary as fuck and Dean shudders. "You'll get used to it," the other Dean says, shrugging a little. "Hey, Cas? Come by and fix this after you've sent buckets of fun there to hell?"

"Of course," Castiel responds.

"Awesome. Uriel? Have fun in hell, man. I hope they give you the same tour they gave me."

What? Dean thinks stupidly.

A couple seconds later he's blinking in daylight with more questions than answers. And he sees his baby, his pride and fuckin' joy, spit shined within an inch of her life and beautiful. No dust on her grill, no scratches, her black paint glossy.

"Dude, quit lookin' at her like that," the other Dean says. He stuffs his hands into his pockets to find the car keys and grins over at Dean. "Like I wouldn't take care of my car."

There's a carseat in the back of the Impala. Dean spends a long minute standing on the sidewalk staring at it while the other Dean whistles a tune.

"Sam insists on that," Dean informs him. "Me? I'd let the brat ride in the backseat like Sam did, but, no. He's gotta worry about everything, dude, even though he never went through the windshield. It's not like I'm a worse driver than Dad."

Dean wonders if other people find him as obnoxious as he's finding himself. "Where're we going?" he asks. He's pretty sure Sam'd kill him for telling him all this (whoa, mindfuck again, oh how he hadn't missed that in the twenty minutes that the future Sam had'd been gone).

"Home," his future self says simply. He starts the Impala and pulls out before he flicks a glance over at Dean and smiles a little. "You can meet Ryan, I guess. And hopefully Sam'll know what the fuck to..." he trails off, looking slightly horrified.

"What?" Dean demands.

"Uh," his other self says. He pats down his pockets with his free hand and pulls out a cell phone. Dean's expecting him to call somebody, but he just makes a face at it and keeps patting, driving through an intersection at the same time. "Dammit," he huffs.

"What?" Dean says again. He's itching to drive the Impala himself, get a feel and make sure that he hasn't been lax in taking care of her. He keeps his hands to himself.

"I need my ear thingie," he says. "And I'm pretty sure I left it at home. Dammit. Sam's gonna kill me."

"You live with Sam?" Dean asks slowly. "Still? Dude, that's... weird. Awkward, when you want to bring a girl home or something."

The other Dean snorts and leans his head back while they idle at a red light. Dean squints over his way and picks out a hickey just under his jawline. No ring on his finger. "No weirder than when it was in the motel rooms," he says, and, "Seriously. He's gonna kill me.

"Hey, do me a favor?" He waves the cellphone at Dean and Dean takes it gingerly. "It's under home. Or Sammy. You can call either one of those, but I'm pretty sure Sam said Ryan hid his phone or something a couple of days before he got time whipped."

Dean flips open the phone gingerly and scrolls through until he finds "ICE-HOME" and blinks down at it a few times. "And you can't do this, why?" he asks.

"Law," the other guy says. He cracks his neck and hits the gas as the ligth turns green again, hanging a sharp left out of the tiny town they're in, towards long fields and small houses with massive yards. "Getting pulled over for being on your phone is something that only happens to pussies."

Dean calls ICE-HOME.

"Hello?" a curious, young voice says.

This is his kid. The one that has a carseat in the back of his car. The one that calls him Daddy. His throat tightens. He has to clear it a few times and the future Dean politely pretends to ignore him as he does it.

"Hi," he says when he can talk.

"Dean!" the voice says. "Sammy's sleepin', Dean."

"If that's Ryan, tell him to get his ass off the phone." The other Dean scratches at his eyebrow, drums on the steering wheel when they get stuck behind a tractor. Honest to God tractor on the road. "He's not supposed to answer it if Sam's sleeping."

"Ah," Dean says. "Is. Where's Sam?"

"Sleeping," the kid repeats. "Hafta go, Dean. Not supposed to be on the phone. Bye!"

Dean's listening to a dial tone before he can get another word in. "He hung up," he tells himself.

The future him sucks on his teeth. "Yeah, he does that. He's not real polite." He tilts his head to look at Dean and sighs. "Look, I can't just... bring you into the house without Sam knowing. The ward's'll go ballistic."

"Wards?" Dean asks. He knows about certain wards, things that'll go off if anything evil tries to crawl in, but he doesn't know ones that are... alive. And that's the feeling he's getting from his future self. The wards won't recognize him even if he's human and means no harm and, seriously, where the fuck do you dig up shit like that?

"Around the house. You have to be unconcious or keyed in by Sam to get past them." He sucks on his teeth again and twists his mouth. "And Sam's gonna be sleepin' like the dead right about now."

"I'm you, dude," Dean says slowly.

If he can see the obvious here, he's assuming that his future self can see it too. He really doesn't want to think that he gets dumber as he gets older. That'd just be shitty.

"Not the same," he says. He pulls around the tractor, finally, and contrary to what Dean would have done, he does not flip the tractor off. He waves to the guy driving it and the man gives him a gaptoothed smile before he waves back.

"How is it not the same?" Dean pauses. "It have anything to do with the guys back there and their -iel names?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Yeah, sort of. The wards aren't gonna recognize you. Just. Leave it alone."

Dean looks out the window when the Impala slows down, takes a dirt road turn. He winces at the pings on the undercarriage, but his baby's made out of sturdy stuff, so he keeps that to himself and instead says, "Does that kind of shit fly with your Sam?"

The other Dean barks out a laugh. "No," he says.

The house that slowly comes into view is good sized, painted off white with a free standing garage off to one side. The yard's huge, big, purple flowering trees standing in straight lines to each other, laid out in a straight lines.

Pentagram, Dean realizes a few seconds later.

Vegetable garden out front, which Dean supposes answers his question about Ryan's mother.

They stop before they hit the first tree. The future him actually parks the car, shuts her off entirely, before he turns to face him. "So," he says. "This can go one of two ways. You can sit out here, in the car, for a few, oh, hours, probably."

When he sees Dean's face, he cracks a smile and says, "It'd take Sam a while to key you in. After I wake him up and gave him enough coffee to trust him not to blow us all sky high."

"Or?" Dean asks.

"Or, I can knock you out and lug your ass inside. Once you're in, the wards won't do anything to you unless you piss Sam right the fuck off." He scrubs a hand down his face and shrugs. "You won't be here long, so it's not like you need to be keyed in."

"Yeah, but I got something against gettin' my head bashed in."

"Dude," he says. "Give me some credit. I got ways."

The car's already heating up. She's black, the sun's up and it's the middle of the afternoon, judging by where it is.

Dean twists his lips. "You give me a concussion, I'm gonna be pissed," he says eventually.

The other Dean smiles. He reaches out a hand, taps Dean gently on the forehead, and while Dean's giving him a weirded out look, the world goes black again.

No slow slide, no spots on the edges of his vision.

One second he's giving his future self a what the fuck? look, and the next the world's gone.
--------
They stick him in Ryan's bed. Dean's, well, that Dean's legs hang off the edge of it, his boots almost brushing the floor. Ryan has this thing about heights. He doesn't like them, not unless he's up high because Dean or Sam's carting his ass around.

So his bed's about two feet off the ground, matress included, and Dean thinks his younger self looks ridiculous and stupid sleeping on it. But there's no way in hell he's gonna put him in their bed.

For one thing, Sam's got it stripped down because he's doing laundry, stained sheets in the washer while the wrinkled blankets hang out back in the sun. For another, no. Just. No. He's not putting his younger self in the same bed he routinely screws around with Sammy in. Ew.

"You couldn't have mentioned this happens?" Sam says, standing with him in the doorway.

Dean'd woken him up on the way in, kicking one dangling foot as he tromped by with himself in a fireman's carry. Sam's a little pissy over it still, and, uh, not actually wearing much.

He'd be more distracted by the play of muscles if he weren't so busy trying to figure out how he didn't freakin' know this happened. "I... don't remember this happening," Dean finally offers.

Sam rubs his face with the back of one hand. "Castiel?" he asks.

"Huh?"

"Castiel said that he got rid of my memories. From when I was nineteen." Sam rubs his eyes again, then pulls his hair out of his face with a sigh. It's getting too long again, almost shoulder length. Dean makes a mental note to harass Sam into getting it cut soonish. "Could have done the same thing to you."

"Remind me to tell Castiel not to fuck with my memories after this," Dean says. He doesn't like the thought that the angel could take away his memories just like that, snap his fingers and get rid of.

Jesus. If Castiel wanted to (and God didn't fry him for interfering with the Winchesters), he could have fucked them up good.

"I'll let him know," Sam says. He pinches the bridge of his nose, his eyes squinted against the afternoon light. He'd been comin' off a migraine when he got back, twitchy in his tanktop, and Dean'd reached out and fitted his hand around the scar on Sam's wrist to haul him into bed.

Dean feels a little bad for that. A little. He's the one who kept him up, but, again. Sam hadn't been complaining at the time. After, yeah, but that's just because he's a bitch and he has to bitch about everything, bruises, hickeys, and the occaisional muscle twinge.

It wasn't like Dean didn't have his fair share of marks. At least Sam didn't have giant bite marks, like a wild animal mauled the shit out of his chest and neck and whatever else Sam could reach while getting fucked through the matress. Twice.

Heh.

"Stop smirking," Sam says.

"Don't know what you're talkin' about, Sammy," Dean says. He doesn't bother to wipe the smirk off his face and Sam leans over to shove him, hard with one shoulder. Dean nudges him back lightly. "So, what the hell do we do with him until Castiel shows up?"

Sam shrugs. "Let him wander around?" he says eventually. "There's not really anything he can get into and if he learns something, Cas will just make him unlearn it. No big deal."

"Yeah, fine." He really doesn't like talking about losing some of his memories. Shit could have kept him warm during the long days and months and years it took before he got Sam back, but at the same time.

Yeah, he probably would have been a lot more reckless if he'd know that there was this waiting for him in the future.

So, well, that takes care of some of the weirdness. Some of it. The rest of the weirdness has to do with what his reactions are gonna be to Sam. And Dean. And Ryan. Because from what Dean remembers, he assumed that Ryan was his, and it's gonna fuck him up, hard, if he figures out that, uh, the kid's both of theirs.

And they like to fuck one another on a regular basis.

Not that Dean needs to know that, exactly, but he's gonna know that something's up. Sam's not real fair skinned, so most of the time Dean doesn't worry about it (and even if he was, who the fuck cares anyway? Bobby just rolls his eyes hard and he couldn't care less about how Castiel, Ruby, or God feels about it), but, yeah, he can admit that he got a little frantic last night, a little less careful than normal.

He might have, maybe, sort of, mauled Sam last night. Not that Sam'd been complaining at the time, laughing as Dean wrestled his gigantor ass down into the bed, but. Yeah. Mauled. The good thing was that most of the marks would be hidden after Sam got dressed for real.

The bad part was that, ah, some of them couldn't really be hidden, unless Sam felt like wearing a scarf in the middle of spring.

The line of hickeys going down Sam's throat are kind of overkill. Just a little. Dean clears his throat and reaches out to tap them pointedly, his fingers lingering on the one behind Sam's ear, and Sam shrugs.

"You're the one who left them, Dean," he says, "And I don't have any turtlenecks."

"Dude," Dean mutters, letting his fingers slide from Sam's ear to the base of his throat, another red mark prominent there. "The only people who wear turtlenecks are the ones tryin' to hide hickeys."

"So I should find a turtleneck, right?" Sam swats his hand away. "You're gonna think what you're gonna think, man." He reaches back to press his fingers hard into at the base of his spine and rolls his shoulders back.

Yeah, he was. One good thing on their side, though, is that nobody in their right mind looks at love bites on their little brother's neck and automatically thinks, 'Hey, I guess I'm fuckin' Sammy in the future, score.' Even Dean's not screwed up enough to jump from hickey to incest with no other proof.

Besides, Sam'd stopped them last night with a muttered, "Go shave," before he'd left beard burn all over the place, so. At least it wasn't totally obvious Sam'd been fuckin' a guy.

"Keep your shirt on," Dean finally mumbles.

Sam gives him a flat, bitchy look. Geez, you wake a guy up and you get the bitchface for the rest of the goddamn day. It's not like this part was his freakin' fault. "Yeah, I was planning on whipping that off at the first opportunity," he says acidly. "I'm not you, Dean. I know how to keep my clothes on."

Dean does not point out that Sam'd been the first one to strip last night, mostly because he wants to get laid again sometime this century. "He's gonna be wakin' up soon," he says instead, nodding towards his younger self's uncoordinated sprawl on Ryan's bed.

"I'm taking a shower," Sam says.
--------
Dean wakes up without a hangover, a headache, or any kind of fuzziness. He thinks he should teach himself how to do this shit, because it's awesome and he could use it the next time he had to knock out a hysterical witness to a hunt.

The bed he's on is short, is the first thing he notices after that. He takes a few seconds to let that sink in well and good, then swings his feet around and gingerly sets them on the ground.

"Oh," his voice says from the doorway, "You're up. Awesome, dude. You hungry?"

Dean scrubs a hand over his face and thumbs away the crust in his eyes. "Yeah, sure," he says.

He gets up and follows the line of his own back. His future self's wearing as many layers as Sam normally does, he sees, undershirt and overshirt and a flannel for good measure. He can't figure it out, because it's warm outside, and then he sees the edge of something bruising up purple on his throat.

"You still trying to protect the future's secrets from me?" he asks.

"Dude, no," the other Dean says. He scratches at the back of his neck as Dean follows him into the living room, big flat screen tv taking up one entire wall. The book case is more of a surprise, though, filled to the brim with thick books and shit that Dean wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

He's not really sure what living with a chick would be like, but he's pretty sure this ain't it. Maybe he's divorced now, or Ryan's mother died or something, but then that wouldn't explain the teeth marks on future him's neck.

The dog he'd seen earlier peeks its head over the back of the couch to give Dean an unimpressed look.

"S'okay, Dina," his future self says. He leans over to pat the dog on the head, ruffling its ears as it gives a pleased sounding huff.

"You have a dog," Dean says flatly.

"I have a dog."

Dean looks over the couch to get a good look at her and then he gets. He gets distracted, alright?

Sam's on the couch, curled with his legs pulled up and the dog wedged between the back of his knees and the back of the couch. His hair's wet, curling like ink around his throat and face and Dean hadn't realized how long it was, before.

He catches himself staring, stupidly, and jerks his eyes up to the ceiling. It's not anything perverted, okay? It's just, this Sam looks happy, well fed and lean, his face smooth as he sleeps. His Sam scowls or frowns in his sleep, tossing and turning with nightmares and other shit that's been breakin' Dean's heart since he was old enough to understand they'd never be normal.

And that's all it is.

Fuck.

When he drops his eyes abck down, his future self is leaning against the back of the couch, one hand on Sam's shoulder and this... look. That's weird. The weird look on his face, alright? It's really freakin'.

Dean has this one picture of Mom and Dad, one of the few that survived the house fire, see? And if he had his wallet on him right now, he's absolutely sure he could whip that picture out and that would be the same expression.

He's cupping Sam's shoulder in one palm (well, a version of him is, at any rate) and Dean has to say something, has to, because all of a sudden he's thinking about the way his stomach used to turn over when Sam shucked his t-shirt, seventeen years old and just starting to fill out.

There's really nothing to look at, though, but him and Sam and him, so Dean takes a deep breath and glances down and says the first thing that comes to mind. "Wow," he says. "So, Sammy's got himself a tiger, huh?"

"Huh?" the other Dean says and fuck it, Dean is going to start calling him Michael, their middle name, because this is confusing the shit out of him and he really, really doesn't need that right now.

Dean motions at the line of love bites he can see peeking out of Sam's almost girlishly long hair. "She must be wild in the sack, man," he says, but it's more like a question. The kind of girls Sam's always gone after have been the quiet ones with the wide smiles, brunette and tiny.

Michael coughs into his open palm. "Uh, not really," he says. "Gets a little carried around sometimes, s'all. Seriously, I do not want to talk about Sam's sex life."

Sam's hands are up by his face, the faded scars still pink and raised where they peak out from under his shirtsleeves. Dean swallows hard and looks up at Michael, who's reaching over to pet the dog now, instead of touching Sam.

He wants to talk to this version of his brother some more, when he's not trying desperately to get home. When Dean's not worried about his Sam so much that looking at this one is like ashes in his mouth.

"What's she like?" he asks, because he can.

He remembers that weird puppet guy saying that he'd wiped Sam's memories. He hopes that that's not gonna happen to him, but if it is, Dean's gonna get all his fears laid to rest first, thank you very fuckin' much. He wants to see his brother happy and married and damn if he doesn't hope there's another kid running around underfoot.

"She likes playing ball," Michael says. He scratches the back of one of the dog's ears and slants a smile towards Dean. "Chewing up my shoes, leaving dead birds on the floor for Sam to find in the morning. But she's a good dog."

"I meant Sam's girl."

Michael sighs and straightens. "I know what you meant," he says, reaching up to scrub at his face again like he's tired. "If I tell you to drop it, are you gonna listen and, you know, drop it like you should or are you gonna pull a Sam?"

The knowledge is sitting right on there, in his future self's eyes, sardonic and just a little daring. But Dean's known enough shit in his day to know when not asking is the best policy, when not knowing is better for everyone involved. He swallows back the disappointment and the shear fuckin' want and says, "Yeah. I'll drop it."

It burns, he thinks morosely. He follows Dean away from the sleeping Sam, into a kitchen that's painted green. There still isn't really a touch of femininity, even here, no flowers on the walls or any of the other kind of shit he sees when he sneaks into people's houses to save them.

It's all bare walls, unless you count what Dean's pretty sure are protection sigils artfully disguised as paintings.He doesn't recognize about one in every three, but he figures they're doing something good, if Sam's willing to conk out like that and Michael's not taking any sort of watch.

"What's that do?" Dean asks, pointing at one he doesn't even pretend to have seen before.

Michaal glances at it before he opens the fridges. "Tosses angels out," he says, rummaging around.

Dean gives his back a skeptical look and then transfers his gaze back to the sigil on the wall. "Angels," he scoffs, "Yeah, alright. If you didn't want to tell me, dude, you could have just said so."

"I did tell you," he says. He drops a glass pie tin on the counter and shoves it over towards Dean a little, turning away to dig through drawers. "Throws angels out. Had a couple of bad visits, once upon a time. Better safe than sorry."

"There's no such thing as angels," Dean says.

The pie turns out to be pot pie of some sort, cold and filled with carrots and potatoes and peas and some kind of meat. Michael doesn't bother nuking it, just hands Dean a spoon and starts digging into one half of it with his own.

Michael raises his eyebrows at Dean and smirks around the spoon in his mouth. "Next time I see 'im, I'll be sure to tell him he doesn't exist."

What the fuck.

"There is too much fucked up shit in this world for angels to exist," Dean says, taking a bite of the pot pie himself. Chicken, he thinks. And really friggin' good chicken pot pie. Whoever cooks can cook. Dean hopes it's his wife/girlfriend/Ryan's mother. "Come on, you know this better than anyone."

"Yeah, I was surprised. They're sort of dicks, actually."

"Stop traumatizing yourself," Sam says.

He's standing in the doorway when Dean looks up, eyeing the both of them like they're heathens or something. The dog's at his heels, her tail wagging quickly as soon as she notices the food. "That's at least a week and a half old, Dean. If you get food poisoning again, I don't want to hear it."

His future self waves the spoon cheerfully and says, "Shut up, Sam. It's still good," before Dean can process that, wait, Sam's not really talking to him, right?

No, he's not. Dean takes another bite of the apparantly old pie.

"I wake you?" Michael asks.

Sam shrugs and steps into the kitchen. He's sleepy eyed and ruffled, his damp hair sticking up into weird curls and cowlicks. That's sort of his default 'I'm awake and not enjoying it' look, the one he started gettin' when he was about fourteen and stopped thinking hunting was even remotely okay.

Dean's sort of missed that look. He hasn't seen it in a couple years and, he's not gonna lie, it does something warm to his guts to see it again. Yeah, he's a piece of work, but Sam's puffy eyes and creased face make him relax, baby brother whole and safe.

Sam shoulders both Deans aside, reaching overhead to pull down a banana from the hanging bunch over the countertop. "You're buzzing," he says, like that makes any kind of sense.

Michael seems to think it does. "I hurt you?" he asks lowly.

Sam shrugs again. "Tingles," he says. "Don't worry about it." He rubs at one shoulder, fingers absently kneeding and pulling at his long sleeved shirt while he shoves Michael aside to get into the fridge. The banana hangs half in and half out of his mouth.

Up close, the line of hickeys is even more impressive. Whoever Sam's shacking up with has a serious oral fixation and a marking fetish to boot, if those are anything to go by.

"Dude, stop staring," Sam says.

Dean averts his eyes from the hickeys and props a hip on the counter, smirking. "Kind of hard not to do, Sammy," he says, "When you look like you've been mauled by a bear."

"A vampire, maybe," Sam says, pausing to chew through most of his banana, "But I've never heard of a bear that sucked on people's necks."

"Don't you dare tell me vamps are real too," Dean says.

They both give him a flat look, Sam's eyebrows drawing together like he's on autopilot and his own mouth twitching up into a faint smirk. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Dean says.

The dog picks that moment to start snuffling at Dean's feet. He looks down at her and raises his eyebrows. She's licking the tops of his boots, first one and then the other, over and over again, her thin, whip like tail slapping into the counter.

"You're dog? Has issues," Dean says. He lifts up one of his feet and the dog just lifts her head to follow it, her tongue almost freakishly long as it leaves trails of dog slobber all over the leather of his shoes.

"Dean's dog," Sam says immediately. "I didn't pick her."

"You keep sayin' that," Michael says, "But I didn't hear you tellin' me to put her back." He gouges his spoon into the pie and lifts a huge spoonful, opens his mouth and--

Sam leans over and commandeers Michael's spoon before he can get it into his mouth. Dean stands there blinking, because, yeah, Sam's pulled that move on him before, but never with shit that's actually you know, been in his mouth. They didn't share anything unless it was from a hip flask or an acoholic container.

Definitely not silverware, because Sam has a tendency to suck on his and, ew, little brother slobber. He'd put up with that shit for four years when Sam wa sall drooly faced. He did not put up with it now. Or, you know, two years ago, when the last time he'd had to share anything with Sam was.

But Michael's giving him an indulgent look before he nudges him with one shoulder. "Dude," he says, "Should you really be awake right now? You're zombie shufflin'."

"Ryan'll be up soon," Sam says around his mouthful of pot pie. He sucks on the spoon for a second when he's done, his eyebrows coming down. "Dude, the chicken's turned. Stop eating that."

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Dean says, before Michael can. He doesn't like feeling left out of a conversation, alright? He can smoothly insert himself in at any time. Smoothly. "It still tastes fine."

Michael leans forward and pries his spoon out of Sam's mouth without a second thought, apparantly. If Dean thought Sam stealing his spoon was weird, watching himself, like. Take a spoon out of his little brother's mouth, Sam's tongue touching the bottom of it even as Michael pulls, well, that's. That's really fuckin' weird, alright?

Dean's staring. He knows he's staring and he can't even help it.

He's saved from whatever comment he was inevitably going to make by the feel of the dog's tongue finding its way under the cuffs of his jeans and onto his shin. "What're you doin'?" he asks the dog.

She glances up at him with big, liquid brown eyes and pants.

"She likes toes," Sam says. He crosses his arms and leans back against the counter. The line of bites down his throat are very dark and very conspicuous as he squints his eyes closed and open a few times.

At this point, Dean's not even sure he wants to know more about what his future's gonna be like. The weird inkling climbing up his spine is doing its best to make his stomach turn over. "Is there anything in this damn house that’s normal?" he demands good naturedly. "You got a kid who eats crayons—"

Michael coughs guiltily. "I may have told the brat that the crayons taste like popsicles," he mutters.

"A dog that likes toes, and symbols that supposedly keeps angels out of your house." Dean rocks bacak on his heels and sucks on his teeth while the dog attempts to chew his leg hair off.

"No such thing as normal, right?" Michael asks. He slants a smile over towards Sam and shrugs at Dean. "I mean. You ever think you'd have an honest to God house to live in? Or, you know, anything else?"

Dean notices that he deliberately, carefully does not mention the women who should be sharing their lives. If, you know, Ryan's anything to go by, because Dean's pretty sure he'd tell himself if he ended up pregnant or something.

"Where'd Ryan come from?" he asks, because he's already asked about Sam's girl and Dean's whatever and he's been told to drop it like he's a ten year old kid again. Even Dad doesn't pull that shit on him anymore. That often.

"When a dude and a chick get together," Michael says leadingly.

"Dude." Sam shoves him with one shoulder and yawns into his other shoulder at the same time. "No."

"C'mon, Sammy, it's good practice for when Ryan actually gets around to noticing that there are differences between him and fifty percent of the population."

Sam makes a scoffing noise. "I'm pretty sure I'm the one who's gonna be giving him the sex ed talk, if mine was anything to go by."

"Hey!" Dean says. "What the hell was wrong with my sex ed talk? C'mon, we covered everything: condoms, STDs—"

"How to tell if a woman was really a transvestite in disguise." Sam crosses his arms across his chest and Dean finds his gaze drawn to the way his muscles bulge beneath the sleeves of his shirt. Jeez, Sam was seriously ripped. "I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be in the sexual education agenda from school."

Michael grins unrepentedly. "Made everything more interesting, didn't it?" He shoves the spoon he'd taken back from Sam into his mouth, turning away to poke through the cabinets. "And you totally knew it was a dude hitting on you a couple years ago."

"I think the Adam's apple is what gave it away, man," Sam says.

"And you knew to look for it 'cause I gave you that talk."

Dean leans back against the counter. He shoos the dog away from his toes with a little smile and tries not to feel like a complete outsider. He's amoung his family, his blood, and he's almost never felt more like he doesn't belong. He's used to feeling left out in school or churches or, you know, nine to five jobs, but he's also used to having Dad and Sam at his back, outsiders with him.

It's a lot less fun bein' the one on the outside when he doesn't have anyone beside him to make fun of the civilians with.

"Sammy?" a little voice interrupts the good natured bickering and Dean's mini pity party. He turns his head, the lasso of this stupid place with its stupid happiness making him slow and sluggish. Ryan's standing next to him, out of freakin' nowhere like a ninja or something, and he's looking up from Dean to Sam to other Dean.

His mouth purses into a pout. "You got a little Dean," he says.

"That's Dean's fault," Sam says immediately. He stretches out his arms for the kid and Ryan lifts his own.

Dean looks at the two of them, both of their faces still sleep puffy and creased in places from what they were sleeping on. He coughs a little in the back of his throat and skips his eyes to something else, something neutral, like that stupid painting over the kitchen window, pentagram and scorpion and runes in black.

Ryan looks at him with dark, huge eyes and snuggles his head right against the line of hickeys on Sam's throat. "I can use the potty," he finally declares. "Like a big boy. 'N I did."

Michael makes a choking noise deep in the back of his throat. "Did you pee on the floor's the question, though." He finds whatever it was he was lookin' for and pulls a cup of applesauce down, setting it on the counter as he mumbles around his spoon. "Kid pees on the damn floor more often than the dog does."

"No," Ryan immediately denies. "Didn't. I made it in the potty and standed up like a boy and not like a Sammy."

"You are such a jerk," Sam mutters.

Dean feels the need to go lay down. He looks at them, his future family in the sunlight, Ryan in Sam's arms and himself leaning over to feed the kid a spoonful of applesauce when he opens his mouth and demands it, and. Okay. He needs to go lay down.

He needs t go sit somewhere, away from them, before he starts blubbering and asking not to go back. His brother's still back there, sleeping and defenceless, even if they trust that Castiel guy to take care of Uriel, Dean doesn't. Dean's got no reason to trust the guy and the fact that he had, no questions asked, is eating a hole in his stomach.

"You can go sit on the couch," Sam says suddenly.

Ryan's got his hands twisted in Sam's hair when Dean looks up, chewing on applesauce. He swallows hard and says, "What?"

"There's a couch out there," Sam says patiently. He shifts Ryan on his shoulder and winces, his eyebrows drawing down. "You can go sit down and take it all in, man. You don't have to sit in here, you're not a prisoner."

Dean doesn't ask how Sam knew he needed to get away. It's his brother. His brother's always known him better than anybody else in the goddamn world.

He walks out of the kitchen and sits down on the couch. He drops his head into his hands, ignores the dog attempting to sniff at his face, and breathes.
--------
Dean watches himself do that tactical retreat thing and, as soon as he's sure he's out of sight, he sighs out and leans against Sam's shoulder. "This is so not fun," he mutters against his brother's neck. Ryan stares at him from them opposite side of Sam, their eyes about six inches apart, and Dean pulls a face at the kid.

When Sam laughs softly, Dean can feel his throat vibrate under his temple. "I pretty much guarantee it's worse for the other you than it is for, well, you." He leans back on the counter with one elbow and tilts his head down to look at Dean through his bangs.

He wants to tackle Sam back in the bed for the day. Maybe grab Ryan a babysitter or something, call Charlie or anyone else in the neighborhood so they can do a night in after everything that's happened. Dean's not used to dealing with angels and demons and supernatural shit anymore. He's getting old.

He just wants to sit at home and neck with his brother for a while, is that too much to ask?

Ryan suddenly sticks his tongue out at him. "This is mine Sammy," Ryan declares. He prods at Dean with his foot. "Dean has to get own Sammy."

"Sorry, brat--" Dean ignores Sam's reflexive nattering about not calling their kid a brat, "--I had him first. You're gonna have to find your own Sam."

Sam jostles Dean's head off his shoulder and swings Ryan around. "Don't I get a say in this?" he asks lightly. He raises an eyebrow at Dean.

Who laughs. "Dude," he says. "You don't get a choice in the matter. I rescued the damsel, he's mine."

"Uh," Sam says. He bounces Ryan up and down while he stares at Dean like he's grown another head. Dean scratches at the back of his skull and thinks that Sam probably shouldn't run on so little sleep anymore. They're not exactly the youngest chickens in the pot anymore, if you catch his drift.

"I remember mutual rescuing," Sam finally says.

"Still mine Sammy," Ryan mutters sullenly. He kicks at Dean again, one small foot landing on Dean's chest with all the force of a kitten, and sticks his tongue out when Dean just sighs and thinks about thumpin' him one.

"You're a brat," he informs Ryan instead. "And I told you, I was here first. You're gonna have to find your own Sam to claim."

"Stop that," Sam says.

Dean can't figure out which of them he's talking to, not until Sam starts talking under his breath about how childish he is. Then he nudges against his brother's chest and grins at the pissy face Ryan makes. "So, you think I'm scarred for life yet?"

"I think you're gonna be if Castiel doesn't get back here soon."

"Probably." He tries to imagine a twenty three year old him with the knowledge that he was fucking his little brother in the future. Not pretty, he's pretty sure. If he'd known back then that going to Sam in '05 would have meant all that shit for his brother, would he have still done it?

Probably. If he hadn't been there to pull Sam out of the fire, he'd have been more than happy to burn with Jess.

Sam sure as hell wouldn't have made it out of that whole shit thing alive without him--

When it came down to it, the angels were pretty much useless. They could hold their own against the piddly little demon and they could give them the support they needed (when they weren't fuckin' busy trying to divebomb their asses like demented, idiotic birds), but.

It turned out that it was all on Sam's shoulders, and Dean's, by default.

And, yeah, Sam's shoulders are broad, Dean though, but he didn't think they can support the entire damn world, not the world.

The next demon that comes at him gets a bullet to the face as props his brother up on his shoulder. Dean snarls back at it when it hisses out a dying curse, its eyes wide and pissed in its death throes. The Colt's outta bullets now and Dean still doesn't know how the fuck they're gonna get Lucifer back into the Hellmouth and fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

"Quit cussin," Sam mutters above him.'S makin' my head hurt worse.

i>Quit dying, Dean retorts angrily. It's making me pissed off.

Ruby laughs from two paces away, still twirling with her dagger and another demon. "He's not dead yet, Dean," she says. "Don't count us out until the fat lady's had her say."

"I'm not countin' anyone out," Dean hisses. He tucks the Colt into the back of his jeans, because he'll be damned if he loses the gun again, apocalypse or not, and feels Castiel's borrowed power hum through him.

Sam makes a surprised, hurt noise about the same moment Dean realizes he's gone from just making his brother smoke to full on. He rips his free hand off Sam's wrist with a curse that sounds more like a sob, he's sort of willin' to admit and wonders what the fuck they're gonna do after this, if this is the end.

He'd rather go down fightin' than live in a universe that wouldn't let him touch his brother without causing him pain.

It's okay, Sam pushes at him.

Dean slashes power at another angel getting a little too close for comfort. It turns its face at him, its burning eyes makin' his skull want to explode, and then turns away, swooping to cut a swath through the demons approaching from the east. Jesus.

"Exactly what part of this is supposed to be 'okay?'" Dean pushes out of his dry throat. Something demonic and thick tries to crawl down it, like that was an invitation or something, and gets stuck between is tattoo and his borrowed freakin' grace.

It dies screaming in his throat and Dean leans over to cough it out, careful to keep his jacket covered hand on Sam's back.

The part where you're burning me, Sam says. He sounds amused now, on top of his exhaustion, and he leans more heavily on Dean. Doesn't really... I did it to myself, you know? It's alright. Reminds me I'm not one of them. He tilts his chin at the wall of demons still screeching up against Sam's power and if Dean could help with that, he would.

He really, really would.

But just being this close to the Hellmouth is making his skin itch, the bits of Castiel he's got trying to get as far away from the hole as possible. Dean's pretty sure that if he were an angel, hed be gibbering about not being a Fallen right about now. Good thing he's human. All he's really gotta deal with are his own memories, crawling up the back of his skull to haunt him.

This is what'll happen if you fail, Alastor hisses. Doesn't matter if the demon is long gone or not. He remembers the hiss of the demon, the way he'd slice off bits of you and hold them up to demonstrate, this is your spleen, this is a piece of your small intestine, now now, don't try to faint on me, Dean. We have eternity.

Dean adjusts his grip on Sam and tries to ignore the fact that Sam's burning under his fingertips. Fuck. Fuck. He doesn't want to think about Hell right now, doesn't want to think about all the things that a demon can do to you, can make you do.

He. Just the thought of Sammy in hell makes Dean want to lean over and vomit up rage and horror.

Instead, he bares his teeth towards where he can hear Lilith laughing, freakishly high above the battlefield, and flares white fire at the nearest demon.

"Watch it!" Ruby snarls back at him. She sinks her knife into the body and then leans over to brace her hands on her knees, panting. "Fucking amateurs, watch where you're shooting your holy light of doom, okay? I like not being dead or dismembered or whatever the hell that power does."

Dean turns to tell her to shut the fuck up, that wasn't him, but the buzzing sound swells suddenly, making his teeth vibrate and Sam groans and almost falls onto him, making Dean stagger and Jesus Christ, was that

--Dean wouldn't have been able to do it without Sam, as much as it would have burned him back then to hear it. They've been through the end of the goddamn world together now, and, yeah, Dean knows that sometimes he can't friggin' do anything by himself.

The hardest lesson to learn, though, was that he couldn't always protect Sam, no matter how much he might have wanted to. They'd both been through their fair share of shit leading up to that battle, but Dean's "side" (Dean always mentally says that with quotation marks, because, come the fuck on, Sam was not and had never been on the side of demons) hadn't actively been trying to take him out in the most painful way possible.

"Dude, if you're gonna flashback, get out of the kitchen," Sam says.

Dean turns to find him staring, Ryan sitting on the counter top and entertaining himself with the various things Sam's pulled out. "Cookies?" Dean asks, clearing his throat. He could do with some cookies right about now.

Sam's eyes soften a bit. "I'm not makin' you cookies, Dean," he says.

"Oh, come on," Dean wheedles, "The chocolate ones? With the M&Ms?"

"M&Ms," Ryan echoes helpfully. He holds up the bag of peanut M&Ms to Dean and grins. "M&M cookies."

Sam rolls his eyes and takes the bag from their kid. "No cookies right now," he says. "We're making waffles, remember?"

Dean doesn't point out that it's the middle of the day nd that waffles with candy in them are probably not any better for you than cookies were. Mostly because he's hoping for a chocolate waffle with chocolate chips or M&Ms in them too.

"Go keep Dean company," Sam says. He sweeps Ryan off the kitchen counter and on to he stool they'd gotten when the kid'd gotten old enough to be trusted to leave stuff alone when Sam said it was too hot to trust.

"I'm bein' banished to keep myself company?" Dean asks incredulously.

"You're brooding," Sam returns. "How you can say I'm the emo one, I'm never gonna understand, dude. Go brood with yourself."

"You're such a bitch," Dean says.

"Get out of the kitchen and I'll make you brownies tomorrow," Sam says.

Dean goes. He stops in the doorway and squints over at his brother while Ryan drops off the stool to go look for… something. Possibly, the kid's just gonna grab some pots and pans to bang together while Sam cooks, Dean doesn't even know.

"None of those weird health food things in my brownies," Dean demands.

"Just nuts," Sam murmurs. "Promise. Now go away."

When Dean gets into the living room, he finds himself sitting there on the couch with Dina attempting to lick his face off. "Dina," he says, "Bed."

She gives him a betrayed look. Her tail wags hopefully as she gives him big, dark puppy eyes, her mournful look. Stupid dog. Dina had nothin' on Sammy when he got in a pouty mood. "Don't look at me like that," Dean says, holding out both hands for her to wiggle her way into. "Go get on your bed, you sorry excuse for a mutt."

"Her name's Dina?" he asks himself. Heh.

"She's a good dog," Dean says by way of answer. He drops down on the couch next to his young, scarred up self and feels self-conscious. "So," Dean says, "Sam says I should talk to you. Or something, I don't know, man. You've figured out that we're just gonna wipe you, haven't you?"

His younger self nods and looks down at his fingers. With his head tilted like that, Dean can see the scar on his forehead, the one that he doesn't have any more. "That puppet guy did it to my Sam before he brought him back."

Dean barks a laugh. "That's Cas. Yeah, he probably did. He likes things all neat and everything. Hates having to deal with humanity. You ever want to see something really hilarious, you gotta get him drunk off his ass and get him going on how pretty and beautiful we are. Gotta say, weirdest thing in the world, man, being called a perfect work of art."

The other him snorts a little under his breath. "Yeah," he says, "That and the fact that he's apparently an angel."

"You get used to it," Dean says lightly.

"How did that happen again?"

He shrugs at himself and grins. "Well, I could tell you that sory, or I could tell you what you're really wonderin' about."

"I really doubt you know what question's knockin' around in my skull, dude. No offense." He scratches at the side of his face, where his stubble's starting to come up longer and Dean feels a pang of nostalgia. Sam doesn't really let him get away with that much stubble most days anymore. Says it hurts.

He's a sissy like that.

"I'm you, dude," Dean leans back in the couch and kicks his boots up onto the coffee table. He ignores the sideways look he's givin' himself and stares up at the ceiling. The devil's trap is almost invisible, painted in "ivory" on a white ceiling.

When they'd first moved in and painted, Dean'd had to do it by himself while Sam stood around and looked like a kicked puppy, Ryan burbling merrily on his shoulder. He'd said just bein' in the same room as the devil's trap was like an ice pick jabbing through just behind his right eye and Dean'd been buzzing with too much holy to be entirely comforting either.

It's not that bad anymore, 'course, because if it was Sam wouldn't have been sleepin' in the living room. Still. That'd been a pretty damn dark period, if Dean did say so himself.

And his little stupid young self still hasn't asked t question they both know is burning in his gut.

Dean blows out a breath. "You gonna ask?" he asks finally.

"No." His younger self touches his fingers to his forehead and sucks on his teeth. "Don't think I'm goin' to."

"Want me to tell you anyway?" Dean asks. He scratches at his shoulder while the young Dean thinks some more. He might be buzzing to Sam's senses, but his shoulder's killing him. He's pretty sure if he went in the bathroom and looked his scarr'd be ruddy and prominent.

Sam makes him ache sometimes. He figures it's only fair; he does it to Sam too.

"How can you…?" His other self clamps his mouth shut and looks young and stupid.

Dean stretches his arms along the back of the couch and pokes himself in the back of the head. "It's pretty damn easy, actually. He's big, but all that weight," he wiggles his fingers when the other Dean stares at him, horrified. "Bigger he is, the harder he falls. You just gotta trip him into bed to even up the score."

"Jesus," his other self blurts out.

"I have it on good authority that he was an awesome guy who never fucked his brothers," Dean says and watches the flush start up the back of his own neck. "Castiel tried that one a few years back."

"Jesus Christ," he says again. "I said I didn't want to know."

"Yeah," Dean says, "Except that you really did." Dean brings one arm back in to finger the edges of one of the bite marks Sam left, already mellowing into yellow at the base of his throat. One good thing about supernatural powers was that they healed freakin' quick now.

"No, I really freakin' didn't!"

"Sure you did. And now you're wonderin' how the fuck I could have let it come to that, with a side order of 'what does Dad think about all this?'" He looks at the blank look his own face is trying out on him and cracks a grin. "Dude, we are so friggin' predictable."

"I won't," the other Dean says suddenly. He sits back too, looking sick to his stomach. "I would never touch Sam like that."

Dean cracks a smile at himself, shaking his head. "Never say never, dude." He scratches at his face again. He'd thought, once upon a time, that he could swallow any fucked up feelings about his baby brother too. Then he'd almost lost Sam to demons and angels and the frickin' Devil and all of a sudden the constraints of humanity?

Were really not his goddamn problem.

"You're gonna have to live it," Dean continues. "You make your choices and I've made mine and we'll see where you end up in ten years."

"Never," the younger Dean says firmly.

"You want me to tell you a story?" Dean asks. He can hear Ryan banging on something in the kitchen, the low murmur of Sam's voice as he counts out the numbers for their kid. He can't imagine ever havin' turned his nose up at this, but, then again, this Dean hadn't been hunted by the FBI. Or been to Hell yet.

Yeah, hell sort of had a way of really messin' with yor morality clauses.

"A story of what?" his stupid self asks.

Dean shrugs. "Just a story, dude."

He feels the narrow eyed glare like something physical, boring a hole through his skull with the force of the other Dean's staring. They both know that Dean wouldn't be offering if there wasn't something to be learned from it; he's not Sam. He doesn't randomly go off on tangents about fertility gods and shit just because he has the knowledge and feels the goddamned need to share.

Of course it's not just a freakin' story.

"Fine," he says.

Dean grins over at him and makes a show of makin' himself as comfortable as he can be. Ryan'll bring out his plate of waffles when Sam's done. Brimming in syrup, covered in whipped cream, and possibly also coated liberally in toddler slobber, it'll be the best damn thing he's eaten in the last few days.

So he takes a deep breath and starts… well, not at the beginning, because there's no reason to really traumatize himself with the knowledge that he'll eventually go to hell for fourty years and, wow, those were gonna be fun.

No, he starts at the end. Or, well, close enough to the end to really matter.

"We've covered the angels are real bit, right?" he says, just to have something to say, somewhere to start. "And since, you know, you can't really have angels without demons and God, we've sort of covered those too."

The other him nods his head. "Still think you're out of your freakin' mind for believing that that thing's an angel," he mutters. "Dozens of things it could be, doesn't have to be all Roma Downey like."

"Trust me," Dean says. "There're angels." He scratches at his nose and finds himself grinnin' when Ryan shrieks something in the kitchen. "Anyway, so they're angels, or at least Castiel is, Uriel, not so much anymore. And then there're demons and, surprise, if those two are real, so's all that Revelation shit."

"You're talkin' about an apocalypse."

"Sure," Dean says. "Sixty six seals, four horsemen and all that good junk."

He makes a big show of looking around. Dean no longer wonders why Sam feels the need to hit him in public; Jesus, his own smug face was making Dean feel a little like punching it. "World looks pretty okay for havin' been through an apocalypse," his younger self says.

"Yeah, well." Dean rotates one shoulder back and heels his boots off. Might as well be getting' comfortable here. "You can thank Sam for that."

And you, Sam's voice cuts across his skull.

Quit listenin' in, you sorry bastard, Dean hisses back. We're bonding.

A bark of laughter from the kitchen. Dean ignores it.

"So," the younger Dean says, "You gonna tell me the whole story or just spew more of this criptic shit?"

"The whole story, huh?" Dean shrugs again. "It's… complicated. So you're just gonna shut up until I finish, because this isn't freakin' kindergarten story hour and you are not ecouraged to asks me questions.

"The first thing you gotta know is that Sam's got demon blood in him. Sit the fuck down, he's not evil and there's nothing possessin' him, so you just sit the fuck down. Jesus. No wonder Sam never freakin' told me anything. One day you're gonna learn that supernaturl don't mean evil.

"Well, most of them are evil anyway, but you gotta learn that some of them aren't. Like. Lenore. Or. I don't know dude, I'm sort of fond of Cas, even if he is a fucker soemtimes. Anyway. Sam's got demon blood. No, he's not evil. But that's where it all starts.

"Sam's got demon blood. And the demons? Well, they like that sort of shit. Heaven's not real fond of it."