On Our Own, 6/11, PG-13, Gen, AU
More answers...and more questions. :P
Title: On Our Own
Chapter: 6 of 11
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through the end of season 5, though especially for 5x04.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine.
Summary: AU. When Sam is fifteen, his dad makes a decision based on a dark future he was apparently shown by an 'angel': split his sons up and abandon his youngest to keep that future at bay. Dean refuses to let it happen, but if they want to stay together, there's only one option: run.
Wordcount: This chapter, 2,204.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11A
Part 11B
Epilogue (to come!)
“An angel?” Dean said incredulously when he found his voice. “Are you serious?”
Castiel nodded. “I am.”
Dean only hesitated a second before he lifted the gun right back up. “Dean,” Sam hissed, not sure whether to reach for the gun or not. If it was an angel, he doubted Dean's .45 would do any sort of damage. But if it was just a regular guy with a few screws loose, he didn't need a gunshot to his heart, which was what Dean was aiming to give him.
“It's all right, Sam,” Castiel said, and that was the end of the guy just being loony tunes if he knew both of their names. “The gun will do me no harm, as you have probably already guessed. Though your brother met me much the same way the first time we were introduced.”
Sam's head whipped up to see Dean frowning deeply. “We've never met,” Dean said firmly. “Trust me, I'd remember that.”
Castiel shook his head and held up his hands. “I'm not explaining this very well. In the future, well, in another timeline, we meet when you are nearly thirty. Things transpired to bring angels and humans into contact for the first time in centuries. And I met you.”
Dean was still frowning, but the way the guy phrased his words told of something way more than just a simple time jump. “What are you doing here, then?” Sam asked, even as Dean tried to hush him.
Castiel actually looked...sorrowful. “To right a wrong,” he said. “A wrong I thought would make things better, but actually only made them worse. I have come to apologize.”
Sam stared. “You're the angel,” he breathed. “The angel Dad saw. The one who...” Who told him to split us up. This angel, man, whatever he was, he was the reason they were running from Dad.
Apparently Dean had heard the unspoken part just fine, because he aimed the gun even more purposefully in Castiel's direction. “You sonuvabitch,” he seethed. “You told Dad to abandon Sam, to split us up?”
“No,” Castiel said firmly. “I did not say any of that at all. You misunderstand me.”
“You're the one trying to apologize for screwing up,” Dean said with a growl. “Not hard to misunderstand.”
“If you give me a chance to explain,” Castiel began, and there was the firmness in his tone again, the voice that expected to be obeyed. Sam didn't need to see a halo or wings or a harp to know that whatever Castiel was, he had power. He could feel it thrumming through his very being, and it was frightening and awe-inspiring all at once.
“Dean,” Sam whispered. “Let him talk.”
It took a couple of seconds, but after a long moment of tense silence, Dean finally lowered the gun. “You'll stay on the other side of the room,” Dean told Castiel, grabbing Sam and tucking him behind Dean.
Castiel nodded. “I understand. You have Sam to protect. It's why you, the older you, sent me back again to try and remedy what has changed.
“In my time, you two were separated, as adults, of your own volition. Several things came to pass that led to the both of you wanting 'space',” and he put air-quotes around the word, as if he'd just learned how to do it. It was almost endearing. If a powerful angel being could be endearing. Maybe it was Sam that was loony tunes. “So you parted ways. Except...”
Dean tensed beside him. “Except what,” he said, voice pitched low. Sam dug his hand into Dean's leather jacket and didn't dare breathe.
Castiel let his head hang. “You decided that it would be better to stay separated. Sam requested to join back up with you but you said no. Almost immediately afterwards you were shown a vision of the future, one where you two never saw each other again. Hell would invade Earth, Lucifer would walk free, and your brother would no longer exist. When you were brought back to your present time, you were involved in...a fight,” he added after a careful moment of thought. “When you made your way to me, you asked me to find Sam. When you called Sam...there was no response.”
Sam felt light-headed and desperately clung to Dean to stay upright. They'd separated, and Dean had thought it was a good thing? Permanently distanced?
“No way,” Dean said, shaking his head. “No way would I say that or do that. Not a chance.”
“You don't understand the circumstances,” Castiel insisted, right before he stepped forward. The gun swung back up, Dean's speed enough to make the angel, man, whatever he was, stop. “I have something to give you.”
“Throw it,” Dean said.
Castiel sighed but pulled out an envelope from his trench coat. Suddenly it was right before Dean's feet, even though Castiel's arm hadn't pulled back. Castiel looked nonplussed about it, as if it were an everyday thing to make items suddenly appear where they needed to be.
Dean slowly knelt down to grab it, then looked at it. His face twisted in a funny way, leaving Sam all the more curious as to what it was. “Dean?” he asked.
“It looks like...” he started to answer, then stopped abruptly, as if afraid to say any more.
Fortunately, Castiel filled in the blank. “Your handwriting,” he said. “It is. It's a note to you, telling you everything that I have just mentioned, but in your own words. He, you, thought it would help. Dean predicted that you would not believe me in anything I said or did. I didn't think it would require that much assistance, but I underestimated your lack of faith at this age.”
“You're the one that got us split up,” Dean said, glaring at the man across the room. “An angel supposedly decided that the best thing for the world was to split up two practically orphaned brothers. Yeah. I'm feelin' the faith and the love.”
“I did not tell your father to divide you both,” Castiel insisted. “That was not my intent.”
“Why did you come here?” Sam asked, cutting his brother off before Dean could launch into another tirade. “What happened?”
Castiel looked almost grateful for the questions. “When Dean could not locate you, he sent me to try and find you, but I could not. There was word that you had been taken, however, by Lucifer, and Dean feared he was too late to stop the future from happening. He begged me to go back, to try and change the past. I told him I doubted that I could, but he asked me to try.” It was obvious from Castiel's tone that this was a familiar argument.
“So you came here,” Sam prompted. Dean was reading over whatever was in the envelope, brows knit together and lost in what it said.
“So I came here,” Castiel said with a nod. “I thought perhaps if your father knew, things would be different. He was the logical starting point. I showed him the future of what would come to be. I thought that he would think as Dean had, that the world would be worse off if you two separated in 2009.”
Except he hadn't. Dad had simply decided to separate them well before that date.
“It was not my intent,” Castiel said again. “I could not predict your father's actions. I thought he would keep you both together, not distance you two.”
“What happened after?” Dean asked quietly. He was refolding the letter back up, eyes shadowed. When he glanced back up at Castiel, there was still anger and doubt in his eyes. But there was also belief. Whatever had been in that letter had gone a long way towards convincing Dean that Castiel was the real deal. Sam swung his gaze back to the angel, god, the angel before them.
“When I returned to what you would refer to as the future, everything had changed, but...but not for the better,” Castiel said with a soft sigh. He looked weary and worn down, not at all how an angel should look. He looked just like a regular guy whose life was a mess. He looked like a guy who'd faced an apocalypse. “You were there, Dean, but Sam was still missing. Had been for years. The rumor was not that he had been taken, but that he was...” He hesitated on the word long enough that he didn't even need to say it.
“Dead,” Sam said, his voice distant to his own ears. “I'm dead, aren't I? Because we ran.” This wasn't going to end in any good way. The world was apparently still going to go to Hell, and Sam was dead. An icy dread filled his veins, and he was pretty certain that he was really going to pass out.
“No,” Castiel said, and he looked a little less weary than he had before. There was also something that resembled a proud smile on his face, slight as it was. “Not because you ran. Because you were split up. Your father succeeded.”
“No he didn't,” Dean said, sounding as confused as Sam felt. “We're together.”
“Exactly,” Castiel said. “Somehow, you managed to change the timeline. The future that was initially carved out by my mistake was changed, almost immediately, by the both of you.”
“So how does the future look now?” Sam asked.
Castiel's smile faded. “I don't know,” he said at last. “When I returned the last time after my mistake, Dean, who was the only one who knew of both timelines, begged me to return once more. He gave me the letter and told me to find the both of you, not your father, and try to save you both. Except-”
“Except we'd already saved ourselves,” Dean said. “So you have no idea how this ends.”
Castiel shook his head. “And I cannot go back immediately. I don't have the strength. I'll need to rest here before returning to the year 2009.”
“I thought you were an angel?” Dean asked, eyes widening. “Able to do anything, everything? You can't make it home with a single bound, Lassie?”
Castiel didn't need to say anything; the answer was obvious in the way he was standing. “I will retire to a place where I can rest,” Castiel said instead. “Your father is currently heading east, to where you used your credit card. It will still take him time to figure out where you are now. You may both sleep soundly.”
And then he was gone. Sam stared at where he'd been not a second before, and knew without a doubt that he'd heard the quick rustling of wings as he'd left. “Wow,” he breathed. He couldn't help it. An honest to god angel. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to know-
“We need sleep,” Dean said, stepping into the room. He set the gun down on the nightstand and, after a thought, put the letter beneath it. “If he's telling the truth about Dad, we've gotta make up the miles tomorrow. The more ahead of him we are, the better off we'll be.”
Sam didn't move. His eyes were still glued to where Castiel had been. Why had they been separated in the future? Why were angels and humans in contact? Why was the world ending?
“Sammy.”
Sam glanced up to where Dean was watching him, determination in his eyes. “We are not splitting up,” he said, as if reading Sam's thoughts.
“But we did,” Sam countered. “We do, sometime in the future. You ditch me.”
“Because I'm obviously high,” Dean snapped. “No way, no how do I ever let you go. Never. Especially not when the world's ending. If the apocalypse was really happening and the Devil was giving out candy to people on the streets, I'd make sure you were the first person next to me.”
It went a long way to healing something cracked inside of him that Sam hadn't even known was breaking. “So...future you does drugs,” he managed to say a few moments later. “Kinda unhealthy, Dean.”
Dean's relief was palpable. “Okay, so I make some wrong decisions,” he said with a shrug. “I make the right ones where they count.”
Like with Sam. Staying with Sam was a right decision, a right choice. Dad had abandoned him, let him go, and apparently future Dean had seen fit to do the same.
But this Dean hadn't. Wasn't letting go.
“Get to bed,” Dean said, already pulling back the sheets on his own bed. “We're up and out of here as soon as possible.”
Yet. Wasn't letting go yet. As much hope as Castiel's story had given him, that staying together was better than separating, it had also punched a hole through his heart. Somewhere up the line, Dean gave up on him. Let him go. Wouldn't let him come back.
What had he done? In the future with Dean, or now with their dad, to make him the one they didn't want?
He slid into bed, trying to shut his thoughts down, until eventually he fell into a fitful sleep.
Part 7
~Nebula
Title: On Our Own
Chapter: 6 of 11
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through the end of season 5, though especially for 5x04.
Disclaimer: None of this is mine.
Summary: AU. When Sam is fifteen, his dad makes a decision based on a dark future he was apparently shown by an 'angel': split his sons up and abandon his youngest to keep that future at bay. Dean refuses to let it happen, but if they want to stay together, there's only one option: run.
Wordcount: This chapter, 2,204.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11A
Part 11B
Epilogue (to come!)
“An angel?” Dean said incredulously when he found his voice. “Are you serious?”
Castiel nodded. “I am.”
Dean only hesitated a second before he lifted the gun right back up. “Dean,” Sam hissed, not sure whether to reach for the gun or not. If it was an angel, he doubted Dean's .45 would do any sort of damage. But if it was just a regular guy with a few screws loose, he didn't need a gunshot to his heart, which was what Dean was aiming to give him.
“It's all right, Sam,” Castiel said, and that was the end of the guy just being loony tunes if he knew both of their names. “The gun will do me no harm, as you have probably already guessed. Though your brother met me much the same way the first time we were introduced.”
Sam's head whipped up to see Dean frowning deeply. “We've never met,” Dean said firmly. “Trust me, I'd remember that.”
Castiel shook his head and held up his hands. “I'm not explaining this very well. In the future, well, in another timeline, we meet when you are nearly thirty. Things transpired to bring angels and humans into contact for the first time in centuries. And I met you.”
Dean was still frowning, but the way the guy phrased his words told of something way more than just a simple time jump. “What are you doing here, then?” Sam asked, even as Dean tried to hush him.
Castiel actually looked...sorrowful. “To right a wrong,” he said. “A wrong I thought would make things better, but actually only made them worse. I have come to apologize.”
Sam stared. “You're the angel,” he breathed. “The angel Dad saw. The one who...” Who told him to split us up. This angel, man, whatever he was, he was the reason they were running from Dad.
Apparently Dean had heard the unspoken part just fine, because he aimed the gun even more purposefully in Castiel's direction. “You sonuvabitch,” he seethed. “You told Dad to abandon Sam, to split us up?”
“No,” Castiel said firmly. “I did not say any of that at all. You misunderstand me.”
“You're the one trying to apologize for screwing up,” Dean said with a growl. “Not hard to misunderstand.”
“If you give me a chance to explain,” Castiel began, and there was the firmness in his tone again, the voice that expected to be obeyed. Sam didn't need to see a halo or wings or a harp to know that whatever Castiel was, he had power. He could feel it thrumming through his very being, and it was frightening and awe-inspiring all at once.
“Dean,” Sam whispered. “Let him talk.”
It took a couple of seconds, but after a long moment of tense silence, Dean finally lowered the gun. “You'll stay on the other side of the room,” Dean told Castiel, grabbing Sam and tucking him behind Dean.
Castiel nodded. “I understand. You have Sam to protect. It's why you, the older you, sent me back again to try and remedy what has changed.
“In my time, you two were separated, as adults, of your own volition. Several things came to pass that led to the both of you wanting 'space',” and he put air-quotes around the word, as if he'd just learned how to do it. It was almost endearing. If a powerful angel being could be endearing. Maybe it was Sam that was loony tunes. “So you parted ways. Except...”
Dean tensed beside him. “Except what,” he said, voice pitched low. Sam dug his hand into Dean's leather jacket and didn't dare breathe.
Castiel let his head hang. “You decided that it would be better to stay separated. Sam requested to join back up with you but you said no. Almost immediately afterwards you were shown a vision of the future, one where you two never saw each other again. Hell would invade Earth, Lucifer would walk free, and your brother would no longer exist. When you were brought back to your present time, you were involved in...a fight,” he added after a careful moment of thought. “When you made your way to me, you asked me to find Sam. When you called Sam...there was no response.”
Sam felt light-headed and desperately clung to Dean to stay upright. They'd separated, and Dean had thought it was a good thing? Permanently distanced?
“No way,” Dean said, shaking his head. “No way would I say that or do that. Not a chance.”
“You don't understand the circumstances,” Castiel insisted, right before he stepped forward. The gun swung back up, Dean's speed enough to make the angel, man, whatever he was, stop. “I have something to give you.”
“Throw it,” Dean said.
Castiel sighed but pulled out an envelope from his trench coat. Suddenly it was right before Dean's feet, even though Castiel's arm hadn't pulled back. Castiel looked nonplussed about it, as if it were an everyday thing to make items suddenly appear where they needed to be.
Dean slowly knelt down to grab it, then looked at it. His face twisted in a funny way, leaving Sam all the more curious as to what it was. “Dean?” he asked.
“It looks like...” he started to answer, then stopped abruptly, as if afraid to say any more.
Fortunately, Castiel filled in the blank. “Your handwriting,” he said. “It is. It's a note to you, telling you everything that I have just mentioned, but in your own words. He, you, thought it would help. Dean predicted that you would not believe me in anything I said or did. I didn't think it would require that much assistance, but I underestimated your lack of faith at this age.”
“You're the one that got us split up,” Dean said, glaring at the man across the room. “An angel supposedly decided that the best thing for the world was to split up two practically orphaned brothers. Yeah. I'm feelin' the faith and the love.”
“I did not tell your father to divide you both,” Castiel insisted. “That was not my intent.”
“Why did you come here?” Sam asked, cutting his brother off before Dean could launch into another tirade. “What happened?”
Castiel looked almost grateful for the questions. “When Dean could not locate you, he sent me to try and find you, but I could not. There was word that you had been taken, however, by Lucifer, and Dean feared he was too late to stop the future from happening. He begged me to go back, to try and change the past. I told him I doubted that I could, but he asked me to try.” It was obvious from Castiel's tone that this was a familiar argument.
“So you came here,” Sam prompted. Dean was reading over whatever was in the envelope, brows knit together and lost in what it said.
“So I came here,” Castiel said with a nod. “I thought perhaps if your father knew, things would be different. He was the logical starting point. I showed him the future of what would come to be. I thought that he would think as Dean had, that the world would be worse off if you two separated in 2009.”
Except he hadn't. Dad had simply decided to separate them well before that date.
“It was not my intent,” Castiel said again. “I could not predict your father's actions. I thought he would keep you both together, not distance you two.”
“What happened after?” Dean asked quietly. He was refolding the letter back up, eyes shadowed. When he glanced back up at Castiel, there was still anger and doubt in his eyes. But there was also belief. Whatever had been in that letter had gone a long way towards convincing Dean that Castiel was the real deal. Sam swung his gaze back to the angel, god, the angel before them.
“When I returned to what you would refer to as the future, everything had changed, but...but not for the better,” Castiel said with a soft sigh. He looked weary and worn down, not at all how an angel should look. He looked just like a regular guy whose life was a mess. He looked like a guy who'd faced an apocalypse. “You were there, Dean, but Sam was still missing. Had been for years. The rumor was not that he had been taken, but that he was...” He hesitated on the word long enough that he didn't even need to say it.
“Dead,” Sam said, his voice distant to his own ears. “I'm dead, aren't I? Because we ran.” This wasn't going to end in any good way. The world was apparently still going to go to Hell, and Sam was dead. An icy dread filled his veins, and he was pretty certain that he was really going to pass out.
“No,” Castiel said, and he looked a little less weary than he had before. There was also something that resembled a proud smile on his face, slight as it was. “Not because you ran. Because you were split up. Your father succeeded.”
“No he didn't,” Dean said, sounding as confused as Sam felt. “We're together.”
“Exactly,” Castiel said. “Somehow, you managed to change the timeline. The future that was initially carved out by my mistake was changed, almost immediately, by the both of you.”
“So how does the future look now?” Sam asked.
Castiel's smile faded. “I don't know,” he said at last. “When I returned the last time after my mistake, Dean, who was the only one who knew of both timelines, begged me to return once more. He gave me the letter and told me to find the both of you, not your father, and try to save you both. Except-”
“Except we'd already saved ourselves,” Dean said. “So you have no idea how this ends.”
Castiel shook his head. “And I cannot go back immediately. I don't have the strength. I'll need to rest here before returning to the year 2009.”
“I thought you were an angel?” Dean asked, eyes widening. “Able to do anything, everything? You can't make it home with a single bound, Lassie?”
Castiel didn't need to say anything; the answer was obvious in the way he was standing. “I will retire to a place where I can rest,” Castiel said instead. “Your father is currently heading east, to where you used your credit card. It will still take him time to figure out where you are now. You may both sleep soundly.”
And then he was gone. Sam stared at where he'd been not a second before, and knew without a doubt that he'd heard the quick rustling of wings as he'd left. “Wow,” he breathed. He couldn't help it. An honest to god angel. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so many things he wanted to know-
“We need sleep,” Dean said, stepping into the room. He set the gun down on the nightstand and, after a thought, put the letter beneath it. “If he's telling the truth about Dad, we've gotta make up the miles tomorrow. The more ahead of him we are, the better off we'll be.”
Sam didn't move. His eyes were still glued to where Castiel had been. Why had they been separated in the future? Why were angels and humans in contact? Why was the world ending?
“Sammy.”
Sam glanced up to where Dean was watching him, determination in his eyes. “We are not splitting up,” he said, as if reading Sam's thoughts.
“But we did,” Sam countered. “We do, sometime in the future. You ditch me.”
“Because I'm obviously high,” Dean snapped. “No way, no how do I ever let you go. Never. Especially not when the world's ending. If the apocalypse was really happening and the Devil was giving out candy to people on the streets, I'd make sure you were the first person next to me.”
It went a long way to healing something cracked inside of him that Sam hadn't even known was breaking. “So...future you does drugs,” he managed to say a few moments later. “Kinda unhealthy, Dean.”
Dean's relief was palpable. “Okay, so I make some wrong decisions,” he said with a shrug. “I make the right ones where they count.”
Like with Sam. Staying with Sam was a right decision, a right choice. Dad had abandoned him, let him go, and apparently future Dean had seen fit to do the same.
But this Dean hadn't. Wasn't letting go.
“Get to bed,” Dean said, already pulling back the sheets on his own bed. “We're up and out of here as soon as possible.”
Yet. Wasn't letting go yet. As much hope as Castiel's story had given him, that staying together was better than separating, it had also punched a hole through his heart. Somewhere up the line, Dean gave up on him. Let him go. Wouldn't let him come back.
What had he done? In the future with Dean, or now with their dad, to make him the one they didn't want?
He slid into bed, trying to shut his thoughts down, until eventually he fell into a fitful sleep.
Part 7
~Nebula