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A/N: This is my first attempt at writing SPN fic. If you leave a review, please be kind! This story was inspired by Firebog_Tour_Guide's Coatoan/Endverse AU "But Instead, We Become This", posted on AO3. That story is brilliant and detailed and full of pretty, pretty angst, but it left me with waay too many unsatisfied feels. Since I'm more a fan of hurt/comfort and giving the characters some happiness in their relationships (which will most likely never happen in canon), I've taken her concept in a slightly fluffier - and weirder - direction.

Story starts right after this bit in 5x04:

DEAN: "That's pretty nice timing, Cas."
CASTIEL: "We had an appointment."
DEAN [puts a hand on CASTIEL's shoulder]. "Don't ever change."
CASTIEL: How did Zachariah find you?
DEAN: "Long story. Let's just stay away from Jehovah's Witnesses from now on, okay?" [pulls out his phone.]
CASTIEL: "What are you doing?"
DEAN: "Something I should have done in the first place."

Dean paused, his finger poised to start dialing Sam's number. As soon as Castiel pulled him away from Zach, Dean knew what he had to do. Get Sammy to talk to him, stop them from drifting apart and with any luck prevent that whole shit-show with croats and orgies from ever going down. There was one other thing he needed to do first, though. That future version of Castiel had been fucking disturbing, but there was no way that Dean was gonna let his future self feed future-Cas into a meat-grinder. No way in hell.

"Cas, I know you're cut off from upstairs, but can you still time travel?"

Castiel looked off to the side, considering, then nodded. "I can, but not very far into the past."

"Well, I need you to visit the future… the future that Zach just sent me to."

Castiel gave a pensive frown. "Going to the future is more difficult than visiting the past, since the future is in a constant state of flux, and the further forward one attempts to go, the more difficult it becomes. How far into the future did he send you?"

"Five years. It was 2014, around, uhg…" he rubbed a hand over his face, trying to remember the date from that newspaper Zach had been reading. "I think it was August 7th, around midday. Jackson County Sanitarium."

"I doubt that would be a problem, providing nothing has happened to significantly alter that future… assuming it was a possible future, based on current conditions, and not some construct which Zachariah created to 'mess' with you."

Dean bit back a smile at the air-quotes. This was his Castiel; matter-of-fact and way too literal, but sort of pure, too. Not broken or burned out and drugged up. Dean nodded, pocketing his phone. That would be a big damn change, and he couldn't jeopardize his plan until Castiel had at least tried. "So, if I just stand here and don't do anything, you can zap forward and bring someone back?"

"I should be able to, yes." Castiel squinted at him. "Who did you have in mind?"

-XXX-

Cas was hunkered down behind an overturned gurney, popping up every so often to shoot at the croats. He and the others had made it inside the sanitarium and part way up the stairs before they were surrounded. They managed to break through the line of croats on the landing above them and fight their way into a side room where they barricaded themselves in, but it didn't take long for the croats to break the door down and come at them again.

The croats killed Risa in their second charge, and most of the other grunts were dead, too. He didn't see their faces before they fell, and in the heat of battle – when had he stopped talking like that? Probably sometime after his powers faded and before he started indulging his baser urges – it wasn't like he had the luxury of looking around to see who else was left, but he thought that only two others from their group were still alive.

There was a rustling sound in the hallway, like a sudden gust of wind, and he briefly wondered if the windows had been blown out somewhere in the sanitarium. Instead of looking around, he stayed focused on the task at hand: take out the Croats, try to get to the room that Dean had indicated. Tactically, he knew that his orders made no sense. A frontal assault had almost no chance of success, and past Dean seemed to have smelled the bullshit coming off of Dean's plan, but Cas hadn't said anything. The only reason he could think of for this suicidal plan – and for neither Dean being with them – was that their group wasn't the real plan. At best, they were a diversion. At worst… well, he didn't want to think about that. He was no longer an angel of the lord, not fully human, either, but at his core, he was still what he had always been: a soldier. Dean had given orders, and Cas would follow them. In the car he'd told past Dean, the one from 2009, that he'd started indulging himself because why not?

"It's the end, baby. That's what decadence is for. Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out?"

That wasn't the real reason, though. The only thing that Cas had left was Dean, and he hoped that his oldest friend felt the same way. Even if Dean didn't hold him in the same high regard, it didn't really matter to Cas. Dean had lost too much already: Bobby, Sam, and, worst of all, himself. Dean had put on the brave face of Fearless Leader years ago, because the hardness and the brutality had been necessary to keep their little group alive and fighting, but Dean had long since forgotten how to take off that mask. Castiel would follow Dean, and do all he could to help him, because he wouldn't rob Dean of his loyalty. If Dean's plan meant that Cas had to go out in a blaze of glory, win or lose, so be it. Because that's what loyalty meant.

At least, that's what it meant to him.

The fact that loyalty might not mean the same thing to Dean, well… the booze and drugs helped to numb the sting of that, or at least forget about it for a while.

So did the orgies.

Snarling and the pop-pop-pop of gunfire brought his attention back to the present. The croats were massing just outside the doorway. Planning wasn't their style – they didn't have the brains for it anymore – so Cas surmised that Lucifer must be controlling them, using them to keep Dean's decoys or potential backup pinned down and out of the way in this little room.

The rustling from before sounded again, as though a small, laser-focused hurricane was whipping it's way through the abandoned sanitarium. He looked up at the sound and saw… himself. Trenchcoat, backwards tie, constipated facial expression. Clearly, this was a version of him from the past, back when he had still been an angel of the lord.

All he could do was blink. "What are you doing here?"

Past him seemed to suddenly become aware of his surroundings and crouched down behind the gurney, looking perplexed, as though the answer should be obvious. "What Dean asked me to." Before he had time to wonder what that meant, past him put a hand on Cas' shoulder, and the room around them vanished in a swirl of wind, light and color.

In episode 5.04 (The End) the original script says:

But instead, we become this. The only thing I think we have left, Dean and me, is each other. (unadorned sincerity) If Dean says it's time to go out in a blaze of glory, win or lose, so be it. I'm in. But then… (smiles easily at Dean) That's just how I roll.

In the episode, Castiel says:

I used to belong to a much better club. And now I'm powerless. I'm hapless, I'm hopeless. I mean, why the hell not bury myself in women and decadence, right? It's the end, baby. That's what decadence is for. Why not bang a few gongs before the lights go out? But then that's, that's just how I roll.

Sourceage: episode index on the Supernatural wiki, Ep 5x04 The End (under Minutiae)