Title: took a turn into dead end street and lost our way
Characters/Pairings: Dean/Castiel pre-slash, 2014!Castiel, Sam
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Gift fic for misachan. Dean gets a strange call from Cas saying that he's stranded on the side of the road. When Dean gets there he finds a very confused and starting-to-get-the-shakes 2014 Cas. At first Dean thinks this was his chance to make up for his future self's screw ups, but it becomes clear this isn't just good luck: there's been a switch. And unless he can find a third option, Dean's facing a godawful choice: either he sends 2014!Cas back to certain death or he leaves "his" Cas stranded in a Croat-ridden wasteland, alone and at Lucifer's mercy.
Word Count: 1755
Warnings: Character death.
Notes: Takes place some time after 5.04. Also, apologies for lots of talking heads and questionable characterization. Future Cass is just one of those characters whose voices I find hard to pin down for some reason.

This, is a one way dead end street
The only place where we will meet
We're on a one way dead end street
All alone and no way home all chances blown

Fury In The Slaughterhouse, "One Way Dead End Street"

"...Dean?"

The voice on the other end of the line was soft and scratchy and at first Dean thought it was just bad reception, nothing special considering all the places Castiel could flap to with a beat of his wings. He groaned, turned over and squinted at the red numbers blinking on the bedside clock. Jesus. "Dude. Humans. Sleep. Haven't we had this conversation before, Cass?"

"We've had many conversations that I don't care to remember," Castiel said, a hint of rancor entering his voice and apparently someone had grabbed that stick in his ass and shoved it even further in during the short time they'd been apart, a feat Dean had previously thought impossible. "I don't have time for this. You need to come over and get me."

"What, Air Angel suddenly not good enough for you?" Struck by a sudden thought, concerned, Dean sat up, clutching at the phone tightly; across the room Sam stirred and turned sleepy eyes onto his brother, questioning. "What's going on here, Cass? Are you…hurt?" By those winged dicks you call your family?he barely refrained from saying.

Castiel let out a whuffof air into the phone, as though he had heard anyway. "No." A pause, in which Dean could hear the sound of quick, light breathing over the line. A half-formed thought flickered through his mind, only to be driven away when Castiel started speaking again. "For a given definition, anyway. Please hurry, it's hardly dignified to faint by the roadside."

"What was it?" Sam looked on, alarmed, as Dean all but leaped out of bed and ran towards the door.

"It's Cass," Dean said tersely, pulling out his car keys. "He needs a ride. Stay here and man the fort, Sammy, we'll be back soon."

Sam's face tightened, all the questions he wanted to ask swarming behind the tense line of his mouth but he nodded once and that was good enough for Dean. In a handful of minutes he was pulling out from the parking lot and aiming the Impala down the lamplit road, phone still glued to his ear as Cass rattled out his current location.

"Gotcha, Cass," he said. "I'm coming for you."

"About time," Castiel replied snappishly, hanging up, leaving Dean to make an incredulous face at the dial tone and veer between worry and a desire to throttle the angel when they finally met up. If it's anything less than a fatal wound… he vowed.

The figure lit up by the Impala's headlights was so different that for a moment Dean mistook it for someone else. His eyes were already sliding past when the man stumbled, leaning against a lamppost for balance; that was when Dean recognized the dark hair, the slender silhouette he had seen only a few times without the usual trenchcoat to bulk it out. His heart slammed into the shelf of his chin at what felt like Mach 5 speeds, and for a moment he could only stare, knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

Then he had to stomp on the brakes when the Impala threatened to cruise past. She came to a halt with an ungodly screech; uncharacteristically unconcerned for his car's welfare, Dean threw the door open and jumped out, nearly falling over in his haste; through all this his eyes remained fixed on Castiel, the pale face turned away into shadow.

"Cass." Dean couldn't fit any more words around the freezing block of emotion dropped down his throat. This can't be real. When he reached out, however, the shoulder that his hand alighted on was solid flesh and bone, bleeding warmth through the thin cotton shirt that Castiel was sporting.

In response Castiel started like a cornered animal—a twitch that went all the way down to his feet, planted carefully apart on the ground. For a moment he stared at Dean as if in the middle of a thick fog, his eyes wide as saucers, pupils blown nearly as large. The silence stretched, Dean struggling to process what he was seeing, Castiel unmoving with the blank inscrutable face of the angel.

"Dean," Cass finally said, attempting a smile. With a studied nonchalance he stepped away from the lamppost, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of the worn jeans hanging low on his hips. "Glad to see you could make it."

"With that kind of SOS, did you think I wouldn't—" Dean took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. At least the sudden surge of anger had succeeded in thawing some of the ice; his voice was back again. "What the hell is this, Cass?"

Castiel lowered his head to take in his own body; raised it again with the ghost of a smirk on his lips. "Do restrain your excitement, Dean," he remarked. "I'm only back from the dead and all." He sounded nothing like himself. He sounded too much like the stranger Dean had met for three days in a desolate future that would never be, an experience that had been, up to now, only as real and vivid as a fever dream.

"How," Dean said, still holding on too tightly, both of them pretending that Castiel wasn't leaning into the touch without the lamppost to lean on. He swallowed and started again. "Of course it's great that you're still kickin'. But how—how could this happen, Cass? Zach up to his old tricks again?" If that bastard thought to use Cass as some sort of pawn to pound in another of his retarded lessons, Dean swore that he'd shoot him in the balls next time they met, angel or not.

Castiel shrugged, an elaborate gesture that Dean could practically see travel from one shoulder to another. "Maybe. Who cares?" he asked flippantly. "I'm out of that hellhole. If it was him and he showed up right now I'd drop to my knees and kiss his sanctimonious ass."

"I wouldn't trust Zachariah if he turned up with a one-way ticket back to Hell with Lucy's name on it," Dean warned. It felt strange to be the cautious one here, in comparison; usually Cass was so grave and stiff-backed that hanging out with him was like being under the watchful eye of a fusty old guardian. Hell, the angel couldn't even bag a hookeron the supposedly last night of his life. When Cass frowned at him he could see the remains of the angel in there, like a jagged reflection in the shards of a cracked mirror. That illusion was quickly dispelled, however, anytime this warped version of Cass opened his mouth.

"Yeah, I know." Cass sighed, slightly irritated but willing to admit that Dean had a point. "Anyplace to hide out from my murderous kin? Other than your car, I mean. I swear I have every groove in your backseat etched into my skin."

Dean twitched at the reminder of the disproportionately large influence that his future self had wielded over Cass. "Yeah, we're staying at a motel. I can take the floor."

Cass' eyes sharpened, piercing through the haze of whatever shit was freewheeling through his much-abused veins. "Your brother?" he asked. "Or can I hope for some attractive female company?"

Dean paused in the act of taking out his keys. The word had dropped out of his mouth so easily, the reconciliation with Sam having gone much better than either of them could have hoped for, but of course it would mean so much more to Cass, to the future he had lived through. He let the silence drag a little more, letting that be answer enough, before saying, "I could get Sam to make his bitchface for you, if you asked really nicely."

There was a delay before Castiel chuckled, blank expression flooding with apparently genuine humor. "No, that won't be necessary." Quietly, with more sentiment than Dean had come to expect from him, he added, "It'd be good to see him again."

Dean nodded, fighting the lump in his throat—the one that rose unbidden every time he thought about how close he had come to losing his brother, over something that hadn't really mattered—okay, so it did, but he should have known better. He still didn't know why Sam had said yes in the timeline next door, if he had wanted to or if it had been tortured out of him. He didn't care. It wouldn't happen now with them together and that was the important part.

Dean clapped Cass on the shoulder once before finally letting go. "Come on," he muttered gruffly, a little embarrassed at the depth of emotion running through him. "Get in here before you fall down or something."

"Yes, fearless leader," Castiel said, with little apparent sarcasm. He trailed Dean obediently, right up to the car door where he suddenly dropped his weight onto Dean, sending them both staggering. Dean only had a moment to realize that it was no accident before Castiel was sliding thin arms around his waist, burying his face in Dean's shoulder. He smelled, faintly, of smoke and metal and gunpowder, laced with a bitter tang. Dean was long used to Castiel's cluelessness regarding the concept of personal space, but this felt like something else altogether, too sudden and too fast and he had to fight the rising urge to pull away and put a mile of distance between them like a shield.

But he didn't. He couldn't. Suddenly the body against his felt as fragile as glass and bird bones, as though just by moving he could break something irreparable. He cleared his throat, patting Cass cautiously on the back—as much as he could allow himself to do despite the already flagrant violation of the guy-touching code. "Cass..." he said awkwardly.

Castiel eased away, smirking, even as something soft and strange swam beneath like water under oil. "Just making sure it's you," he explained, putting his head to one side and looking at Dean very deliberately.

What do you mean by that, Dean wanted to ask, stunned. Before he could Castiel had already squirmed into the backseat, parking his butt firmly and tilting his head back as though he had always belonged there. "I'm tired," he announced very definitely. "I don't want to talk anymore."

Dean shut up and drove. At fixed intervals the passing lamps slid bars of light in and out of the windows, pinning the glint of Castiel's open, watchful eyes to the rearview mirror; all the way back along the long, quiet road.

end part one