Map of the World: September 2

This isn’t a test.

—Day 30—

The patrol confirmed the lack of supernatural activity in the city more than once, and their last report was no different than any other since Lucifer left the earth, which Castiel’s verified several times on his own. That doesn’t alleviate the instinctive desire to keep Dean as far away from any urban area as possible, but it does remove the only excuse he finds acceptable for doing so.

“So why can’t I drive again?” Dean asks. Again.

“Because it will help you concentrate on learning the routes in the city if you don’t also have to navigate them at the same time,” Castiel answers patiently. Again.

“Supply run,” Dean says, kicking a boot onto the dashboard, which Castiel fights to ignore. “Try again.”

“Because it gives me pleasure to annoy you unnecessarily.” He glances at Dean. “Is it working?”

Dean flashes him a grin. “Yeah, but there’s another reason.” Settling back in his seat, he turns his attention back to the road, but the lingering smile is disconcerting, and he suspects this is not the last time they will visit this subject today.

Castiel tries to identify the growing tension that he can’t quite categorize. The familiarity of the route is written into his bones from years in Kansas, following the switch between the county roads and the remains of the highway almost automatically, and he finds himself checking the rearview mirror, searching for something, but he isn’t sure what. As the city limits come into view, slowly decaying suburban neighborhoods beginning to surround them, he glances over at Dean and swallows, time bending nauseatingly: in thirty minutes, Dean will order them to stop; in forty-five, Castiel will be ordered to leave him; in an hour, Dean will die, and Castiel won’t.

Two hours from now, he’ll leave the city with this man and expect never to return; then again, when he enters it, he’ll never expect to leave it at all.

“Cas?”

If he were an angel, time would have no meaning for him. Two weeks or two days, two hours or two seconds, it would always be now, and it could always be changed. If he were still an angel, two weeks or two years ago would always be now, and all his mistakes could be fixed; if he were still an angel, perhaps there would never have been any mistakes for him to make.

If he were still an angel, Castiel thinks distantly, Dean would still be alive and this man wouldn’t be here, sentenced to die in a world that doesn’t yet know it should already be dead.

“Cas.”

With a jerk, Castiel hits the brake, staring out the windshield at the sullen pearl-grey of morning, hands shaking despite their grip on the steering wheel. He’s dead, he realizes, the wound so fresh it still feels like it’s bleeding; Dean’s dead and he’s still alive. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

A hand reaches over, putting the jeep into park and turning the key in the ignition, the hum of the engine melting into unwelcome silence.

“You don’t have anything to prove here,” Dean says softly. “It’s not that important. You don’t have to do this to yourself.”

“It—” His voice cracks unexpectedly, and swallowing, he tries again. “I don’t know why I…”

“It’s the first time you’ve been back since we got his ashes.”

He can feel Dean looking at him and doesn’t want to imagine what he must be thinking of him now. “Yeah, you wouldn’t know. This is kind of a ‘learn by getting through this shit’ kind of thing. It’s different for everyone.”

Castiel steadies his breathing by sheer will, but nothing can stop the cascade of memories as if they happened only moments before, as if they haven’t happened yet and might not happen at all.

“We can go back,” Dean offers. “This isn’t a test.”

Everything is a test, and he’s failed them all. “I’m fine.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Dean sigh, crossing his arms. “Sure, go for it.”

“I don’t need you to—”

“—babysit you? Be around just so if you gotta go through this, you don’t have to feel alone while you do it? Take your goddamn pick.”

The anger drains away, leaving him hollowed out, empty.

“Not that I know anything about that,” Dean finishes flatly.

It’s the fate of all those born mortal, finite lives a drop in eternity, their short existence spent in the knowledge of the inevitable loss. Dean’s grief over the death of Sam drove him to the Crossroads, as humans have done almost since the beginning of time, trading eternal suffering for alleviation of a pain that no matter how strong was transient at best.

It was as if he looked upon a puddle and believed he could understand the depths of the ocean. Life is so much longer when living it; gutted alive and still breathing, it’s forever.

“Cas.” A hand rests on his shoulder, fingers squeezing firmly in wordless reassurance. “You want to do this, we can do it, but you don’t have to. This isn’t a test, and if it was, surviving is all you gotta do to pass.”

“Time,” he says bitterly, wondering at the vastness of the lie he once took as truth; it’s forever here. “So I’ve heard.”

“Yeah, that’s bullshit, the ‘time heals’ thing,” Dean answers with a laugh that is anything but amused. “Nothing works until you figure out how to even want to. Never mind, you wanna do this?”

Everything’s a test, and he always fails. He’s never done anything else. “Yes.”

Dean squeezes his shoulder one more time before pulling away. “Then let’s get going.”

Reaching for the key, he turns over the engine and reaches for the gear shift, aware of Dean’s attention despite his steady gaze out the windshield.

“So there are three routes you use on patrol in Kansas City,” Dean says out of nowhere. “So different world, you still call these roads here, right?”

Castiel pauses, mind grinding to a halt.

“Just checking. So tell me everything you know about this route on the way.”

He looks across the jeep. “That’s not much.”

Dean shrugs. “Then make it up.”

---

This is the shortest of the three routes they use in Kansas City, and while it usually takes very little time to travel, Dean insists on stopping at certain points for no reason he can fathom. The first three, he doesn’t make any attempt to get out, scanning the street and then the buildings, a line appearing between his eyebrows that deepens at every stop.

“I should know it,” Dean says sincerely when Castiel is unable to control his impatience after ten minutes at the third stop. “I really want to know it, Cas. Deeply.”

“You’re enjoying yourself,” he observes, carefully navigating a corner that has almost become blocked by debris. That should have been reported, he thinks in annoyance, making a note to have Dean remind the patrol to report any changes to the route as well as their duty to clear any obstructions themselves if at all possible.

“You ever see Mad Max?” Dean asks. He shakes his head, though it does sound vaguely familiar. “Never realized it was a documentary.”

Dean reaches down absently to shift the holster Chuck found among surplus, the leather still new enough to be stiff, the straps not yet softened and shaped to his body. Assuming he would be disinclined to use his counterpart’s weapons, Castiel chose what he needed for today. Dean hasn’t had an opportunity to practice since he arrived, which reminds him to ask if he would prefer to find somewhere outside the camp to increase his familiarity with those weapons in the armory that he hasn’t used before. He gets the distinct impression that being surrounded at the range would not be welcome and make the exercise less enjoyable than it should be.

“Hey,” Dean says abruptly, interrupting his thoughts as he leans forward in his seat. “Stop here.” Obligingly, he stops as Dean squints out the windshield intently before reaching for the door, asking belatedly, “Any reason I can’t take a look around?”

“No,” he answers reluctantly, but Dean’s already out the door. Reaching behind the seat for a rifle, he throws the parking brake and gets out, trying to decide what captured Dean’s attention. “In case this isn’t obvious, if you see something move, shoot it. It won’t be friendly.”

Dean doesn’t answer, and after scanning the street for any sign of activity, he crosses to the other side of the jeep, frowning at Dean’s fixed expression. Following his gaze, Castiel takes in the half-crumbling remains of a hotel and puts everything together.

“The first time you came here,” he says softly. “It was here.”

Dean nods slowly, eyes distant. “That’s where I woke up.”

He tries to see as Dean must have that day, when he emerged into a dying city in stark contrast to the living one he unknowingly left. He imagines Dean stumbling down street after barren street, seeing the decay of the buildings and streets, the overcast bathing the city in sullen grey, the end of the world already in all but name.

He remembers Dean as he was then, appearing at the doorway of his cabin like a ghost from a past he would have been happy to forget, demanding his assistance as he vibrated in timespace like a perpetual tuning fork and disappointment written across his face as loudly as a shout. In retrospect, he would have been more offended, but his focus was on the half-hidden flash of red that circled each wrist, so new it was obvious exactly where he’d just been.

“You guessed from the map.” Dean studied them last night for longer than he expected before he made his choice. “You were looking for where the military routes crossed ours.”

“I remembered that the road was clear when I came down. Eventually a tank saved my ass,” Dean says absently, closing the door with a push of his hand. “You or the military clear the routes you use regularly, and this route crosses theirs twice. I hot-wired a car a couple of blocks down and it took me ten minutes to get out of the city, straight shot to the west. Beta seemed the most likely, or close to it.”

“You remember all of that.”

Dean shrugs, eyes drifting back to the hotel again. “Kind of memorable.”

“The first three days you were here, this is what you were looking for.” In retrospect, it’s almost embarrassingly obvious. “In case there was something here that might help you.”

“Nothing around that fucking dumpster,” Dean agrees indifferently. “Seeing a tank around might have helped a little.” Shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, he shrugs. “Stupid idea.”

Castiel takes in the dilapidated state of the building and slides the rifle over one shoulder. “We should look anyway.”

---

Dean searches the cramped room with professional efficiency and a hunter’s flawless instinct, but there’s very little to search and nothing to find. The rusting metal headboard creaks as he strips the bed of the sagging, water-stained mattress, springs squealing shrill protest, eyes skimming the dull wooden floorboards before he moves on, checking the doorway, fingers sliding down the splintering wood to feel for anything that he might not be able to see, checking the floorboard before going to the window, the grimey window looking out on a scene of devastation that must have been his first view of this world.

He pauses there for only a minute, and Castiel sees the green eyes glaze as he relives a memory of disbelieving horror, then he turns grimly to search the floor, crouching on the other side of the bed and going suddenly still.

“Dean?” He starts toward him and stops half-way there, uncertain; the set of Dean’s back isn’t encouraging. After a second, Dean straightens, shoving back his rifle and holding something in his hand.

“Lighter,” he says, tossing it casually, but the long fingers close around it white-knuckled before tucking it in his pocket. “I had it with me when I got here the first time. Forgot I even lost it.”

Castiel remains silent as Dean comes out from behind the bed. “You ready to go?” he asks, on his way to the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

When they emerge on the street, only faint traces of Dean’s discomposure remain, mind turning firmly to the present. As they approach the jeep, he finds himself staring at the sleeves of Dean’s jacket where they cover his wrists, and realizes that might not have been the only—

“What else happened?”

Dean stops short, turning to look at him. “What?”

“When you arrived at Chitaqua, Dean found you,” he says before he can stop himself. “What did he do to you when he took you to his cabin?”

“Nothing,” Dean says in surprise, continuing to the jeep before turning around, leaning against the hood. “Just made me prove who I was.”

“Before or after he handcuffed you to the bed?”

Dean’s eyes widen. “How did you—”

“How did he prove it?”

“How—uh, this memory we both…” Dean shifts, tension fading into reluctant amusement. “Dude, some things you take to your grave, and this is one of them. Trust me, this one we never told anyone.” The green eyes search Castiel for a long moment. “Then he handcuffed me to the bed and forgot we both know how to get out of handcuffs. Why?”

He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he lets it out. “I never asked you what happened when you arrived at Chitaqua.”

“You were a little distracted back then,” Dean says with a nod, cocking his head. “How’d you know about the handcuffs anyway?”

Involuntarily, his eyes flicker to Dean’s hands. “You had marks on your wrists, very fresh, and signs of abrasions less than ten minutes old.”

Dean starts to push himself off the hood, then stops. “Wait, how’d you know he took me to his cabin and handcuffed me to that bed? That happen a lot or something?” There’s no time to think of a way to answer before Dean straightens. “He hated that cabin, and so do you. Never slept there. Cas, is that where he took the demons he captured? There?”

He licks his lips. “Yes.”

“The handcuffs,” Dean breathes, looking sick. “Getting out of them didn’t usually matter with who he left in there, because there was a devil’s trap on the ceiling, wasn’t there? Jesus, how did I miss it? I was there for two days straight!”

“The light comes only from the northwest window,” Castiel answers without thinking. “It’s carved directly into the wood. You can’t see it, no one can, unless they know exactly what to look for and where.”

The unblinking stare continues for several long seconds before Dean says, voice surprisingly even, “I wondered how you knew how shallow you could make those sigils so they’d still work.” Turning away, he adds, “I’m gonna take a look around.”

---

The afternoon is just beginning to darken, hanging on the fragile cusp of early evening, when Dean indicates they should make one last stop as they near the end of the commercial district before it melts into the edges of the suburbs. Giving Castiel a perfunctory glance, he gets out, automatically swinging the rifle over his shoulder as he shuts the door.

Closing the driver’s side door, Castiel watches as Dean paces from one side of the street to the other, the green eyes searching the street and climbing the sides of crumbling apartments and over the craters where stores and shopping centers once stood. Returning to the jeep with unusual swiftness, he circles around to lean against the hood on the driver’s side, arms crossed tightly as he stares at nothing for a few moments.

“Okay, if I’d thought about it, I would’ve known you—” His jaw tightens visibly. “You helped him. I mean, why wouldn’t you, I get that.”

Castiel nods warily. “There weren’t many people who had the knowledge or experience to be of assistance.”

“Or could stand to watch,” Dean says flatly. “Unless you want to tell me this wasn’t Alistair’s apprentice’s greatest hits going on in there. I can tell you right now how many can be done on earth without even trying.” He takes a deep breath. “Did he teach you?”

“I knew some methods from the Host and my time in Hell,” he answers. “He taught me more.”

“Everything?” Dean asks, voice stripped of expression.

“I didn’t ask.”

“Did you enjoy it as much as he did?”

“It wasn’t arousing,” he answers steadily. “I didn’t do it for pleasure, and while the method used was new, the act wasn’t. Do you think in all my existence, I’ve never been required to interrogate a demon?”

“Right, I forgot the Host went in for torture.”

“In our Father’s name, there is little we are denied in pursuit of carrying out His will on earth.”

“You weren’t carrying out God’s fucking will!” Dean shouts back, turning to face him. “You were taking your orders from Dean fucking Winchester! And in case you forgot, you aren’t a goddamn angel anymore!”

He flinches before he can stop himself. “Is your objection that I did it at all or that I don’t offer you an apology for it?”

Dean looks at him for a long time. “Doesn’t it even bother you?” Before he can answer, Dean shakes his head, turning back to the jeep. “Never mind, we should get back. You ready?”

He nods, unclenching his jaw with an effort. “Yes.”