Day 51: Breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

Comments

[freewill]

Right as Castiel had been waiting for the sensation of his foot connecting with the dog's grotesque face, his vision had blacked out (it had been dark near those woods, but they'd had flashlights that were bright enough to see by) and—

It was almost as if he'd been ripped back in time, forced to wake up in the same place with words being spoken out of the same device by the same voice. Movement in time wasn't unheard of; it was possible that he'd been put on some sort of loop by one of his brothers, most likely one of the two who were chomping at the bit to feud. But as Castiel once again forced himself up out of the bed (it hadn't felt so much like waking up, this time) he realized that the words being spoken were different.

It was morning. There had been no sign of dawn's light, and yet it was now morning. The disembodied voice was speaking of breakfast.

Castiel glanced around, noticing that the other bed was now occupied by someone who looked close to Adam's age. Frowning, he moved over and roughly shook the stranger's shoulder. However, the movement immediately caused his whole arm to throb with pain, and he took a step back as he examined the limb. His forearm was circled with bandages, and a tug at his collar showed that his shoulder was in the same state.

The disadvantages of being human. It seemed that he still had much to learn from Anna, and yet he knew that he no longer had a guide to turn to, if he ever had.

Shaking his head, he turned toward the closet, finding that the coat he'd grabbed was back in place as if it had never been removed. He pulled it off the hanger and put it on before turning toward the door, which opened almost as if it was on clockwork. Who was—?

It was a woman, a nurse. Castiel had been in enough hospitals to know the uniform and the demeanor that the human healers possessed. The stranger looked him over and sighed. "Oh, Michael, we're not having any shifts outside today, so you really don't need to wear that!"

He tensed at the name, though the tightening of his shoulder caused another sting of pain. Why was she addressing him by his brother's name? He was nothing like Michael; he did not have his bloodlust or his righteousness. "Why are you calling me that?" he snapped, staring the woman down with warranted suspicion.

"Because it's your name," she said with a sigh, almost seeming irritated. "Would you prefer I call you Mr. Collins?"

Angels did not have surnames. Frowning, Castiel refused to take his eyes off the woman as he approached her. He had no tolerance for dealing with this patiently. "Neither of those names belong to me," he said, tone low. "What is this place? Why have I been brought here?" At this point, it seemed like a detailed attempt to keep him away from the Winchesters, and he wouldn't stand for that.

"Because you are very ill, Mr. Collins, and you need to be rehabilitated. Your family only wants the best for you..."

His family. That statement was a ridiculous one in this context, but the nurse seemed almost oblivious of that. It was hard to imagine that she was an ignorant human who was unaware of the issues at large, but it was surprisingly difficult to read her. If she was acting, she was doing it well.

If she was right, then that meant that getting out of this trap was going to be near impossible, especially considering his lack of angelic power. He'd already gone on one suicide attempt; he was not sure he could endure another without that term being literal. He wasn't willing to lay down his life once more until he knew that outcome of the Winchesters' attempt to save Adam, and that was why he dismissed the idea of fighting his way out.

[freewill]

"Now," the nurse continued, "get that coat off and then we can get you some breakfast, all right?" When she tried to reach out to help him remove the garment, he swatted her hand away and disrobed on his own. He hardly needed this woman's aid, especially if she was an agent of Michael or Lucifer.

It felt odd to not have some sort of coat on, but he was not going to allow something so trivial to bother him. Setting it aside, he turned to the nurse and waited to see what her next move would be. In the end, all she did was lead him out into the same hallway he'd seen the night before, though now it was well-lit. Castiel saw the numbers that were posted above each door, including his own, and saw that there were at least forty possible rooms, and probably more than that.

Other than that, the path that she led him on was the same as the one he had taken with Orihara the night before, except that instead of turning right into the room that would lead outside, the woman went left. The temptation to break away from her and head for the front door was strong, but he was no fool.

Through the double doors was a large room with a sunlight in it, and he could also see some of the second floor. There were a few doors going off of the area, but the nurse moved straight forward without a glance to them, and Castiel followed. Her earlier comment about breakfast had not been a lie, for what he saw next was a large room full of people in the same uniform, all who were talking and eating. For a moment, all Castiel could do was stare (what place did he have here?), but as he scanned the room, he suddenly saw the two people he'd spent all of the previous night searching for.

"The food line is over there—"

Not giving the nurse any more of his attention, Castiel stalked away from her and headed straight for the Winchesters. So the two of them had also been brought here. He wasn't sure why Michael or Lucifer would see fit to place them in this institute as well, but it made him even more suspicious of its true purpose. He doubted that the two brothers knew any more about this than he did, but if they pooled their knowledge, he was sure that they could solve the mystery and find a way out.

Castiel was about halfway to their table when he remembered what Dean had been considering the last time he had seen him. It actually caused him to pause for a moment. He would have known if that was Michael rather than Dean (even without his powers, he would have known), which had to mean that Dean had come through after all.

Maybe it had been wrong of him to doubt, but at the same time, maybe his harsh words had had some effect. The reason didn't matter as much as the fact that he had not given in. Castiel couldn't help feeling some relief at that. This had not all been for naught.

He resumed walking, and upon reaching them took the seat next to Dean, sitting right next to them as he stared the man in the face. "Apparently I shouldn't have doubted you," he conceded, not afraid of admitting to a mistake. "I take it that you failed to secure Adam," he remarked, glancing from Dean over to Sam. He'd known from the start that it had been a long shot, as they called it, but it was still troubling to know that the angels still had the boy in their grasp while they were stuck in this institute.

[boyking]

So it would be Dean, not Ruby or a stranger. Nor an acquaintance. Acquaintances which Sam had to admit he'd failed to keep more careful track of. He tried to pin them down as often as possible to make sure they were still around, but unless he posted a note every day asking them to report in, it was hard to say with any degree of certainty. He could see Teresa from where he was sitting, and Peter, but there were a significant amount of people missing, as well.

Sam speared a neatly cut corner of his French toast, glanced up at Dean. "I wish. Homework would be easier."

And that was funny to say, because he hadn't thought about these things in a long time. Late nights with a pizza box, a laptop, and a stack of library books were memories that might've been less distant if he'd cared to revisit them more often. But he didn't.

He was about to ask Dean something else when a figure heading directly their way caught his attention. He set down his fork, a slice of bacon still stuck to the tines. Direct was not an exaggeration. The guy might as well have been a train chugging along a track, the way he was going. He knew there was nothing anyone could do in the day time, but he tensed anyway. Not a lot of people charged at them like that, definitely not here. He didn't even bother drawing Dean's attention to the situation. He was pretty sure his brother already knew.

It wasn't until the man paused and Sam had a second to flip through his thoughts that he realized—was that—?

He recognized him. His visitor. Michael, wasn't it? Why was his visitor, a man obviously set up by the institute, here as a patient? No preamble, nothing. Just like that, showing up.

His brain was still in catch-up mode when Michael sat himself right next to Dean as though nothing was amiss. As though they knew each other. Which—okay. Had Sam missed something? Was there a conversation that'd been interrupted that he was unaware of? Because the way Michael was going on, he was clearly picking up the threads of some abandoned discussion.

But between all of these thoughts firing in his head, one thing stood out: he really didn't like how the man had zeroed in on Dean. It also didn't make sense considering Michael had come to see Sam specifically last time, not Dean, and from what he could draw from his falsified memories, Michael didn't have much of a connection to Dean beyond Dean being the subject of a case file. Mostly, though, Sam just didn't like this on instinct. Any of it. It made too little sense and the man acted too much as if he knew precisely what was going on. In a place where uncertainty was the norm, particularly for a new patient (and Michael was new, Sam would've noticed him if he'd been here earlier), the blunt deliberateness of Michael's actions put him on edge.

Which was why instead of letting Dean deal with it the way he usually did—there was rarely a reason to involve himself when Dean could handle things just fine—Sam leaned forward, edging his plate out of the way with a small push. "What the hell are you doing here?"

[kindalikedit]

He didn’t see the guy incoming, not at first.

Sam stopping what he was doing and just staring tipped him off. It wasn’t exactly the expression the kid got when there was some serious shit like ghoul charging – more like Sam was just friggen surprised as all hell and wasn’t sure how to react.

Dean turned in his seat. He had about a split second to take in this random dude zeroing in on the two of them with that look he’d always associated with trouble (seriously, Thousand Yard there was just staring at them, not even blinking) before the patient slid into the chair next to him. Right into his personal space, that space where he frankly didn’t feel comfortable ‘cause that was pretty much within stabbing distance. Some stranger making eyes at him wasn’t making him relax. Dean stiffened as the guy kept peering at him. Before he could even get a word out, Thousand Yard jumped into some one-sided conversation as if he was just picking up where he left off, Dean’s mouth opening and then closing as he stared back. Okay, so his first reaction wasn’t Sam’s “what the hell this guy was doing here”, although that was a close second. Who the hell was he, who the hell was Adam and why did he need to be “secured”? Christ, he made it sound like they were running some supernatural witness protection program.

He shot Sam a look as he scooted good few inches away from Thousand Yard sitting next to him, needing those extra inches right this second. If the guy was going to close to the distance, Dean was prepared to shove his ass back and make sure he didn’t get all up in his personal space a second time around.

Judging by Sam’s reaction, he was going to go with the assumption that this guy wasn’t exactly his buddy. Not when he sounded all confrontational about it, like this guy had no right being here. Okay, maybe he had no right parking his ass right next to him, only a few inches from crawling into his lap. He could skip the gay strip tease, especially if the guy was going to do that freaky stare the whole time. Still, it wasn’t like this table had their names on it; technically he could sit here all he wanted.

“Dude, you might want to start at the beginning,” Dean said, eyeing the other patient and making sure he didn’t scoot any closer. He flashed the guy a confused smile, the kind he usually used to buy himself some time. “You sure you don’t got me mixed up with someone?”

It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before – first the shifter, and then finding out he’d been here longer than just a few weeks. Really kinda just boiled down to figure out where exactly this guy was coming from, if he was just spouting some good old-fashioned crazy, this was something he’d been looking into his first round in Landels, or if this was something else entirely. Dean was still picking at his food with his fork, but it was just absent, stirring it around the plate and not even pretending like he was going to go back to eating when this random dude was two seconds from riding him. After a second, he noticed what he was doing and set down his fork, flicking a glance at Sam. The kid wasn’t in attack dog mode. Well, not yet. He was doing that lean forward though, the one he definitely recognized. Sam could go either way on this one.

Dean couldn’t blame him.

[freewill]

The looks on their faces spoke volumes. They had not expected him, which likely meant he had been gone for even longer than he'd imagined. Had they given him up for dead, then? Castiel could hardly blame them if that was the case, considering how unlikely his survival of that encounter had been. Granted, he didn't have any good news for them; with his powers stripped away, his usefulness had also been taken. Now all he had to offer was his knowledge of the inner workings of Heaven and the behavioral patterns of Michael and Lucifer.

When Dean moved away from him, Castiel was reminded of the conversations they had had in the past about "personal space." They had discussed this a few times before, and yet he always seemed to forget. He'd been too distracted by their presence at first, but he made no effort to close the distance now. He assumed there was now an acceptable amount of space between them, so they could move on—

It was then that Sam spoke up, his tone hostile and his words more so. Castiel eyed him with suspicion and anger for a moment; where did the younger Winchester find the audacity to speak to him in such a way, after the lengths he had gone to for Dean's sake?

Right as he was about to give him a piece of his mind, however, Dean addressed him with confusion and more than that, a lack of recognition. As Castiel turned back to stare the man in the face, he saw complete ignorance in his eyes, as if this was their first meeting. And in that moment, Castiel started to scramble for explanations. Erased memories? That did not seem beyond either of his brothers' abilities. It could be a ploy to trick the two into saying yes, but if that was the case, then why place him here with his memories intact when he would clearly warn them?

There was another option, and one that might be testable. Frowning, Castiel focused in on Dean first, concentrating in an attempt to sense if something had been tampered with. It took a few seconds, but then the answer became clear: he was from the past, about a year before he would take his descent into Hell. A similar study of Sam revealed that he was also from an earlier time; after Dean's death, but before his rise from the depths of that pit.

In other words, neither of them had the slightest indication of who he was and what the three of them had experienced together.

"I see," he said, his head dipping down for a moment as he stared at the table in front of him, deep in thought. It was worse than he'd realized. If these two had been brought forth from the past (different parts of the past, at that), then where were their present incarnations? Not here, clearly, and yet this was all he had to work with for the moment.

Castiel looked up again, glancing from one brother to the other. "I'm from your future," he stated plainly. "I thought your times coincided with mine, but that doesn't seem to be the case." And then, he zeroed in on Sam. "I woke in this place last night. I'm unaware of how I was conveyed here or who is responsible, though I have a few suspicions." There was far too much that needed to be explained, and the flow of time to consider. But he needed out of this place and back to the Winchesters he knew, and he might require the help of these two to accomplish that.

However, getting them to understand that might prove difficult, especially considering his lack of abilities.

[boyking]

If Sam was expecting to get stared at for the next couple of minutes in response—well, he hadn't expected it. It was weird enough that he found himself backing off a bit, brows furrowed. He shot a look at Dean, but if anything, Dean looked even more confused than Sam was.

Plus, that. Being from their future? That was definitely not an answer he was anticipating. What was he even supposed to do with something like that? Especially with how the man had said it, like he was explaining that he saw them across the street yesterday afternoon and had waved. And Sam still didn't know who the hell this guy was, by the way. Sure, he knew his name and the role the institute had assigned to him, but that information was damn near worthless under current circumstances. His face was Michael's, but his demeanor wasn't the same.

So who was he? Sam knew that patients often reported visiting friends and family as having different memories, a different name, but there had never been a mention of them actually acting unlike themselves in any other way. Even if he had to admit that if he thought about it, there were maybe more resemblances between this Michael and the other Michael than there weren't.

Though in the end, none of that mattered much. It was the future business that had most of Sam's attention. It could've been a lie, but the possibility wasn't so easy to dismiss after everything he'd seen. He was from Dean's future and Ruby had been from his by about half a day or so. There was no reason why this couldn't...simply be someone they'd met later in their lives.

Convenient, though, as a strategy for someone to edge their way in. Way too convenient, and while Sam could appreciate that if the man was being completely honest, it must kind of suck to be met with outright suspicion, he couldn't bring himself to be anything but. There were way too many questions still. And he really didn't like the notion of Michael being "from the future." How far from the future? Pretty damn far, from the sounds of it, which meant he knew about Dean's death. He had to. Except then why didn't he seem surprised to see Dean? It was as if he expected Dean to be around.

In fact, how could he have met Dean at all?

God, this made no frigging sense.

Sam rubbed his temple. He wasn't sure where to start. The beginning, like Dean had suggested? That was probably a good idea. Dean didn't realize that Sam knew the man—knew him for all of an hour or less, but still. They should...start there, then.

He glanced at Dean again before returning his attention to their unexpected guest. His plate was forgotten; even Dean had stopped eating. So much for being hungry.

"I know you," he said finally. "You were..." He fished for words. "You came to visit me once. You said your name was Michael, said you were a detective."

No reason to go into detail beyond that. He couldn't, exactly. Details would touched on the fact that Dean had been dead. While that hadn't been true in that particular piece of their fabricated lives, he just—didn't want to go there at all if he could help it. Not when he felt like something had happened here just now with Michael's arrival, something far out of his hands. It unsettled him. He couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but it did.

[kindalikedit]

Except detectives didn’t run around claiming they were from the future and that, along with the whole visitor thing, made his whole story real hard to swallow.

Dean exchanged looks with Sam. “So, uh, what makes you so sure we’re from the past?”

Hey, he’d hitched himself a ride on that freak TARDIS thing of the Doctor’s. Didn’t mean he was just going to sit there and believe suddenly everyone and everything out there could be from the past or the future. Or Pluto. Whatever. Honestly, he wasn’t even sure how much to believe about the Doctor’s talk of time travel. Weird inter-dimensional whatever, space travel, sure. He could get that. Didn’t exactly have a choice when proof stared him in the face with the TARDIS. But he still hadn’t seen any actual time travel in action, and on that front, there wasn't much aside from the Doctor’s word and now this guy running his mouth off about being from the future.

Glancing at Sam, Dean figured the kid wasn’t any more sold on this. But finding out this was the guy who’d visited Sam was another thing entirely and Dean went right back to sizing up “Michael”. His own run-in with the visitors hadn’t exactly shed a whole lot more light on any of this, that Alexander guy dropping a lot of veiled hints instead of being specific about his gloating (although if it'd been gloating, it'd been the most polite gloating he'd ever sat through. There’d been those white eyes too. Dean still hadn’t told Sam about it. He should. But he had to admit, he wasn’t sure he wanted to: Alexander had way too much info on his hands, all of it too accurate to just be some supernatural gossip going down the grapevine. If he was a demon or some other freak out to keep an eye on him – or make sure the deal went down as planned – then Dean didn’t want Sam involved.

“Weaseling your way out” probably included “stabbing the chaperon in the face”.

It still left what the hell this Michael guy was doing here, if he was as human as he looked and just weird, or if this had anything to do with the crossroads deal. Didn’t strike him as old White-Eyes in a meat suit (if he even was a demon). Not exactly his style and his stare had been creepy, sure…but it’d been a different kind of creepy. Dean started to reach for his cup of water, just in time to catch Michael doing it again. Christ. Made him feel like there was something on his back. That or the guy was friggen stripping him mentally and that right there made him feel downright uncomfortable.

[freewill]

Despite the fact that the two brothers had made it their purpose in life to search out supernatural creatures and bring an end to them, they seemed to have a difficult time accepting certain things. Castiel remembered when he had first come to see Dean, when he had tried to explain who he was and where he came from. He had gotten little more than an attitude, but this time he didn't have the wrath of Heaven to hold over the man's head. His fists did not have the same strength, and his wings could no longer take them even as far as the other side of the room. He had no proof, and they had no reason to believe him.

All he had was more information, but that might just make them further inclined to label him as insane and leave it at that. He knew more about them than anyone should have, but once again, that could easily lead to more suspicions. He could already see it in their faces, the way they were looking him up and down as if he was their enemy rather than their ally. He would have deemed it disrespectful, but in this case he could not fault them too much.

The entirety of what Sam said was a mystery to him, and again Castiel found his shoulders tensing up at the mention of his brother's name. The wound in his shoulder was aggravated once more, and it took an admirable amount of willpower to not grab for it in response. Instead, he smoothed out his expression and shook his head.

"That's not my name," he said, wanting to get that cleared up before anything else. He could have mentioned Michael, but that would come later. The significance of the mislabeling had yet to become clear to him. "Nor am I a... detective." Not in the sense that Sam was thinking of, at least. He certainly knew how to investigate things, though his methods were usually different from what humans would first imagine when hearing that word. He had learned some from Dean, but that hardly seemed to matter at this point. Neither of them knew of it.

"Whoever you saw must have been some sort of doppelganger." Shapeshifting was not impossible, especially for those creatures who were known for it. But angels could manage it as well; Gabriel was a more recent example. He wanted to believe that his brother had learned his lesson after they'd almost left him to rot in that ring of fire, but maybe not.

As for Dean's question, Castiel once again leveled a stare on the man before he replied. "I can sense it," he said, and he was at least grateful that he still had the ability to do something that basic. "I've been severely weakened, but normally my capabilities would span much further than that." Much, much further. It had been taken away from him bit by bit. First, his rebellion from Heaven, and now his self-banishment. And for what? For the sake of two people who currently didn't know him as friend or foe. The Sam and Dean he knew, meanwhile, had probably assumed him dead and moved on; a casualty of a losing battle.

[boyking]

This was entirely way too much to absorb at once, and Sam found himself just peering right back at the man as he tried to disentangle the mess of information. Where was he even supposed to start? Thing was, he was getting answers, but not the ones he wanted or needed. The more their guest tried to explain himself, the more the questions piled up.

That he'd seen him before as a visitor, he dismissed for the time being. Something to figure out later. It made sense that the guy would've had no idea his clone had been around, that the two things were only indirectly connected; the way Peter had talked about it, it didn't sound as if Nathan remembered having been here once, either. Memory wiping was apparently a common occurrence.

Funny, how he'd reacted to the name, though. Or was it the circumstances in general? Did the name Michael mean something to him or the fact that there could be a doppelganger of him out there? Both?

Oh God, okay. That could wait for later, too.

Admittedly, what had Sam's attention the most was that the man claimed he could sense they were from the past. How did that even—? Honestly, Sam hadn't even had the chance to question how the man had known because his instinct was to assume the guy had just put two and two together. It was only thinking about it now that the man's sheer lack of any surprise became...troubling. Or no, that wasn't quite it. It was clear the man hadn't expected them to not know him, but when he'd realized, it was as if the answer made sense to him, as though in his mind, it was something that could easily happen.

And especially with what he said next about capabilities, like it was supposed to be obvious he wasn't human at all—

Which, true, that did explain a couple of things. Though Sam was still a little confused because most of the supernatural creatures they came across actually blended in extremely well. Survival tactics and all that. If they all stood out as much as this man did, a lot of hunters could retire early. He knew he should've been more concerned about what this man was, too, but given where they were, the whole I'm-not-quite-human thing had lost its luster. He was well aware they were surrounded by everything from a cannibal to probably a vampire or two, and these days, that just felt like the norm. The man wasn't jumping up to throttle Dean by the neck and although his staring was kinda creepy, it didn't look like the staring of something that was feeling extra hungry. That was good enough for Sam.

He sighed. "Okay, well, uh. Can we at least get a name and...what you are?"

Another demigod, maybe? There'd been Skuld, after all. It would explain his hints about how powerful he was and how he could tell when they were from. He wasn't sure if he believed they'd made friends with a demigod back home because—seriously, they just didn't have good experiences with demigods. And it definitely still didn't explain how the man was acting as if he knew Dean personally, but if he was a god, it was possible he...simply did, somehow. Who the hell knew, maybe he traveled back in time and had a drink with Dean. At this point, Sam was open to any kind of explanation that made some sort of remote sense.

[kindalikedit]

Yeah, like being told this guy was not a regular human was really going to do wonders making him suddenly feel cool about this. Assuming he really could sense the future or timelines, Dean felt plain skeeved out. Sure, okay, yeah, maybe it could be a really cool power if you used it right (save a lot of lives, maybe score big on the lotto, and that was just off the top of his head), but in his experience, most of the people with abilities ended up abusing them. It wasn't a perfect world and it didn't much matter if it was on purpose or an accident. Folks got hurt and then it was their job to step in.

Having this guy say he “just” could sense the future, like it was no biggie, wasn’t exactly making him feel any more chill about this. Made you wonder what else he could do that made seeing the future seem like it was a bad draw.

Still, human or something else, Dean couldn’t believe he was being so friggen upfront about it. Most of the crap they ran into there was usually some kind of camouflage, something that got them in through the door and so close to whoever the poor bastard was on the menu that it was too late, doubts or not. Having a questionable something sitting only a foot away giving him these eyes and going on about shooting supernatural blanks wasn’t something he’d had much experience with. Sam was trying to handle it as best as he could. They didn’t know what exactly this guy was – or it was, if they weren’t dealing with a human – and since the stranger was in a chatty, sharing-and-caring mood, he supposed it couldn’t hurt to ask point blank what it was. The fact that this was even an option was all kinds of weird, though. It was just another one of those things; guys like Sam and him, they hunted the monsters ‘cause they asked for it and that was just how it was supposed to be.

Having a possible thing just sitting there calmly telling them it had a grab bag of powers and it knew them was just way too freaky.

Dean cupped his hand in his chin, elbow propped on the table, looking more at ease then he felt. He would’ve felt a lot better if the monsters here just behaved like they used to. He wasn’t going to say back home, but back outside Landels, vampire bites didn’t burn cold and there was no such thing as Romero zombies. There wasn’t some grand master plan. Just a job that needed doing. It still needed doing. It didn’t feel that simple any more, Dean thought, and looking at Thousand Yard there right in the face, he couldn’t see any tells that would betray him for some bloodthirsty freak. It did occur to him the guy could be seriously telling the truth. It’d explain the lack of tells since there wouldn’t be any. But if this guy had powers and he supposedly knew them in the future, then he had to have some kind of ulterior motive, right? Eye for an eye or something.

He got this far being nice and paranoid thanks to Dad’s training; Dean wasn’t ready to give that up now.

[freewill]

Humans truly were fascinating. For all that he'd heard his fellow angels insult them and call them weak, that seemed to be the exact opposite of what Castiel was observing now. Sam and Dean were currently captives in this institute and were now being confronted with their future, and yet both were maintaining a surprising amount of composure. Castiel could see the uncertainty in their faces, but neither one had given in to hysterics thus far. They were confused, but they were keeping calm.

Strangely enough, though, it seemed to be Sam who was taking charge of this conversation for the moment. Castiel wasn't sure if that was normal, since he had originally introduced himself to Dean and Dean alone, but the fact that this repeat of their meeting was happening so differently was also fascinating.

Castiel spared another glance at Dean, feeling oddly anxious at the man's silence. It had taken a year or so to achieve a certain amount of trust and familiarity with Dean Winchester, and now he was being made to start all over again. He would have a much easier time of getting out of here with these two working alongside him, and yet it might take weeks for them to even see him as a comrade.

But now, to answer. He had no reason to keep secrets from them. While time was a concern, it was not so easy to change fate. Castiel no longer believed that free will was impossible, of course, but he also knew that revealing himself to the two brothers before they were supposed to know of him wouldn't suddenly change the course of their lives. There were far more powerful beings than him out there who would make sure that they ended up at the same point. No matter what happened, they were still vessels.

"I am Castiel," he said. Hopefully they realized that he already knew their names, had already shaken their hands. Being on opposite ends of understanding like this was going to make escape that much harder, but that could very well be the point. Maybe this truly was a test.

The name was the simple part. It was possible one of them would make the connection between his name and what he was, but that was not very likely. Angels were not even on their radar on this point, so chances were they would not even think of it. He refused to lie to them, though at the same time he had to wonder if it would really be a lie. Did he really count as an angel at this point, when he could barely feel his wings and felt chained to his vessel as if it had always been his?

But still, the words had to be said and he could not deny that. "I'm... an angel," he said, his eyes lowered as he prepared for the doubt and the mockery. He was no longer an angel of anything, having cut all ties. Not that he had been the one to cut them. His Father had left him to fight alone against the rest of Heaven, and he would not allow the blame to fall on himself. He was nothing like Lucifer. He knew his choice had been the right one; he just wasn't sure that he could win.

[boyking]

If Sam had been drinking something, there was every chance he would've choked on it. As it was, he...stared. He wasn't sure what it was; most likely it was the way Michael (or Castiel now) had said it, as though he were almost guilty to admit what he was—but if it was a joke, it didn't sound like he was making one.

Maybe the guy was delusional, then. Or something. It had to be something, because there were a lot of things Sam could buy, but angels weren't one of them. They used to be; it hadn't been so long ago that he forgot the way he used to believe, but thinking back on it was like thinking back on the days when he used to believe in Santa Clause or that Dad would actually come home in time for a holiday for once.

And honestly, he didn't want Castiel to be an angel like he claimed. The implications were too much. Because it would mean that no one gave enough of a damn about his brother to step in when it mattered, that apparently, their own guardian angel only showed up after it was too fucking late.

No matter which way Sam thought about this, whether he chose to believe it or not, it only served to piss him off.

His slid his gaze back to Dean for what must've been the fifth time since Castiel had sat down at their table. He didn't have anything to say anymore. He had a million questions, and no way to phrase any of it. He didn't need this right now. He didn't need some random dude showing up saying he owned a pair of wings. They had enough problems of their own without adding this crap on top of it.

He bit his lip, passed the torch over to his brother. If Dean had something to say about this, he could. Otherwise, Sam was gonna need at least a minute before he could figure out where to go from here. He wanted to ask Castiel to prove it, except that sounded childish despite how he knew he was more than entitled to get some visual evidence.

What nagged him was that he couldn't see any reason for Castiel to lie. He had to have known that even hunters—or maybe especially hunters—didn't exactly buy into the angel thing.

Only, he reminded himself, he didn't know Castiel at all. Maybe the so-called angel did have a reason. That was...a thought. Not a comforting one; the logic was thin, he knew. He could barely convince himself. Although who the hell knew, maybe part of the issue here was that he wasn't sure what he wanted to believe.

[kindalikedit]

Dean snorted. No point getting all diplomatic with some guy thinking he was God's gift to...well, everything. "An angel. You're saying you're an angel."

Making a point to lean over and check out his back, Dean raised an eyebrow. Either he had the world's tiniest wings or he was trying to sell them on this story and it was one of those things you came up with at the last minute. Not much of a sell. Sure, sometimes it was hard to pick a winner on the fly like that but dude, I'm an angel had to be at the bottom of the bullshit list; the point was to pick something people could believe was true as a cover, not something that sounded cool on paper. Dean didn’t have to glance over to know Sam was trying to figure out something to say. The kid probably had that same look on his face he got when the job went oddball on them. Man, he thought the fake UFO probing had been about as weird as it was going to get.

“Word of advice, but I wouldn’t go around bragging I got wings in front of folks around here,” Dean said. Maybe he did believe the guy could very well have abilities – there were plenty of folks here that did, and that thought alone wasn’t making getting any sleep easier – but he’d be damned if there was such thing as an angel. Castiel didn’t look much like his mental image of an angel; seemed like there was more scruff and staring than a fruity harp or halo.

He had a feeling Castiel wasn’t Sam’s mental image of an angel, either. These days he had to wonder if the kid even still believed in angels himself. It wasn’t like Sam said he’d been doing much praying recently. After all the crap that came at them, Dean couldn’t say he was too surprised if he stopped. He was just surprised his brother had kept it up this long.

[freewill]

Their reactions were more or less predictable, and he had no way of showing them how little space they had to be skeptical. If he provoked Dean into punching him right now, he would take the blow just as a human would. There would be no shielding, no heavenly resilience. He could not take them out of this place with a flap of his wings (and when Dean glanced at his back as if searching for them, he couldn't help hunching forward in embarrassment); he could not cause a lightning flash or a rumble of thunder.

They likely thought he was insane (or simply moronic), and there was nothing he could say right now to change their minds.

Except for give them information and prove to them that he knew more about them than was even possible. The deal, Dean's trip to Hell, and his role in getting him out. He could be brutally honest (that, at least, was something he was good at that had not been taken from him), and maybe eventually they would cave in.

"I'm not boasting," he shot back at Dean, his tone a bit short due to frustration, mainly with the situation itself. He sighed then, straightening and trying to scrape up some confidence from wherever his powers had gone. Just as he was about to try and tell them something affecting, however, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Castiel tensed and immediately grabbed for the offending wrist, causing its owner to gasp in response. When he realized it was one the nurses, he relinquished and instead stared up at her in question.

"I'm sorry, Michael," she said with a nervous smile. "I didn't mean to startle you. It's just that lunch is over, so the Derringers need to shower and you can go relax in the Sun Room, all right?"

It wasn't all right, but he knew that resisting would get him nowhere. He did note that they were using fake names for the Winchesters as well, however. It didn't shed that much light on the situation, but it was something to keep in mind nonetheless. Sending one more glance at each brother, Castiel nodded and stood. "Very well."

This wasn't over by any means, but it would clearly have to wait for another time. Until then, he could muse over how to best present the information.