#mo ficlet

The key turned and the lock clicked open.  

Taking a sweeping look around, Dean pushed Sam into the bunker before closing the door immediately behind them.

“Sam?”  It was a Dean-voice, but it didn’t sound like Dean.  It sounded like Dean 10 years ago.  It sounded like when Sam was young.  “Sam, what are you doing here?  You shouldn’t be here; we need to stay on opposite sides of the world.”

In a rush and a tell-tale flutter of wings, Castiel was at Sam’s neck with an angel blade.

Immediately, Sam lifted his hands in a surrender.  “I’m not your Sam.”

“I know.”  Gravel.  Oh, sweet gravel.

“Cas?”  Dean rounded his brother to see alternate Cas.  He wore his usual trenchcoat, but, instead of Jimmy’s suit, he had a pressed military uniform.  Because everyone had been drafted.

“What is this?”  Alternate Cas looked back and forth between Dean and Dean.

Now that he could see himself, Dean could see why he sounded younger.  He was younger.  Alternate him stared up at him from a 20-year-old face.  It was like he was looking into an old photograph.  Alternate Dean’s eyes grew wide.  “Cas?  Cas what’s going on?  Are they shape-shifters?”

“No.”  Sam cleared his throat before continuing.  “We’re from another dimension.”

“Like we haven’t heard that before.”  Alternate Dean narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest.  

He was a twink.  Great, just great.  “How old are you?”  Dean couldn’t help it; they should’ve been born at the same time.  It shouldn’t be that different.  Bobby was Bobby-aged.  Cas’ vessel still looked the same age.

“38.”  Alternate Dean pursed his lips.  It was obscene.  He needed to not.  “Got hit by an age spell from one of Michael’s troops.  It’s a lot harder to die from old age if you don’t age in the first place.”

Dean chuckled.  “So, you’re going to look like that forever?”

Alternate Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed a beer off the table, taking a swig.  “Yeah, it’s a tragedy.”  He turned around, looking up at Dean through his lashes.  “Doesn’t get me any attention.”  He brought his beer to his lips, pursing them prettily.  

Yeah, to say Dean wasn’t turned on would be a lie, but he’d always been a fan of masturbation, so who could blame him?

Alternate Castiel let his weapon drop.  He still looked wary, but he gave them the benefit of the doubt, turning around to glare at alternate Dean.  “Stop that Dean.”

“What?”  Alternate Dean flopped down in the chair and stacked his feet on the edge of the table.  “It’s nice knowing I can defile Michael’s vessel so perfectly.”

Sam looked very uncomfortable in the my-brother-is-being-overtly-sexual sort of way.  Castiel looked to be uncomfortable too, but Dean was happy to realize it was more of a you-little-shit-stop-making-my-job-hard, and by ‘job’ he meant-

“But that doesn’t explain who you are or what you’re doing in my bunker.”  Alternate Dean placed the beer bottle on the table heavily, punctuating his sentence.

Dean swept a hand out.  “Just figured you could use some company.  It’s a hard knock life and all that.”  

This bunker was very similar to their bunker.  It looked to be a mirror image of theirs, but that probably more from the fact that it was a different MOL location to begin with.  The major difference was the amount of angel warding painted blatantly over the walls.  They overlapped.  There were old crackling ones; new still-wet ones.

“I like your art project.”  Waving a lazy finger around, Dean careful paced along the wall, looking at the sigils.  His lazy finger found it’s way to his alternate.  “So, Rapunzel looking for her night in shining armor?”  Dean raised an eyebrow.

Alternate Dean licked his lips and turned to alternate Cas.  “I already have one.”

Rolling his eyes, alternate Cas huffed before striding away toward the hallway.  He must’ve decided to trust them.  Awesome.

With alternate Cas gone, alternate Dean deflated and gazed after him for a long moment before letting out a long breath.

Sam moved from where he’d been pinned by the angel blade and slid into a chair across from alternate Dean.  He looked weirded out by this Dean’s age.  “So, you’re stuck in here?”

Shrugging, alt Dean pulled his feet from the table and shifted up to the open books and typewriter on the table.  “Yep.  I’m an angel vessel.  People want to kill me.  Angels want to enslave me.”

“You’ve held out for a long time, though.”  Sam leaned forward; he was very interested in the details he might glean from this conversation.  Leave it to Sam to make dimension-hopping into a learning experience.  “In not the best conditions, I might add.”

Alt Dean pulled a book toward him on the table.  It was like the fun had left the room with alt Cas.

Dean meandered around.  He looked more intently at some of the sigils he didn’t recognize.  God, was he making this into a learning experience?  

“I’ve just been in here, acting like a coward.”

“In here? For how long?”  

There was a pause then a deep breath.  “I don’t know.”  Alt Dean shook his head.  “I just don’t know anymore.  I try not to think about it.”  He took another long swig from his beer bottle.

“Well, what do you do in here?”  Sam leaned away and flickered his gaze around the room.

Alt Dean waved a hand at a pile of papers with typewriter script.  “A year or two ago, Cas dared me to make a record of current events, the newest gospel.”  He grabbed a corner of the stack and let them flip back down, the sound filling the silent space.  He slapped Sam’s hand when he reached for it.  “You don’t want to read it.”

Interesting, Dean went over to see it, taking a seat at the table too.

“There might be something to learn from it.”  Same tried again only to meet the same response.

“Half of it is porn.”  Alt Dean said with an bored expression.

Dean barked out a laugh.  “Nice!”  That time, he reached for it.  He wasn’t slapped.

Noticing, Sam made an indignant whining sound.  “What so he can read it?”

Shrugging, alt Dean tucked his hands behind his head and leaned back.  “If you’re anything like this universe’s Sam, then you don’t want to read it.”  He suddenly jolted forward to tap the edge of the papers Dean was holding, grabbing his attention.  “5 entire chapters in the Book of the Angel Michael are girl on girl, angelic-kinky sex.”

“Awesome.”  Dean flipped through the pages a little, trying to find that.

Sam shook his head.  “Anyway.”  He shook his head some more, like he was trying to dislodge water from his ear.  “Yeah, anyway, speaking of your universe’s Sam, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”  Alt Dean pressed his lips together before continuing.  “He’s out there somewhere.  Sometimes I hear the angels talk about him, well they talk about ‘the younger Winchester vessel’, but that’s all I get.”

“You hear the angels?”  Sam leaned in again.  

Alt Dean nodded.  “This,” he made a sweeping gesture to his body, “is Enochian magic.  I got upgraded.”  He played with the pages of the book closest to him on the table.  With his other hand, he tapped a finger to his temple.  “Got angel radio.  That’s how I keep a record of events.”

“Ah.”  Sam nodded along.  He opened his mouth to say something else, but then closed it.  He did it twice before alt Dean stepped in.

“You’re safe, safer than me.  What kind of brother would I be if I didn’t ensure that?”  He twiddled his fingers like he was lying.

At that, Dean let his hands go lack onto the table with the papers in them.  “So, where is he?”

“Well, a while back we had this great idea of being possessed by something else.  You know?  It would be a lot harder for Michael or Lucifer to possess us if we were already possessed.”  Alt Dean slid his eyes away.

Dean’s voice was harsher this time.  “So, where is he?”

Alt Dean remained silent, not looking at them.

“Lemme rephrase this for you,” Dean hummed, more for dramatic affect than anything else, “who’s parading around in my little brother?”

Alt Dean’s face looked even more pitiful because it was so young.  He looked like a kicked puppy when he finally squared his jaw and stared Dean back in the eyes.  “It was his idea.  Admittedly, he had planned on it being me, but... anyway... he’s possessed by Oberon.”

Silence passed between them.

Dean blinked a few times.  “Like, ‘King of the Fairies’ Oberon?”

Alt Dean nodded.

“Damn it, Sam!  I told you not to mess with the fairies.”  Dean glared at his brother.  Worse than anything else, Sam looked like he had been expecting that answer.  “Wait,” Dean held up a hand to Sam, “did you think that up too?  Some plan, Sam.”

“Well, obviously, I didn’t actually go through with it!”  Sam protested.  With that, the floodgate for Sam’s questions was opened.  “How did it work?  When did you do this?  How long has he been possessed?  Did he get tricked?  What was-”

“Woah, woah.”  Dean clapped a hand onto Sam’s shoulder.

Alt Dean looked relieved.  It must’ve been a long time since he’d dealt with his own Sam.  This must be like torture for him; it would be to Dean.

“Fine.”  Sam ran a hand through his hair, collecting his thoughts and composure.  “One question then.”

“Shoot,” both Deans said at once.

Sam nodded, like he was encouraging himself to ask his question.  “I know that my Dean,” he gestured like they weren’t all entirely sure which Dean he was talking about, “wouldn’t just hand me over to be possessed.  He’d be the one possessed; that’s just how he thinks.”  He paused.  “So, how is it that you’re not the possessed one?”

Taking a steadying breath, alt Dean stared at the table.  “He tried.  Oberon tried to possess me.  Let’s just...” He looked back up, clenching his jaw for a second.  “Let’s just say that I have consent issues.”

At that second, alt Cas returned.  He looked cleaner, but Dean was pretty sure that he hadn’t been washing up.  Here, Castiel was still powered up by angel juice and could just poof away grime.

Dean turned back to alt Dean.  He wanted to see if he could pull anything more from him about this Oberon thing; it might be important to them some day.  He wasn’t sure what all he was supposed to be doing in this universe, but maybe he’d have to meet Oberon-Sam at some point.  He’d really like to be prepared for that.

But, it wasn’t going to happen.  Alt Dean’s attention was completely stolen by alt Cas’ return.  Almost under his breath, he mumbled, “... and something else is in my head.”

Hoping that Sam hadn’t heard that, Dean flicked his gaze toward his brother by the corner of his eye.  Unfortunately, Sam had caught the last bit; he was sitting their with his mouth moving over the words silently, his brain busy trying to give them meaning.

Dean knew what his alternate self meant immediately though.  He probably wouldn’t have if he’d met him 4 days ago, if he’d met him before Castiel - his Castiel, not his-universe’s Castiel, HIS Castiel - had... had bit it.  

He was painfully aware of the emptiness in his head.  He’d never given the profound-bond-thing much credit, but he was left so alone.  He always felt like he’d forgotten something, like he’d left something at home but couldn’t quite determine what it was.  It was Cas, his Cas.

That was how he knew that alternate Cas would lead them to the alternate Dean, because Dean couldn’t imagine a universe where they didn’t go together.

Dean was lost in his head when the bunker’s sigils began to glow.  He was lost in that ever-present loneliness.

There were muffled yells; they sounded like they were far away or screaming through pillows.

“Dean Winchester, do you want that loneliness to go away?  You don’t have to be lonely anymore.”

A tear leaked from the corner of his eye.  The muffled yells were drowned out by a ringing in his ears.  He couldn’t take it anymore.  Dean whispered, “Yes.”