#welcomemisha

“Your clothes.”

Dean closed his eyes for a second and sighed. The angel didn’t like that look on Dean’s face, he didn’t want his friend to be annoyed with him. Dean pushed himself into the room and closed the door behind himself.

“Why are you using the Cas voice?”

The Cas Voice? What does he mean? Calling his voice ‘the Cas voice’ seems a bit redundant, since it is obviously the angel’s voice Dean is referring to.

“What other voice should I use?” - “How about your normal one?”

Dean started to look angry at Cas, the angel just looked at him confused and a bit hurt. Wide open, the blue eyes just stared at Dean. The others’ pair just glared right back, obviously waiting for an answer.

“Dean. This is my normal voice.”

Dean rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to say something. Instead, the hunter took a deep breath and seemed to overthink what he was going to say.

“Yeah! So, uh, I’m just gonna ignore that. You comin’ Misha?”

Cas kept looking at him, tilting his head sideways in confusion.

The angel is aware of the fact that he tends to not understand every aspect of humans and their language, but he had thought his relationship with Dean to have been going on long enough now to know the Winchester and understand his remarks. However, he must have been mistaken.

“What is a Misha?”

Unexpectedly, this resulted in Dean getting mad. His eyes narrowed and his mouth did this being-annoyed thing, which Cas saw the last time he did not understand a reference.

“Please don’t do this, man. I mean, yeah, that could be funny, just please, not now, it has been a bit of a rough day. I just want it to be over, okay Mish?”

Dean turned around and was just about to open the door and leave the room when Cas rushed in between the hunter and the handle.

“What now?” - “I’m sorry, Dean.” – “Stop calling me Dean!”

Cas still didn’t know what was going on and Dean was not helping him whatsoever. Instead, this conversation quickly made Dean fall into a  rage while simultaneously causing confusion on Cas’ face. Angrily, Dean put a hand on Cas’ shoulder to push him out of the way, but the angel stayed put gazing at Dean with a puzzled and concerned look on his face.

“Dammit, Misha! Stop with those eyes! You are neither Sam nor a puppy. Most importantly, you are not Cas, an angel of the lord.”

This felt like a kick in the teeth. Why would Dean say something like this? Did he really think, Cas was not himself? Why would Dean think he is not Cas?

“What? You’ve got a set of wings and a halo?” – “I do, Dean. You have seen them.” – “Well then, Cas, how about you show me again?”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He stepped a few feet away from the hunter and looked him in the eyes. He watched Dean as his green eyes changed from mocking to disbelief. The shadow of Castiel’s wings darkened the wall behind him and Dean’s eyes widened as he realized that whatever he just caught sight of must be real.

“So…You really are Cas? What is this? The French Mistake all over again?”

Finally, Dean seemed to understand. This felt like a Deja-Vue. Dean did not believe angels were real the first time they met, which was right after Cas raised him from hell. What was this thing he was talking about, the...

“The Fren…?” – “Ah, yeah, you don’t know the titles, obviously. Do you remember that one epis... , the one time, Dean and Sam ended up in this universe where they were just actors and their life was a show?”

Cas nodded,this began to feel like a nightmare. Not that Cas would know about nightmares, angels did not sleep after all;this was getting close to what he imagined it would be like.

“Okay listen, the thing is, the same thing must have happened to you. My name is Jensen, okay? I’m an actor and Dean is just my role. Same with everyone else. For example, the guy that plays Sam, his name is Jared. And right now we’re at a… Oh no.”

The guy that said he just played Dean began to drive his hands through his hair. The face he made spoke for itself, whatever just popped into his mind was bad news. Although Cas realised that this man standing opposite him was not Dean, Cas began to feel bad for him.

“What is it, Dea… Uhm, Jensen?” - “This place where we are. This is a Convention; the show, about your life, is pretty popular. The show has, uh, fans and they want to meet us and ask us questions, so we’re…”

“They like the life we live?”

Cas could not believe what he had just heard. Why would anyone be interested in watching a show about their lives? Even more importantly why would they enjoy watching it? So much misery happened in his and the Winchesters’ lives. Death, hurt, betrayal … - Nothing he would consider worth a TV show.

“Yeah, they do. The thing is, we have this thing called panel, where you, well Misha and I, get up on stage and answer questions. And well, this is in like 10 minutes. I mean don’t worry, I ‘ll just tell them you’re not feeling well, Cas.” - “But I feel completely healthy.”

Again, Jensen rolled his eyes, his head turned around when he heard someone knocking at the door followed by “Are you two ready?”

Jensen questioningly looked at Cas and mouthed something, the angel did not quite understand. A few wrinkles showed up on Cas forehead as he tried to get what Jensen was asking him. Jensen quickly gave up and went to the table left of him, he found some paper and a pen and wrote ‘Could you pretend to be Misha for half an hour?’

“I can hear you, you know? You’ve got ten minutes. What are you doing in there anywhere?”

Jensen looked at Cas, who shrugged his shoulders then nodded less than convincingly. The actor took a deep breath, turned to the door.

“Give us a minute, Danielle, we’ll be there in a sec.”

He turned back to Cas, put his hands on each side of the angel’s shoulders and looked him straight into his blue eyes.

“Okay, listen Cas, I’ve got an idea. I’ll tell them that you fell on your head or something, okay? So don’t do anything, you know ...celestial. Just try to keep it together, man.”

Again Cas nodded, slightly more convincing this time. They heard a “Hi, Danielle” outside the room, followed by the door being opened. Suddenly Cas stood up straight and said “God?” resulting in Jensen quickly pulling him aside, shushing the angel and whispering “This is Rob, okay? The guy who plays Chuck?”

Rob laughed. “Hey Misha, since you’re having so much fun playing Cas, why don’t you put on a trench coat and make a Cas panel. The people would love it!” Jensen thought for a second and the decided, that this was probably the best idea, they could come up with.

When Jensen entered the stage Cas could hear the screams and cheers coming from the crowd. He wasn’t sure if it had been a good idea to agree on doing this. When the audience got silent enough for Jensen to speak he could hear him say “Hey guys. So I’ve got good and bad news. First the bad one, I’m really sorry to tell you this, but Misha couldn’t make it today.”

The crowd murmured and Cas could hear that they were upset and sad about the missing opportunity to see the actor that apparently was quite successful playing him, an angel of the lord, in a TV show.

“I know, I know. But instead of Misha we’ve got an amazing special guest. He is a friend of a friend. You should all be quite familiar with him, please welcome Castiel!”

Wearing the clothes he felt most comfortable in, Cas got up on the stage and heard all the people screaming and clapping. He had to adjust his eyes to the bright lights of the stagelights first, but then he could see them. So many people looking up at him with smiles on their faces. He had never felt so welcomed and loved before. That smile just planted itself on the angels face and wasn’t going to leave it anytime soon.

Again the crowd quieted down and Jensen asked a girl to ask the first question.

“Hi, Cas!” Everyone laughed.

“I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”

Cas looked at her in confusion. He had never seen this woman before in his life and yet she seems pretty sure that she loved him.

“Oh…Okay” That was all Cas could say. – “He means to thank you!”

The girl laughed. “And my question is, do angels have a gender?”

The following twenty minutes Cas spent answering questions about angels, his relationship to Dean – which were weirdly specific – and questions on other aspects of their lives.

One thing  the angel could not forget was when a young man approached the microphone while Cas hadn’t been paying attention. As a result, when he turned his head to the young man who began to speak, Cas was taken by surprise by what he saw. The young man wore a suit and a trench coat  which closely resembled those he usually wore.

Slightly confused by why anyone would wear something that made him look similar to Castiel himself, he turned around to Jensen. Jensen had stayed quite passive during the whole panel, just threw in a few funny words and phrases, when Cas drifted off.

Jensen came closer to the angel, who leaned in and asked, “Why is he dressed like me?”

Jensen shortly laughed and led Cas to the front of the stage. Cas didn’t know what was going to happen until Jensen pointed into the crowd. The angel looked to the direction the finger pointed at and saw another person, a young girl, wearing a trench coat. Jensen showed him a few other people, all wearing a trench coat resembling the one Cas owns, some of them even had wings on their backs.

“I know this is unfamiliar to you, Cas, but they are dressed up as you because they see you as a hero, a role model. They want to be like you.”

The crowd again started to cheer and Cas could hear a few people shouting things like “I love you!” and “You are the best!”. Cas’ eyes widened in disbelief. He turned back to Jensen and asked, “Is that really what they think?”

Jensen smiled and motioned to the microphone in Cas hand. The angel repeated the question resulting in another long and loud cheering from the audience. Cas felt weird to be the center of attention, but couldn’t help but smile hearing those kind words by so many different people.

After the crowd quieted down again, Jensen reminded everyone that the young man in the Castiel costume still had a question. The young man laughed and said

“Well, as long as this makes Cas happy, I wouldn’t care if I couldn’t ask my question,but anyway, now that I’ve got the chance to ask something, I would like to know, why do you believe your expendable? We know you are not, and we all think you should know that, too!”

Cas swallowed, the smile disappearing from his face. He didn’t know how to answer that question. Jensen realised this rather quickly, rushed next to Cas and asked the audience to tell Cas why he is not expendable instead.

For the rest of the panel, Cas was told by various fans how important he is to them, to the Winchesters and to the whole world. They told him that there must be a reason why God had decided to bring him back more than once.

After a while, Jensen encouraged the angel to go down from the stage. Every person in this room wanted to hug Cas. The angel didn’t know what to do, he just let them hug him, touch him and after he got used to them he hugged them back, said thank you and just let himself sink into this emotional situation.

When they got the call to end the panel, Cas went back up to the stage. Jensen took the Microphone and thanked the audience for what was long due, as he put it. “Cas could have needed this a long time ago; I’m we finally managed to give him all the love he derserves.”

As Jensen and Cas left the stage, the crowd kept cheering for both of them. On their way back to the green room, Jensen laid his hand on Cas shoulder and stopped the angel. Cas turned around and saw the concerned look on Jensen’s face.

“Listen, Cas. We have to get you back to your world, okay? This won’t work much longer.”

Cas nodded and looked down at his shoes. Sadness and guilt went across his face before he could answer.

“I know. I’m sorry I messed up in there. I shouldn’t have..” – “No, Cas. That’s not the problem. You did nothing wrong. They loved you, man. Those messages in there weren’t for Misha,those were for you. They care about their angel, they want you to feel good about yourself.”

Jensen paused, swallowed and looked Cas in his sad blue eyes. He could see how his words gave the angel the strength he had never gotten in his life. Jensen didn’t feel comfortable saying the next words.

“The thing is, Cas, you can’t keep this going. Misha has a family, he has kids. I… This world, it needs them. His family, his friends,he’s doing these amazing things, he supports everyone and I… we need him to do Gishwhes. The world needs him.”

Cas said nothing for a while then answered silently “I understand.”

Back in the green room the two sat on the couch, both searching their minds for ideas to get Cas back to his own universe and Misha back to his.

“In the French Mistake, it was Balthazar who put Dean and Sam in this other universe.” – “To protect them.” – “Yeah, so maybe one of your angel brothers did this to you?”

Cas listed a few of his brothers and sister, but neither Jensen nor he could come up with any reasons for any of them to send Castiel to this world. Suddenly the door opened and Rob came in announcing “So that went well, didn’t it?” When he saw the rather stressed faces of his colleagues, Rob looked at them, grinned and asked, “Oh sorry, am I interrupting something?” – “Uhm, actually…” Jensen stopped when he saw Rob’s face changing. He looked closer at Cas as if he knew what was going on.

“So you’ve had enough, huh? Well, I’m glad you had a great time. I hope you learned to love yourself.” Rob walked over to the angel, much to the confusion of Jensen and Cas, and laid a hand on Cas’ shoulder.

Cas’ body just collapsed to the floor. Jensen jumped right next to him. “Cas?”

His eyes opened. “Wait, are we shooting or something?” It took Jensen two seconds to realise that this wasn’t the Cas voice. This was the voice he was used to, the voice that made funny and snarky remarks. “Misha!”