ᴀʟʟ I ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʟɪғᴇ's ғᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ʟɪᴠɪɴɢ (open.)

[righteously]

Who: Dean Winchester & Others.
When: Post-Event.
Where: Cadens, the Horizon, Nocwich.
What: A catch-all of open & closed starters.
Warnings: A little grief, a little alcoholism, probably canon-typical violence and suicidal ideation. Mentions of fruit turbo-hell.

I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ sᴇᴇᴋɪɴɢ sᴀʟᴠᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
Nᴏᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ᴡᴏʀʀɪᴇᴅ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴅᴀᴍɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ
I ɢᴏᴛ ʟɪᴛᴛʟᴇ ᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴀs sᴜᴄʜ I ᴀɪɴ'ᴛ ᴇᴀsɪʟʏ ʟᴇᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ
Aʟʟ I ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴡᴀɴɴᴀ ᴅᴏ ɪs ʙᴇ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ ᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜ
ᴡʜɪʟᴇ ᴡᴇ'ʀᴇ sᴛɪʟʟ ʙᴏᴛʜ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ.

Comments

ᴄᴀᴅᴇɴs.

[righteously]

ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[righteously]

( Things... aren't great. They're not great for anyone. They're not great for Dean, they're not great for Cas, they're not great for- for Jo. They're especially not great for the city of Cadens, which has been battered by the storms all those weeks before the world changed. He can't do much about the first few things, but he can do something about that.

So he picks up his tools, and he gets to work.

Dean can be found alternating between construction zones. His (now largely empty, too big for two people) house gets some TLC a couple hours a week. Mag's gets the majority of his attention; you can find him re-shingling the roof, repairing siding, replacing windows, even fixing the damn landscaping. The Sarstina's not the only busted building in the city, though, and he's happy enough to pitch in among other places. Anywhere that might need some help, especially Summoned-own businesses, might have him showing up unannounced and without asking for any sort of payment.

He just works, with steady and competent hands, sweating through his clothes, talking very little, from sun up to sun down.

And then, after cleaning up, he goes to the Sarstina for hours, drinking slowly and quietly at the bar there. He doesn't return to Hunter House until well past midnight, and it's usually only to get a few hours of sleep on the couch before he's back at work again just before sunrise. )

Re: ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[sonofacesius]

[Will's also up around dawn, because far be it for an Apollo kid to miss their dad in all his assholeish glory driving the sun. Even if his dad was actually here and this wasn't earth. Blame the ichor. When Will wasn't manning the clinic, he was milling around town, stocking up on necessities and generally trying to care for rando adults just like he wasn't supposed too. Which is exactly how he ended up on the roof, handing Dean a cookie. If you were really lucky and said please and thank you, he had a frosted one. The look on his face is definitely one of 'FAFO', which is totally the expression you want to give someone when handing them a confectionary treat.]

When was the last time you had something to eat or drink?

[This was the desert Dean. One s. If there was one thing he learned in his little trip to SuperHell, it was that no one could survive everywhere. For Will, that was the Underworld for him. No sun. And regular humans in a desert? Needed water. Be glad Camp's Water Boy was in Thorne or he might have him hose you.]

[righteously]

( It goes a little something like this;

Dean, as is customary and entirely automatic when he is handed food, takes it with an ooh and a: )

Thanks.

( Only after it's already in his mouth does his brain process what's wrong with this scenario, and he says around a mouth full of baked good: )

Wait, what in the hell are you doing up here? Get off the roof, you maniac.

( He will not be held responsible for teenagers slipping off his roof and snapping their freakin' spines on the ground, okay. Give him, like, two extra old-man seconds to climb down off the ladder after Will, and they can have this conversation on the ground like normal people. )

[sonofacesius]

[Dean should probably be really thankful he didn't just jump off the roof like the demigod maniac he was. Luckily, Will did inherit some sanity that wasn't completely driven out of him by fun traditional Camp activities like climbing a wall of lava or playing Capture the Flag with deadly weapons. And he's treated enough broken bones that he does not want to treat his own. So. He uses the ladder. You're welcome. Will scampers down like the athletic sixteen year old that he is. He lets out a laugh, like he's actually starting to have a good time.]

I got bored and you looked busy.

[He handed Dean another cookie, this one with frosting. Wait till he finds out about your love affair with pie.]

Have another one.

[oversight]

"Hey, stranger."

It's well past midnight when Blake finally makes a move. He doesn't know if Dean's sensed his presence before now, but for three nights in a row Blake's waited around Hunter House to see him, lingering at later and later intervals only to miss each opportunity over being too damn tired to hold up his head. A week ago, it wasn't an issue. A week ago, he was a god (or some approximation) and a week ago he was also something to someone, a fact that hasn't left his head since.

As he moves closer to Dean's front door, Blake's demeanor shifts. His steps become lighter and more tentative. There's an urge to reach out because the darkness feels oppressive around them and that's what they would have done in the past. A past. But this is now. It's a reality — their reality — and knowing how to approach it isn't in Blake's emotional repertoire. He needs help here. (Again.)

"Not a good time, I know—" He looks apologetic even in the low light, all body language and vulnerable tension. Is this an egregious understatement? Yes. Everyone is reeling and no one is safe from the consequences of the past however many hundreds of years. Blake presses on despite the knot in his stomach that says he shouldn't. "But I was hopin' we could... make time." Later nearly rolls off his lips, but he holds fast, concerned he won't work up the courage to ask again.

[righteously]

He's a little drunk. This is hardly unusual, considering his lifetime of functional alcoholism, but it means it takes him a beat longer than usual to register the knock at his door, and another beat to realize who he's looking at on the other side of it once he grumpily swings it open.

When he does, a sharp spike of sobriety spears through him, unwelcome but probably necessary. The memories follow it — a lot of them blurry, some of them crystal clear. He's retained more associations than facts, he remembers who people were to him better than he can recount the individual details of their time together.

He remembers that Blake was important. He remembers the shape of their hands together, and the feeling of skin underneath him, and the warmth of sleeping in a tangle, and the comfort of being known without judgment. These feelings bring with them a flush of guilt, sponsored by that voice in his head that likes to remind him of all the things he does not deserve, and why he doesn't deserve them.

He swallows it down.

I was hoping we could make time.

The record in his brain skips, and so it takes him a half-second too long to respond. When he does, it's a quick, earnest nod.

"Yeah, no, yeah, of course. Uh- yeah, come on in." He angles himself sideways, opens the door a little wider to make room. It's late. He's exhausted. The alcohol's not sticking around with as much commitment as he'd really like. This- whatever this conversation is, he's not sure he's got the emotional bandwidth for it, but he never feels like he has the emotional bandwidth for anything, so... hell, might as well try anyway, right? As Blake passes through, he rubs his eyes — trying to inject some clarity into himself through sheer force of will.

[oversight]

Brushing past Dean brings with it similar waves of emotion, each cresting against the rocky shore of Blake's mind. He feels the tidal tug when he recognizes the bone-deep exhaustion: The sensation of running his fingertip against the short hairs behind Dean's ear creeps in and his hands twitch, resisting the urge to cup gently at the other man's face. Instead, he closes the door for Dean and touches his elbow, gesturing for the nearest seat that might accommodate them.

"Are you—?" As he sits, Blake finds hesitation plaguing him again. He can tell how hard Dean's been going since they'd all found their way back from... whatever that was, but in the absence of other options and despite days of trying, he tells himself a few minutes isn't too much to ask.

"I-I wanted to see if you were okay," he says, and with it comes a ridiculous squeak, as if one second of extremely delayed puberty has just caught up to him. It registers little more than a tighter knit of Blake's eyebrows — he already can't look Dean in the eye for more than a second and damn if he won't find himself laying in the dark reliving that horror for a time to come. "You're not, but I mean—" Not suicidal is what he's getting at.

He's worried. He would have been before, but now that things have been raveled and unraveled and raveled again, the knot in Blake's stomach won't abide by the distance they'd easily navigated while living out some... fantasy together. The urge to fall into old habits and pretend like nothing has changed is only lessened by the fact that Blake knows well some people don't appreciate manipulation. Hell, Blake normally doesn't either. It's pure selfishness that's allowed him to consider this situation differently. Or maybe it's all those years of wisdom screaming you'd be stupid to let a good person go.

"Are you?" Will you be? Will we be?

The intensity with which he asks is more an indicator of his understanding and willingness to help. He doubts Dean feels all that willing to unburden, but considering all the secrets they share — up to and including Blake's alternate identity — he isn't a bad choice for this. Dean will (hopefully) know that regardless of how he chooses to respond.

[gynvael]

[ Dean is simple to track down. Geralt first locates him at the Sarstina, but the amount of people means he doesn't stay long. Stays long enough to be sure that it is, in fact, Dean he's looking at, with no signs that Death has sunk her claws into him. Not here, at least.

He arrives several hours later instead at Dean's house. The sky dims with the sinking sun, taking the late spring heat with it. He doesn't knock—just pushes open the door. ]

You're in one piece. [ And looking like he's been through hell, but that isn't new. They've all got those fucking memories to sort through. Geralt isn't sure what to do with his, either. How he's meant to take what they discovered. For now, he's retained his focus on reconnecting with what is real. The desert, the people, his horse. Trying to shed the fragments of a skin he once thought he wore. It both does and doesn't feel like him. He was not so different in that vision that he can disconnect himself from what he became.

The bottle in his hand clinks against the table. He eyes the area Dean's cleared away to make room to build...hm. He tilts his head, unasked question in the air. ]

[righteously]

( He needs something to keep himself occupied when the sun goes down, and it can't always be warming up a barstool at the Sarstina. Thus, the scene before Geralt: thick planks of wood which were not cheap to get his hands on, sheaths of felt and leather, piles of small tools on wheely-tables scattered around it, sanders and larger power tools borrowed from Viktor taking up the vast majority of what was once the living room.

And there's Dean, posted up by the head of the wide slab on his makeshift woodworking-table-meets-sawhorse setup, with a few lit lamps doing their best to keep the place bright enough to make this entire enterprise remotely viable this late in the day.

He's not expecting company. Clearly.

It's also clear he doesn't mind who walks in, because his shoulders release their tension again as soon as he recognizes the face.

No comment on that in one piece bit. He'll focus instead on the unasked question in Geralt's look, and his answer's a concise: )

Pool table. For Mag's. ( And, after a beat of assessing Geralt's general vibe on whether or not he's likely to stick around, he nods his head toward the corner opposite himself. ) Gimme a hand?

[gynvael]

[ Mm. Of course it is.

Geralt, of all people, understands the desire to abate one's restlessness with excessive construction. There's a reason nearly every piece of furniture in his home was built by his hands when Jaskier can afford to buy it all.

A brief pause as he gauges Dean's desire for his company. The request is invitation enough. Geralt takes his place on the other side, holding the plank of wood steady. It's strange to be back here like this. He has a memory, clear as crystal, of thinking that might be the last time he saw his friend of countless decades. And it is an unreleased grief that became tangled up with Nero's loss—freshly back in his mind, as though it happened yesterday and not weeks ago.

Nero is still gone. But Dean is here. He can hold onto that. There's no purpose in abandoning the living for the dead.

For a while, he's quiet. The house feels hollow. His last visit, it was filled with colourful tinsel. Warmth. Now a chaotic clutter covers the ground. Jo's absence does not yet strike him—they're hunters; they come and go—but. Something is different.

He holds out one of Dean's custom powered tools. ] Mag says she can't get you to fuck off with that hammer.

[ Coming from that woman, an affectionate remark—and perhaps an edge of concern. ]

Re: ᴄᴏɴsᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[demigoth]

[ Sometime around noon, someone pitches a rock onto the roof of the inn. Not a big rock, about the size of a shooter marble, and with rather good aim. Nico deliberate nails the next patch of missing shingles. Still in the man's line of sight, but he doesn't want to be mistaken as trying to bean the dude.

Then, he does it again to make sure he gets the man's attention. The second rock sends the first skittering along the rooftop. Nico squints up at him with one hand curled above his eyes from the bright sun.]

Are you Dean?

[ The voice is decidedly teenager, but mercifully past the squeaky stage. Having to holler up to the roof makes Nico think that he must sound too eager, but his usual volume wouldn't carry above the sound of a hammer.

He should probably explain why he's asking. People - okay, fine, Nico - can get shirty when other people just walk up and ask him are you Nico?. Nobody likes their reputation proceeding them. It's usually the worst bits. ]

Will said the Dean who knows about swords was fixing the roof.

[righteously]

( That first rock bounces off of a nearby shingle, tink tink tinks into his field of view, and has him pausing, brow screwed up in confusion.

The second rock, he catches in mid-air before it lands out of sheer reflex. He turns it over in his hands, then shifts to peer over the steep ledge down toward the source of this shenaniganery.

Ah. Right.

He's learned from his mistakes today, after the last time a wayward teenager found his way up the nearby ladder and onto the roof without so much as a warning. Talk about a walking OSHA violation. Today, there is no ladder.

Instead, two enormous white wings fold into this plane of existence at his back, and beat heavy gusts into the air as he glides from the roof above to the ground before Nico. In one hand, he carries a sheathed long sword. )

You must be the goth boyfriend. You here for the demonstration?

[demigoth]

[ Wings weren't mentioned in the description, and Nico swears under his breath, because - only for a moment, the man looked like an older form of Eros. He's not; Nico can tell he's not by the time he lands, if only because he's not pretty enough to be Eros. Too attractive for a male harpy - do they even exist? He doesn't think so. ]

The "goth boyfriend?"

[ Nico practically spits it out, indignant at being reduced down to goth boyfriend and without fear. Dean can have as many wings as he wants. He's not a god - he's not a normal human, but not a god, so Nico's fine. And he has an aesthetic, okay, but unlike most people who go for the all black pale skin looks-like-Cesare look, he's actually seen The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and only found out about the Cure a few months ago. ]

My name's Nico di Angelo, and I don't need a demonstration. I just need a sword.

ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏʀɪᴢᴏɴ.

[righteously]

ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅʜᴏᴜsᴇ (ᴏᴘᴇɴ)

[righteously]

( For two and a half years, the Roadhouse has taken up the same spot in the Horizon. Always open, always welcoming, never too crowded but often with at least a handful of folks circulating through it — be it for drinking, for the music, for shooting pool or playing darts, or for the wealth of hunting-related information pinned to the wall that serves as their communal intel board.

It feels a little emptier now than it has in years.

Him and Jo used to alternate most days, and tag-team a few times a week, so at least one of them made an appearance to man the bar in the evenings. To restock imaginary liquor that didn't need manually restocking. To wipe down tables that could be magicked clean, but were instead painstakingly hand-scrubbed. To serve anybody who didn't seem to know how to serve themselves.

Now, Dean's the only one behind the bar. The jukebox still plays quietly. He still wipes down the glasses himself. He'll still greet anyone who happens in, but it's all with a slightly more somber air. Outside, it's grey and overcast, occasionally sprinkling rain. Welcome in; don't mind the mood, he'll make up for it as soon as there's company to perform for. )

[unwings]

[ Dean's been exceedingly hard to pin down since they've returned, rarely at the house, and when he is, passed out on the couch. cas doesn't begrudge him for it. they'd convinced dean to take a leap of faith, risk his heart and indulge the love he held for her, knowing it would abruptly end, one way or another. it's motivation enough to avoid the empty house, to avoid him, even if what they learned from home weren't lingering there on top of it all.

cas mourns jo's loss, of course, but it was something they spoke often about. she knew it was coming, and castiel's just glad she was able to have something of her own, something she truly wanted, that didn't come with a price tag, and wasn't constantly under threat. she was vibrant, she was beautiful, she taught him so much he'll never be able to repay her for. she seemed happy, for the time she could.

if they ignore the mess of the last 800 years. the intensity of the love between the three of them never waned, but communication broke down past what Jo was able to mend for them. it shouldn't have been her job, all that time, to navigate rocky waters between dean and cas when they were too stubborn (too afraid) to.

there were a million different excuses they found to bicker over, and none of them the heart of contention. a last second admission of a love held back from a bond they'd thought hid nothing, confessed only because he had to, and only seconds before he'd be gone forever. cas heard his prayers, but left them unanswered. he had his reasons. likes to think, if he'd known then what he does here, he'd been back to earth the second the empty released him. but that didn't happen, and months later, dean died on a rookie misstep.

in the last week they've been home, dean's been repairing every building and house and shed in town, and castiel's ripped up his entire garden in a frenzied frustrated, guilty, angry, terrified storm of grief both ancient and fresh. he hasn't felt particularly willing to hold counsel on any of it yet either. but eventually, he knows they're both stalling as long as they can, old habits of a world that never was slinking poisonously back into their present.

the horizon sky outside the roadhouse is dark and gloomy, barely holding back rain, and cas watches it briefly before ducking inside, shoes announcing him with a hollow sound against the floorboards. Dean's behind the counter and Cas watching his back for a moment while struggling with the complexity 800 years of a false reality left him with. He wants to run over there and shake him. He wants to drag him into his arms and hold tight until their world rights itself. Cas beelines to a barstool. ]

Whiskey, with rocks.

[ 'on the rocks', he means, but close enough. ]

[righteously]

( He's retained some memories of those eight hundred years. Not all, not everything, a lot of it's blurry — the truth is, the human mind wasn't built to be able to recall that much information. He has impressions, though. Feelings about himself, who he was, who he became. He'd like to think he felt steadier, the older he got. More patient, more calm, more mature. Better able to wade through the sea of emotions in his chest and parse them with a level head. It was harder with Cas, with all the crap surrounding them, with how fraught their arguments got, but-

He was okay at it then. He wants to be able to retain some of that now, he wants to keep the wisdom he earned in that alternate universe. He put a lot of work into understanding himself, and feeling it all slip away like grains of sand is frustrating. The tighter he grips, the faster it sieves through his fingers.

Part of him is angry. Part of him hurts. Part of him feels abandoned. There's more than a small handful of grief, now that those back home memories feel prevalent and recent — more real now than the godly memories do. The ache of loss is still a hollow pang, Cas's death hit harder than almost anyone's. As much as his mother's did the first time. As much as his father's did the first time. He feels robbed, cheated, and knowing — knowing that Jack brought him back, but that he stayed gone? Hurts worse.

And it all loops right back around again to anger, because it's easier for Dean to feel angry than to feel left behind.

He doesn't want to be angry anymore. He's tired. He was supposed to have been done, finally. He feels old, older than his body gives him credit for. Not just because of those hallucinated lifetimes of memory, but the extra almost-decade's worth crammed in from home.

With rocks is just Castiel enough for a spike of fondness to interrupt his sea of too-many-feelings, and he lets out a soft huff of breath — but doesn't correct it. He goes about the motions, pulling down a glass, filling it with a few cubes of ice, topping it with mid-shelf whiskey. Quietly, he slides the glass across the bar to Castiel's seat. Then goes about pouring his own, because screw it, he might as well. He's probably gonna need it.

Jo's gone. He has to remind himself Cas is probably hurting too, and Dean being away... not being there for him through it? Is a shitty move on his part. He sees it now in hindsight, he feels guilty for it, but he doesn't know where in the hell to even begin with unpacking it all. It's just issue stacked on top of issue on top of issue, all grappling for priority and precedence. How do you start dealing with one without dealing with the others first? )

[unwings]

[ Retaining eons of memories isn't difficult for Cas, so long as Naomi and her drill aren't involved. 800 years were filed in neatly with the rest, but it’s still quite a lot to extract oneself from. In particular, the kind of isolation and escape Castiel buried himself in. The forest was tranquil, peaceful but oppressively lonely. The absence of the one person who altered his entire manner of being was a constant, heavy weight.

Despite visits from Geralt, Kyle and Julia, the empty place where Dean should've been was a chill shiver through him, a haunting. Some distant echo of a hazy life he struggled to recall. It ached, like whatever tethered them together became infected and feverish, but stubbornly unwilling to snap. Not a missing limb, but a warm, solid core ripped out, taking with it the intensity of feeling Dean sparked in him. No bright flare of faith, or purpose, or meaning. No compelling ache for humanity, or love so fierce and demanding it felt beyond containment.

Some part of him withered and went silent. All the wonder he held for mortal life, he'd let slip away, and the world around him lost its color and luster. Only the cold, yawning emptiness of an angel without a directive. He’ll do anything to avoid going back to that future.

There, he had nothing of Dean, just whispers and fleeting moments. Now they’re home, he’s right there, and he couldn’t be farther away.

Back in Cadens, their reality mercilessly slams back to the forefront, full volume in resonating stereo. Dean’s eyes as he tells him goodbye are burned into his memory. The final, rattled breath leaving him as he hung on a rusted piece of rebar in the middle of nowhere. Castiel’s been trying to reconcile how they found love here with the tragic, violent reality of their world, their final truth, where it was collateral for the cause.

That was it. That was their story. Dean died thinking it's what he was always meant for, and Cas wasn’t there to assure him he contained so much more.

He watches Dean across the bar now, the grief etched into his features, the tired set of his shoulders, defeat hanging on him like a shroud. He’s still the most beautiful thing Castiel’s ever seen. The longing to reach out for his hand, to care for him, protect him, still just as strong.

But there’s so much to surmount between here and there.

First things first. He tips his glass up. ]

To Jo.

[ They can stow their shit long enough to raise a parting glass for her. ]

[furibund]

[ It's not the first time she's been in this particular Horizon, but the details of how or when are hazy. Earlier days, perhaps, of a life long lived and shortly passed. The imprint enough of its importance to know who's it is before she has to ask; Ears searching for the sound of music to see if she can place it in the long repertoire of music that Quill and Rocket subject them all to. It's unfamiliar.]

[ Leaves a little less in the room of small talk. Fine with her, she hates smalltalk to begin with, and given her trip into this Horizon was as much accidental as it is incidental she decides... It's foolish to back out when she'd already proverbially opened the door. ]

[ Feels the cling of the dismal air and thinks little more of it; It's not as if plenty of others haven't been in dour states with all of this. And where was she? In typical Nebula fashion, she hasn't thought about it. Only approaches the bar with a short nod and her right, metal arm leaning against the bar. ]

What's the bartender's suggestion?

[righteously]

( This, he's starting to realize, is a sensation he's going to have to start getting used to — seeing familiar faces, feeling a knee-jerk association in his chest that doesn't necessarily belong. Dean is not a man who forms attachments easily but, once they exist, he refuses with every scrap of himself to let them go.

That reality, that history he shared with the rest of the summoned, was like a shotgun blast of connection. Now that it's over, it's disorienting to separate his head and his heart.

She looks different now than she did toward the end of it all, but she still feels like her. She still carries the echo of quiet conversations, of his hand on her shoulder, the understanding of losing something and finding oneself in the process. The memories are blurry, but the impressions linger.

Whatever they had might not have been reality, but doesn't it at least merit looking a little closer? In case it could be?

So, after a beat of hesitation spent studying her, he breaks the tension with a nod and a knowing snap of his fingers. )

Think I got just the thing. Pop a squat.

( And then he goes about snatching up a bottle, a couple of shot glasses — and a lime. )

You ever learn the right way to shoot tequila?

[familysucks]

Michael happens across the Roadhouse in one of those rare moments where Dean is alone within. He has known it was here for a long time—they all have a Domain—but visiting has never been worth antagonizing Winchester et al. There's never been anything here of value to him. Now though, there are things he wonders about, like where the hollow in him that is not Adam came from.

Instead of flying through the wall and appearing unannounced, Michael uses the front door for once. His visit might still catch Dean off-guard, but he's not actively trying to.

"No warding, no bouncers, not even a locked door?" he says as he strolls in and looks around, unhurried.

No blonde reaching behind the bar for a shotgun and telling him he'd best turn around and be on his way, because they don't serve his kind here? Considering those who've been summoned to Abraxas, Michael expected higher security than this. Dean's really taken an inclusive approach to his establishment. Maybe that's because it's the Horizon, and cleaning up after a bar brawl is a matter of willing things back as they were before.

When he turns away from assessing the room and actually gets a look at Dean, his eyes narrow.

"Eight hundred years wasn't kind to you."

Only, it's not that. The mental toll is probably there, wrapped up in denim and layered plaid, but Dean's very soul has put on a few years. Long enough to have caught up to Michael's place on the timeline, and then a little more.

That shouldn't be possible. He remembers the mood his Father was in when they last met.

[righteously]

Of all the people he expected to swing by for a visit, he'd be lying if he said Michael was anywhere even remotely near the list. Now that he's here, though... yeah, maybe it's not the most surprising thing in the world.

For all the memories that have gone blurry, for all moments from those eight hundred years that have slipped away, a few have stayed concrete and sterling in impression if not finer detail. His union with Michael — this Michael — is one of them. He remembers the way he felt. Not the feeling itself, that one's harder to retain once the experience ends, but how he felt about it.

Looking at Michael now feels a little like looking at somebody you had a really, really good first date and one night stand with, and then didn't call back. Which is uncomfortable and wrong on, like, so many different levels, but it's the closest way he knows how to describe it.

Freaking awkward.

Thankfully, Michael makes it easier on both of them with his soft-tier roast, and Dean flashes a flat, unimpressed look back.

"Thanks." Angels and their notoriously excellent people skills. Jesus Christ. "You just swingin' by to let me know I look like crap, or was there a real reason?"

If it's a little more curt than usual, it's because their shared hallucination isn't the only thing he remembers about Michael now that they're seeing one another. That last-minute betrayal stands out too, something that might not impact him so much if it weren't for that unparalleled sense of unity he remembers from their demigod fight.

The fact that they got practically soul-married for a week and Michael still sold him out to daddy bites, even if it happened in reverse order. Dean's brain is an irrational realm of human emotions that doesn't care about chronology. Sue him.

ɴᴏᴄᴡɪᴄʜ.

[righteously]

[righteously]

( coming soon. )