She Talks to Angels | {BOOK 2}

59|Good Influence?

I had managed to get a nail out of the floorboard and undid the cuffs chaining me to the ladder. When Dean had held out a hand to undo his cuffs as well, I just winked at him and put the nail back down just out of his reach.

"Really?" he demanded. "Ellie!"

I ignored him, sneaking out of the cabin. 2014!Dean had said he might trust me... Anyway, I started across the lawn in the middle of the group of cabins, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be around, when a voice piped up from behind me.

"Eleanor? Is that really you?"

Swallowing hard, I pivoted slowly on my heels to face Chuck, who was holding a clipboard and staring at me with a shocked expression.

"Uh... h-hi, Chuck," I stammered out.

"How are you-" Chuck started when my Dean came rushing out of the cabin.

"Ellie, I... Oh, hi, Chuck."

"Hi," Chuck greeted him, still eyeing me strangely. "Do you have a second?"

"Uh, I- I guess," Dean nodded.

"Alright. So, uh, listen, we're pretty good on canned goods for now, but we're down to next to nothing on perishables and- and hygiene supplies. People are not going to be happy about this. So, what do you think we should do?"

Clearly, Chuck thought my Dean was the Dean from this time, and hadn't realized his mistake. I was also curious where my 2014 counterpart was in all this based off the strange reactions from both 2014!Dean and now Chuck. Future Dean had said that is was good to see me, and that it had been a while...

"I- I don't know," Dean was stammering out. "Maybe, uh, share? You know, like at a kibbutz."

"Wait a minute, aren't you supposed to be on a mission right now?"

"Absolutely," Dean nodded. "And I will be."

"Uh oh," Chuck muttered.

Just then, a woman came up behind Dean and tried to slug him.

"Whoa! Jeez! Easy, lady!" he cried, ducking behind Chuck.

"Risa," Chuck supplied the woman's name.

"Risa?" Dean repeated.

"You spent the night in Jane's cabin last night, didn't you?" Risa spat at Dean.

"Uh, what? I- I don't- did I?"

Dean looked hopeless from me to Chuck, who nodded.

"I thought we had a 'connection'," Risa continued, using air quotes around the word.

"Well, I'm sure that we do," Dean said.

"Yeah?"

"Hi, Risa," Chuck greeted her.

"Screw you," Risa spat at him, stomping off.

"Oh, jeez. I'm getting busted for stuff I haven't even done yet," Dean muttered.

"What?" Chuck asked.

"Uh, never mind. Hey, Chuck, is... Cass still here?"

"Yeah," Chuck chuckled. "I don't think Cass is going anywhere."

He gestured to another cabin, which Dean and I made our way towards. The door had one of those hippie bead curtain things over it which we had to duck through to get inside. We found 2014!Castiel sitting in a circle with a bunch of women. There weren't any wings on his back.

"So, in this way," he was saying, "we're each a fragment of total perception- just, uh, one compartment in that dragonfly eye of group mind. Now, the key to this total, shared perception- it's, um, surprisingly physical."

He looked over, eyes landing on me in surprise, then moving to Dean beside me.

"Oh. Excuse me, ladies. I think I need to confer with our fearless leader for a minute. Why not go get washed up for the orgy?"

I raised an eyebrow as they all stood and the women started filing out of the room.

"You're all so beautiful," Cass told them, still seated on the ground.

Once they'd all disappeared, he stood, stretching his back and grunting.

"What are you, a hippie?" Dean quipped.

"I thought you'd gotten over trying to label me," Cass shot back.

"Cass, we got to talk," I cut in.

"Whoa. Strange," Cass's eyes widened as he looked at me and then Dean.

"What?" I asked.

"You... are not you. Not now you, anyway."

"No. Yeah. Yes, exactly," Dean nodded.

"What year are you from?"

"2009," I informed him.

"Who did this to you? Is it Zachariah?"

"Yes," Dean confirmed.

"Interesting," Cass muttered.

"Oh, yeah, it's friggin' fascinating," Dean growled. "Now. Why don't you strap on your angel wings and fly us back to our page on the calendar."

"I wish I could just, uh, strap on my wings, but I'm sorry, no dice."

I looked over his shoulder at where his wings had been, swallowing hard.

"What, are you stoned?" Dean asked, reaching the same conclusion I had when we first walked in.

"Uh, generally, yeah," the former angel nodded.

"What happened to you?" I asked.

"Life."

⁘

2014!Dean arrived back with some other soldiers. When they climbed out of the jeep, he immediately shot one of them in the head. Everyone was just staring between my Dean and the future one, and after dismissing them, 2014!Dean shoved 2009!Dean back into the first cabin we'd been in when we were locked up, me close behind.

"What the hell was that?" 2014!Dean demanded.

"What the hell was that?" 2009!Dean echoed. "You just shot a guy in cold blood."

"We were in an open quarantine zone. Got ambushed by some Croats on the way out."

My Dean's expression asked for an explanation.

"Croats. Croatoans. One of them infected Yeager."

"How do you know?" I asked.

"'Cause after a few years of this, I know," 2014!Dean looked to me, eyes softening slightly. "I started seeing symptoms a half an hour ago. Wasn't gonna be long until he flipped. I didn't see the point in troubling a good man with bad news."

"Troubling a good man?" my Dean echoed again. "You just blew him away in front of your own people. Don't you think that freaked them out a little bit?"

"It's 2014. Plugging some Croat, it's called commonplace. Trading words with my friggin' clone- that might have freaked them out a little.

"Alright, look-" my Dean began.

"No, you look. This isn't your time. It's mine. You don't make the decisions. I do. So, when I say stay in, you stay in."

Future Dean looked at me again.

"Aren't you supposed to be a good influence on him or something?"

"You tell me," I shot back. "Better yet, you wanna explain why Chuck and Cass were looking at me like they'd seen a ghost?"