4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. No money will be made from this fan fiction.

Summary: When Dean goes to sell his soul at the crossroads to bring Sam back, someone else steps in to negotiate the deal. Cas did get a sign and it sent him off into the past to change things. AU from The Man Who Would be King and All Hell Breaks Loose.

It's All in the Details

By Colleen

Chapter 4

Sam sat listlessly in the booth as Dean happily chowed down on his… Sam thought for a moment. Twenty-third, if you didn't count the times they hadn't made it out of the room before Dean died this would be the twenty-third time Dean had ordered the Pig in a Poke Tuesday special.

"Ow." Dean dropped his fork and grabbed his left shoulder. Sam frowned, that was new… Unless it was just a fresh way for him to die.

Out of the corner of his eye, the younger Winchester noticed one of the men sitting at the counter turned to look at Dean. He also appeared to be frowning.

"Ah." Dean grit his teeth. "What the Hell?" He shucked the left arm of his jacket and over shirt off and pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt. The handprint that had been burned there by the crossroads demon was red and inflamed.

Sam heard the sound of a fork hitting the floor and turned to look at the man at the counter, who was staring at Dean's shoulder in shock. Eyes narrowing, Sam started to stand. "Hey."

The guy's eyes locked with Sam's for a moment and then…

Sam's eyes snapped opened and he sat up as the sounds of Asia started to play from the radio beside Dean's bed.

"Rise and shine Sammy!"

Sam leapt out of the bed and grabbed his brother by his shirt.

"Sam, what the hell?" Dean struggled, trying to pull himself out of his brother's grip.

"Your shoulder."

"What?"

"Check the burn mark on your shoulder."

"Okay, okay. Let go."

Sam released him and backed off. Looking at him as if he'd completely lost it, Dean stripped off his over shirt and pulled up the sleeve of his t-shirt.

"Ow." Dean poked at it carefully. It was red and irritated. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed that it was hurting until now.

"Sam, how did you know…?"

The air made a cracking sound. Like glass breaking mixed with thunder. A trench-coated form appeared and took two staggering steps before looking around the room.

"That was more difficult than it should have been."

Dean pulled the Colt out and pointed it at Cas.

Sam looked at his brother in horror. "You had that under your pillow?" It was a miracle that Dean hadn't managed to kill himself extra permanently during one of the redoes.

Dean gave Sam an odd glance. "Where else would I keep it?" Then he trained his gaze back to the demon, who was looking at the gun with some trepidation.

"So tell me, if I actually managed to kill you with this, would the weasel out of the contract clause actually manage to come into effect?"

"I believe that was covered on page three of your contract."

The two Winchesters shifted uncomfortably and Cas frowned at them. "Have you still not read it?"

"We're having trouble with the translation." Sam told him.

Cas sighed. "Yes, it would constitute weaselling out of the contract and there are safeguards in place to finish it, even if I am unable to do so personally." He hadn't wanted to put that article into it, but it wouldn't have been taken seriously if he hadn't.

Dean glared at him, but lowered the gun. For some reason, he chose that moment to realize that the music on the clock radio had changed and he reached out and hit the snooze button. Every other day he had hit the off button.

The radio short-circuited dramatically, sending ridiculous amounts of electricity through Dean's body, killing him on the spot.

Sam gasped awake and sat up to the sound of Asia playing on the clock radio.

"Rise and shine Sammy."

Sam stood, reached under Dean's pillow and pulled out the Colt. He then carefully unplugged the clock radio, picked it up and tossed it across the room, shattering it against the far wall. He sat back down on his own bed and aimed the gun on an empty area of the room.

Dean sat on his own bed, staring at his brother in shock. "Sam?"

The air cracked, this time sounding more like wood splitting. A trench-coated figure staggered forward one step and then looked around the room. He focused his attention on Sam and the gun.

"You killing me is covered on page four of the contract."

"Are you doing this?" Sam asked, clearly angry.

"No." He looked at Dean. "What exactly is happening? Something was trying to hide you from me. In fact, I'm not sure I could have found you without using your mark as a beacon." Dean looked at his left shoulder and poked it, wincing slightly when he did.

"Dean keeps dying."

Cas nodded.

"What do you mean, I keep dying?"

"Your contract keeps completing and resetting. It is very annoying. Also, the day keeps restarting every time it happens."

Sam lowered the gun slightly. "You remember all the days?"

Cas shook his head. "Only some. I suspect it took ten or more times before the resettings built up enough for me to notice."

"Wait, wait, wait. You're saying we're being Groundhog Day'd?" Dean asked.

Cas frowned. He remembered something about that. About sitting in a motel room watching television with the boys in a moment between disasters. A movie, called Groundhog Day had come on and Sam had changed the channel, saying he couldn't stand to watch the thing after being stuck in a time loop by…

Cas opened his mouth to say a name, and then quickly shut it. He thought for a moment before trying again.

"Loki! I know you're the one doing this. Show yourself."

Sam and Dean both stood up and searched the room with their eyes.

Nothing.

Cas took a deep breath. "If you don't show yourself, then I will start calling you by your original name and I will tell your older brother where to find you."

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure he's your brother too."

All three of them turned towards the door to see a man standing there. A man they all recognized, but for different reasons.

"You."

"Yes Sam, me." The trickster smirked at them and then looked at Cas. "Interesting company you've been keeping boys."

Dean threw Cas a look. "Not by choice."

Cas threw the look back at him, but didn't say anything.

"Why are you doing this?" Sam asked, levelling the Colt at him.

"Well, it's fun, for one thing." He said, smiling at Sam's glower.

"Ga.., Loki, the gun he's holding on you has a higher than usual chance of killing you." Cas told him. He wasn't absolutely certain that it would work on the archangel, since it hadn't worked on Lucifer. Still, there were probably variables that he was unaware of when it came to that gun.

"So, what are you saying, bro?"

"Speak plainly."

The trickster gave him a disgusted look. "Fine. I'm just passing on a lesson."

"What lesson." Sam asked him through clenched teeth.

"That you can't save your brother, ever."

The hand holding the Colt twitched slightly towards Castiel, and then steadied on the trickster.

Loki ignored him and looked Castiel over. "So, which one of my siblings are you, anyway? 'Cause I've got to say, that's some mighty fine warding you've got going on. If I hadn't seen your mark on old Dean'o there, even I might not have realized what you are."

"Do you think I'd tell you after going to this much trouble to hide?"

Loki shrugged. "Worth a try."

"Hey." Dean said, waving a hand at 'Loki'.

The trickster sighed. "What?"

"You called him bro. How do a trickster god and a crossroads demon end up being brothers?"

Loki started to laugh. It went on for so long that even Cas was losing patience with him, and he was at least acquainted with Gabriel's sense of humour.

"Oh, man. You told them you were a crossroads demon?"

Cas sighed. "No, they merely assumed I was."

Loki continued to chuckle. "Why would they do that?"

Dean looked from Cas to Loki. "Maybe because he's the guy who bought my soul in exchange for Sam's life?"

Loki stopped laughing.

"What?"

Cas sighed again.

Sam turned to look at him. "You're not a demon?"

"I never said I was."

"But… if you're not a demon, why would you buy Dean's soul?"

Cas froze for a moment. This would have been a good time to tell Dean the truth. However, blowing Gabriel's cover right now was probably a bad idea and there was no telling what his brother would do if he did. He searched his mind for another answer. The one he came up with wasn't the best, but it was what he had planned to do with the purgatory souls.

"Souls are power."

Loki's mouth fell open. "You're not serious."

Cas just looked at him.

"What." Sam asked, looking from one of them to the other. "What does he do with the souls? What…" He looked at his brother. "What will he do with Dean's soul?"

"I take them into myself. They are… my power."

Dean looked very wobbly. In truth, Sam didn't look much better. Already Cas was regretting not going with the simple truth.

The trickster looked at the three of them in turn. "You… you do know who they are, don't you?"

Cas gave a huff of laughter. "Yes."

Sam and Dean looked at each other. Dean shrugged and they turned back to the other men.

Loki shook his head. "That's one hell of a dangerous game you're playing, bro."

Cas' laugh this time was longer, but pained. "You should have seen my last one."

The trickster pulled in a deep breath. "Look, I can understand wanting to hide from the rest of the family. Hell, as you obviously know, I'm doing it myself. But trust me; even if big brother doesn't figure this out, there is no way Dad will…"

Cas shook his head. "He's why I'm here."

Loki's eyes widened in shock. "What?"

Cas sighed. "I…" He shot the Winchesters a look. "I ask him for guidance about… about my last game. After he bounced something off my head he showed me what would come of it and offered this as one of the options for fixing it. I decided to take it."

Castiel suspected he should savour this moment. He had just struck Gabriel speechless.

It didn't last.

"What was your last game?"

Cas shook his head.

"Hey bro, you want me to leave these two knuckleheads alone, then I want to know at least that much."

Cas closed his eyes for a moment. "I, along with someone else, who shall remain nameless, attempted to find a way to open purgatory." Cas sighed. "We came pretty close, before I gave it up for this."

"Holy..."

"I take it that's bad?" Dean asked.

Gabriel looked at him as if he were an idiot, which meant he looked at him like he usually did. "Yeah, if your definition of bad covers extinguishing all life from the known universe."

Castiel suddenly found the Colt aimed at him. He froze, staring at Sam for a few heartbeats before nodding. He would accept such a judgement from the young man. In that vision of the future, he'd seen exactly what he'd done to him in his pursuit for power.

That Sam didn't pull the trigger surprised him no end.

"I need an English translation of the contract."

Castiel's eyebrows rose at the request, but he nodded. Several sheets of paper fluttered down out of nowhere, to land on one of the beds.

The movement distracted Sam and Dean for just a moment. When they looked back, both of the trickster gods were gone.

"Hey Sam, wake up!"

Sam's eyes opened and he sat up quickly. "What? No Asia?"

Dean looked at him from where he was brushing his teeth. "You broke the clock radio yesterday, remember?"

Sam looked around the room. "Uh, yeah" Unsure that anything had actually changed, he had to ask. "It is Wednesday today, isn't it?"

Dean finished rinsing out his mouth and spat the water back out. "All day."

Searching the room, Sam found the English translation for Dean's contract sitting beside his laptop. Flipping past the first, introductory page, he found a note attached to the contract and pulled it off to read it.

'Sam, if you make it to Wednesday, then don't let your brother out of your sight. Not until Thursday. And get out of town. Cas.'

The note disintegrated in his hand. Startled he let go of it, watching as it was reduced to pieces so small he could no longer see them.

Cas watched invisibly as the two hunters packed up and made it safely out of town. When he moved to leave, he was unsurprised to find Gabriel standing beside him.

"I don't know what's going on bro, but I do know that none of what's to come can be changed."

Cas refrained from laughing. It would only make his brother ask him questions he wouldn't answer. Instead, he asked him a question.

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know, because it's been the plan since forever? The end is set in stone. So it was written, so it must be."

Cas felt his lips quirk briefly in a small smile. "Stone breaks, Gabriel and writers… they change their minds about what they've written all the time." His next smile was just a little bit wider. "Sometimes, a better idea comes along and the old one has to make way for it." Now he did give a short bark of laughter. "And sometimes, you make it up as you go along. "

Gabriel narrowed his eyes at his brother. "You know something. I mean, more than what you've already said. "

Cas smiled again, but it was a sad one. "I know that freedom is a very hard thing to get right."

Gabriel watched him go as he flew away.