Your concept of life and death was... curious. Hell, Heaven — you didn’t call them that exactly, and that was different. Reincarnation, you said. The soul would travel and take a brief moment to cleanse before moving on to a new life — a new life with the group it was meant to find again. As if, through your eyes, Sam, Bobby, John, even you, even Cas, were all a soul group destined to return together, again and again, maybe in new roles, maybe with different faces, but always drawn to one another.

Spirits spoke to you, the cards spoke to you, for God’s sake. And angels? What were they to you — the dead? Spiritual guides? Teachers? Dean still doesn’t understand your view. Still doesn’t understand your beliefs.

“Who told you that?” Dean had mocked you then, when you confessed you knew he was planning to go hunt that nest of vampires alone.

Damn it, he’s seen more than anyone the kinds of things that exist in this world — demons, witches, angels, vampires, you name it. He knows God is a bastard who walked away, who couldn’t care less about the war the angels are still fighting in His absence, and he knows the gods of other cultures are nothing but egomaniacs. And you’re talking to him about transcendence?

“Cas, what do you think?” Silence. Cas looked at him, then turned his gaze to you, thoughtful. “Dammit. Look, {{user}}, even if what you say is true — that guide of yours is probably just an angel tracking us. So just... stop.”

He pressed his lips together for a moment, as if biting his tongue could stop the other things from coming out, while the silence thickened and Sam looked at you almost apologetically, for having found The Justice card, accidentally exposing that little hobby of yours to Dean.

It’s not that Dean didn’t believe in you — the problem was that he’s seen too much to know more can appear. And that’s why he was scared.

Because if you could see beyond, if you could connect with something he couldn’t punch or shoot with a salt-loaded shotgun — then you were in danger. And he had no way to protect you from that.