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It had been a week now, and Dean still wasn’t really sleeping, not without waking up with visions of fire and the smell of ozone in his nose. Instead he sits awake, staring at his phone like it might explode. He could have driven straight through the night to get back to the bunker, but something had made him stop at this motel just a few hours shy of the bunker. Maybe it was losing Missouri, maybe it was because of Jody’s motherly influence on him when she’d asked him what was wrong.
Dean sits on the weird floral comforter, an empty six pack on the floor next to him, his phone in hand, and he wonders what isn’t wrong with him. With the whole goddamn situation. He knew Sam didn’t understand, not that Dean could put it into words to tell him. He knew he was taking it out on Jack, and yeah, maybe it was unfair to blame the kid, but he just...he looked so much like him. Cas had given everything to try and keep this kid safe and he’d…
Dean needed to do this. He’d been putting it off, telling himself it didn’t matter, telling himself it wasn’t important because he was gone now. He’d waited because he wanted to save it for when he really needed it. He’d made so many excuses he’d lost track, and he didn’t have any left. He just needed something, anything right now to get through one more day.
He opens his voicemail, one he hadn’t even realized he’d had until the day after the funeral. It had taken him nearly a whole other day to figure out when he’d called in the first place, which he’d finally figured out had been while they were laying their trap for Lucifer. The dumb bastard hadn’t had the guts to just talk to Dean, he’d called and left him a fucking message. He hesitates, chest tight and jaw set, and jabs at the play button on his phone holding it up to his ear.
“Hello, Dean.”
Just those two words are enough to almost make him hang up the phone, but he takes a breath and lets the message play.
“I, uh, I was not sure how to approach telling you this, and since you and Sam are busy, I just thought..”
Cas’ voice pauses, and Dean listens to the faint sound of his breathing as the message plays, trying to suck air into his own lungs.
“I know you don’t understand why I’m so adamant about protecting this child, but you didn’t see it. He showed me a vision of paradise here on Earth. This child has the ability to fix everything I never could.”
“It wasn’t your job to fix it ,” Dean mutters to himself as the message plays.
“I want that for humanity, Dean. And I...I want that for you. You and Sam, your mother… I learned what it is to be human by following your example, Dean, and all I want is to repay that somehow. I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight but I just...I need you to understand. Because I need you , Dean.”
The line goes dead, and Dean drops his hand to the mattress.
Jack had shown Cas paradise, like the kid fucking knew exactly what Cas needed to see to protect him. Anger bubbles like bile in Dean’s throat, making him gag and bolt for the sink. That... thing that he and Sam had taken to their home was the reason Cas was...Cas was…
He wanted to believe Sam, he wanted to believe in his brother’s optimism about the kid because he knew it was how Sam was dealing with his grief, but now there’s no way he’s going to trust this kid. Not when he was that good at manipulation before he was fucking born. He may not be able to kill him yet, but if Jack even gave him an inkling of warning he was going dark Dean was sure as hell going to try.
“No Dean, he’s messed up because of you.” This was not something Dean was in the mood to discuss with Sam right now, not when he’d just gotten home and the voicemail was still fresh in his mind. “Dean...you said you’d kill him.”
“It wasn’t exactly like that,” he replies, knowing Sam isn’t going to buy it.
“Then how exactly was it?” Sam’s aggravation is barely masked by his concern, and Dean has no patience to deal with him right now.
“I told him the truth. See, you think you can use this freak,” Dean spits the word, not even trying to withhold his own anger, “but I know how this ends, and it ends bad.”
“I didn’t.” Sam says quietly.
“What?”
“I didn’t end bad,” he repeats, “when I was the ‘freak’, when I was drinking demon blood.”
“C’mon man, that’s totally different.” Dean’s frown deepens, hating that Sam is dragging this up on top of all the other shit that’s going on.
“Was it? Because you could have put a bullet in me.” Sam is standing now, his own anger no longer masked. “Dad told you to put a bullet in me, but you didn’t. You saved me. So help me save him!”
“You deserved to be saved,” Dean spits. “He doesn’t.” Why wasn’t Sam understanding this? Why couldn’t he see what Dean saw in Jack?
“Yes he does, Dean, of course he does.”
“Look, I know you think that you can use him as some sort of interdimensional can opener, and that’s fine.” Judging by the frown on Sam’s face he didn’t realize Dean had thought about that too, and then shoved it aside because their mom was gone. “But don’t act like you care about him, because you only care about what he can do for you.” Dean needed to make Sam understand, once and for all, that he was never going to accept Jack the was Sam had. “So if you want to pretend, that’s fine. But me? I can hardly look at the kid, because when I do? All I see is everybody we’ve lost!”
“Mom chose to take that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack,” Sam shouts back.
“And what about Cas?”
“What about Cas?”
“He manipulated him. He made him promises, said ‘paradise on Earth, and Cas bought it,” Dean growls. “And you know what that got him? It got him dead !” Sam’s anger crumbles, and Dean just barely keeps his voice from cracking. “Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t !” Dean’s shout echoes through the room for a moment before he spins on his heel to leave.
“Dean-“
He doesn’t even flinch, and Sam doesn’t follow. He stomps down the hall to his room, slamming the door behind him and throwing his bag forcibly to the floor.
Then he lets go.
He lets go of the anger and the frustration. He lets go and collapses, tears on his face before he even feels them form.
“You always trusted too much, Cas,” he gasps. “I tried to fucking warn you but you never...never listened…”
Too much heart was always Castiel’s problem.
He hadn’t really understood what Samandriel had meant, not until now.
He pulls his phone out and listens to the message again, the hope in Cas’ voice, the earnest wish that if he could do this one thing, that he could repay everything he’d ever done wrong.
“I didn’t need all that, Cas,” Dean sighs, ending the message and echoing those last words one more time. “I just need you.”