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I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything,
couldn’t do it anyway,
just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made
any sense, anything.
And I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still or fix things and I wake up and I
wake up and you’re still dead, you’re under the table, you’re still feeding
the damn dog, you’re cutting the room in half.
Whatever. Feed him whatever. Burn the straw house down.
-
Here is how it all ends.
Nothing has ever made sense in his life. It was no surprise that none of this made any sense at all.
Monsters and death follow him like stray dogs he never meant to feed. Hell held him in it’s unloving embrace. People died. People came back. People died again. Rinse the blood from your shaking hands. Drink until the tremors cease to be earthquakes. Repeat.
“I love you.” Castiel says.
I love you meaning I gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. I love you meaning I’ll go with you. I love you meaning what did you dream of? I love you meaning I did it all for you. I love you meaning I always come when you call. I love you meaning a complex series of hello and goodbyes and the happy memories that came in between all of the pain.
I love you meaning goodbye. I love you meaning you were not alone in what you thought at times might kill you, but here we are, and here you are, and now it will kill me.
It makes no sense. It makes no sense at all. He wants to scream.
His words are trapped in his chest. He shakes his head. Anything but this would be preferable. Death would feel like victory if he never had to hear those words when they mean this.
Anywhere else, those words might feel like coming home. Those words might be everything he’s ever wanted and thought was impossible to have. Not here when the only way out is death. Not now when nothing makes sense and Cas is shoving him to the floor, blood soaking into his jacket in that same place, in that same shape, where he burnt him so long ago.
It had been divinity then. And now it’s just love, just humanity’s biggest flaw and best creation. Etched into him in a way that nothing will ever be able to take from him. This is divine irony. This is a joke. This is a nightmare and he just wants to fucking wake up.
“Cas.” He says, but there’s nothing left to speak to. There’s nothing at all. No Castiel. No Billie. Just Dean Winchester and the empty feeling spreading through his veins.
Shock. Regret. Agony. Love. Grief.
They’re all the same emotion in different shades.
How long as he longed for this exact thing? To be loved by his angel, his best friend, in the same way he loved him? How long has he hid it away and trapped it in a box because this is a world where ugly things take what you love and ruin them?
Best not to love him and lose him. Worst yet to be loved by him and lose him for it.
He’s crying, he notes. His eyes burn. His heart has shattered into a million sharp pieces that cut him. He is bleeding out from the pain of this. There is nothing to do and everything he has to do still.
Loving him is a death sentence. It always has been. And it killed Castiel.
His phone rings and buzzes. Sam. Sam who he has to tell that Castiel is dead. Sam who he needs to check in on because people are dying and they still have to kill God. Sam who doesn’t know he loves Castiel, who likely doesn’t know he was unknowingly loved in return.
Castiel is dead. And he doesn’t think there’s going to be another chance.
Cowardice had ate him. Regret kills him now.
Castiel is dead.
Dean shudders. There is a time for grief, and he knows that, but he can’t stop the tears once they’ve started. There’s so much to do and his damn phone is ringing and Castiel is still fucking dead.
Castiel died for him. Castiel said he did it all for him, and he said nothing. He let him say it all, and then finish it with a goodbye to match all of the hello’s he was sure would haunt him for the rest of his living days. He stayed silent in shock and horror and all of that love he had wilted in his chest as he watched the one person he’s loved for so long die.
Not for the first time, he wishes it was him that Death had ripped away.
He rubs his face.
Castiel is dead.
Castiel loved him.
Castiel loved him and that was what made him happy, and he died because of his stupid deal, but worst of all because he loved him.
Dean wishes he was here. Just to grab him by his shoulders and shake him, tell him that it’s not fair, that he can’t leave them, that he can’t leave him. To tell him that he could have what he wanted, to tell him that he loved him too. He would’ve rathered Billie killed them both. To live with this is dying enough.
Somewhere there’s a world where they get to be happy. Dean’s sure of that. All of those worlds, one of them let's love be enough.
He knows it’ll never be this one.
He wipes his tears. He stands on still shaking legs. Castiel won’t die for nothing.
-
I don’t really blame you for being dead but you can’t have your sweater back.
So , I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them ?
There’s a black dog and there’s a white dog, depends on which you feed,
depends on which damn dog you live with.
-
No. It doesn’t end like that.
This is a cruel story. This is a story of dead mothers and angry fathers. This is the story of free will. This is a story of two brothers who lose each other and themselves. This is the story of a car. This is a story of Hell. This is a story of mixtapes and purgatory. This is the story of best friends dying and enemies laughing. This is a tragedy and a comedy.
But it does not end with Dean standing on legs that feel like lead and shake like leafs.
It ends in a bunker. Maybe it began in one too. It's hard to say what the beginning was. There have been too many false starts and endless loops for there to be really any beginning or end, but sooner or later it all dies. Sooner or later everything crumbles to dust, all of those atoms that bore witness to love and laughter and better times in the midst of terrible times decay away into nothing at all.
Dean stands in a room after saving the world again. Dean stands in a room and thinks, why am I still alive?
The bunker is empty besides him, or it’s meant to be. The days after Castiel have been a whirlwind haze of too much and not enough. Sam is off making sure the newly resurrected Charlie and Bobby are alright. Jack is with him. Everyone is alive. Everyone gets their goddamn happy endings.
And Dean is-
Dean is not alone.
He can hear the faint rustle of wind, the telltale signs that someone else is with him. He doesn’t bother to look. He’s so goddamn tired. If this is how his life finally ends, then maybe there will be some peace. He is resigned to his fate.
“Hello, Dean.” A voice he would know if he knew nothing else at all says.
His heart stutters. His eyes widen. His mind goes to a static.
He turns, and in a black trenchcoat, there he is.
“You’re Death.” Dean states. He drinks him in. Still Castiel. Still his angel, even if he is no angel now. Still as beautiful as he was the last time Dean saw him.
There is blood on his jacket in the shape of a hand that once burned him. There is a mixtape in the car that was once a gift. There is love in his heart. There is love in his hands, and it is the most beautiful thing.
Castiel smiles at him. Castiel smiles at him and the world is alive and Dean can do nothing but cross the room and grab him.
He feels alive in his arms. He feels like Castiel always has. And maybe he’s Death, and maybe Dean has always flirted with exactly that, and maybe there’s a lot of possibilities of nothing and everything at all.
“I love you too.” His words are muffled by the fabric of Castiel’s coat. His words are lost somewhere in the universe. All of the truth finally let out, all of that terror finally freed.
I love you too, he says, and he means you raised me from Hell. I love you too meaning I prayed to you, Cas, every night. I love you too meaning I was there. I love you too meaning don’t make me lose you too.
Castiel says nothing in return, but his grip on Dean’s jacket tightens.
When their lips meet, there is no need for fanfare or fireworks. There is just a tidal wave of want and happiness and love. It is everything Dean has wanted for so long, and it could never be enough, but it is more than enough still. He has Castiel. He could want for nothing more but this moment stretched out to the edges of eternity, and maybe past the point to.
It is as kind an ending that people like Dean Winchester get. It is the only ending he’d ever want.