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Dean sat there, head in his hands, sobbing. He’s gone. Never coming back.
“I’m so sorry Cas,” the broken man whispers, “I’m so sorry.”
His phone is buzzing, Dean hold it up, the light a little too bright on his tear-stained face. Sam was calling. Dean let the phone drop to the floor. He didn’t have enough of himself left to deal with a call from him right now. The rest of him was in the Empty.
He sat there for Chuck knows how long, waiting for something to happen to him. Something other than the empty feeling inside.
Eventually, he manages to get himself up. He walks across the demon trap on the floor. Across the entrance to the dungeon, noticing the blood on the door. Where did that come from? Dean wondered vaguely, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He walked over to the map room, seeing flashes of Cas as he goes.
Cas walking through the hallway.
Cas knocking at Deans door.
Cas sitting at the kitchen table.
Cas walking into the bunker.
Cas walking into Deans life.
Cas.
Cas.
Cas being here. Loving Dean, the man who didn’t deserve love.
He slumped down in one of the chairs. Maybe this image will go away, he thought. Maybe at some point, I won’t see his face every time I close my eyes.
The bunker door creaked. Dean didn’t have enough energy left to figure out who it was.
“Dean?” Someone called out.
“Dean!” A different voice, this one more familiar. Someone was shaking his shoulders. Right, he still had to act like a functional human being. He looked up, Sam had his hands on the top of Dean’s shoulders. Close to... Dean flinched away.
Sam immediately moved his hands, and took a step back.
“Sorry.” Dean mumbled. Pull yourself together idiot. “Hey, what happened?” He tried to go for his normal we-can-get-through-everything voice, but it just sounded broken.
Sam frowned, but didn’t say anything. “A lot. A lot happened.” Sam went on to recount their side of the story. Jack, who Dean only noticed was there when Sam gestured at him, was silent the entire time Sam was telling the story. “And when you didn’t answer the phone... well we came rushing back.”
Oh right.
The phone call.
“Right, sorry about that. Stuff...” Dean lowered his head, he didn’t want to go over this again. “Stuff happened.”
“Dean... where is Cas?”
“No. Not right now please.”
“Dean.”
“I said not right now!” Dean leaped to his feet, Sam took a small step back, and Jack just sat on the map table, no emotion on his face.
“Dean? What do you mean NOT RIGHT NOW?! We all lost people today! Tell us what happened!” Sam yelled. “I lost Charlie, Donna, Bobby, I lost Eileen! She was my ending, Ok? She was my happily ever after, and now she’s gone, so goddammit Dean, buck up and tell us what happened!”
“He’s gone! Ok??? And this time he’s not coming back! And you don’t know SHIT about what I’m feeling right now!” Dean quieted a little bit, he knew Sam wasn’t really mad at him, just mad at Chuck. “I didn’t even get to say it back.”
Sam paused. “What?”
He looked up at Sam. There were tears streaming down his face. “He told me... he told me he loved me.”
Sam didn’t say anything. But Jack looked up at Dean. “Cas sacrificed himself, didn’t he? He used the deal with the Empty to save you?” It wasn’t a question. Jack knew.
“Yeah.” Dean smiled a little bit. “He did.”
“You... you love him?” Dean looked at Sam.
“Yeah, I do.” Dean rubbed his neck, suddenly nervous.
“Dean?” Sam said quietly, “come here.”
He held his arms out, an invitation. Dean smiled as he walked into his brothers hug. Jack joined in soon enough, and Dean finally let himself break. He stopped trying to hold all the little pieces together, stopped trying to be the big brother he had always needed to be.
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll get him back.”
And in that moment, Dean believed his younger brother.
They would get him back.
They would fight.
Together.