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Chuck smiled in his sleep. The Winchesters hugging in heaven. Two brothers and the open road. Game of Thrones in redneck America. Heterosexual ever after. Both dead. Both redeemed. The way it was always supposed to be. He was not to be defeated, he was invincible, the beginning and the end, light and dark. He was everything. Just as it had always been. Destiny, his favourite invention.
In his dream he was still god. In his dream he was not human, he had never been human. In his dream he was not hung from the ceiling. In his dream the blood was not slowly draining from him. In his dream he would never have been too weak to fight off a Djinn.
If he had been kinder to the Winchesters maybe they would have saved him. If he’d been kinder to anyone maybe someone would have noticed he was missing. As it was, no one saved him. No one even knew he was gone. As it was his body rotted and was never found. Maybe Jack knew, maybe not. He had vowed to be a hands off god and he would live up to that promise.
Jack sat in the bunker with his family, a smile on his face with no discernable source. Maybe he was just happy. He hadn’t brought Cas back, not yet. He could, in an instant, but he was a better storyteller than that. In his three years he had watched so many movies, with Dean and Sam and Cas, and he knew that there was a pattern to these things. Three years old and already a better storyteller than his grandfather. He supposed age and wisdom had no correlation, it either was or was not.
All those who Chuck had snapped away had been restored. Sam and Eileen were so happy, it was beautiful to see, and that was helping. Dean had to be the one. Dean had to make the choice. Not for magical reasons, those were irrelevant to a god, but for the success of any future they might have, and for The Story.
Jack had understood instantly, when he absorbed Chuck’s power, the nature of a god. One didn’t have to rule everything, or even control anything. A god was just a writer. Jack didn’t have to tell every story, most of the pieces would fall into place without interference, he just had to choose one. It wasn’t hard. He knew what mattered to this world. Their family, all of them, all those who loved the Winchesters, and the brothers themselves. If he was a god, he decided, he would make it his life’s purpose to heal the Winchesters, to give his family what they had fought so hard to give him. He could do that now. He just had to be patient.
Dean had to be ready. Otherwise he would only push Cas away.
Dean smiled that performative smile. He was happy for Sammy, he was. He really freaking loved Eileen. He loved seeing his brother happy. He was so fucking pleased for them. Claire and Kaia too, adorable, young love. Why was the next generation so much freer? Why wasn’t he born when they were? If he’d been born twenty years later maybe he... maybe Cas...
He was miserable. He tried to hide it. He tried so hard to live his life and just not think. He drank a lot. He got a job and a dog and he was happy. He was okay.
He was not okay.
He fixed cars. He loved cars. He knew how to love. He loved cars and pie and booze and Sam. He loved. He knew what love was. He knew how to feel it.
He buried himself in his work. Engine grease and physical labour. It was enough. It was enough. It was enough. It was-
He didn’t cry every night.
He should have said something.
He was so fucking angry. Why did Cas have to tell him? Why did Cas have to tell him then? Why did Cas have to die? He should have said it back. Fuck Chuck and fuck The Empty and fuck Death for good measure. Fuck himself most of all. He should have said it back.
He should have said it years ago.
He didn’t beat up a car this time. There was a weight in his limbs, a limpness that wouldn’t let him swing a crowbar or punch a wall, he didn’t have the energy.
He threw away his second pillow, the one he’d never used, the one he’d bought just in case. What was the point? His bed would never be filled. He would always be cold, now, empty.
Was Cas conscious where he was? Was he asleep? Dean hoped he was asleep.
Dean didn’t sleep much anymore. Not that he ever had, but it was worse. His sheets were a damp mess most mornings. Nightmares like he hadn’t had since he was freshly out of hell.
He didn’t keep a gun under his pillow anymore. If death came he would let it. What was the point anymore? He was the loose thread. Everyone else was happy, everyone else had found a purpose or happiness or love. He was lost. He had lost everything.
He couldn’t go down to the dungeon anymore. He avoided that room with one excuse or another. Sam was the nerdy one, he could get the files, that was why it was. He wasn’t scared, didn’t fear the dark would come for him and never let him go, or tempt him with some cruel ghost of what could have been.
Dean Winchester wasn’t scared of anything.
Despair. Always despair. A confession repeated on a never ending loop, words he would never speak, events he couldn’t ever bear to recount to Sam. He might as well have lost his tongue for all he could bear to talk. He had never been this quiet. Sam must have noticed, surely, but years of experience had taught him not to ask. Dean cursed his violent rage, all those years of biting Sam’s head off the second he got too close to any hidden truth, he would have given anything for those questions now. He couldn’t bear to broach the topic. He knew he’d only start crying again. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to tell anyone. It hurt too much. Sam didn’t ask and Dean didn’t tell.
If only there was a way to bring Cas back. If only there was something, anything, he could do to save him. Dean wanted to die, but he knew that even in death he wouldn’t get what he truly wanted, so he kept on living. One day after the next. More suffering, more silence.
He’d researched, with a frantic desperation, the first few weeks. He’d contacted every deity, every demon, every nasty little thing that might hold the answer. None of them answered. There was nothing out there. The big bads, all of them seemed to have vanished. Rowena knew as little about The Empty as he did, the angels were unhelpful as always. He wished Jack hadn’t given his powers over to Amara, or Amara hadn’t disappeared.
He’d been surprised when Jack told them, appearing on their doorstep in the dead of night, that he was simply human now. He hadn’t known that was possible, but the kid had no reason to lie. Jack would have brought Cas back already, if he could. It was hopeless, he supposed, and he just had to learn to live like this, with this truth that could never be spoken eating away at him, with an empty space where Cas should be. Alone. Always alone.
Sam didn’t ask. Jack didn’t ask either, Jack just stated a fact, with the simplicity of an all knowing child.
“At least you know he loved you,” that simple smile, a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
Dean managed to make it all the way to his bedroom. He managed to lock the door. He started crying the second he was alone. Tears like he hadn’t cried since that first night.
“Dean, you okay?” Sam’s worried voice through the door wasn’t enough to snap him out of it this time.
“Leave me alone Sam.”
It wasn’t fair. Hearing it said out loud just strengthened his certainty that it wasn’t enough, it would never be enough. A million potential futures, snatched away the second they became possible. Dean deserved to be happy god damn it!
“Dean, you know you can talk to me, right?”
He should have been able to kiss him before he went. He shouldn’t have had to watch love be snatched away from him while he watched, helpless. He should have been able to make Cas smile like he had, oh so briefly, every day for the rest of his life. He should get to have two pillows on his bed, warmth on the other side.
“I miss Cas,” he sobbed, quietly, in the direction of the door.
“What did you say Dean?”
Dean leaned his head against the wall, cold against his burning skin.
“He loved me. He loved me all these years and I fucked it up Sam. We could have had what you and Eileen have but I was too fucking scared and I left it too late and now he’s gone and there’s nothing I can do.”
“Unlock the door Dean.”
He did as he was told. Not caring if Sam saw him like this. Not bothering to move his head. Screwing his eyes shut as the truth of it all crashed down on him.
“I just want him back. I just need to tell him. Why didn’t I tell him Sam? Three words and I fucking couldn’t and now-“ Dean had ripped his head away from the wall in his rage to turn to look at Sam, only for his words to die out in a strangled sort of noise at what he saw.
His ears were ringing, ringing like they had been that first day, like broken glass was falling around him. Like the most beautiful hideous noise in the universe was threatening to deafen him.
His vision was hyper focussed at the same time it blurred with tears and the surreal nature of what was happening.
Maybe he was just asleep.
“Hello Dean.”
No, this was not the way he dreamed. Everything was too clear, every detail perfect in its imperfection.
“I love you,” he blurted without thought. He couldn’t pause, not this time. He would never stop to process again. Embarrassment and backpedalling and a foot in the mouth held no fear compared to what had come before, the sickening terror of too late, too late. Not too late now. How was it not too late?
He didn’t care.
He flung himself at Cas, not pausing to wonder if Sam was still standing out in that hallway, not caring about anything but this.
His full weight settled on warm solid flesh, angel beneath the trench coat, Cas easily holding Dean to him as he wrapped his legs around his waist and kissed him over and over again. Like he couldn’t breathe unless it was Cas’ air, because he couldn’t, not really.
Jack smiled in the library. He didn’t need to see with regular eyes, not anymore. He didn’t need them to know. Maybe he would tell them that he was still god, if they asked, maybe not. All they needed to know was that everything was good, now. All they needed to know was family, and love, and long nights of peaceful sleep.
That was the story he wrote.
He was a good writer, after all, and he loved his family.
Sam sat down beside him, smiling just as wide as he was, and they sat together for a while. No words were spoken. Sam knew. Sam was grateful. Jack was pleased that someone shared his secret, he was pleased that it changed nothing, and he was especially pleased when Sam reached into his pocket and produced a bar of nougat. Jack took it. He was happy. They all were.
No tears, not now. Never again.
That was what the Winchesters deserved and Jack was oh so willing to give it to them.
Love held no place for selfishness, for limitation, love was infinite. God was supposed to be love, after all, and Jack was going to be a wonderful god.
He reached his arms around his world and held it tight, kept it safe, and somewhere in the bunker Dean did the same.
Dean slept better than he ever had that night, the next, and every night for the rest of his life. With his angel beside him no nightmares could come, only pleasant dreams and even better waking, only a simple life of a simple man and the cosmic being that loved him.
He wanted for nothing.
He was saved.