Work Text:
Sam's phone lights up as they cross the border from Kansas into Nebraska, an unknown number but a familiar name.
Sam? It's Eileen. My phone and car disappeared, what's going on? I thought you were coming to meet me?
Dean nearly drives off the road at Sam's sudden gasp, his nerves still frayed from too many years of running, fighting, hunting. Of being pursued by God. "What? What's the matter?"
Four hours later, he watches with a smile as Sam gathers Eileen up in a fierce hug, his gargantuan frame engulfing her, relief running through every line and muscle of his body. Eileen accepts the embrace with grace and no small amount of puzzlement, gentling Sam’s frantic kiss with a soft hand against his jaw.
“Sam?” she asks, pulling away slightly to look into his eyes, and even from the other side of the Impala, Dean can see the joy running like a live current through his little brother’s mind.
“I’m just… really glad to see you,” Sam says quietly, bringing his shaking hands up to sign. She smiles up at him in response.
Something fierce aches in the hollow behind Dean’s ribs.
***
Things are quiet in the bunker that night, just the low constant hum of the bunker’s systems running in the background. Dean hasn’t tried looking through the multidimensional telescope or whatever Mrs. Butters called it; part of him is a little afraid to. Jack brought everyone on this world back, but there’s no guarantee about the other worlds.
Well. Jack brought almost everyone back.
Dean raises a bottle of beer to his lips, leaning against the long table where his family’s names are carved. There’s a solid contingent of empty bottles next to him, lined up like soldiers as he’s methodically finished them, one after the other. They’re not really doing much for him, but Dean went through the last bottle of whiskey the other night while he held a knife in his shaking hands and painstakingly wrote out Cas and Jack’s names. He doesn’t really have anything stronger on hand, unfortunately.
But he does have the barest beginnings of a buzz going, which is when Sam stumbles his giant ass in, hair messed up and scrubbing at his eyes. And yeah -- that’s definitely the beginnings of massive hickey blooming on his throat. Dean snorts and smirks but looks away.
“Dean?” Sam asks, voice bleary. “What are you doing up?” He sounds exhausted. He sounds happy.
That ache from before blooms once more inside of Dean, and he lifts up his beer to show Sam. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Sam frowns and blinks, taking in the forest of empty bottles sitting next to Dean as well. “Did you even try to sleep?” he asks, a note of reproach creeping into his tone.
Damn. Busted. “No,” Dean admits, bringing the beer to his lips. Nearly empty.
Fuck. Just the word hurts, and Dean knows it’s fucking ridiculous, knows he’s being a fucking idiot, but he closes his eyes and breathes deeply through his nose, trying to will away the sudden hot stinging growing behind his eyelids. He drains the rest of the beer and thuds the bottle down onto the table, makes himself open his eyes and look at his little brother. “I’m gonna get another. You want one?” he asks, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchen.
“Wait, Dean --” Sam starts, but Dean just shakes his head and lumbers down the corridor and towards the refrigerator. He feels stiff, strangely cut off from his own body. Sam follows behind him, and who knew a giant, half-asleep man could move so quietly? “Dean,” Sam tries again, just as Dean opens the heavy old fridge door, “don’t you think you’ve had enough? For tonight, I mean? You’ve been -- you’ve been going pretty heavy on the booze the last few days. You need to sleep, man.”
“It’s fine, Sam,” Dean cuts him off, pulling two more bottles out. He pops the lid on one, offers it to Sam, who shakes his head silently. “If you ain’t gonna join me for a drink, then go back to bed. Go back to Eileen.” Yeah, he’s not proud of the way his voice cracks on her name, but oh well.
Sam stares at him for a moment, and Dean can’t meet his gaze, can’t look at his brother who knows him too goddamn well, because he knows Sam’s gonna figure it out. Even exhausted and emotionally wrung-out, Sam’s still gonna put two and fucking two together and get the right answer.
All Dean can do is bring the fresh beer to his lips in the silence, and then Sam opens his mouth and asks, “Is this about Cas?”
Goddammit.
Dean’s fingers clench involuntarily around the cool glass, grip so tight it’s almost painful, but he doesn’t respond. Sam takes this as encouragement though, and keeps talking.
“You said he saved you. That he summoned the Empty. But you didn’t… how did he do that, Dean? How was he able to do that?”
He can’t look at Sam. He fucking can’t, because if he does, then he’s gonna shatter, just like he did on the floor that night, with his hands gripping his hair and nothing but his shuddering sobs to fill the air. He can’t tell Sam about the look on Cas’ face as that writhing nothingness had reached out and pulled him to his death, the look of serene peace, of total and complete happiness. The way Cas had said “Goodbye, Dean,” and then pushed Dean to the side with a smile.
Always happy to bleed for the Winchesters.
“Dean?” Sam’s voice breaks him out of his reverie, and Dean releases the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding with a gasp that comes out more like a sob. “You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want. I just… thought it might help. To talk about it.”
And fuck, what is Dean supposed to say to that?
“Billie was going to kill us,” he says, and puts the beer down unsteadily, not caring that it tips over with a clang as he studiously ignores Sam. He grips the kitchen counter with both hands, trying to keep his knees locked so that he doesn’t slide to the floor again. “Cas’d -- he’d made a deal with the Empty. For Jack’s life. When he experienced a moment of -- of true happiness… the Empty would come for him. And when he summoned it, it took him and Billie.”
Sam makes a quiet noise and shifts next to him, and Dean knows his brother’s eyes are probably huge and sad right now. “He… managed to be happy? While Billie was chasing you guys? How?”
Dean grits his teeth, the edge of the counter cutting into his palms from how hard he’s gripping it. He feels almost lightheaded, but he forces air into his lungs, forces the words out of his mouth. Keeping them in now hurts more than letting them out ever will. “He said he loved me.”
Admitting it feels -- it feels like his chest is collapsing, like there’s a black hole where his heart should be, sucking all the light in. It feels helpless, hopeless.
It feels like an epiphany.
He hasn’t let himself think about it, not when there was a whole world to save. Not when he was being beaten to death on the beach by God himself; not when he needed to be strong, to do what Cas had given up his life for Dean to do.
Cas had said those words to his face. He had looked Dean in the eye and carved right down to his very soul and said it was good. That it -- that Dean -- was loving.
And then he left.
Everyone always leaves you, Dean? You ever noticed that?
Something wet drips onto the back of his hand, and Dean opens his eyes in surprise to find himself crying, Sam still hovering next to him like some sort of overgrown puppy. Another tear falls on his knuckles as he blinks, trying to recenter himself.
“Dean --” Sam starts, but Dean shakes his head, cutting him off.
“I don’t… Jack didn’t bring him back. Maybe because he can’t. So it, it doesn’t matter. He’s not coming back again. I’ll figure it out,” he lies. To his brother. To himself.
Sam’s face crumples somewhere between distress and frustration, a tired light in his eyes. “You love him,” he says, and it sounds so simple. Easy. The words don’t hold the same weight on Sam’s tongue that they do in Dean’s brain. They don’t bang around the inside of Sam’s ribcage like they do in Dean’s, bruising his heart until it nearly breaks.
He swallows hard against the sudden lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he croaks. “Yeah.” It’s not enough, but he doesn’t know what else to say. Everything is just -- he feels drained. Suddenly all he wants is his bed, the comfort of memory foam cradled around his body; he wants to sink into the dark depths of sleep where the pain can’t find him. He looks at the second unopened bottle of beer, waiting to have its top popped off, and he puts it back in the fridge instead. “I’m going to bed. Eileen’s probably waiting for you, man. Don’t make her wait any longer,” he says. He wishes he could take his own goddamn advice.
Sam looks at him like he wants to keep talking, the way he would sometimes force words these kinds of conversations out of Dean when they were younger and still had so much space for pain. Instead, he nods, like he understands. Dean thinks maybe he actually does.
“Night, Dean,” Sam says. “Eileen said she’d make the bacon if I made the eggs for breakfast. You gonna join us?” It’s an olive branch between them, extended without expectation, and damn if Dean doesn’t love his little brother so much it hurts sometimes.
“I -- maybe,” he says, thinking about it. The last time he’d stumbled in on Sam and Eileen making breakfast together had been while… while Cas had been gone. When he’d left because Dean had pushed him away. Something sours in Dean’s stomach at the goddamn parallels, and he wants to be sick. “Don’t wait for me. When you’re hungry, you’re hungry. I’ll be there or I won’t, don’t worry about me.” He walks out of the kitchen before Sam can say anything else, footsteps too loud in the empty bunker corridors.
When he gets to his room, exhaustion sweeps over him like a consuming tide, racing up his spine. He sits down heavily on the mattress, undoing his boots and kicking them into the darkened corner where the light from his lamp doesn’t reach. Stares at the shadows on the wall. Very carefully doesn’t think about the empty space in the bed behind him.
Smoothing a hand down his face, Dean forces himself up again, stripping down to just a t-shirt and his boxers, flinging the discarded clothes onto a chair. He doesn’t have the energy to put them away, not right now. It’s hard to make himself care about dirty laundry. His limbs feel weighted down with lead, every step back and forth across his room an endless journey. Lifting the blanket on his bed is a nearly herculean task.
By the time his head hits the pillow, Dean falls asleep almost instantly, his consciousness tumbling into the weightless dark of slumber. He’s never been a good sleeper; too many dreams of fire and pain and pale child faces and blood, too many nights spent reliving all his worst memories since he was four years old. But this time, something seems different. This time, the fires don’t come. There’s no screaming. It’s just… nothing.
Dean stands in his dream surrounded by nothing but flat darkness, though he can see just fine. It’s a little disorienting, to look down at his feet and not be able to tell what he’s standing on, to look around and feel both wide open and claustrophobic all at once. Actually, this isn’t darkness, he realizes; he knows what that feels like, the crushing and oppressive weight that Amara had settled over his lungs and run through his heart. This is more like absence.
Like the Empty.
As soon as he realizes, a faint noise congeals behind him, and Dean whips around, eyes wide. Cas stands there, head cocked to the side, eyes wide and blue and dry, his trenchcoat clean and slightly rumpled, and Dean nearly stumbles to his knees right then and there, but something stops him.
“Cas?” he whispers, and it bounces around them in the nothingness. “Cas, can you hear me?”
Cas’ expression shifts in an instant, going from mild observation to the most intense disgust Dean has ever seen on his face. “What are you doing here?” he asks coldly, and Dean’s heart nearly drops into his stomach before the wrongness of Cas’ voice registers.
Dean takes a step back, startled. “You’re not Cas,” he says, stupid, because of course this isn’t Cas, Cas is dead -- this is just something wearing his face. “Are you possessing him?”
Not-Cas sneers at him. “If that angel were here, I’d unmake him so thoroughly that the very atoms of the universe forgot his name. No. This is just the face you were hoping to see, isn’t it? When you slipped across that dream-line and into my space. Breathing so fucking loudly.” Those familiar blue eyes narrow in an inhuman rage that makes Dean take another step back.
“You’re the Empty,” Dean realizes. “But I thought you were -- Sam said you looked like Meg. When he saw you.” His brain feels like it’s churning through molasses, trying to piece together whatever strange dream-logic his subconscious is throwing at him.
The Empty makes Cas’ face smile, teeth bared, and it stalks around Dean, like a predator sizing up its prey. “You humans aren’t terribly bright, are you?” it asks, almost conversational, voice strangely nasal. It grates on Dean’s ears. “He expected to see me as Meg, because the angel said I was Meg, so that’s who he saw. I can be many things, Dean, many things to many people. But mainly, what I am, is tired!” It shouts the last word, flying up so close to Dean that he has to flinch away, the fury a living thing between them. The Empty’s chest heaves, but Dean can’t feel any hot breath against his face. “Why are you here! I want to sleep!”
It takes a moment for Dean to think of anything to say, his mouth too dry to speak as he faces down yet another cosmic being. “Where’s Cas,” he manages, injecting some steel into those two words despite everything. “You took him. Where is he.”
The Empty scowls then, and actually paces away, tension coiled in the trenchcoated lines of its shoulders. “He’s not here,” it says, a snarl trapped in the corners of its mouth. “The little chickadee grew himself a soul, somehow, and between that and the toddler god opening a door, he waltzed right out.”
“A soul?” Dean blinks, confused. So Cas… wasn’t in the Empty? He’d gotten out? Then why hadn’t he come back?
“I can’t hold souls, only beings without them,” the Empty says like it should be obvious. “Millions of angels and demons, all full of emptiness, they all come here and sleep. Which is what I should be doing right now. But instead, I’m talking to you. The human so desperate that he traveled along the border between sleep and death only to arrive at oblivion.” It chuckles, a considering noise, the sound raising the hair on the back of Dean’s neck. “I wonder how long you have to stay asleep before you become mine?”
“Thought you said you couldn’t hold beings with souls,” Dean says, eyes darting to the side. There’s nothing to help him, though, nothing but an endless stretch of black. He needs to get out of here. He needs to wake up. He digs his nails into the fleshy pads of his palms, trying to use the pricks of pain to force himself back to consciousness. It doesn’t work, the feeling muted even as he feels small drops of blood well up in his palms.
The Empty steps closer to him again, and Dean feels pinned by that too-familiar yet utterly alien gaze. “You’re always the exception to the rule, aren’t you, Dean Winchester,” it says. “You and that angel. So if others can make exceptions for you, then so can I.” It smiles with Cas’ face once more, and Dean hates it, hates the way it makes Cas look wrong and cruel.
“You can try,” he says, trying for a confident smirk in return. He’s always been a master at fake it ‘til you make it.
That only makes the Empty laugh once more, cold and ringing. “Oh, Dean,” it says, and suddenly its hand lays feather-light on his cheek, fingertips brushing against his skin like it’s trying to push through a layer of plastic to get to him. Cas’ eyes stare at him with nothing but contempt in their depths. “Go ahead and wake up, then.”
Dean frowns. He tries to dig his fingernails deeper into the meat of his palms, but the pain remains muted, even though he can feel blood dripping to the ground. “What are you doing?” he demands, because that has to be what’s happening -- the Empty must be holding him somehow. He can’t even move, his feet stuck to the black nothingness that surrounds him, like he’s trapped and drowning in tar. His lungs struggle to draw in air.
“I’m not doing anything. You entered oblivion yourself, Dean. Did it of your own absolutely free will, too, isn’t that fun? Do you really miss the angel that much, that you would unintentionally throw yourself into death to find him?” The Empty steps back again and cocks its head to the side, the gesture so reminiscent of Cas that Dean has to look away. “How strange, that your grief drives you to such extremes that he will never see or understand. No wonder Castiel doesn’t think you love him; when have you ever given him cause to think you do?”
Something cold and hard drops into the pit of Dean’s stomach. “No, he --”
“What, he knows? Are you sure? If he knew, don’t you think he would have fought harder to stay with you?” There’s a smirk playing in the corners of the Empty’s mouth now, and Dean hates it, hates how it twists and contorts Cas’ face into something unrecognizable, into something mean. “But that’s what everyone does, right? They leave you. They love you but they leave you, because they know you’re broken inside. Because you’re worth dying for, but not worth living for, hm?”
Something pushes at Dean’s shoulder, a barely-there brush of pressure that he presses back against unconsciously. It happens again, harder this time, nearly shaking his upper body even as he stays rooted to the floor. “Cas didn’t die only for me,” he says, but the words sound weak even as they leave his mouth. “He -- he saved the world. Again.” Another push; Dean wobbles imperceptibly. The darkness at the edges of his vision seems foggier, somehow.
The Empty shakes its head. “How are you this good at lying to yourself? How can you not see the truth? He loved you and he left you, because no one stays for you, Dean. And this time, even though he’s escaped me, he didn’t go back to you. Because you can’t even wrap your head around it, that he loves you. You can’t even say those words. Your brother had to say them for you! The angel loves you, but you know you don’t deserve his love.” It circles him again, slowly. “Stay here, Dean. Sleep here. Then it won’t matter. It won’t hurt anymore.”
Dean closes his suddenly stinging eyes, a muscle jumping in his jaw. It’s more tempting than he wants to admit. “I --”
Another push. This one rocks him hard; only his unmoving legs stop him from crashing to the ground. There’s a light growing all around them, pushing away the darkness. Dean can hear something in the distance: the faint background hum of electricity, a voice saying his name.
“Dean --”
The Empty looks around suddenly, rage sliding across its face like an oil slick. “No!” it shouts, leaping for Dean, but it passes right through him, and it feels like a cold fog washing across his heart. “No, I was so close!”
“Dean!” Another push, and Dean can feel it now, someone’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. The Empty fades out around him, the dream snapping all at once as he opens his eyes and looks up, squinting, into the strangely blinding light of his room.
“Dean, wake up,” Eileen says above him, her brown eyes warm as she leans over to shake his shoulder again. “Sam and I made breakfast, but Sam won’t eat any of the bacon I made. I don’t want to waste it, come eat.” Her face comes into full focus as the last vestiges of sleep slip from Dean’s brain.
“Eileen?” he asks, his voice sleep-rough to his own ears. “Wh--”
“Get it while it’s hot,” she says, smiling, then walks out the door. From down the hallway, Dean can hear the faint sounds of a spatula moving against a pan, the coffeemaker percolating. His phone says it’s nine in the morning. The lamp on his nightstand puts out its standard warm yellow glow.
It’s all so… normal. So full of life. Not desolate and blank like the Empty.
Dean swings his legs over the side of the bed, wincing a little as his feet touch the cold floor. Maybe it was just a dream; maybe it was real but the Empty was lying.
Maybe it doesn’t really matter.
For the second time in less than a year, Dean closes his eyes and pours his soul into a prayer.
“Cas, if you’re out there somewhere, I -- I still got something to say to you. Something I should have said a long time ago. But I want to say it to your face. So… so if you can hear me, please.” He pauses, takes a breath. “Please let me say it to your face.”
When he passes Eileen and Sam in the kitchen, he just waves and says, “Going for a drive.” Sam looks like he’s about to ask questions, but Dean just keeps going, walking with purpose. He slides into the Impala, settling into the familiar dip in the seat as he turns the car on and throws it into drive. She rumbles down the cracked asphalt of the highway, crunches over dirt and gravel until he pulls her to a stop in front of calm, shimmering water, the sun turning the surface of the lake a deep blue-green.
He’d taken Cas fishing here a couple of times; taken Jack as well. It was just close enough to the bunker to be easy to get to, but far enough away that it was special. Whenever it was him and Cas, they’d get up early and share a steaming thermos of coffee between the two of them as they sat waiting for a bite, even though Cas had no need for either caffeine or warmth. There would be an almost meditative silence between them, comfortable and easy as birds sang in the trees surrounding them. They’d talk sometimes, but never about anything difficult. Those quiet moments were too precious.
He shuts the engine off and climbs out of the car, walking down to the water’s edge. A thrush warbles nearby, but otherwise no noise breaks the natural silence of the mid-morning air.
So, it was just a dream, huh. Well, more of a nightmare, but the point stands. Dean curls his hands into fists at his sides, pulling a deep breath in through his nose. “So fucking stupid,” he whispers.
“Hello, Dean,” a voice says behind him.
Dean turns around so fast he nearly gives himself whiplash. Cas is standing there, trenchcoat and all, whole and radiant and so fucking real that Dean almost trips as he stumbles across the ground to wrap him in a hug.
“Cas,” he breathes, shoving his face into the juncture between Cas’ neck and shoulder. He’s solid and real in Dean’s arms, familiar and right in a way that makes Dean’s eyes prickle and grow hot. Cas’ own hands come up to carefully lay on Dean’s back as he returns the embrace. “Cas, you came back.”
“I heard your prayer. Of course I came back.”
Dean sucks in air like his lungs are about to collapse and makes himself step back, breaking their holds on each other. “Why didn’t you come back right away? I thought… I thought I’d never see you again, man.”
The smile Cas gives him is at once radiant and devastating, just a small quirk of his lips. “I didn’t want to burden you, Dean. Not any more than I already have. I wanted you to make a choice for yourself, now that you’re finally free, without any pressure from -- from me. That’s the last thing I want.” He says the last part with the only hesitation on his face that Dean has seen since that horrible night in the bunker, and understanding rushes through him like a wave of force, followed by a second, softer wave of love, nearly pushing Dean to his knees right there.
“I’m never gonna not want you here,” he says, the truth of it bubbling up like a spring inside of him, turning into a river, a flood. “You -- you said that knowing me has changed you. Well, I feel the same way about you. Um, I feel the same way about all of it, actually. The way you feel about me. I -- I should’ve said it before.”
He pauses, takes a breath, his heart knocking crazily in his chest, the same way it did back when they were in Purgatory, back when he’d gotten so close to telling Cas only to be cut off. But Cas doesn’t cut him off now, just stands in front of him with his eyes wide, the blue of them reflecting the sun’s light back at Dean. Eyes like the sky, and Dean wants to see them looking at him every day.
With a smile, Dean says, “I love you, Cas,” and the truth of it feels like coming home. Screwing up his courage, he steps forward and kisses him, hands coming up to cradle Cas’ face, memorizing the feel of soft, slightly chapped lips against his own, the way Cas’ stubble scratches against his cheek. A large hand tangles in his hair, another hand landing on his hip, holding him with a reverence he’s never felt before this moment.
Dean smiles into the kiss, and feels Cas smile back.
It feels like some sort of epiphany.