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They needed to get home to Lebanon and Jack, get Cas home to Lebanon and Jack, but first, they had to stop. Both Dean and the Impala were low on fuel, neither in shape for a long trip.
Dean threw the keys to Sam, telling him if he wanted to drive the car he’d have to fill her up first, then dragged Cas inside to pick out road snacks, trucker mags and sudokus (Cas would get bored without his phone, Dean thought, and he didn’t sleep, and even with Metatron’s pop culture download he struggled with crosswords, and Sam would be pissed if Dean stuck him in the backseat reading porn).
“Jack almost gave Sam a heart attack when he found him in the police station,” Dean said idly, throwing Slim Jims and Munchies into a basket Cas held. “Are you hungry? You’ve got your mojo intact, right?” Dean glanced at the display of jerky and threw a pack in the basket. “I know you like beef.”
Cas rolled his eyes as Dean moved to the little bags of pastries. “So he told Sam he wanted to see his father - that he knew his father would protect him.”
“That is…worrying.”
Dean smiled and threw some Ding Dongs into the basket. “He wasn’t talking about Lucifer. He was talking about you.” Still staring at shelves, he grabbed two Hostess Fruit Pies and tossed them in as well. “Magazines.”
Cas didn’t say anything until Dean had thrown the latest Hustler, Cherry, and 1,000 Sudoku Spectacular! on top of the food “He meant me?”
“Lucifer’s not my father. My father’s name is Castiel. That’s what he said.”
Dean didn’t think Cas was about to start crying, but the angel did seem dangerously close to having an emotional reaction. “We ready to check out?”
“Yeah,” Cas composed himself and began walking towards the front. “Wait - give me your wallet. I’ll buy this and you can use the restroom.”
“Wow, you remembered us humans have to piss. I’m touched.”
In the bathroom, Dean found Sam relieving himself as well “Wash your hands after touching your wiener, Sammy!” Dean said in the sing-song voice he used as a child on the road, teaching his brother to scrub his hands and shoplift snacks when their father didn’t have the time to. The display earned Dean a wad of paper towel to the face. “Have you told Jack who we’re picking up yet?”
“No, just sent him a text to say we’re heading home.”
“Good. Let’s surprise him.”
Cas was already in the back seat of the Impala, sorting out the snacks. He passed Dean his pie and porn, Sam some chips and the Ding Dongs.
“And these are for you and Sam as well,” Cas said proudly, passing them each a bright blue envelope. “I believe it’s customary to do this closer to the child’s birth, but I was, unfortunately, dead at the time.”
Dean examined the package. Blue Raspberry White Owls. Cas’s smile fell at the brother’s confusion. “I did this wrong, didn’t I?”
Dean caught it before Sam and had to restrain himself from bursting out laughing. “No Cas, this is perfect,” A smile lit up Cas’s face again as Dean carefully tucked the cigarillos into his jacket pocket.
“I still don’t understand-”
“He’s passing out cigars, Sam, get with the program. Now start driving. Get the man home to see his kid.”
The cigarillos didn’t have to mean anything. Dean almost smoked his pack in Dodge City, until Sam put his foot down and said no, Dean wasn’t allowed to share with Jack, I know he can’t get lung cancer and we already give him beer, but we have to draw the line somewhere and we’re drawing it at ‘giving the kid one of his own birth announcement cigars to smoke.’ So he didn’t open the package that night.
After that, there really hadn’t been much to celebrate.
So the White Owls migrated from his jacket pocket to a drawer with all the other odds and ends, until it had been long enough that the cigar wasn’t just a cigar anymore but a physical memory of something Dean could never touch again. He’d never see Cas truly happy, he’d never make things up to Jack and he’d never smoke the White Owls. Instead, the foil package would fade and falter, transubstantiating into Dean and Cas and Jack and all that tore Dean away from them.
Before Sam wrapped and salted Dean’s body he emptied his clothes. Phone, keys, change, Zippo, knife, Juicy Fruit, a stray Milk-Bone, another knife, a box cutter, a gun, another gun, three Trojans, a vintage blue Matchbox car (what?), an unused yellow scrunchie (what?!).
In his top shirt pocket sat an electric blue package, airless and mangled, like someone spent hours fiddling with it. Flavored White Owls, expired years ago. At first, they confused Sam. Dean didn’t smoke much, not anymore at least. While Dean never said ‘no’ to a nice cigar, blue raspberry cigarillos were about the farthest thing from a fine Cuban imaginable.
The memory hit him like an anvil. He doubted Dean carried the memento in his pocket for two years, but it was the kind of thing Dean would save and the kind of thing he wouldn’t put back down after finding post-Cas’s death.
Sam placed the unsmoked White Owls back in their resting place. He left his pack in a shoebox with old photographs and ticket stubs while Dean carried his over his chest, and something about that told Sam to leave them be. One day, he would pass bright blue packages to his friends and tell them about the pit stop on the way to Lebanon, and Claire would laugh and Garth would pull him into a hug and the gift would mean something to all of them, but not what Cas’s smallest gestures meant to Dean. Eileen would pass their friends her first child and Sam’s second, the thoughts of a brother and uncles their baby would never know hanging in the air.
San wouldn’t say a word about what Dean held in his hands but never to his lips.
Today, Sam tossed a lighter on top of his brother’s body, scattering the last of his brother and Cas and everything between them into the wind. The pyre smelled of burning flesh and smoldering pine, old tobacco, and sour candy.