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The End Is Not The Answer (A Christmas Story)
By Waywardgirl222
I know how it hurts
But I hate to hear those words
That you’re good with being gone
And everything is wrong
Don’t you give up now
We’ll make it through somehow
There’s lots of living left
In this world not the next
The end is not the answer
You and I are in this together
Don’t you give up NEVER
‘Cause the end is NOT the answer
3 Day’s Grace
Tuesday Night, December 24th., 1996, Christmas Eve
“Get to walking and take your worthless ass out that door! Don’t wanna catch you coming round here for the next couple of days until you learn some respect, boy! When you come back you’d better be groveling on the asphalt begging me for forgiveness you hear!”
BANG! The sound of the motel door reverberates in the freezing winter night.
“Don’t worry your head, old man! You know I’ll be coming back for Sammy’s sake, but you ain’t getting no apology from me! Dean yells. “Fucker.” He whispers.
This isn’t eighteen year old Dean Winchester’s first rodeo and it certainly won’t be his last…maybe. He flips up the collar of his well worn brown leather jacket, a hand-me-down from his father, John. The cracked leather jacket is still a bit oversized and old, but it’s all he’s got. Underneath, he’s got a couple of layers and a well-worn flannel for added warmth. He puts his right thumb against his right nostril and blows his nose. A bright crimson spray of blood shoots out and lands upon a strip of white virgin snow running between the skeevy motel building and the parking lot ahead. He’s received his Christmas gifts from his father in the form of a blackened right eye, a bloody nose, and a split lip… maybe a couple of bruised ribs to boot. As usual, for these bouts, he’s expected to fend for himself and sleep outside tonight. He won’t be coming back until his father’s anger subsides and only if Dean’s ready to grovel in apology. He usually always does. He doesn’t do it for himself though, he does it for his little brother, Sammy. Sammy’s fourteen this year. He reminds himself that he’s only gotta do this crap four more years then he and Sam can run off together to escape this life of hell. He reminds himself each and every time, but he’s oh so very tired.
When these occasions happen he usually just ends up sleeping on a park bench in any local park of any bumfuck town du jour. But, tonight’s Christmas Eve. Tonight, he’s feeling an agonizing sort of melancholia, the type that has you spiraling down contemplating the meaning of life. Life hasn’t been kind to the Winchester boys, especially Dean. Their lives took a downfall when their mother died in a tragic house fire. John mentions supernatural causes and a quest for retribution. So, now the remnants of the tiny rag-tag family live in pay-by-the-hour seedy motels, squat in ramshackle abandoned houses, or live out of their car when money’s tight. It sucks. Dean doesn’t think his father gives a flying fuck these days. Perhaps he never has.
It’s been fourteen years since their mother, Mary’s death and they’re certainly not even close to doling out the justice his mother deserves. The years have only dished out pain, endless suffering, and disillusionment. It doesn’t help that their father finds himself drowning at the bottom of a bottle each night. The more he drinks, the meaner he gets. Tonight’s argument was over $20. Dean had splurged on a couple of pizzas from the local pizzeria. A medium veggie-lover pizza for Sammy and a medium meat-lover pizza for himself. It’s Christmas Eve for cryin’ out loud! By now, John had probably spent way over $20 just on booze alone. John wasn’t even supposed to be there. He’d missed the last seven Christmas’s in a row. Then, he just shows up out of nowhere. He caught them dead-to-rights eating on the stained carpeted floor as Christmas music played in the background. They faced their father like a pair of Bambi’s, big doe eyes caught in the headlights. Dean owned up to it right away, but Sammy stammered saying it was his fault that he wanted pizza tonight. John was already hammered, probably had a pit-stop at the local bar first. He was about to backslap Sammy when Dean stepped in the way. Dean always steps in the way. There’s no way in hell he’ll ever let his younger brother take the beating, not while there’s still breathe in his body. So, the holiest night of the year ends with cursing and fists as Dean’s body gets pummeled. Dean refuses to strike down his father while Sammy’s still little, even though he can. He’s reached up to his father’s height, standing six feet tall. His shoulders have broadened out, his musculature as well. The color of his bottle glass-green eyes burn with fury on nights such as these. He’ll have to wait. There’ll be time for a reckoning soon.
Tonight he has to get moving. He had to find a safe place to spend the night. He spots a patrol car as it makes it’s rounds throughout the tiny town. That rules out the small park in the town’s square. He’ll stand out like Rudolph the Red-Nosed reindeer on a night like this. His next safe bet would be sleeping in a cemetery. Every town has one so he starts walking. He remembers passing one on their way into town. He heads in that direction. He feels the waterworks beginning in his eyes, the painful lump forming at the base of his throat. He’ll wait until he’s in the cemetery for his breakdown to begin. He despises his emotions. They only leave him with red-rimmed swollen eyes, splotchy skin, and congestion in his nose. None of that seems appealing when you’ve already got a black eye, a bloody nose, and a split lip. He wraps his arms around himself for warmth. It also helps with the blooming pain he’s feeling in his ribs. He stops along the way at the Gas-&-Sip with the liquor store attached. The clerk isn’t paying him much attention. He’s too preoccupied with his visiting girlfriend as they start necking near the bathrooms. Dean uses his infamous five-finger-discount and swipes a bottle of Jack from the counter. He’s out the door in seconds. Ten minutes later he’s in front of the black wrought iron gates of the Angel of Mercy Cemetery. He sighs.
The Angel of Mercy Cemetery is your typical small town cemetery with it’s large, elaborate black iron gates and fencing that ends in sharp pointy spikes. On an ordinary weekend it’d be the best place for ardent, passionate lovers to express their urges or gothic teens looking for a hauntingly good time. Dean had done both himself. He’d done the down-and-dirty with his last girlfriend, Meg in a cemetery like this just last summer. Tonight’s a different story. No one’s coming to a place like this on a night like this. He opens the creaky gate and walks in. He snorts and chuckles to himself. He wonders how many kids get sent off to sleep in the cold on Christmas Eve, probably not many… probably no one at all. It’s the Murphey’s Law of the Winchester family that if anything goes wrong it will only get worse. He hopes Sammy’s ok. He says a little prayer to what ever higher power there is out there that his baby brother will be alright tonight or at least till he gets back.
He starts his trek along a dirt trail in the middle of the cemetery. There’s the newer graves at the front with their chiseled stone grave markers standing at attention like sentinels in the dark. The years on the graves start out with 1996, 1995, 1994, and so on. Further down the gravestones look older, more weathered. He keeps walking. You’d think he’d feel frightened in a place like this. Instead, there’s an overwhelming peace about this place that he can’t quite put a finger on. He thinks he likes this type of peace, could even get used to it. He finally spots where he wants to go as the crypts and mausoleums appear on the horizon at the back edge of the cemetery. The snow starts falling more brusquely. He’ll have to find an open mausoleum soon or freeze to death. He tries the wrought iron gates that guard the mausoleums. He finds an open one on his seventh try. “Yahtzee! Seventh Heaven!” He’d cry if it wasn’t so pathetic. No… scratch that… he’s crying already.
He enters the mausoleum. There’s a faint stench of death and rotting flowers all around him. He finally lets his guard down as his body slides down the wall to his right. He squints his eyes as best he can. His right eye hurts like a muther. His nose has stopped bleeding. He can feel the crusted blood above his upper lip that’s painfully swollen. Apparently, the vault holds six members of the Novak family. They must’ve been filthy rich if the decorative carvings on the walls mean anything. The inscriptions look very, very old,… like some ancient language lost long ago. He can’t make out any names not that it matters. He’s not making a social call. He’s only here to sleep for the next couple of nights in his unfortunate foreseeable future.
The wind’s picking up as it howls outside like a hungry wolf about to devour it’s prey. It’s definitely colder at the front of the mausoleum so he scoots back towards the back into the darkness of the vault. He accidentally bumps into a blue glass vase full of crumpled dead roses on the wall. The roses had been red once upon a time. Now, they were a sickly shade of brown like old blood that lysed years ago. Someone must’ve put those flowers there. They must’ve mourned a loved one, cried their eyes out in remembrance. Dean wonders if anyone would cry for him when he passes. Maybe Sammy, definitely not John. Then he could be reunited with his mother who he missed so much. But, then who was he kidding. “Fuck.” He’d probably end up in hell where John always said he would. He’s no saint. He’s lived a wretched life full of swearing, thieving, and fornicating. He tries to be good. It’s just so overwhelmingly hard at times.
Before he know it, he’s overcome with grief. He mourns his losses beginning with his mother. He cries for his shitty lot in life. He and Sammy were supposed to have parents that loved them, a house, school, and friends. Instead, they had an obsessed drunk asshole for a father, crappy questionable living conditions, and no friends to speak of. Sammy does well in school, always has. Dean not so much. It wasn’t that he didn’t like school or didn’t understand the material. He just didn’t have the time or the patience for it. Whenever he wasn’t holding his dysfunctional family together, he was bringing in a paycheck to support them. School became an afterthought. He had dropped out of school last year at the age of seventeen and never looked back. He got his GED instead. Now he works as a mechanic or bartender whenever and wherever he can. It’s unbelievable to be so miserable at this age. He’s sobbing uncontrollably. His mind starts to go to the dark places that beckon him, places where anguish and surrender live. He presses his back alongside the cold hard concrete. He feels the cold steel of his weapon at the small of his back tucked into the waistband of his faded blue Levi’s. He reaches for his gun. It’s a Colt .45 caliber semi automatic with a cream ivory handle. It’s a beautiful gun. It was his belated birthday gift from John when he turned fifteen. Before that, he only had a sawed-off shotgun that he’d made himself at twelve. John wasn’t a gift-giver. The only reason he received the gun was to protect his younger brother. Never look a gift horse in the mouth the saying says.
He holds the Colt gently in his freezing hands. They’d gone numb since then. A numbing shiver goes up his spine. He’s cold, he’s hungry, he remembers his bottle of Jack. He puts the gun down on his lap and reaches for the bottle. The bottle’s cold like it’s been put in an ice box for days. He uncaps it, puts the cap down on the floor. He takes a long swig of the amber liquid. It burns nice and warm down his parched throat. He takes another swig. He remembers when he took his first drink. It was a frosty can of Pabst’s Blue Ribbon. John was totally wasted at the time. He’d left three out of six beer cans intact on the floor of the Starlite Inn. Sammy was already asleep when Dean took that first sip at the tender age of twelve. He remembers the bitter taste of the lager. It was easy getting to like it. It gave him a buzz and helped him forget his pain for a brief moment. By fifteen, he’d moved on to harder stuff in his attempt to self-medicate. He’d made friends with the likes of Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, and Jim Beam. He’d never turn down a Wild Turkey or Black Velvet either. Hell, he’d never turn down any rot-gut variety. He takes another swig in between bouts of sobbing. He hiccups. By now, half the bottle’s gone. His body is beginning to feel the warmth that only whiskey can bring.
After awhile, he puts the bottle down and picks up the Colt. He caresses it like only a lover could do. His nimble fingers trace the beautiful etchings on the steel, feels the smoothness of the cream colored ivory handle. An errant tear falls on the barrel of the gun. It’d be so, so easy to put a bullet in his head, end the pain and suffering. The gun is fully loaded, always is. Developed by legendary gunsmith, John Browning, the gun can hold anywhere from 13-20 bullets in it’s cartridge depending on the caliber. Dean takes off the safety, cocks the gun. In a final moment of profound desperation, he places the gun under his chin, presses it tightly alongside his Adam’s apple. He can feel his pulse as it thumps on the gun. The air is still and stifling. It’s time. Time to end his miserable worthless life.
Point—- Click—- Shoot —-
“STOP!”
Suddenly, there’s a voice coming through. It’s a deep, gravelly voice. Dean would almost be concerned if it wasn’t for this turning point of a moment. It’s the type of voice on the verge of a medical condition, but yet it isn’t. It’s clear, concise, and immediate. There’s a flash of blinding light in it’s wake. Dean shuts his eyes. The light’s too painful to look at. The Colt flings out of his hands and lands on the floor. He slowly opens his eyes. He can’t believe what he’s seeing. There’s a man inside this mausoleum, not dead, very much alive. He’s dressed rather peculiar in a wrinkled white dress shirt with dark navy dress pants. He wears a blue necktie, black belt, and black dress shoes. More interestingly, he dons a tan wrinkled trench coat. His wavy dark hair is messy like he doesn’t own a comb or maybe he’s just gotten out of bed. Whatever the case is, it’s alarming, off putting to say the least. It’s a miracle Dean can even see so much detail in the darkness.
“Who are you? What the hell are you?”
“My name is Castiel and I am an angel of the Lord.”
“Get the hell outa here. There’s no such thing.”
“That’s your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”
Dean gulps. He’s on the verge of a panic attack. Never met an angel. Never met an angel of the Lord before. His mother always said that angels were watching over him, over Sammy. But, what the hell? Demons we’re real, but angels? Well, he guess that if demons are real then angels aren’t beyond the realm of possibility. All of a sudden, he feels scared, feels small. He backs further into the mausoleum, but there’s really nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. He remembers to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. He finally steadies his breathe, steadies his heartbeat. In the panic, his heart rate was like that of a frightened rabbit caught in a snare.
“Why are you here? How do you know my name?”
“I heard your prayer. I felt your distress. I’m your Guardian Angel, so to speak, and you are worth far more than you even realize.”
“Why? I’m no one special… just a fuck-up out in the cold”
Dean swallows hard. His brain is working hard to catch up with his body. This moment is intense far beyond anything he’s ever encountered.
“I…I don’t understand.”
The angel cocks his head like a dog who doesn’t understand what his master is saying.
“ You don’t think you deserve to be saved.” The angel says.
Dean’s the first one to agree with the statement of the year. Fuck-up, worthless piece of trash that he is as his father says. He never does things right. Everything he says, thinks, and does is wrong. What’s new? Why doesn’t an angel of the Lord know that? He asks.
“Uh, how come an omnipresent entity such as you claim to be doesn’t know what I am? ‘Cause buddy, I ain’t that special. You got the wrong guy. Best go find yourself a better prospect while the night’s still young.”
The angel of the Lord squints his eyes. Dean thinks it looks kinda painful. The angel’s eyes might be blue, hard to tell. The angel picks up the Colt and puts it into the pocket of his trench coat. He looks around and takes notice of his surroundings.
“Hey, mister! That gun’s mine. I want it back!”
The angel ignores Dean as he traces the inscriptions on the tombs. He flicks the dust off his fingers as he keeps walking. The mausoleum is big, but not that big. He turns around and walks back towards Dean.
“The Novak family was noble, prayerful, pious … Enochian. Interesting.”
Dean blinks. He’s getting annoyed with the small talk. He’s never been one with an abundance of patience.
“Uh, buddy, I don’t know what you want… don’t really know why you’re here. Don’t really care. But, I got stuff to attend to so you’d best be on your way.”
The angel pauses, just stands there. There’s an awkward moment of silence as they stare each other down. The angel doesn’t show much emotion. He stands like a silent sentinel in the dark. The blinding light emanating from him has long since faded. Dean’s anxiety level is off the charts. The adrenaline that had been pumping through his veins in order to do what he had to do was ebbing painfully away. He was trembling now. His teeth begin to chatter.
“Come on, now! I’ve got things to do! Get the hell outa here!”
The angel doesn’t budge, doesn’t move at all.
“Things to do like kill yourself?”
Dean’s emerald green eyes grow big like saucers as he looks incredulously at the angel. He’s angry now. How’s this bastard know what’s in his head? Dean’s such a fuck-up that he can’t even kill himself in private. When did privacy become such an issue in the Winchester family? Wait. That’s right. He’s never had privacy. This is classic. Why should he be afforded a private moment to off himself now? He begins to laugh. It’s a hysterical laugh. It’s the laugh of a madman dancing on the edge of life about to throw himself off the abyss.
“What the fuck? You have no right to the thoughts in my head, dude. Do you even know about all that free will shit? I can do whatever the hell I want to do. It ain’t like anybody’s gonna miss me. Hell, I’m probably doing the whole world a big favor… one last fuck-up in the world and all. You shouldn’t try and stop me. Now, give me back my gun, dammit.”
Dean is beyond seething as the angel stares back at him. It’s as if he can see right through Dean’s soul. It’s absolutely nerve-racking. Dean bites his abused lip hard. The cut that had stopped bleeding starts bleeding again. He can taste the copper essence in his mouth. He spits it out. His head hurts. His body hurts. It’s time to get this pathetic shit show on the road. Time to end this crapfest. It’s sayonara, adios, and good riddance to his life that’s fucked up beyond all repair. It’s last call for alcohol the Winchester way. Dean takes a long hard swig of Jack as he holds out his hand motioning for the angel to hand back his gun.
“You’re not getting your gun back for now, Dean. You still don’t understand what consequences your death would bring to the world, to those who love you.”
Dean snorts, spits more blood on the ground. He shakes his head.
“Whatever, dude. You’re full of it, you know. The world will keep on spinning long after I’m gone. Don’t know what universe you’re living in, but this one won’t be missing the likes of me anytime soon. I can tell you that for sure.”
The angel steps closer. He squats down to Dean’s level. Once again, Dean would back up more if he could. They look eye-to-eye for the first time. Green on blue, blue on green. The angel can see right through the pain, the angst in Dean’s eyes. Dean thinks he sees compassion, maybe love in the angel’s eyes. He shakes his head, gotta be the Jack. Too much whiskey. He’s delusional by now, having damned hallucinations. “Fuck.”
“It’s true. You would be sorely missed, Dean Winchester.”
“Awesome. You know my last name, too. Anything else you know about me?”
The angel holds his index and middle fingers out to touch Dean’s forehead.
“Woah, dude. Back off!”
The angel backs away.
“If you kill yourself, you are going to bring more pain to your loved ones than is there already. You will not achieve your destiny. You will not save people. You will not hunt the damned abominations that crawl upon this earth. You will not accomplish your lot in life, your purpose.”
Dean laughs again, shakes his head.
“Wrong again. You got me confused with my dad. Gotta go see the almighty John Winchester for that. He’s the badass that hunts things, saves people… you know, the family business. Why don’t you go seek him out and leave me alone…let me do what I gotta do?”
The angel squats down again. He’s practically in Dean’s personal space, breathing the same air.
“Your father may be a killer of abominations, but he is weak. He will not find retribution at the bottom of a bottle. He will not kill the demon he searches for. That demon is reserved for you. You will bring down the demon. You will bring the scales of justice in your mother’s favor. Not him. YOU!”
Dean’s sobriety comes rushing back after three quarters of a bottle in that instant.
“I see that I have your attention. You and I are in this together. Don’t you give up NEVER. Because the end is NOT the answer.”
Dean grips the whiskey bottle tight. He looks at it. Then he puts it down on the ground. Dean being Dean, he doesn’t want the angel to know that he indeed he has caught his attention. Let it not be said that Dean Winchester believes everything he hears. He wasn’t born yesterday for fuck’s sake. His father’s lied to him one too many times.
“Show me.”
The angel once again takes his index and middle fingers up towards Dean’s forehead. This time, Dean let’s him touch his forehead. Immediately, there’s a sudden burst of energy. The angel’s rifling through every corner of Dean’s mind. Every nook, every cranny is laid bare. Mary Witcher’s fiery death, Dean as he carried his baby brother to safely, Dean caring and raising his brother from infancy to the present, all the neglect, all the beatings, all the pain and suffering of his life rolled into mere seconds.
Then there’s nothing, a void. It quickly rolls towards the future. There, striking images appear. Vampires beheaded before him—-, Werewolves shot with gleaming silver bullets—-, Ghosts salted and burned—-, Ghouls, Goblins, Witches, Rougarous, Strigas, all fall to the ground ganked by his hand. Then the myriad of people pass before his eyes. Infants, toddlers, young children, regular men and women,—-young and old allowed to live because he cared enough to kill the very things that threatened to snuff out their existence. He wasn’t paid. It wasn’t glamorous. There was no glory in it. In fact, it all looked pretty terrifying. Yet, Dean somehow knew it was what he was meant to do. It was what he was born to do. He looked in disbelief as the angel, now known as Castiel, looked at him lovingly—- knowingly.
“With my help, you will slay them all.”
Dean inhaled deeply.
“Show me more.”
Suddenly, Dean was in an old familiar two story farmhouse. It was old, very old. The dark brown chipped paint had weathered to an ecru color. The once green shutters were pale in hue, some were broken, and some were even missing. He walks up the dirty porch steps towards a weather battered door. It isn’t locked. There’s a group of people. The people are crying. They’re surrounding an old recliner with a hideous yellow floral pattern. There’s an old man. No, wait. He’s really not that old, just looks it. He’s got a salt-and-pepper beard and a baseball cap. He’s clothing is old, rumpled…dirty. There’s a look on his face that shows the pain of a life not very well lived. He’s dead. Dean gasps. It’s his Uncle Bobby. Dean turns to look at the people that are looking at his uncle. He recognizes them although, they don’t pay him any mind. They don’t even see him at all. There’s Ellen Harvelle and her daughter Jo, Ash, and Rufus. They’re talking amongst themselves.
“Damned fool just up and died. Drank himself to an early grave.”, says the older woman.
“Never been the same since his wife and boy died.”, says Rufus.
Jo’s crying uncontrollably.
“Yeah, but we all know what done him in the end. It was Dean, Dean’s death. You know it. I know it. He practically raised those boys after John just up and left them. I miss Dean everyday.”, says Jo.
Ash, looks on silently. Dean has never really seen the young man with the mullet look so sad.
Then Dean’s whisked away outside to a funeral pyre. Ellen and Jo carefully wrap Bobby’s body in linen. Then, Rufus and Ash hoist his body onto the pyre. Rufus, being the oldest of the hunters and Bobby’s best friend, lights the torch. Bobby’s funeral pyre goes up in flames. No words are said. There’s no preacher who would freely want to be here amongst the unwashed heathen the community seems to think hunters are. Silent prayers go up towards heaven. Dean wonders what ever happened to Father Jim Murphy. Dean starts crying. It’s all his fault that Bobby died. How could he have known his surrogate father cared so much for him. Bobby should have been content with Sammy. Dean was nobody, nothing… certainly no one to die over. Yet, here was the evidence staring him dead on, no pun intended. Proof that somehow he mattered to his uncle, maybe even these people.
Dean stares at Castiel. It suddenly dawns on him that an adult Sam is missing from Bobby’s funeral, from this equation.
“Where’s Sammy?”
The blue-eyed angel doesn’t answer.
“Dammit! Where’s Sam?”
The next instant, he’s hurled back in time. It’s nauseating to say the least. He finds himself closer to his present time, but not quite. He’s in front of another seedy motel or is it an abandoned house. It keeps morphing between the two. He ignores the change in the building’s facade. He opens the door. It’s an almost bare room with faded floral wallpaper that’s peeling and a blood stained carpet. Blood, there’s so much blood. There’s an old orange crushed velvet sofa with it’s springs sticking out. There’s an old television with static on the screen, no images on it. There’s a dirty kitchen with old appliances beyond the first room. He looks to the left, towards a bedroom. He walks slowly towards it. There’s a bathroom with equally old fixtures. The usual chipped porcelain tub, sink, and toilet are all there. The linoleum is dirty. The light fixture is a single bulb, it’s shorting in and out, flickering. He expects to find the usual furniture in the bedroom…a full-size bed for John and another for him and Sammy to share. But, instead, there’s only one bed and a sleeping bag on the floor. The bed is empty except for the stained mismatched sheets. He walks gingerly towards the sleeping bag. He’s so afraid to look. His trembling hand reaches out to pull the corner flap of the sleeping bag. There’s a young boy laying there. His face unrecognizable with bruises covering his countenance. But, the hair… the hair is recognizable. It’s stringy, dirty, brown…long. It’s Sammy. “Oh, God, no… not Sammy.” Dean shrieks.
“Sammy!”
Dean turns to Castiel with a stunned look of horrific grief on his face.
“Why?”
The angel shrugs.
“You weren’t there. Sammy’s big brother wasn’t there to save him. John had a bad night. Sammy was just in the way. It happens. His body will be found eventually after a couple of days.”
Dean runs to the corner of the mausoleum. He vomits whatever little he’d eaten that day along with the whiskey. He kneels on the cold hard concrete dry heaving. It takes him a few minutes to get control of his body, his mind. He looks up in supplication towards the angel.
“How, how can I stop this?”, he says as he bites his lower lip again, blood trickling down his chin.
The angel looks pained. He almost looks like he’s on the verge of tears. His face is scrunched, unbecoming for a handsome angel of the Lord.
“You live.”—-is all he says.
Dean takes a moment to ponder the visions laid bare before him. His heart has been flayed open. Pangs of self-hatred fill every corner of his being. How?—- How could he be so selfish to only think about himself, his pain, his truth?
He weeps.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, Cas. I wasn’t thinking. I, I don’t want anything like this to happen. Well, not true. I mean I want the first part to happen. I wanna gank all those fuckers who wanna kill innocent people. But…but I don’t want uncle Bobby dead and I definitely don’t want my baby brother dead. Oh, God, no! Please stop it. Please don’t let it happen!” He curls up into himself on the dirty floor of the vault like another dead corpse that dwells alongside the Novak family crypt.
Castiel is moved. He’s never had a nickname before. Humans can be so endearing sometimes. He looks at his earthly charge and kneels down to hug and bring comfort to the young man that has clearly lost so much and still has so much more to lose if he doesn’t straighten up fast.
“Should you decide to live, then as I said, with my help, you will become the hunter and slayer of all unearthly abominations. Your uncle will live to a ripe old age and your beloved brother will be spared his fate. All this will come to fruition if you but only live.”
Dean’s sobs eventually turn into soft whimpers as he wipes the tears from his eyes with the hemline of his flannel. His face is still swollen and splotchy, but his breathing is slowly returning to a somewhat regular pace.
“Oh, God. I’m so congested it ain’t even funny.” He quips.
The angel frowns.
“You are a righteous man and yet you curse too much. God has nothing to do with the state of your congested nostrils.”
Castiel places his two fingers on the boy’s forehead again. Dean’s facial injuries are immediately healed as well as the bruising on his ribs. He can even breathe better through his nose.
“Awesome! You’ve got some mojo going there, Cas.”
Castiel smiles.
“Yes. I suppose I do. So, what say you, Dean Winchester?”
Castiel hands Dean back his Colt.
“Die by your own hand tonight or live and become what you are truly meant to be?”
Dean doesn’t have to think twice about it. He puts the safety back on the gun and tucks it back into the waistband of his jeans.
“I wanna live, Cas. Please help me live.”
Castiel nods his head and helps the young man rise.
“A mausoleum is no place for a righteous man on Christmas Day.”
Dean looks at his watch. It’s way past midnight.
“Come. I will show you things which thou knowest not. There’s lots of living left in this world not the next. Then, you will return back to your earthly father. I will give you the courage to persevere. Abominations will learn to fear you and you will protect your brother in all ways. Are you ready? Are you ready for your righteous lot in life?”
Dean gets up with the help of the angel. He gives Castiel a great big bear hug.
“What are we waiting for, Cas? I’m ready!”Then he adds, “Merry Christmas, Cas.”
The blue-eyed angel grins and nods his head.
Castiel takes Dean’s hand as they begin to vanish into the ether.
“Merry Christmas, Dean Winchester.”
It stops snowing outside the Novak mausoleum. The Angel of Mercy Cemetery lies beneath a blanket of new white snow. It’s peacefully quiet in the city of the dead. At least it’s been spared one last dead body. The young man with the broken heart has been renewed. Perhaps he’s been given the greatest gift of all… the will to live. Because, as all the angels in heaven know - the end is NOT the answer.
The End