Chapter Text
“Do you know who cries, Dean Winchester?” John’s voice boomed. “Babies cry. Are you a baby?”
“No, sir,” a seven-year-old Dean squeaked.
“Hell right you’re not. You’re a man. So suck it up and wipe those tears away.”
Thirty-four years later and Dean could still hear his father’s battle-worn voice echoing through the Men of Letters’ dungeon. A shaking hand came up to perform the action his father had demanded from him. Dean wiped his tears away, flicking them off, unwanted. But he was shaking. His whole body was shaking. No frame of mind or masculine bravado could stop that.
Where Cas had been standing mere minutes before was now saturated with emptiness. Dean’s stomach lurched at the thought, and the tears came flooding back. He sucked at the air around him slowly, but his lungs seemed to avoid the oxygen with anger, disbelief, and the bright pain of what had just happened. His eyes closed again. To his right, his phone was ringing again. Screeching like a banshee.
Dean took another breath, testing his ability to do so, and searched for something inside him, some deep dark hole that he could shove everything into. He found it in his heart that physically ached and shoved it there for safekeeping. His numb hand grabbed his phone next to him, and then he was on his feet. He avoided looking back at the dungeon as he walked out and repeated in his mind. Pull it together, Dean. Pull it together. Pull it together. Pull it together.
Dean finally picked up his phone.
“What the hell? Dean? Are you okay?” Sam screamed at him from across the line. His voice sounded like a mallet thundering against the walls Dean was constructing inside of him. “Dean!”
“Yeah,” Dean tried his best to make his voice steady. He was heading down the Bunker’s halls now, with no idea where he was going or what he was doing.
“Are you okay?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? “I’m fine.” And it was true. He was fine. It was Castiel who wasn’t fine. It was Castiel who got consumed- Dean winced and pushed his thoughts deeper down into the growing abyss inside him.
“Dean, what happened with Billie? The… everyone’s gone,” Sam’s voice broke.
Dean bit down hard and threw his back up against a wall. It was cold. Colder than it had any right to be, but the shock of its iciness on his back complemented the growing ache filling his heart, expanding it until it imploded. He rolled his free hand down his face and reminded himself once more to pull it together. “What?” Dean tried again.
“As far as we can tell, the entire planet is dead. Billie killed… everyone.”
“It wasn’t Billie.” The words slipped out.
“What?”
Dean put his hand over his heart. There was a sharp pain there, needling its way through his ventricles. The organ was seconds away from giving out; of this, Dean was sure. “Billie’s… dead.”
“What?” Sam repeated.
“Chuck’s been killing people, not Billie.”
Silence.
Dean rolled the palm of his hand into his chest. Every breath caught at that growing heart pain. He vaguely wondered if it was the effect of whatever Billie had done to him. If he collapsed here, what consequence would it have? The only person left was Sam. And Sam? Well, he’d always done damn well on his own anyway.
Dean recoiled from the vicious thoughts and pushed them away too. “Where are you?”
“We’re heading towards you because you wouldn’t pick up,” Sam’s voice wobbled from shock.
Dean nodded. “Okay, I’ll meet you.”
“You’ll what?”
“Keep driving. I’ll meet you halfway.” Dean hung up, took a couple of breaths, and then grabbed his keys out of his pocket.
***
Dean stared down the black river of road that stretched out under the setting sun. In the darkness there, he found his mind insisting on thinking of Chuck. Perseverating on the anger that was promoted with every thought of the asshole god who had damned them all to his idea of a joke.
The anger rushing over him piled on top of itself until he became enraged for simply having the emotion. Which only made him think of Cas, although his brain still seemed unable to, or not want to, process what had happened fully. In turn, the whole thing made his chest feel like someone was stabbing him with a white-hot poker.
So, he took a couple of deep breaths, turned the music up higher, and hummed along with it. Repeating the lyrics in his head and drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel to at least give him something to do. Eventually, he settled into the rhythm of the music paired with the purr of Baby’s engine and the flow of her driving across the highways. Then, it all became sorta numb.
The abandoned cars that Dean passed made him realize that everyone was gone. It settled lightly into the numbness taking over his body. He had failed. Truly failed. But maybe… maybe, there was still something they could do. Maybe there was one last thing to be done. There had to be something Dean could do.
Finally, Dean met Sam, where they both pulled off the road (although it wasn’t like anyone was coming) and got out. Dean crossed the street to where his brother and Jack did the same. Sam looked exhausted, and Jack’s face was long with a solemn look.
“You see anyone on the way here?” Sam asked. The sun was setting in front of him, making him squint his dropping eyes awkwardly.
Dean watched him for a second, thinking of the little boy he had raised. The boy that wailed and pleaded with Dean to get the last of the Lucky Charms. The boy he had stolen fireworks for just to have one nice holiday. Now, this was it. This was the end of the road. He could see it in his brother’s eyes. He would fight it, but in the end, that was how this was going to go down. Dean once again shook the dark thoughts. “No. It’s like a wasteland.” He looked up and down the road only to confirm what they already knew: they were alone. There weren’t even any animals around.
Dean watched his brother chew on his lip. Then, as if remembering himself, Sam looked back at the Impala. “Where’s Cas?”
Dean had known it was coming, so he braced himself well. He closed his eyes and took a breath. When he opened them, he looked over at Jack, avoiding his eyes. “He’s gone.” He settled his gaze on Sam, whose face incredibly found a way to fall further. “I’m sorry, Jack,” Dean said without looking at the kid.
“No,” Jack answered. He took a sharp breath.
“What happened?” Sam asked, staring off at the blood-red sky. He didn’t seem surprised.
Dean bit at his lip. “He- he saved me and killed Billie. But it cost him-” Dean couldn’t finish. He closed his eyes, seeing Cas’s face, his tears, his smile, his “I love you.” Dean felt his stomach clench again.
He turned away from Sam and Jack, breathing deep breaths.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Sam wondered. His voice sounded wet, on the verge of tears, or maybe the verge of falling apart.
Dean looked back at him, pushed everything away, into that pit that held all his shit for him, and said, “We let it go.”
“What?”
Dean looked over at Jack. The kid had tears in his eyes. “We give ourselves up. Give in to whatever the fuck Chuck wants from us and pray that he’ll bring them back.”
“No,” Jack said again.
“Jack, this is our only option, okay? We’ll make sure you’re okay. And C-" Dean tripped, “Everything will be fine.”
“You’ll be dead,” Jack insisted.
Dean nodded once to the side. It was a fine price to pay. He wished Sammy didn’t have to die. He wished Sammy would be there to see Eileen again, to smile, to laugh, and live. He wished he could turn over himself alone, but Chuck wouldn’t take that. And what were two men against the entire world? This was their last shot; they had to take it.
The kid crumpled his brow together in anger. “Sam?”
Dean looked at his brother, he looked like he didn’t want to admit it, but still, he said, “Dean’s right.”
Jack gritted his teeth. He looked from Sam to Dean and then turned around and stomped off.
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
Sam huffed. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I- I really thought we could beat him.”
Dean didn’t answer. He turned back to where Jack had stomped away, getting back into Eileen’s car. He swore that the plants on the side of the road had been vibrant and green in the sweet, midwestern spring only seconds ago. They were all dead and decaying now.
***
“Enjoying a little alone time?” Chuck asked.
Sam and Dean whipped their heads around and looked at the god. He stood there in his same stupid red blazer, half covered in shadow, only lit by the orange glow of the streetlight they were under.
It was just them. Sam and Dean stood up against the Impala in a back alleyway that smelled fervently of wet garbage. They got Jack a motel room. He was pissed and didn’t say anything to them, but they left him there to wait while they went and signed their death warrants.
“You win. We fold,” Dean put his hands out.
Chuck made a mock dissatisfied face. “Oh, Dean, you can’t escape that easy. If you wanted to die you should’ve just let Billie finish you off. Maybe save your boyfriend too.” Chuck smiled depravedly.
Dean shifted uncomfortably, feeling the bile rise in his throat.
Sam, however, went on as if Chuck hadn’t brought anything odd up, as if he hadn’t alluded to any confession, “We’ll give you what you want, Chuck. We’ll kill each other. We’ll give you your ending.”
Chuck turned up his lips. “Yeah, no. I appreciate the white flag, boys. But, uh, I like the idea of you two rotting on a lifeless, empty plant… forever. I mean-” He fixed his smile at them. “Eternal shame, suffering, loneliness. That’s deep. That’s sophisticated, a page-turner. That’s what you deserve.”
“You can’t,” Dean practically whimpered.
“Oh, but I can. Because I’m God, and you know what? You don’t know what I want. So, have a great life. Good luck.” He turned and looked Dean in the eye and winked. Then he was gone.
***
Dean couldn’t stop thinking about what Chuck had said. He couldn’t stop rethinking how he had turned them down. It ate at him, at those walls he so quickly constructed, and at the numbness he built up, slowly as they drove back to the Bunker. And when they got back, everyone shuffled off to their rooms, but Dean stood numbly in the library, feeling the pain he had tried to control earlier that day begin to crush him at all sides.
Dean poured himself a drink. If he was gonna keep going and functioning, he would need alcohol… and a lot too. He felt like there was a scream that was caught in his chest. The pain was growing, pushing against his hastily built walls, and cracking them slowly. Liquor was his last patch.
But thoughts of Chuck soon turned to thoughts of Cas. He could still see Cas’s face, distorted in some horrid painting of pain and happiness. He could still hear his “I love you.” Dean’s stomach lurched. Those three words seemed to tear into him and take a chunk away. Dean swallowed, still tasting the sting of the alcohol in his spit. The pain was leaking from his chest and spreading like a disease.
He wanted to yell at something, someone, explain how much it hurt, how unbearable it all was. But he couldn’t. There were no words. There was no way to describe the hollow, broken, beating thing in his chest that no longer felt like anything close to a heart beating lifeforce.
And that “I love you?” What was that supposed to mean?
He knew what it meant.
Dean gritted his teeth and poured out more alcohol. He was gonna get drunk until he couldn’t see straight because the world was dead. They had finally well and truly lost. There was nothing more they could do.
But his mind was still screaming at him, reminding him of Cas’s parting. It was wrong. Cas wasn’t supposed to be dead.
Was that “I love you” even possible? I love you could mean a lot of things, Dean tried to remind himself. Cas was an angel. How did he even feel love? Dean bit his lip. Cas said more than that. He said he wanted Dean.
Dean pushed that away, but it wouldn’t stay. The walls were gone, the tidal wave was crashing down, and no matter how much he tried to get to higher ground, Dean was already caught in the turbulence of the savage water.
Dean closed his eyes and thought about it. For the first time, he really thought about the angel. He thought about the way he used to roll his eyes when Dean said something stupid, like guessing who had taken the occultum. He thought about Cas when he got angry, pulled out his angel blade, and went towards the enemy without hesitation. He thought about Cas when he tilted his head to the side in confusion of some simple human thing. He thought about his smile.
Every smile. A smile for something stupid, like when he stared at pork rinds, remembering his human days when he enjoyed them. A smile at Jack when they researched together, proud of his son. And all the smiles he gave Dean. The ones that made Dean feel uncomfortable because he was staring at him so beautifully, so purely happy, and Dean could never really figure out why or what exactly was going through the angel’s head.
He imagined Cas’s blue eyes. His dark hair. His soft lips surrounded by the always beginning of dark scruff. Dean thought about a kiss. One kiss. He wondered where that could have led.
Was that even what he wanted? Did he love Cas back? Some part of his brain tried to scream no. He, Dean Winchester, was not into men. It wasn’t like that. But his heart was dying with a yes. He had spent years letting his brain take over with ‘no’s. Sitting in the library drunk, his brain seemed to have little to say. Of course, he was in love with Cas. It didn’t matter that he was male. It mattered that he loved him. It mattered that Cas loved him back. He actually really loved him.
Dean opened his eyes to find tears falling from them. Castiel was dead. And that was his fault. Not only that, the whole world was dead. None of it mattered anymore. Dean lifted a bottle to his mouth, emptying it in an attempt to fill the new void that had taken shelter in his heart.
***
Dean was running through the forest. Well, some perverted version of a forest. One filled up to the teeth in monsters. This was purgatory. Cas was behind him as they ran for their lives from nothing other than Leviathan.
Dean slowed down to look back at Cas taking down Leviathans.
“Shit.” Dean stopped and looked back at the blue tear at the top of the hill. Calling him. Waiting for him.
Dean ran back towards Cas. He lifted his weapon and swung it down on a Leviathan’s head, the sharpened edge slicing clean through. Black goo leaked from the severed neck as its head fell to the side insignificantly. Dean closed his eyes at the blinding light that issued from Cas’s hand next to him. Another Leviathan went down.
“We got to go!” Dean yelled at his friend as the Leviathan Cas had just killed fell, with burnt-out eyes, to the dirt ground.
“There’ll be more,” Cas said calmly. He didn’t look like Cas had the year they were stuck in purgatory, with his peach fuzz and dirty psych ward clothes. Standing there in that warped forest, he just looked like Cas, the dim light bouncing off his nose as he looked around them.
“Yeah, that’s why we gotta go!”
Cas took a step towards Dean. “I can’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I can’t go with you.”
Panic settled in Dean, pulling at his insides. This had happened before. “What?” He asked shallowly in confoundment.
“I can’t stay. I have to leave,” Cas explained. He looked up at Dean with sad eyes, but he was smiling like he was trying to let Dean know it would be okay.
“No.” It was not okay. Dean reached for his friend’s hand but pulled it back sharply. Cas’s hand was covered in thick black goo, not the same as that from a Leviathan, something else. Dean’s rapid heart was stopping his breath, letting it bang against his lungs instead of properly releasing. He looked to Cas, who was still standing there like some broken piece of memory, looking up at him with pity and sadness and something else, something lighter. “No! Cas, don’t leave. You’re not supposed to leave. Everyone else is gone. You’re not supposed to leave! Please don’t leave me,” he ended with a whimper like some pathetic child.
Castiel just smiled. “I love you, Dean.”
“But I need you.” Cas was already gone. He disappeared as if he could still fly—a blink, and then nothing. Dean looked around. The wind blew violent and blistering cold, but he was utterly alone…
Someone lightly touched Dean; they were calling him.
He opened his eyes, his blurry vision slowly settling on the view of the Bunker’s library from the floor. There was a clink as Dean pulled himself out of the bottles he had passed out around. His head was pounding like it was about to split at the seams.
Meanwhile, his brother asked, “You okay?”
Dean groaned and produced the lie, “I feel terrific.”
***
Dean drove the Impala east. No idea where, but just east, per a mysterious feeling Jack had. And it was a long drive. Sam had driven at first (since his brother was hungover and grimacing at the sun’s brightness and the sound of the engine), and they had switched as the sun went down. But Sam didn’t sleep in the passenger seat. He was too nervous about what they were going to find.
Dean didn’t talk. At all. In fact, Sam was pretty sure he didn’t say more than three sentences since they had been on the road. He also didn’t eat. They had been driving all day, but Dean didn’t eat a thing. He just sat there, looking sort of hollow. Sam didn’t like it.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Sam started. “Why did Chuck leave Jack alive?”
“Maybe he doesn’t think I’m a threat,” Jack said from the backseat.
“Yeah,” Sam acknowledged him and then turned to his brother. “Dean?”
“Mmmmm?” His brother’s eyes stayed on the road.
“What do you think?” Sam attempted to prompt him, to pull him back to the reality where they still had fighting left in them, where they wouldn’t give up.
Dean looked at him. His eyes were wide with question.
“Why do you think Chuck left Jack alive?” Sam repeated.
Dean looked back at Jack. “Does it matter?”
“If we’re gonna find out a way to beat Chuck, yeah, it does.”
“Beat him?” Dean looked at him with sad eyes.
“Yeah. That’s why we’re driving out here,” Sam answered flatly.
Dean looked back at the road. “Last thing I remember we tried to roll over and Chuck put us in eternal timeout. So why are we beating him now? How does driving to B.F.E. relate?”
“If Chuck won’t let us… give up. Then, we keep going.” Sam was grasping at straws. He knew Dean was drifting. He just had to find one thing, one string, no matter how small, to pull him back. Certainly, he could do that. “We find something, and we beat Chuck,” Sam continued with more enthusiasm, “And Jack’s something might be, I don’t know, something.”
Dean sighed and continued staring out the window.
“Why do you think we’re driving out here?” Sam added irritatedly.
Dean didn’t answer.
Sam dropped his back against the passenger seat. “I’m thinking maybe Chuck left Jack around as a statement. I think Chuck’s always been afraid of Jack, in some way. So I don’t think he doesn’t see him as a threat, I think he wants to show he doesn’t see him as a threat. Maybe we can use that to our advantage.”
“How?” Jack asked eagerly.
“I’m not sure. But your powers, Jack. You still have them.”
Jack shook his head. “I don’t.”
Sam looked back over to his silent brother. He remembered something in their dad’s journal; right after the fire, he had written something about how Dean wouldn’t talk. Sam wondered what had gone down when Billie died. He wondered how Cas died, what Dean saw, what had him looking so lost and broken, and why he was so numbingly silent.
“The plants,” Sam said back to Jack. “Your powers have been killing plants. I saw it before we went to meet Chuck.”
Jack looked nervous. “I- I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s power. That’s what.” Sam turned and looked out the window, feeling light anger dancing inside. He was gonna put the world back together no matter what. Eileen was gonna be alive. Cas was gonna be alive. Dean was gonna be okay. And it was all gonna be fine.
***
Dean strolled into the church, the target of Jack’s “feeling.” Dean thought the whole trip was pretty pointless, but, hey, there was literally nothing else to do. So church. Fun. Great. Dean ground his teeth together as they walked up the nave. As the pews stopped, they looked around at books, open and thrown carelessly around.
“Someone’s definitely been here,” Sam said.
“So… you survived,” the voice rang through the church.
The gang looked back, watching Michael step out of the shadows.
“Michael?” Sam asked.
Dean sighed. Of course, Michael didn’t answer their prayers a couple of days ago when they tried to beat a newly powered-up God, but now he was hanging out in a church. Perfect. Why not?
“Why are you here?” Sam asked.
“This is St. Michael’s,” Michael answered like that explained everything.
Dean rolled his eyes and took a seat on the steps to the chancel. Sam looked at him with the concerned eyes that Dean was getting annoyed at.
“Adam has informed me you are asking why I am on Earth,” Michael corrected.
“Adam’s still alive?” Sam wondered.
“Yes, he is with me. We were in Heaven at the time of my father’s rapture.”
“I didn’t think humans could go to Heaven?”
Michael walked closer. “Usually they cannot, but it’s different when they are possessed by an angel. Naomi called me there. She wishes me to leave Earth and help in Heaven. But I have declined. Of course, now, there isn’t much of an Earth to come back to. I suppose that is all your fault.”
“Your almighty father thought it’d be funny to punish us by leaving us on an empty planet,” Dean explained bitterly, getting tired of all the small talk.
“Father always did have creative ideas for punishment.”
“And what? You decided to hide out and read?” Sam asked, looking down at the horde of open books lying on the pews.
Michael shrugged. “I was lucky to be in Heaven. I was able to protect Adam and escape my father’s wrath. When I came back to Earth and saw what was happening, I knew that father would not like to see me back here. I have helped you after all. So, yes, I hid. I haven’t used any powers to attract his attention. As for the books….” Michael shrugged lightly. “I was curious.”
Dean was only half-listening. His mind was wandering elsewhere. Thinking vaguely about Cas, trying to ignore thinking about Cas, and just drifting. But Michael’s comment about Heaven made him look up.
Sam spoke before he could, “Curious?”
“Yes. On how the believers see my father. Surprisingly, they worship him. I suppose my efforts paid off more than I thought.”
“Wait… Heaven. The angels are still alive?” Dean cut in, Michael's words finally breaking through the numbness.
Michael nodded. “Yes, it is only Earth that has perished. Though I have a feeling Heaven is closed off now.”
Dean felt something carve into his chest. He didn’t know why but he assumed all the angels were dead. But they weren’t. Cas was the only angel who died. And sure, it was different, but… it was him. Dean was the reason he was dead. The only reason. If he had been anywhere else, he would still be alive. If he had been in Heaven, he would still be alive. Dean felt his stomach knot itself into a wad of guilt.
He looked up at Michael, who was answering Sam’s question that Dean had missed. “When God left Heaven, I was certain of his return. So I made sure all of the angels and prophets burnished his image on Earth. The all-knowing, all-seeing, all-caring God. Perfect.”
“And now?” Jack asked.
“I do not agree with what my father has done. I do not believe our values align… anymore.”
“Will you help us defeat your father?” Sam asked.
Dean rolled his eyes. That was pointless. They weren’t gonna beat Chuck. He won. They lost. It was time to give up, even if Chuck wouldn’t take it. Michael had ignored them, and now he was just onboard? Dean wasn’t buying it.
“Whatever you need me for. I will help you,” Michael settled on seriously.
Dean felt irritation settle in his chest. But his brother’s shoulders fell. Jack smiled. Dean thought about lying back and seeing how long he could sleep. He was exhausted, and sleep felt like a great way to escape more plans that would inevitably fail and questions that plagued him about Cas. Sleep would be a perfect and blissful escape. But Sam, Jack, and Michael were walking away, and Sam looked back at him.
“You coming?” His brother asked.
Dean looked around at the open books, their beautiful images of God and all his divine glory. The Almighty Chuck. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why they ever thought fighting him was a good idea in the first place. They had never had any real choice but to sit down, shut up, and do everything he wanted.
He stared at one of the books with a depiction of an angel. He remembered standing around Bobby’s house arguing with Sam over the existence of angels after being resurrected by one. He was so adamant that they did not exist, no matter what Cas had said. He was so sure that even if they did, none of them would help him. Here they were, though. Eleven years of friendship with an angel who had, in the end, sacrificed himself entirely so Dean could live. It wasn’t worth it. Cas should still be alive.
“Dean?” His brother’s voice boomed.
Dean yanked his eyes away from the book and pulled himself up. He walked over to Sam and dropped the keys in his brother’s hand, signaling for him to take over as driver. Then he turned to leave St. Michael’s.