Chapter Text
"This can't go on forever,
this poem, nor my fever
for brown eyed mortal joy,
I love a straight white boy.
Ah the circle closes
Same old withered roses!"
-Maybe Love, Allen Ginsberg
"I won't be hands on. Chuck put himself in the story. That was his mistake. But I learned from you and my mother, and Castiel that when people have to be their best, they can be. And that's what to believe in.", he says, a serene smile on his face, all innocence replaced by a wisdom far too much for his years. "Well, I'm really as close as this."—a hand on his heart—"Goodbye."
Dean stands silent for a while, searching for the right words to say as he watches Jack turn.
"Jack, wait."
And Jack does, as if he had already been expecting it.
"I get the- I get the hands off thing, I do but, what about Cas?" Dean asks, letting out the breath that catches in his throat from saying the name for the first time since, well, since he lost Cas. "Where is he? Assuming you, you know, brought him back with everyone else."
Jack's smile turns into an apologetic frown, and the action has Dean's own dropping.
"Dean, I'm sorry, God has no power in the empty. I tried, but I couldn't."
"The hell is that supposed to mean?", he asks, and barely controls the anger on his face. He feels Sam's hand on his arm. There's no need for it. He wants to be angry at Jack, but for the life of him, cannot, not when he sees how much Jack looks like him, acts like him, the last thing he has left that is any close to Cas himself, the last family he has besides Sam. No, he isn't angry at the kid. In true Dean Winchester fashion, his anger and hate is directed towards one person and one person only, himself.
"There must be some way, Jack," he croaks out, as if saying it would change things, "please."
"I'm sorry, so sorry."
He stops listening through the rest of the conversation, doesn't move a muscle as Sam gives him a sympathetic pat and Jack disappears into a bright light. It is done.
They beat God. Out of all monsters they ever faced, they finally won over the one who created them all. At last, they can begin to have some semblance of free will over their lives. Dean wonders why that doesn't make him feel as victorious as it should.
Even Baby's familiar seats seem out of place now, and it is with a blank mind and muscle memory of years that he drives back to the bunker. It almost makes him smile, the way Sam tears up and runs to hug Eileen and her small frame all but sinks in his arms. He is happy for them, but damn if it doesn't make his heart break into pieces. He squeezes her in a hug when she turns to him, passes a tired smile, signs back a 'fine' to her 'are you okay?', and gives them their space.
His own room is unchanged, much to his chagrin, even though he hasn't done anything to change it. He looks at it, propped against the closed door, trying to even his breathing, hates what he sees. Beer bottles lying around, no less than a dozen, sheets on the bed rumpled, a frame cracked in the corner, wallet lying on the ground, one lone photograph of an angel in a cowboy hat peeking out of it. The only purpose it serves is to bring the grief rushing back to him like a gallon of ice cold water over his head.
And so he cleans. The bottles go first, into a box in the corner with more force than necessary. Two of them break in the process, and he is pretty sure his hand is bleeding. He makes no effort to stop it, just stares at it. It isn't a deep wound, the blood drop beads at its top and stops after a while. A shame. He wipes it on his jeans and moves on. The sheets are next, he replaces them with new white ones that look suspiciously like a shroud. He tries not to think too hard about that.
He keeps the frame back on the nightstand, beside the lamp. It is of him as a child with his mom, and the sickly yellow light makes it look like it was taken a hundred years ago. To him, it sure feels like it.
He picks up the wallet at last. One half of him resists the urge to shove it in a drawer and never look at it again. The other wants it engraved on his heart and soul. It's Cas, after all, the dorky little guy, too kind for his own good, about yay' big and his best friend. His best friend. His best friend up and until before he died. He looks it over again, then places it inside a random spell book lying about, keeps it in a drawer.
He closes his eyes, and for the second time in a short time, The Dean Winchester, righteous man, ultimate killer, seasoned hunter, the Michael sword, slumps against the wall and cries his heart out with his face in his hands. Time flows like his world is still the same. Like he is still just a man and not a shell of what he used to be.
He falls asleep to the echo of his most painful memories.
I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing, Sammy.
You're a coward, sad, clingy, needy-
You wanna die.
You see a light at the end of this ugly-ass tunnel? I don't.
I couldn't save mom. I couldn't save Cas. I can't even save a scared little kid.
I need some help. Please.
And then you'd kill the angel, Castiel. Now that, that, I suspect, would hurt something awful.
You're gonna die. And this, this is what you're gonna become!
I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You.
I'd rather have you, cursed or not.
Dean, I do everything you ask. I always come when you call.
Cas. I know you're in there. I know you can hear me. Cas, It's me. We’re family. We need you. I need you.
Cas, buddy, I need you.
It's a gift, you keep those.
We’ve lost everything. And now you’re gonna bring him back. Okay? You’re gonna bring back Cas-
You don’t have to say it. I heard your prayer.
What my true happiness could even look like. I never found an answer because the one thing I want, It's something I know I can't have.
Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love.
You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know.
I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
He wakes up in cold sweat. His cheek burns when he raises his head from where it is pressed against the concrete. His head hurts and his eyes sting like they've been underwater for ages. He sees, at last, his gun, kept on the bed, light glinting off the shiny metal, feels it's familiar weight in his hands, and just like that, he knows what he must do.