Chapter Text
Dean reclines on the hood of the Impala, attempting to pick out constellations. He has wanted to learn about the stars for a while – he knows far too much about earthly legends, monsters, the vast expanses of this country. The vast expanse of the sky could offer him something else. Or, at least, replace the longing he feels when he looks up.
Often he thinks of visiting heaven with Sam.
Dean still avoids sunken recesses of earth. Lisa encouraged him to take up hiking, and they have been on a few trips with Ben, the three of them racing each other through the trees. Ben always wins. Despite Castiel’s healing, Dean thinks all the beatings he has taken are stored in his aching bones.
It has ticked past midnight and he is thirty-two years old. He asked Lisa not to tell anyone, except Ben, that today is his birthday. Bobby will call him later. Lisa will bake an apple pie. Ben will give him a gift so sweet and simple that Dean will struggle to accept it. He touches the dip in his sternum where his amulet used to be. His chest feels heavier without it.
He and Sam were never big on birthdays, but he struggles to think of getting older without him. Four before he was born, four when he was gone, now the first of the rest of Dean’s life. He could live more years without Sam than he lived with him and that terrifies Dean.
He has built himself a good life, but he feels apart from the structures around him. Every family he has built has broken. Every home he has known he has abandoned. He keeps three packs in the Impala in case he has to be on the road, plans for Ben and Lisa to be with him but knows he will most likely be alone. He sees these past months as building a cache of good memories for the long, lonely times.
His phone buzzes. No Caller ID.
‘Dean Winchester speaking.’ He cringes, then smiles to himself. He sounds like a normal dad, answering the phone like this.
‘Dean. I have good news for you. Meet me at Red Bridge Park tomorrow. Midnight.’
‘Cas?’ Dean hasn’t heard from Castiel since the day he lost Sam, since he turned to face the passenger seat and it was empty. He looks back through the windshield and feels each person who sat there slot into his mind like loading bullets into the barrel of a gun. Sam. Dad. Ellen. Jo. Adam. Cas. Castiel may not be dead, but he feels lost as well.
‘Are you there, Dean?’
Dean snaps out of mourning. ‘What the hell, man? Where have you been?’
‘Heaven, Dean. I told you I was returning.’
Dean thinks of fighting but deflates. He looks back to the stars and feels the ache in his legs spread through his back. ‘You suck at hellos, too.’
‘My apologies. Hello.’
‘Okay, that was weird. Too formal.’
The end of the line is quiet.
‘Cas?’
‘Happy Birthday, Dean.’
Dean sits bolt upright. ‘You don’t call for months, I have no idea if you’re even alive and you’re wishing me a happy birthday?’
‘It’s a human custom. One that brings many people joy.’
Dean shakes his head, thinking of laughing. ‘How do you even know my birthday?’
‘I cradled your soul in my palms when I carried you out of hell, Dean. I know something as simple as the day that soul came to earth.’
The mention of hell stops Dean cold. Dean remembers everything about hell except being saved. He has never wanted to recall how it felt to be completely vulnerable.
‘My soul…came to earth?’ he offers instead, masking the effect of Castiel’s words.
‘Souls are not created or destroyed,’ Castiel says. ‘You came into this world with the soul that God gave you. You carry it on earth within you, and when you leave earth it will leave with you.’
‘Did God tell you that?’
‘Do not deride Him, Dean. But no. That is simply how I understand it, having seen many human souls, and held only one.’
‘Just one?’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Castiel’s voice sounds strangely teasing. ‘Tell you that your soul is special?’
‘Shut up, Cas.’
Castiel laughs, warm and dry. ‘You are special, Dean. For what it’s worth.’
Dean cannot allow himself to acknowledge that. He gets off the hood of the Impala and paces a little before continuing. ‘You said you had good news?’
Castiel pauses, too long for Dean to trust that it really is good news. ‘God has spoken to me and asked me to offer you a choice. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.’
‘Why not now?’ Dean opens the door and checks the packs in the footwell.
‘I would rather explain this to you when I can see you. Your words alone are rarely enough to understand you.’
Dean stops and shuts the car door, trying to work out if that was an insult. He is out of rhythm with Castiel’s quirks. ‘You’re not always an open book either.’
‘I am not meant to be,’ Castiel replies. ‘Red Bridge Park, tomorrow, midnight. You’ll meet me?’
‘Yes,’ Dean says. ‘What will you do until then? Sit quietly?’ He smiles, but Castiel has ended the call.
Dean slides his phone into his back pocket and returns his eyes to the sky. He will go back inside in a while and get warm in his and Lisa’s bed, which is so comfortable he can barely sleep in it. But for now he tracks the stars, searching for something he recognises.
*
Dean decides not to tell Ben about his meeting with Castiel. Ben already knows too much about Dean’s past, but he’s a good kid, and respectful of Dean’s privacy. Dean would never shut Ben down if he was genuinely curious, but he is grateful that Ben knows not to push. Dean does not have much ‘good’ knowledge to give Ben but he gives what he can freely – fixing the Impala, a proper baseball swing, patching up clothes. Still, if the choice Castiel is going to offer Dean would take him away from Ben, he should know. But Dean doesn’t have it in him to give the kid another goodbye.
After they put Ben to bed, Dean pours a glass of wine for Lisa, and, after a pause, one for himself. He is clumsy with wine glasses, and sometimes imagines Dad laughing as he fumbles with the delicate stem. He takes a slow drink as they sit down together.
She pinches her brow and reaches across to take his hand in hers. He has turned up at her door with a world-weary expression enough times for her to know, immediately, when something is wrong.
‘Today was hard without Sam, right?’ He can feel her trying to meet his eyes, but he keeps them trained on the floor. ‘Or… is it something else?’
He can’t look at her yet. ‘I got a call from Cas.’
‘Oh.’ Her hold on his hand weakens. ‘What did he say?’
‘He asked me to meet him. Said that God had a choice for me.’
She drops his hand completely. ‘Haven’t you done enough for God?’
He looks up then. There is an edge of frustration in her voice, but mostly she looks scared.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘that’s selfish of me.’
‘It’s okay.’ Dean reaches over and takes both of her hands in both of his. ‘I don’t think…I don’t think it’s an order, this time. I think it’s just a message.’
She looks down at their hands, laced together. ‘I saw the packs in the Impala.’
Dean stays completely still and says nothing. He doesn’t trust his words in moments like this.
She continues. ‘There are three of them. It made me hopeful, to see that you’d planned for me and Ben. But I won’t leave, and I won’t let him leave yet.’ She squeezes his hand. ‘And you won’t stay, will you? I thought you might, but you won’t.’
‘I don’t know what Cas has to say. Maybe it’ll be nothing.’
Lisa laughs shakily. ‘It’s a message from God, Dean. It won’t be nothing.’
He holds her, and she holds him. ‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’ll be okay.’
‘When you want to come back,’ she replies into his shoulder, ‘it won’t be too late. Despite everything.’
Both of them think of an echo of this conversation, eight months earlier, and keep holding on.