Chapter Text
CHAPTER ONE OR THE STORY OF HOW DEAN FOUGHT A NAIL AND SURVIVED
Dean had died before, more times than a person should. Well, dying more than once was more than a person should die, let alone however many times he had died (he had tried counting, but Sam never told him all of the ways he had died on that one never ending Tuesday). Maybe his experience with death was why he’d known from the moment the demon pushed him against the wall and he felt sharp pain in his back, that he was going to die.
That felt like a slap in the face. A decade ago he would have understood that kind of an ending, would have expected it because who was he not to die in some run-down barn, fighting just one of the monsters he was born to kill. But now, after everything him and Sam have gone through, he thought that, well, that he had a chance at something more than hunting. He had been foolish enough to think that maybe he could retire and maybe, maybe, live until he’s old and senile.
His knees started to buckle from pain, but whatever was lodged into his back was keeping him upright. The feeling of blood down his back wasn’t unfamiliar but it terrified him all the same. It angered him too. Because that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This was supposed to be his last hunt, but not like this. These were demons, things he had fought and killed hundreds of times before. Would he really die because of them? After killing Death, Lucifer and God? Did he survive all of that, plus the Mark and Michael, just to die like this?
Sam was walking over to him, smiling because it was over and they got to go home and Dean hated himself for having to leave Sam alone. Dean had plans of calling Eileen up, telling her to come visit them at the bunker and then leaving the two love birds alone while he took Miracle out for a long, long walk because he knew that Sam wouldn’t do that. He most surely won’t call her up now if Dean died.
Those plans made him think of his own life. They made him think of Cas.
What a fool he had been, just staring at him that night, not saying anything back. But what was he supposed to say? No, the question wasn’t what, rather how he was supposed to say anything at all because Cas was telling him all those things that he never even knew he wanted to hear before he was hearing it and he was realizing things about himself, things that he had known were true for so long but that he had buried so deep that he had almost made himself believe weren’t true.
Cas had always been braver than him. Dean let his head hit the wall behind him. Sam was talking and he was answering but what, he didn’t know. It was as if he was put on autopilot and he found himself comforting Sam but the words felt hollow and meaningless.
Dean had a fucking plan. Get this demon business done with and then get Castiel back. He didn’t really plan on what he would do after he got Cas back. Would he find the courage to tell him he loved him back? No, probably not, but he would do it anyway because Castiel had deserved at least that. After everything Dean had done to him he deserved to know that he was loved back, that there was something better than just saying it.
He still couldn’t believe that Castiel had loved him despite everything he had ever done and said to him. Every fight, every word laced with intentional malice filled Dean’s mind. He just wanted to say he was sorry. Say he was sorry for every pain he had caused him, say that he knew he was a douchebag a lot of the time, but that he was going to change, be better for him and this time he would mean it. Castiel deserved the fucking world and he most surely didn’t deserve getting stuck in the Empty thinking saying it was enough to be happy. Dean hated himself the most because of that, because he knew he was the reason Castiel had thought that. What reason did Cas had to think that Dean had loved him? After all, Dean just knew how to screw things up, hurt people around him and then say sorry only to do it all over again. It hurt to think that Cas thought saying it was enough, that he would never be able to have it, all because he never knew how to deal with his emotions properly.
He had it. He had Dean. He would always fucking have him.
Dean was going to die and he was going to end up in Heaven, Hell, did it even matter. Castiel wasn’t going to be there. Castiel would be in a place he would never get to reach now. He knew Jack had been redoing Heaven and he probably wouldn’t end up in a memory this time around if he got there, but that didn’t matter. Even if he had ended up in a memory with Cas it would have felt wrong. There was no memory with Cas where he knew how Dean had felt, no memory with Cas that hadn’t been tainted with secrets and pain.
He was never good at telling what he wanted but he wanted to plead the universe to give him the real deal, to give him a lifetime with Castiel by his side.
“You’re going to be fine.” Sam’s voice filtered through the haze of the pain. There were hands holding him up now, Dean noted, and he slumped forward into Sam’s hold.
Dean was going to die. Sam was going to be alone, Castiel would be stuck in the Empty and Jack, the kid who Dean had failed in so many ways, was going to be stuck in Heaven doing the job Dean knew he didn’t like, a job Cas never wanted for his son.
“I’m proud of us.” He said at last, Sam shaking his head.
It was wrong. Everything was wrong. This wasn’t supposed to be how his story ended. For the first time in his life Dean wanted to live. There was so much he wanted and needed to do.
“We’re Winchesters. We survived worse.” Sam was saying and Dean nodded and it was as if that was all that he needed to hear to finally make sense of his situation. He was Dean fucking Winchester and god help the poor fool who thought a fucking nail or whatever it was on the wall was going to be his end. No, he wasn’t going to die because he had plans, plans that couldn’t be cancelled.
Dean Winchester wasn’t going to die.
He should, but he wouldn’t. Sam always called him stubborn, Death itself was angry at him for not dying permanently. Who was he to break the pattern? So, Dean prayed. Not to Castiel like he had been doing since the night he died, just in case Cas could hear him, but to Jack.
Maybe it was a futile attempt, Jack was busy with the whole universe, but maybe it would work. As if on cue, the air in the barn changed and Dean was hit with a memory from a decade earlier, the first time he had laid eyes on Castiel’s human form. How funny it was to think how much their relationship had changed over the course of a decade.
“Dean,” Jack called out worriedly “What happened?”
“Demons.” Dean gritted out.
“Can you heal him?” Sam asked, looking at Jack.
“Of course.” And just like that, with a Nephilim hand on his forehead, Dean was reborn. The angelic grace flowed through his body, healing every painful muscle, the ache in his left wrist from a nasty fall from a month ago, the cut on his face from his morning shave and finally the wound on his back.
Dean breathed in a handful of air, feeling better than he had in a long time. “Oh my god.” He whispered and dropped to his knees, breathing heavily. Sam followed him, kneeling beside him and Dean hugged him tightly. He was going to live. Jack stood awkwardly by their side and Dean, the one who was going to be better, do better, outstretched his hand. “Come on, kid. Family hug.” He didn’t need to tell Jack twice.