Chapter Text
I survived so much, yet I forgot to live.
Time in Heaven, Dean was finding, was not constant. At times a minute in Heaven could have been a decade on Earth. Other times a year on Earth could be an eon in Heaven. On Earth time stayed constant, it moved at one speed all the time, never ending, never slowing, never taking a breath. In some ways, time on Earth was a lot like Dean. But, time in Heaven was fluid, it moved however it saw fit, if something needed to happen quickly time would adjust, if something needed time to stir it would slow. In many ways, this is what Dean was trying to be.
He wished he had the personality needed to take a beat and relax, to slow down and look at a sunset or admire a garden. Near the end of his relatively short life, he only scratched the surface of this. For the first time, he saw what he was fighting so hard for—truly saw it. For the first time, he lived how he saw fit, and for a moment he let out a breath he’d held in his entire life. Maybe this newfound peace, or whatever a feeling so inseparable from peace with an undertone of bitterness, made him reckless. Distracted. Maybe he got too comfortable and made a mistake.
Dean never thought he would go out like that—a stupid rusty piece of rebar in the back—never make such a blind, easy, error. But, he did. Near the end, he could swear he heard his father’s voice echoing throughout his head as the blood trickled down his spine and his heart clenched with its final beats.
Damn stupid, the voice mocked, you oughta go out better than that… with pride… like a real hunter, not whatever shell you became. I expected better from you, son—
The pain of death in many ways is the same every single time, a pain so extreme that after a moment he could hardly feel it. Life was left as nothing but a red hot rod being shoved between his ribs, burning his skin off and charing it, before the rod simply melted and became a part of him. The pain fused with his soul.
“Dean... it's okay.” Sam choked out through tears holding his brother's hand tight against his heart, cutting off the voice and the pain. “You can go now.”
The world blurred around Dean’s eyes; Sam—his baby brother, his poor sweet baby brother—the only thing clear in the hazy barn. “Goodbye, Sam. Goodbye.”
The man didn’t know whether he was going. To Heaven? Or Hell? Or some weird place in between? He didn't think he deserved any of them. In Hell he was tortured until he became the one wielding the knife, someone he couldn’t help but hate. And Heaven… Well… Heaven’s fucked in its own right. But, Chuck wasn’t in charge anymore, Jack was. If Dean had to place his faith in anyone—to be God, to fix Heaven, to not end the world again—it might not be Jack, but, hell, there were certainly worse options. Did he have a trace of doubt? Of course. Was it enough to bring him a shred of peace? Yes, it was more than enough. (Plus, he had a promise to keep, a sacrifice to make worthwhile, he refused to let that be for nothing.)
So, when he felt his soul rising towards something warm, not burning down to damnation, it felt like he finally sat down and watched his first sunset, the stress rolling off his shoulders, the breeze leaving kisses on his neck, the world finally spinning the right way around.
Most times peace should be found before death, sometimes, however, it is the sole comforter at the end. Don’t run towards death, live your life as long as you can, as beautifully as you can, as truly as you can. Then, when it is your time and death comes to hold you in its gentle embrace do not panic. Simply remember the life you have led and remember you did the best you know how to.
Sadly, though, when you are God’s favorite action figure, those rules don’t apply.
This brings me back to time in Heaven. When he first strode through those heavenly gates and talked to Bobby time melted away slowly, that first sip of beer rushing down his throat like syrup, every word becoming a paragraph. But, the second he got in his car it went by like a flash of lightning, decades flying by in the length of a song. Within an hour, he had his brother back, and finally, he could find peace. He told Bobby that was the last thing that would make Heaven perfect…
…in theory.
Life for the Winchesters never was that simple.
Sam didn’t stick around for nearly as long as Dean wished he would. Then again, if it was up to Dean, Sam would never leave his side like a tapeworm. But that wasn’t 'healthy'—or at least, according to Sam, it wasn’t. Apparently, the youngest Winchester brother found some kind of ‘hunter therapist’ (which sounded like a scam to Dean, but he chose not to press the issue too much) that helped him for those decades without his brother.
“It’s great,” Sam had said in the passenger seat, “I’ve read tons of books on therapy and working through trauma and rebuilding emotional strength and endurance but this… having someone, someone impartial, to talk through it all to is just… it makes it all feel better. Not comply fine or good but… better.”
Sam had met with the therapist over Zoom once a month for nearly twenty years, working through his anger towards his father, trauma of saving the world, soullessness, and even dying more than once. He sat down, talked through, and processed all the wins and losses over those years. They were his glory days and his deepest emotional scars. In the end, though, he wouldn’t change it for the world.
Sam had a son too, married Eileen, and held down a boring nine-to-five for a practical lifetime. He lived the life he always wanted the way he wanted to do it. Dean almost envied him for it; he envied his brother for finding peace before the end, for dying old, wrinkled, at peace, and with family.
Dean heard all of this as they drove around chatting away for hours passing rivers, forests, people, family, and friends. Heaven was beautiful without its walls, absolutely gorgeous. Dean swore he could drive along its finely carved roads for eternity, but, in the end, Sam asked him to pull over in front of a large white house with a porch swing, gravel driveway, and a woman in a long gray cardigan holding a coffee cup smiling on the steps.
“Eileen,” Sam muttered, the words practically slipping between his lips as if he just couldn’t help it.
The man jumped out of the car, slamming the door shut with a loud thump, and ran towards the woman grinning ear to ear. At first, he froze in front of her, his hands jittering, heart thumping, shocked. How long had Eileen been dead? Based on the look that took over Sam’s face it was easily forever. Within a blink of an eye, he wrapped up the woman by the waist spinning her around in the air laughing through the tears streaming down his cheeks, Eileen matching the look on his face—the happiness, the relief. Dean’s heart twinged at the sight, and in the end, he got the message. He shifted the Impala from park into drive and rolled away from the house.
Time slowed in that moment the flap of a bird's wing turning into slow motion…
“Dean, wait!” Sam yelled running down to the car, his hand gripping the open driver-side window forcing Dean to stop. “You… you can stay, we’ll put on some coffee and—and chat for a while. I haven’t even started about Dean—the other Dean I mean. My—my son.”
Ha, the voice whispered in Dean's head, I knew it. His life was better without you, honestly, how could you think it wasn’t, boy?
Dean clutched the steering wheel tighter making an active effort not to let his emotions spill onto his face. “That’s alright, Sammy. I’ll swing back ‘round in a few hours, give you and the missus some time to, uh, catch up .”
The Impala inched forward, Sam jumping over his feet to stay by the driver-side window. “Dean, you don’t have to be like this.”
“Be like what, Sam?” He slammed the brakes in fear of running over his brother. (Though it was Heaven, and they were both dead, so, what harm could really happen?)
“Be so lonely all the time! So… self-isolating because you think we’re all better off without you. Please I… I just got my big brother back.”
Dean looked his brother up and down, his baby brother having lived a full life without him, his gut turning inside out. “Goodbye Sammy. I’ll see you soon, I…” Dean swallowed the lump in his dry throat, “I promise.”
“Dean! Wait!”
But it was too late Dean already had slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, the back tires kicking up small pebbles and dirt as the roar of the engine came and went. This was just what Dean was like after all. He’d never changed and would never change, this is just who he was, and he was a fool in his final weeks of life for thinking otherwise.