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The chair’s still where he left it. It’s by Cas’ head, as if some invisible creature’s been watching over him.
But it was only Dean.
And only Dean’s going to keep vigil tonight.
He means to. He really does. He sits in that chair but he’s too afraid to lift the sheet off Cas’ face. He sits there and he wonders what he’s waiting for, why he has to keep vigil at all, because there’s only Sam and there’s only himself. One of them is going to have to get Cas’ body ready for the funeral.
But it’s not going to be his little brother.
They don’t leave until the pyre’s good and black.
They don’t leave until it burns out.
The sun’s long set.
It doesn’t fucking matter, does it? Whether the days pass or they don't. Whether Dean drinks or he dies. But it matters to Sam. It matters, so Sam takes away his whiskey, and Leave me the hell alone, Dean tells him, except Sam wont. Sam just won’t.
I miss him, too, Sam says, voice thick. I’m not leaving you. If I do, I’m afraid you’ll go.
The kid’s a fucking idiot. That’s what Dean learns.
He doesn’t know self-control. He eats cereal and he eats the whole goddamn box. He tastes sugar and then he’s scuffling back and forth in the night, high on his new drug. He tries peanut butter and jelly and then he has the nerve to ask Dean why he looks so upset.
Shut up, Dean tells him. Go eat some more fucking cereal.
That kid—he looks like his goddamn father.
It’s…not what Dean wants.
If Dean had his way, it would never be like this.
But he finds himself teaching the kid the goddamn ropes. He finds himself teaching Cas’ kid how to load a gun, how to aim rock salt at spectres and the things that go bump in the night. He finds himself there for him, that stupid fucking idiot, because damn it—boy, does that kid mope.
And maybe it’s because Dean’s not the only one missing Cas.
It happens maybe once in a while. Or maybe it happens more than that. He’ll be up and then there’ll be screaming. He’ll be lying in bed on his side and then Jack’s nightmares will echo throughout the whole goddamn bunker, reverberating deep into Dean’s own disquieting dreams.
It used to be Sam who went.
It used to be Sam holding the kid and whispering comforting things in his ear.
During the day, it’s still Sam. The kid’s imprinted on him like a little duck.
But now whenever Jack’s in trouble, he’s gotten used to looking for Dean. He’s gotten used to asking for Dean’s help. In the middle of the night, it’s always Dean who finds himself getting to his feet, when Jack’s dreaming about Dagon burning and the death of his parents.
“Hey,” Dean’ll say, shaking his shoulder, soft and gentle. “Wake up.”
I’m here.
“Are you—” Jack says. “Did you…”
It’s odd. It’s weirder than the kid. Sam glances at Dean. The kid’s so oblivious most of the time that he never has trouble chatting, always embarrassing himself without being prompted. That usually gives Dean a chuckle but, “Eat your goddamn vegetables,” Dean says today. He’s not in the mood.
And it’s good for a while. It’s good and they have dinner, freshly made spaghetti because Jack likes to play with the noodles, spinning and twisting them around on his fork with fascination, except that the kid’s so weirdly silent now that it gets on Dean’s nerves and, “What,” Dean snaps. “Spit it out.”
You messed with the dish soap again, didn’t you? I told you—they're no good for making bubbles.
But it’s not that.
Instead, Jack furrows his eyebrows and squints at him.
“Did you marry my father?” Jack says.
And then there’s Sam, right on cue, choking on his salad. There’s Jack, squirming a little but nowhere near shameful enough, as if what he’s asking is completely normal, nothing conjured out of dust but Dean knows. Dean knows that he can’t be as fucking angry at Jack as he wants to, because for god’s sake, the kid watches Care Bears before bed and that’s where he gets his lessons on humanity from when he’s not busy learning from the brothers.
Yet Dean can’t help it.
Dean’s heartbroken and, “Why the fuck would you ask that?” he says.
And it’s not Care Bears again. It’s Rugrats and Jack looks at him earnestly, tells him how the movie that he just watched showed him the human concept of marriage. That if a parent marries another person, then that person becomes a parent, too. Jack’s so damn desperate for a dad that he turns to Dean and his next question guts Dean like no other.
“Are you my new father?” Jack asks and Dean leaves the table.
They squabble a lot. Sam and Dean. They squabble because every bad habit that Jack learns, they only have themselves to blame.
Another night at a guest dinner at Donna's, the first friend that they've seen in a long time, Jack asks Donna to pass the "fucking macaroni," and Donna says, "Oh, boy."
Sam and Dean exchange guilty looks.
It was Dean, Sam tells her.
You can't say the word "fuck," Sam tells him. "It's really impolite, Jack."
Jack says, Fuck you.
They go on cases. They go on cases and they stop at Jody Mills’ place, and it’s the end of July and two months too late when Dean delivers the news to Claire.
She cries and she beats at his chest.
She cries and that night, Dean takes everything in sight and he destroys it.
You left me, Dean says. You left me behind, and he’s screaming at the heavens, screaming at Cas.
You stupid son of a bitch, you left me behind with two fucking kids!
And for a day, he doesn’t talk to Jack. For almost a day, he ignores him, but damn it, the kid’s got him wrapped around his finger.
I’m not your goddamn father, Dean wants to tell him.
But for Cas, he feels like he should be.
It’s hard enough. It’s hard enough lying in bed on his side, aching and aching, when there’s an empty space right beside him.
The stupid mixtape’s in the drawer.
So he shouldn’t. He can’t.
But he does.
The cassette starts up in the middle of a song:
…swore that you never would leave me, baby.
Whatever happened to you?
Getting Jack an ID is the last damn thing that Dean wants to do.
“And now, I can buy fucking alcohol?” Jack asks, and he sounds a little too delighted. He’s got a dopey smile on his face. The same one that he gets whenever Dean lets him grab some nougat from the gas station.
I like nougat, he always says. I like fucking tequila, Dean can already picture him saying.
So, “For us, you asshole,” Dean stresses. “Me and Sam. You stick to the colas.”
The kid doesn’t do anything to hide his pout. Under his breath, he mutters Fuck. He mumbles Butthole and Dean tries not to let it get to him—he butchers slang as bad as his old man. But eventually, Jack wanders over to where Sam is. Sam’s busy with an email. By tomorrow night, Jody’s hunter network will have the fake documents fresh off the press.
Jack Kline, Sam types and it’s so immediate. Jack turns to Dean, his eyes brimming with curiosity, like they always are, and without a thought, he asks, “What was my father’s last name?”
And of course Sam’s turning to Jack right away. Of course Sam's there, giving him a little frown that Jack pretends not to see, because it’s not like Dean hasn’t noticed what Sam’s been doing—yanking the boy into a corner, hissing at him, warning him in whispers not to ask Dean about Cas because, Can’t you see that he’s hurting?
“He didn’t have one,” Sam says sternly and he’s yanking at Jack’s shoulder again, trying to distract him while he pulls him away. “C’mon, Jack. After we finish this email, I’ll let you Google something.”
And for a split second, Jack takes the bait. He likes Googling. He likes asking the box and getting answers, because pop culture’s a mystery to him, just flies over his head even though he can decipher ancient Enochian texts in a heartbeat. Did you know, Jack had told Dean once, that Wikipedia says that when a man loses his spouse, he has a sixty-six percent increased chance of dying within the first three months?
But today, Jack’s not done. Today, his curiosity must be only something that Google can’t answer because he’s still looking at Dean with that eagerness in his eyes and, “If you had married my father, what would his last name have been?” he asks.
And Sam’s eyes widen with horror. Sam’s mouth goddamn drops open with the knowledge of how traumatic this question really is, and his hand on Jack’s shoulder’s an iron grip already in the process of reeling him in.
“I told you,” Sam’s hissing under his breath and Jack’s been pulled in and their backs are to Dean except for the fact that Dean can hear everything that they're saying. “No questions about marriage to Dean, okay? I know you want a dad but—you ask me next time, okay? Jack, oh my god, Jack, Dean wasn’t married to—”
Jack, how many times do I have to tell you? Sam says. You’re hurting him. You’re hurting Dean.
But then Sam goes silent. Then the whole room goes silent because Dean swallows and, “Winchester,” Dean says. “His name would’ve been Castiel Winchester.”
The next night, Jack’s fake driver’s license comes in.
Jack Winchester-Kline.
“Do you think we ought to send him to school, Dean?” Sam asks, when they’re waiting outside in the parking lot. The kid’s gone to fetch them smoothies. He’s good at fetching stuff—teaching him how to take the bus to the liquor store is the damn gift that keeps on giving. But he’s still trying to figure out the concept of money. Looting every vending machine in town is more his forte.
Dean snorts. “He’s in his twenties, Sam.”
But Sam grimaces. “He turned one hundred days old today, Dean. He’s a baby in a man’s body. He thought that the clown sculpture in the drive-thru was his father the first day, remember?” Sam’s voice goes hysterical. “Sometimes he still has problems with object permanence.”
But Dean’s not listening anymore. Dean’s feet are shaky all of a sudden and then he’s so, so cold.
One hundred days.
It’s loud, is what it is. It’s a split second of unbelievable noise, a split second where the Impala hits the pole and time slows down and Dean sees his Baby shredding, sees the way that pieces of Baby’s body embed deep into his guts.
Then he’s unconscious.
An angel must be watching over him.
It’s the only explanation that the paramedics will have when they’ll reach the site of the crash, so far from any help, and see that he’s still hanging on to life. Drunk driver. They’ll shake their heads. But they’ll be thankful that it was in the middle of nowhere that he lost control of his vehicle. At least he couldn’t have hurt anyone else.
But when he’s dying on the operating table, he’ll become a legend.
He’ll become a legend because when a nurse will enter the room, the rest of the medical personnel will be all unconscious on the floor and Dean Winchester will be missing.
There’s no alcohol in the bunker. There are no knives, no guns, half of the Men of Letter’s inventory vanished into thin air. The bunker’s spotless in the same way that Dean’s body is now, healed by Jack’s own shaky powers.
You won’t find anything, Sam tells him and his lips are quivering. I know what you tried to do.
It’s maybe a mistake, buying that coat. He sees it in a shop where the prices are thousands above their spending budget, but when he tries it on, he feels as if Cas’ arms are enveloping him.
Sam doesn’t say anything. They’re on a case, the first time since the accident, only two weeks later and probably too early to let Dean touch a gun again, even if it’s under Sam’s watchful eye. But a monster’s been terrorizing the city of Seattle, and the death toll’s getting so high that the whole damn hunter network’s on it.
When he wears it for the first time, Jack stares at him.
Jack’s eyebrows furrow, and his mind works furiously—Dean can see the goddamn gears turning all the way from here—and even if he was only an unborn baby then, Jack knows what that coat means.
When Dean’s phone goes missing, the mystery’s solved when they reach the motel room and Jack’s eyes are fixated on the screen.
It’s Sam who tears the phone out of Jack’s hands.
“What were you doing?” Sam says and he’s the angriest that maybe Dean’s seen him in years. “You don’t go snooping into other people’s belongings, okay?”
And Sam passes the phone back to Dean, continues delivering his lecture while Dean’s heart hammers in his chest because the page is open to his old text messages:
CAS: I mentioned that you gave me a mixtape to Claire.
CAS: She sent me many emoticons of a man laughing with tears in his eyes.
CAS: So I used Google, Dean.
CAS: I asked what giving someone a mixtape means.
Dean’s not a masochist. He’s not. But maybe he needs to rethink that because he’s dialling Cas’ old number.
Sam and Jack are asleep. It’s only Dean who’s awake, only Dean who’s still sitting up in bed, phone pressed to his ear and This is my voice mail, Cas tells him. Make your voice…a mail.
Cas’ voice plays three times before Dean can make his lips move. Cas’ voice is so damn familiar that Dean’s heaving before finally, voice cracking, I miss you, Dean says.
The rest of the night, he doesn’t sleep.
They catch the Seattle monster.
Thirty-two hunters in the city but only the Winchesters succeed.
They’re on the road, an hour into their journey home, when Dean abruptly turns the car around and heads back.
“Did you forget something in the motel?” Sam asks him but it’s not that.
It’s September. It’s the goddamn fact that September’s here and it’s the anniversary of the day that Cas and he first met.
So, I need to see him, Dean says. Sammy, I need to see him today.
Untouched.
The pyre’s as black as the day that they left it. Cas and Kelly’s ashes undisturbed, as if no match for the wind and the rain that would dare turn it into mud.
It’s dark. The sun set hours ago and if they’re not gone soon, it’ll be pointlessly rising again.
He knows that it’s not really privacy. He knows that Sam can’t give him that anymore, not after the day that the Impala died. So Sam’ll be watching from the window, maybe Jack, too, because now that they’ve paid their respects, it’s Dean’s turn and he has to have the semblance of the word alone.
So he goes there.
He goes to the pyre and with a shaking hand, presses his fingers to the burnt wood, to the ash.
Hey, he says. Long time no see.
When it starts feeling too warm, he undoes the buttons on the trench coat that he’s wearing. But a moment later, he’s gripping the pyre just to keep steady.
It’s his own tears that finally turn Cas’ ashes to mud.
It’s the sun rising. It’s what he thinks as he’s walking back to the cabin, where Jack and Sam will pretend that his eyes aren’t swollen red, where they’ll pretend that they didn’t see him cry as hard as he did. But the great light that comes from behind him isn’t that. The fire that ignites from the heart of the pyre isn’t the goddamn sun.
It’s Cas.
He turns around. He turns around with his heart ready to burst through his chest as he sees the fire grow and grow, as he hears the thud of feet as Sam and Jack come sprinting towards him. It’s with awe that they watch. It’s with shivers that they feel the resurrection of something mighty, of something with terrifying power, but Dean knows it already—it’s not a beast that’s going to emerge from that fire—it’s only going to be his angel.
And it happens. It happens as the fire burns brighter and brighter. It happens as an explosion hits that pyre, fire suddenly billowing outwards, travelling across the earth, sweeping past their feet with a heat that just doesn’t burn, even if it should.
It happens, and then out of that pyre, as the wood that’s stood tall for months collapses, from its very centre, Castiel rises, steps out stronger and just as goddamn beautiful as the day that he left.
Dean takes a shuddering breath.
Cas looks at him from across the sand, and as soon as he sees Dean, he’s shaking, too.
Cas takes a few wobbly steps towards him.
And then Dean’s running. Dean’s running towards Cas and then he’s got his arms around him, and Cas’ hands reach around him, and they’re as tight as they can be, and Dean only lets go to clasp Cas’ face in his hands, and damn it, Dean just can’t stop touching him. He just can't.
They pull apart.
They pull apart but their eyes don’t. Their eyes are fixated on each other and nothing—nothing could make Dean tear his gaze away.
Cas’ lips quiver. “Hel—he—” he says, but try as he might, Cas can’t speak. His voice is raspy, stuttering from disuse.
Where were you? Dean wants to ask. I missed you, Dean wants to say. But he doesn’t do that. Instead, he says, It’s okay. Instead, he says, Take your time, Cas, and he pulls off the trench coat that he’s been wearing, the trench coat that’s been the only damn thing that’s kept his sadness at bay. He pulls it off and he wraps it around Cas’ naked shivering body, covers him up and pulls him back into his arms again, presses his cheek to Cas' ear, and he doesn't think—he doesn't think that he'll ever be able to keep his hands off of him, that he'll ever be able to let him go.
"Gonna keep you safe," Dean mumbles and he's saying all sorts of things, making a million promises but then, “I love you,” Dean says hoarsely and he can’t stop himself from repeating it—not when it's been trapped in his throat for so long. Not when he should've been saying it for years but didn't.
Not after this, when he thought that he never could even if he wanted to.
So, I love you, he says. I love you, and he presses a kiss to Cas' temple. I love you, he says, and he sobs it into the crook of Cas' neck.
And maybe that’s enough.
Draped in a familiar trench coat, tight in Dean’s arms, Cas’ lips finally steady and he stops shaking. He stops shaking and he brings his own arms up around Dean, whispers into Dean’s ear what he’s been trying to say all along.
“H-hello,” Cas says with a kiss to Dean's neck. Hello, Dean, just as the sun below the horizon starts to rise again.