Chapter Text
“It’s almost perfect.”
Dean turns the bottle of El Sol in his hands, overwhelmed by a wave of melancholy that he squashes down. Instead of dwelling on that, he studies the sprinkle of darkened patches the dripping condensation is leaving on the weathered wood of the Roadhouse’s front porch. He lifts the bottle again. Yep, just as craptastic as the first mouthful. Bobby quirks an eyebrow, watching him.
“He’ll be along. Time up here, it’s different.” Bobby knows him too well. He moves on, not letting either of them linger. “You got everything you could ever want... or need, or... dream.” They both look out over the landscape. Dean’s eyes follow the highway to the horizon. “So, I guess the question is... what are you gonna do now, Dean?”
Dean’s gaze trails back down the blacktop, to where Baby waits in the dusty lot outside Harvelle’s. She wasn’t there before, but she’s not a surprise. It’s like a puzzle piece slotting into place. A satisfying click of rightness. The sun catches her just right, picking up her sleek lines and making her chrome shine like an angel blade. He swallows down the surge in his throat and looks away.
“Think I’ll go for a drive.” He puts the half-empty bottle down next to the monkey statue that used to sit behind the bar before it burned down, and pushes to his feet. Bobby makes an agreeable grunt behind him, but he only has eyes for her. “Hey, Baby.” He runs a hand over her doorframe and grins. She’s warm under his hands from the sun. Solid. Real in a way he didn’t fully expect and his chest expands with lightness, as if a lifetime of weight crumbles and floats away as he leaves the Roadhouse behind. Open road in front. Baby’s engine roaring under him.
It feels like a do-over. A second chance. After everything—so much responsibility and struggle, even right up to the end—it’s this. Baby, original plates and all, that cements it. He’s done. Free.
‘The Heaven you need,’ Bobby had said, and goddamn does he need it. He deserves this, he thinks. The vinyl of the seat creaks as he wiggles his ass in deeper. Wind whips past the open window and he lets his fingers ride its current, up and down like a bird. The scent of pine is rich, the air clean and clear as a mountain pass.
‘Cas helped,’ Bobby said too. A smile cracks Dean’s face wide open.
“You got your ears on, Cas?” he prays. “The eagle has landed.” He looks over at the passenger seat, eyebrows already raised ready to say hi, but it stays empty. A tightness he didn’t expect rises in his chest. He’ll be along. Dude’s probably busy. Helping. Sounds like him. Dean gives a curt nod and pushes away the tightness and gives a deep, long sigh. Deep green forest rolls past, distant rocky peaks washed in purple rising above the trees.
The air turns crisp, cold threads of it tickling under his collar. He could do with a jacket.
Something catches the corner of his eye on the passenger seat and one side of his mouth ticks up. He lays his hand on his Dad’s jacket, feeling the leather under his fingers. It’s a bit awkward to put it on while driving, but it’s perfect. It fits better around his shoulders than it ever did on Earth. God, he missed the smell of it. That warm, worn, leather scent. It takes him back to being 26 and cruising down some midwest highway, Sammy by his side. The wild freedom in it. The clarity of purpose.
As pretty as Baby’s rumble is, he needs something more. The box of tapes is on the floor exactly where it should be, and Dean stretches his arm down to dig around, pulls a tape out blind. The only other thing that would make this moment perfect is… “Yes!” he hisses as the opening strains of Ramble On pump through the speakers. He didn’t even have to fast forward the first two tracks. Awesome as they are, they aren’t really what he wants at the moment.
He’s in fucking Heaven. A proper Heaven. His ribs lift. His lungs fill. He lets it all go in one slow, long sigh.
“You did good, kid,” he prays to Jack, voice rough.
At some point along the road he stops being surprised when the songs change without him swapping out the tape. He knows it’s not a mixtape, he popped it out to check, but one after the other his favorites fill the cabin space and he drives and he sings and he feels them in his chest and his soul.
He’s soaking up the warmth of the sunshine coming through the window when melancholy piano chords begin to play and an eyebrow shoots up as Christina Aguilera begins to sing. And sure, she’s got a bangin’ voice, but Beautiful is not exactly on his top 100 list. It’s not as if he’d seek it out, but when it came on the radio he didn’t always switch the station if he was driving alone. Maybe he’d rolled his eyes when Claire cranked it up in her room when he’d crash at Jodie’s. Maybe he’d turn it up to piss Sam off a time or two, but mostly he’d turned it down or changed stations to avoid any snide comments. It’s… okay. The fact he knows all the words means nothing.
He scowls at the tape deck. If this is Heaven, he should be able to manipulate stuff, right? He should be able to have things exactly the way he wants them, and Dean Winchester likes classic rock. So he gnaws on his lip and thinks hard about what song he really wants right now. Course correcting. Something hard. Driving. Heavy on the distortion. Christina’s voice sputters, blending jarringly into Brian Johnson’s and Dean turns the volume up and smacks the steering wheel with a grin as Thunderstruck reverberates through the speakers.
Dean sighs and relaxes back against the seat. All is right again.
*
Aside from a handful of hiccups, the heavenly playlist for the rest of Dean’s drive is flawless. Just as he’s feeling ready for a break from driving, he flies around a sweeping—and honestly frigging exhilarating—bend to find a log cabin at what is suddenly the end of the road, precisely far enough from the curve to come to a comfortable stop. Asphalt turns to gravel that makes a satisfying crunch under Baby’s tires, and he kills the engine and listens to the ticking as it cools in the sudden quiet.
No more wind whipping past his open window or roar of gunning it down a highway with the stereo cranked. Just quiet. One by one he registers other sounds. The rustling of leaves in a gentle breeze. A distant cawing of crows and, closer, some kind of songbird trilling once, twice, before falling silent. The creak of the car door as it opens and shuts seems inordinately loud.
The scent of pine is gone, replaced with what he can only describe as a green, mossy smell. It smells like peace. Like growing things and balance. He looks around, noting the changes between here and the highway. The evergreen forest is gone, replaced with oaks and swaying grasses, and the rugged mountains are much closer, jutting up over the peak of the cabin’s roof. It’s beautiful, and the sense of home is so deep and thick and warm, there’s no doubt at all that this is meant for him.
The jangling ring of an old landline phone breaks the ambience, and Dean jogs up the creaking steps and through the unlocked front door to answer it. It takes a moment to find, mounted next to a door that must lead out the back going by the view from the window over the kitchen sink. He lifts the buttery-yellow handset to answer and Jack’s voice brings a sting to his eyes, quickly suppressed.
“Dean! I didn’t think you’d be here so soon, but I wanted to say hi and welcome you to Heaven. I wanted to come myself, but there’s so much to do and Mary likes to use this kind of phone in her kitchen so I thought you might like it too. It’s pretty neat, don’t you think?”
Mom. He feels a flutter in his chest. Dean smiles faintly at Jack’s enthusiasm and winds his finger into the coils of the cord running from the handset to the body of the phone and watches it spring back when he pulls it out. “It’s good to hear your voice, kid.”
When they’d last spoken he’d seemed too somber. Too serious, like godhood was weighing him down. Making him grow up too fast. Again.
“I think I can come and see you in person soon,” Jack says, then pauses. “If you’d like that?” he asks, the voice of the most powerful entity in the universe getting a little small.
“I’d love that,” Dean’s quick to say. “When you’re ready,” he adds after a beat. Maybe Jack’s not too busy to come in person at all. Maybe he’s scared. Dean’s fucked up with the kid enough, he’s not going to rush him into anything. They’ve got eternity to figure out their shit, after all.
“Oh,” and Dean can hear the smile in Jack’s voice. “I will see you soon then. But I made time work different here. It’s hard to say exactly when.”
“I’m lookin’ forward to it.”
“Ready when you are,” Jack says cheerfully and the line disconnects.
Dean frowns at the handset, mildly confused, before replacing it on the cradle, and turns to take in the rest of the cabin. It’s rustic. Pretty basic. From what he can see standing at the kitchen counter, there’s one big space with the kitchen and living room, and two other doors that must be a bedroom and a bathroom. There’s little in the way of decor. A set of antlers are mounted above the stone fireplace and there’s two sets of curtains at each window, one light and gauzy and the other heavy. They’re both drawn back, showing the view. The furniture is basic, a plain square table and chairs in the kitchen and a bookshelf or two. The only exception is a cushy leather armchair with a matching footstool in the perfect spot by the fireplace but still close enough to the window to look out at the… what is that? He takes a few steps forward.
A lake. There’s a freaking lake with a jetty in his backyard. Holy shit. Dean’s face splits in a wide smile.
It is definitely time to explore.
Most of the cabin is exactly as he expects, rugged and simple with the basic comforts. There’s a TV and a second fireplace in the bedroom sharing a chimney with the one in the living room, a bathroom with excellent water pressure, and a shooting range on the east side of the cabin. Food in the fridge. And the freaking lake. Earlier he’d found a small boat bobbing in the water at the end of the jetty and he’s already making plans to take it out for a spin in the morning.
It’s not visible from the kitchen window where he’s rinsing away the last of the suds down the sink after washing the dinner dishes. The sun is setting after what feels like a week-long day since he arrived, though he’s not tired. The colors streak across the sky and he looks out the window to the north across the lake, at the mountains and their mirror image, washed in gold from the sunset.
He dries his hands, grabs a beer from the fridge, walks out the kitchen door to the narrow porch, and sits on the top step, soaking in the quiet and the frankly amazing view. He can’t hear the lapping of the lake from here, but he can hear the faint hooting call of some kind of bird echoing across the water. It’s a little too quiet. He considers getting up to put some music on.
A soft tinkle catches his ear, and he looks up to the corner of the porch where a wind chime hangs, moving gently in the light breeze that’s just picked up. It’s pretty girly, but the sound is light enough, unobtrusive, so he decides to leave it. Maybe he’ll take it down if he has visitors. He’s feeling too relaxed to bother right now.
Thinking of visitors brings him up short. He’d figured the first thing he’d do when he got to Heaven was seek out the people he’d lost—the ones he missed so bad he couldn’t even think about them without falling into a spiral of anger and grief. He hasn’t even thought about them, though, aside from when he first arrived. He waits for the stinging grind of guilt to hit, but he finds he’s okay with that. He’s got time. He huffs a laugh to himself.
If he’s honest—which he may as well be, being dead and all—it’s the first time he’s been on his own and been, if not happy, then content. He’s content. He should talk to his Mom. Hunt down Charlie. But he doesn’t want to. Maybe it’s Heaven doing its weird mojo thing, but he’s good. His shoulders loosen a fraction of an inch, a spilling of tension he didn’t notice he was carrying until it melted away. The chimes tinkle prettily, and the light fades, and his beer stays perfectly chilled right down to the last drop.
The railing he’s leaning against is a little rough and catches at his shirt when he shifts to get up. Huh. He frowns. Well, guess not everything’s perfect. A small shed that wasn’t there a moment ago sits a few yards away from the back corner of the house and he decides to have a look to see if there’s anything he can use to smooth out the splintered edges of the railings. Tomorrow. After he’s taken the boat out.
Once night has truly fallen and he’s had his fill of the spectacular night sky he finds himself yawning. Bed sounds good, so he heads inside, leaving his empty beer bottle in the sink on the way through the kitchen. He brushes his teeth, although he’s pretty sure cavities are not a thing in Heaven, takes a shower, and heads to the bedroom with a towel wrapped around his waist to find something to sleep in. He dumps the towel on the bed and rummages in the dresser, pulling on a favorite worn t-shirt he lost to a one night stand over a decade ago, and a pair of clean boxers. He turns back to grab the towel off the bed, only to find the dark blue quilt has turned into a light purplish fuzzy blanket.
“What the hell?” he grumbles, though he can’t resist running his hand over the soft abomination. It looks like it belongs in a teenage girl’s room strewn with stuffed animals. He’s too tired to muster the mental effort to force it back, so he yanks it off, balls it up, and tosses it into the corner of the room, then pulls out another blanket from the box at the end of his bed. There. Now it looks like a man’s bed again.
He slides between the sheets and only lasts long enough to enjoy the perfection of the mattress before he drifts into sleep.