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There is blood oozing from a wound in his back in the same way any remnant of life appears to be oozing from his very being. Maybe there is no happy ending after all. Or maybe this is just it. It barely matters anyway; they won, they saved, well, they everyone they could. It doesn’t really matter that he won’t be around to enjoy any of it, to appreciate everything. It’s not like he truly can anyway, not anymore, not after everything. It was fun for a while, eating pie and drinking beer without the overhanging shadow of yet another apocalypse, but still some part of him suspects that civilian life is a ship long sailed, a ship long passed, it hasn’t been a viable option for a long time, probably not in years, and definitely not since everything else happened recently. Like the straw breaking the camel’s back. He can’t continue.
It still hurts, exponentially more than the damn rusty nail currently impaling him through his back, through his lung, slowly filling it with his blood. It’s all too much, it wasn’t done, it wasn’t over, he never had another opportunity to say it back. It all happened too quick, too soon, and now it is his blood spilling on the floor, his life ebbing out. He needs Cas, probably now more than ever.
“I- I need you to tell me that it’s okay,” he needs to go, he can’t remain here, he can’t be left behind, not after everything, “you tell- tell me it’s okay.”
He is sorry for Sam, he really is, but it feels to late for him, but it’s not for Sam, it’s not too late for him. He can stay, it will be hard, but he can, Dean knows he can.
He is so sorry, but Sam’s chance also requires him to move on without Dean, he is sure of it. He can’t move on if they’re still together, if Dean is still here. They would be tied together, and you can’t move on like that, not when you’re tied to something like that, someone like that, that just isn’t. It would be impossible, Dean is sure.
“Dean,” his voice, it’s shaking now with his tears, maybe even more than Dean’s, “it’s okay.”
There is a subtle deciding nod from Sam, even through the tears, he has reached his conclusion, or maybe it is Dean’s conclusion really.
“You can go now,” his voice isn’t shaking any less than before, but it still bears the same weight nonetheless.
Dean lets his hand claps around Sam’s on his chest, a last brotherly act, it has to be. He would have stayed, if he could, he would have stayed for Sam, for his sake, but it’s too late, it’s far too late for him.
There is tears on his face, just as many as on Sam’s now, but it’s okay now, hopefully it’s okay. He feels the blood in his lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe, his hand finally slipping from Sam’s and his forehead coming to rest on his shoulder, mixing his tears with the grime on Sam’s jacket with one final stuttering exhale.
Everything turns dark for a moment, and then… Something new.
Green, there is so much green. And sun, the sun is shining with such golden light. It’s everything the darkness of that decrepit barn where he had his final moment on Earth wasn’t. It’s peaceful, it’s open, it’s what he never had in life, but always missed.
There is a warmth here, unlike anything on earth, but it still feels familiar somehow, like he’s meant to be here, but it’s more than that. There is someone here, someone so familiar; he knows that presence.
He has missed that presence.
“Cas?”
He is here. They’re here, both of them, together, Cas and him. In heaven. It feels like so much, but mostly it just feels right.
“Dean,” he looks like himself, like he always does, an angel in a trench coat, yet somehow he doesn’t seem quite as heavy anymore, there’s an ease to him now, “you’re here.”
All he can do is stare for a moment, he was dead, well they’re both dead, but alas; Castiel wasn’t supposed to be here, he was an angel, the one time angels weren’t expected in heaven were when they died, and yet here they both were.
Dean wasn’t even sure if he himself had really expected heaven to be his own end destination after leaving Earth. Sure, he had done lots of great things for lots of people, saved the world a couple of times too, but heaven? It wasn’t necessarily what he expected for himself. No matter how much good he had done through his life it still didn’t feel like it was enough, nog compared to all the bad, not on most days, and yet, here he was with none other than the angel he had presumed death and rotting in some empty hellscape, in Nothing.
But Dean wasn’t in hell, or anywhere else with much similarity for that matter, and Cas wasn’t in the empty. They were in heaven, surrounded by fields and trees, with nothing to lock them in, neither of them chained to some absurd literal God-given fate anymore. For once they were free and with that, free to be themselves.
There is a silence that stretch between them, marked by the said words as much as those left unsaid. Dean doesn’t quite know what to do with it, and by the look of him neither does Cas apparently.
“I’m here,” it’s merely a confirmation, Dean doesn’t know what he else to says, so he just nods to his own affirmative statement, “yeah, I’m here. And so are you?”
Cas looks thoughtful, “long story,” he says.
“I bet,” they’ve got all the time, but still, it might not be time for a long story right now, not yet.
Dean feels like he’s swaying on the spot, and Cas just looks at him with those concerned puppy-dog eyes, but there’s not the same heaviness as usual, not quite the same ethereal sorrow as when Dean last looked in those same eyes back on Earth, his whole being doesn’t seem to straining under the same unknown weight of before, that which might have held both of them back. There is something different now, a glimmer of something new, another change, they’re once again follow each other through the dimensions. It’s not Castiel rescuing Dean from hell now, it’s just Cas and Dean in heaven now, somehow. And everything has changed, because of that, and because of everything else. It has changed everything now.
“Cas..” it’s just at beginning, another new beginning, but perhaps a better one this time.
He just shakes his head, “you don’t have to say anything,” there’s an understanding there, along with a hidden disappointment that Dean sees through, it only makes the knot in Dean’s stomach tighten.
It’s so close to becoming nothing again, they’re so close to becoming nothing more again. It’s what will happen if they just remain quiet, like so many times before.
“I do. I do need to say something, I really do,” this is the chance, it could be the last one, it could always be the last one. Yet it haven’t been, not yet, not ever, but there’s always a chance, and missing one chance to many would quite exactly be irreversible.
“.. Dean,” the words seem to run out for a moment, but this time it's more of an olive branch, an extension of something indispensable, a reaching hand through both the darkness and the light; an opportunity.
There is a brief pause, or maybe it is a long one, it’s really impossible to tell under these circumstances, but it could have been forever or it could have been two seconds. Either way, it is somehow eternal, and Dean feels the weight of every choice that has led him here weighing on his shoulders, it feels like the weight of the whole world. He would know.
“I love you, Cas,” he exhales again now, it feels less final, but more important this time, it is as if the whole world lifts from his shoulders, as if the sky is no longer his burden to carry, it’s like freedom, his part is done, everything ahead can be his own choice, if he wants.
”I do love you, too.”