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Castiel wakes up to sunshine.
They accidentally left the curtains open last night, and the air conditioning unit beneath the window is fluttering the thin fabric open wider. The sun is a brilliant warmth peeking through. For a moment, Castiel just watches the gentle movement. It’s such a small, human detail. Like the way this room smells faintly of cigarettes, or the scratch of the worn sheets on his bare legs. It’s something he would’ve never noticed for most of his life. Not until he met Dean.
Castiel turns over to look at the man in question. He’s still deeply asleep. His face is tucked halfway into the pillow. His legs are tangled together with Cas’s. In sleep, his expression smooths into something without lines of worry or stress, and Castiel revels in the feeling of getting to look. He used to do this and feel violent, consuming guilt. Now, he just feels happy.
Dean always knows when Cas is looking at him, even while sleeping, so it doesn’t take long before he stirs. Cas delights in the way he burrows deeper underneath the covers, rubs the side of his face against the pillow like a cat.
“Mornin’,” he mutters, barely comprehensible. Castiel finds himself migrating closer, unable to resist the siren’s call of Dean’s warm, sleepy body.
“Good morning, Dean.” Cas noses in close, presses a kiss to the side of his jaw, right below his ear. Dean’s stubble scratches along his lips.
“S’early.”
“It’s not.” Castiel glances over his shoulder at the digital clock on the bedside table. “It’s almost 9:30.”
Dean cracks one eye open. “That’s early.”
“What’s going on?” Cas says, laughter in his voice. “Normally, you’re the one dragging me out of bed in the mornings.”
Dean stretches, and various joints in his body pop audibly. He groans. “Somebody wore me out pretty bad last night. I needed time to recover.”
Castiel slides a hand down Dean’s body to ‘cop a feel’, as Dean would put it. “Is that a complaint?”
“Hell no,” Dean says emphatically. He slings a leg over Cas’s hip and leans in.
They kiss for a long while. Time is strange in Heaven, so Castiel isn’t sure how much passes by. The sun doesn’t rise much higher in the sky, so the white sheets and flowered bedspread and their tired bodies remain lit in that golden early morning glow. Cas can feel it on his skin.
“So,” Dean says later. He’s sitting propped up in bed, watching as Castiel pokes at the coffee maker in their room. It’s a far nicer coffee maker than he ever saw in a motel on Earth; one of those small details that reminds him that they’re in Heaven. That this is paradise. “What’s the plan for the day?”
The coffee starts brewing. Castiel turns around to look at Dean while the nutty, rich smell fills the room.
“I don’t know,” he says. “What would you like to do?”
“I don’t know.” Dean grins. “Isn’t that great?”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t have any plans. We don’t need any plans,” Dean says. He looks so different than he did on Earth. Younger, maybe. There’s a serenity to him here, a lightness that Castiel has rarely seen in him before. “No one wants to kill us, there’s no one we want to kill, and we’ve got all the time in the world.”
“We do.”
The coffee brews quickly, so Castiel pours them each a cup and comes back to bed. They sit side-by-side against the headboard, and Cas lets his head drop to rest on Dean’s bare shoulder. Dean kisses his forehead. It’s an absent kind of gesture—one of want that grew into habit—and it, more than anything else, more than any perfect coffee or sunny bed, reassures Castiel that he’s in Heaven.
Dean flips the television on. An old Western is playing.
“Didn’t we watch this already?” Cas asks. He’s only half-paying attention, mostly focused on the way Dean’s shoulder shifts minutely as he takes a breath, but he recognizes the main actor.
“Probably,” Dean says. “It’s one of my favorites. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
“Ah,” Castiel replies, smiling into Dean’s skin. “This is the homoerotic one, isn’t it?”
Dean snorts. “They all kinda are. But yeah, I guess. I think they’re in a throuple, or whatever, with the girl.”
“Hm.”
Castiel tries to let his focus drift again, but something—something is catching at the edge of his mind. He has the sense that he’s forgetting something important.
“We watched this a few days ago,” Castiel says slowly. He’s not sure why this is pulling at him. “Right? Didn’t we?”
“Maybe,” Dean says absently. He seems engrossed by the film, almost child-like in his captivation, so Cas decides not to bother him anymore. They might have watched it before, but only because Dean loves it.
He nuzzles further into Dean’s neck, and it’s not long before he begins to doze again. It’s strange to sleep like this—as an angel, not for energy or memory processing, but because it’s pleasant. There are no bad dreams in Heaven. Only cool waves of sunlight and fresh air that wash away everything tangible. Castiel has grown to love it.
Later on, it’s time to go. They pack their things side-by-side: Dean into the same duffle bag he had when he died, Cas into a nice leather suitcase with rolling wheels. Both fit all of their things perfectly, no matter how much or how little there is. Dean is delighted by the magic of them, and always makes jokes about someone named Mary Poppins. Castiel just appreciates it because Dean does.
All packed up, Dean goes to start the car. Cas is supposed to be right behind him. But something stops him at the door. He looks behind himself at the window, where the curtains are still fluttering open like beckoning wings. He walks over to pull them shut.
Castiel touches the curtains, and outside the window, there’s—nothing. Castiel’s eyes and grace try to adjust, but there’s nothing to adjust to. No landscape, no sky, no color or shade. Just a void. Absence.
Frightened, he lets go of the curtain. And through the gap, he can see the desert again, like nothing ever happened. Shrubs and cacti. A clear blue sky, without a single cloud in sight.
Outside, the Impala’s horn wails. Dean is impatient even now, when they have no reason to be in a hurry, and that’s a comforting consistency. That’s something to hold onto. Castiel turns away from the window, and in the doorway, he takes one last look over his shoulder. The AC kicks off, and the curtains settle into stillness.
Castiel steps into the dry desert air and lets the door slam shut behind him. He doesn’t know what would cause the thing he just saw. He doesn’t know why that would happen in Heaven. His grace is thrashing, wings beating and wheels spinning. The most animal part of himself knows that something is wrong.
“Dude!” Dean sticks his head out of the front seat window. The sun catches in his hair, making it seem golden. “You getting in the car anytime soon? Or should I get comfortable?”
Castiel manages a smile. “I’m coming.”
When he gets in the car, Dean claps his shoulder. He’s got his beat-up box of tapes in his lap.
“What are we listening to today?” he asks. “I’m thinking something fun. Maybe one of my summer mixtapes?”
Castiel peers into the box. “Is there one we haven’t listened to yet?”
Dean pokes through the tapes sliding together and against the sides of the box. He plucks one from the box. “How about Summer 1999?”
Dean flips it over to read the back, the tracks labeled with blue ink. It’s a perfect replica of the one that must exist somewhere on Earth. Castiel thinks about where it must be. Wherever Baby is—which must be wherever Sam is. Cas hopes Sam thought to store these tapes somewhere safe.
“Oh, holy shit.” Dean laughs. “I’ve got some Shania Twain on here. That’s pretty damn funny.”
Castiel thinks. “I don’t know if I’ve ever heard any music by her.”
Dean looks over at Cas, and his eyes are sparkling with joy. Castiel is comforted by the sight; if Dean is this happy, there can’t be anything wrong. If Dean is this happy, Castiel should let go of this creeping unease and be happy, too.
“Shania Twain used to be one of my biggest guilty pleasures,” Dean says. He pops the tape in, and turns the volume dial higher. “Listen up, Cas. You’re about to be educated.”
Castiel is happy to be along for the ride. He leaves behind the things he’s been worried about—that sticking feeling of something not making sense—and listens to the music, lets the breeze ruffle his hair.
— — —
There’s a poetry, Castiel thinks, in Dean’s heaven manifesting as the open road. Dean’s home has always been Baby, and he lived so much of his life in motels. It makes sense that his paradise would be that. That he could find peace in that simple monotony.
Castiel doesn’t know how long they were apart. He just knows that until Dean came, he waited for him. Castiel stood by a payphone on the side of a deserted road, and time passed by in wave after wave. And then, in the distance, he saw the Impala rumbling down the road toward him. He waited for it to pull to a stop in front of him. He waited for Dean to get out of the car, for Dean to stare at him with those perfect green eyes.
“Hello, Dean,” Castiel said to him. And Dean had sobbed, and wrapped Castiel up in a hug so tight it should’ve hurt, but it didn’t.
“I love you,” Dean cried into his shoulder. His fingers dug into Castiel’s shoulder. His true form wrapped its spinning wheels and wings around Dean. “God, I love you. I missed you.”
There had been so much to talk about—so much that they would say, after years of keeping quiet—and eventually, they had made their way to the first motel. Eventually, they had talked, and kissed, and made love, and held each other close in the safety of a soft bed. But for a very long time, hours and hours, maybe days, they had embraced there on the side of a dirt road.
Today, they’re not in the desert. They’re somewhere in the mountains: to their left, a beautiful, calm sea, to their right, a jagged rock face. The road before them is smooth, pitch black and recently repaved, so Baby skims across it like a fallen leaf on water. Like always, there’s no other cars on the road. Dean has one hand on the wheel, and another resting comfortably on Castiel’s thigh, his thumb sweeping back and forth across the fabric of Castiel’s pants.
“Where do you think we are?” Cas asks idly.
Dean shrugs. “It’s Heaven. I don’t think we’re anywhere.”
Cas thinks about that. “It’s just strange. Heaven has only ever been somewhere that the individual person could remember. If neither of us remember this—”
“Well, you and Jack remodeled the joint, right? Isn’t that something you changed?”
Castiel is startled at the mention of his son’s name. It occurs to him that he hasn’t talked to Jack in far too long. He’ll have to pray to him when they stop for the day.
“Cas?” Dean says. He chuckles. “Zoning out on me, buddy?”
“Sorry, I was thinking.” Castiel looks out at the water. It’s so still. He’s never seen an ocean so still.
“About what?”
Castiel takes Dean’s hand in his. He’s glad to feel the rough edges, the old calluses and scars on his skin. Cas is grounded by him. He’s grounded by the touch.
“Just how much I love you,” he says lightly.
Dean, miraculously, still turns pink when Castiel is casually affectionate like that. They’ve been here for a long time—years, maybe—and Dean still isn’t used to it. Castiel relishes the chance to make him feel so loved it embarasses him.
“…Love you too.” Dean finally says. He clears his throat uncomfortably. Castiel laughs, and brings Dean’s hand to his mouth to kiss.
— — —
The motel they stop at doesn’t have a sign out front. It’s nameless, and there are no cars in the parking lot. But there’s a light on in the office and a blinking neon sign that says vacancy!!! Dean pulls Baby into a prime parking spot and gets out of the car. He rolls his shoulders back.
“Damn, I’m stiff.” He throws a playful look at Cas. “I’m thinking you might owe me a massage when we get settled in.”
Castiel rolls his eyes, even though he’ll gladly do it. He relishes any opportunity to touch Dean without distraction or judgment, even if those opportunities present themselves all the time now. “You’re demanding.”
Dean grins at him and claps Castiel on the shoulder. “Yeah, but I’m worth it.”
As usual, they stay in Room 2. It’s not clear to Castiel why that’s what they always do, but it is. This room in particular has faded pink and red wallpaper, and a mirror on the ceiling. Dean lets out a brilliant laugh as they walk inside.
“Looks like we’re gonna get up to a lot more than just a massage tonight,” Dean says. He drops their bags at the foot of the bed, and pulls Castiel into a thorough kiss. “I have some ideas for the mirror.”
Castiel slips a hand down to the ass of Dean’s jeans. He grabs a handful, and Dean laughs again.
“I would love to explore those ideas with you,” Cas says seriously.
Dean pushes Cas back onto the bed, and he lands with an “oof.” They both laugh at the sound, and when Dean drops down onto his elbows above him, he’s still chuckling. His laughter tickles the side of Castiel’s face.
“I can’t believe we do this,” Dean says in between long, wet kisses along the column of Castiel’s neck. “God, I never thought I’d do this.” His tongue darts to trace Castiel’s collarbone, and a full body shiver runs through Cas. “I was too scared. I didn’t even want to picture it.”
“But you did?”
Dean laughs again. “Oh, I did. I pictured it all the time.”
Castiel is hard and getting harder. Dean just barely skims his erection with the back of his hand, and Cas, unable to keep himself from reacting, lets out a small sound like a whimper.
“I pictured that,” Dean says. His voice is dripping honey.
“I love you,” Cas says. He grapples for bare skin. Finding none, he balls a fist in Dean’s flannel. “I love you. Let me touch you.”
“I love you too.” Dean’s voice is soothing, slow. “Touch me.”
Sex is another strange thing in Heaven. It’s different here in the same way time is different. Things don’t unfold like they would on Earth. Nothing is linear. Castiel doesn’t know how to understand it—part of him imagines that it must be what would happen if two angels were able to have sex with each other. Dean’s soul and Castiel’s grace, they—they touch. They envelop one another. They move together in a way Castiel could never have imagined on Earth. Everything stretches on and on, all of them part of some greater whole that they can only find within each other. Everything is endless. Everything is perfect.
After, Castiel feels a bone deep relaxation. He looks over at Dean—the thin sheen of sweat on his skin, the glint of his eyes in the dark, the thatch of dark hair by his softening cock—and wants to give him everything. Castiel wants to make this Heaven perfect for him.
“When you have the energy,” Cas says to him, “Let’s get dressed. I have an idea.”
Dean looks at him with faux-suspicion, but the smile is too obvious underneath to be believable. His eyes crinkle at the corners. “What kind of idea?”
Which is how they end up out in the desert again, laying on an extra blanket Dean keeps in Baby’s backseat and looking up at the stars.
They’re not quite how Castiel remembers them looking the last time he was on Earth—in fact, he’s pretty certain they’re the way the stars looked when the planet was first coming into being. It’s an ancient sky they’re staring up into. Castiel is warmed with nostalgia. He gets to show Dean all kinds of constellations that no human ever existed to see—constellations invented by young angels like Castiel.
“You were a creative kid,” Dean says fondly. “Doesn’t surprise me. If you were born human, I bet you’d be the kind that draws all over the walls.”
Castiel laughs softly. “Probably. I’ve always had a penchant for causing trouble.”
Dean snorts. “To put it fucking lightly.”
Castiel looks at Dean for a long moment, the perfect side of his face. He’s so beautiful that it almost hurts to be this close. Like touching a stovetop with your bare hand, or staring into the sun. It’s a shock to the system Castiel has never, ever gotten used to. A delightful, painful kind of beauty.
“What are you looking at?” Dean asks uneasily.
“You’re so beautiful.”
Dean blushes. “Shut the fuck up.”
“You are .”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Why not?”
“…It’s too embarrassing.”
Castiel laughs and moves closer. He wraps his arms around Dean, squeezing him tight and close. Dean wiggles in his grip like he’s trying to escape, but Cas can hear his heartbeat slow, can hear the smile in his voice as he protests.
“You’re the most beautiful man who has ever lived, Dean Winchester,” Castiel says, right in his ear.
“You’re an asshole.”
“And I love you so much.”
“…Yeah, I love you too.”
Castiel kisses the side of Dean’s face. Dean kisses his neck.
“Are you happy here?” Castiel says after a long while. He’s looking at the desert stretching far, far out in the distance. Nothing but empty space. Nothing but more road to drive down.
“Yeah,” Dean says. His voice sounds like he might have been falling asleep. “I’m happy.”
“No, really. Are you happy?” Again, something is pulling at the edge of Castiel’s grace. Like something snagged the edge of a wing. “Does this… does it feel like the Heaven you want?”
Dean shifts just enough so that Castiel can see his eyes. They’re so close together that the conversation is taking place in the tiniest of spaces between their mouths.
“Cas, I’m with you. I have my Baby. ‘Course I’m happy,” Dean says. His voice is so tender. “Any place where I get to have a night like this is better than anything I thought I’d ever get in Heaven.”
It should be perfect. The night air, dry and warm. Dean in his arms. The night sky lit up with thousands of stars, stars he hasn’t seen in millenia. He’s in Heaven. This is the reward. This is paradise.
But something won’t stick. He looks at Dean, and that’s real. But everything around them—the sand, the sky, the low rumble of Baby’s engine—feels as thin as rice paper, as translucent as stained glass. There are shadows, Castiel thinks. There are shadows.
He flexes his wings, and for the smallest of moments, they won’t move. They’re—held back. Something is holding him down.
“Hey sweetheart,” Dean says softly. “Where’d you go?”
Castiel has to focus on Dean’s face. He can’t look anywhere else. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Dean’s thumb pets the small space of skin beneath his ear. “Just stay here.”
“Okay,” Cas says quietly. “I will.”
— — —
Castiel wakes up in the middle of the night.
He’s disoriented, and his grace is thrashing wildly in panic. For the briefest of seconds, he has the sensation of being restrained. The same sensation he had when Naomi had his corporeal form strapped to a chair and his trueform held down against cosmos. And then it’s gone. He’s in a dark motel room. Dean is stirring beside him.
“You okay?” Dean murmurs. His hand clumsily pats at Castiel’s thigh.
“I… I had a nightmare.” Except that doesn’t feel quite right.
“A nightmare?” Dean is clearly more awake now. The sheets are shifting as the two of them move around, and the sound is so loud in the quiet room. “What? You can get nightmares here?”
Castiel squeezes his eyes shut. Something isn’t right. Something isn’t right, he can feel it.
“Dean?”
He can feel Dean’s body pressed against him, back-to-chest. Dean’s head rests on Castiel’s shoulder, so that his mouth is right by his ear. “Yeah?”
“How did you die?”
It’s quiet. It’s so quiet.
“Dean?” Cas says more urgently.
“Why are you asking?” Dean says quietly.
“I… I don’t know.” Castiel looks over at him, and Dean seems as frightened as Castiel feels. Something is wrong. They’ve come untethered in space and time. They’re in a motel room that could be any other motel room. They could be anywhere in the universe.
“I died on a hunt,” Dean says unsteadily. “It was vampires. One—one of them pushed me into some rebar, stabbed me through the chest. I lost too much blood to make it out. I—Sam was there.”
“Why didn’t I come save you?” Castiel asks urgently. “I was out of the Empty by then. I should have come to heal you. Why didn’t I do that?”
Dean puts a hand over Castiel’s heart. He hooks his chin over Castiel’s bare shoulder, and instinctively, Castiel’s grace rises above them to provide shelter. The animalistic urge to protect them both from whatever is out there.
“Cas, it’s gonna be okay.” Cas recognizes it as the voice Dean’s uses when someone around him is hurt, and he’s trying to keep them calm enough to figure out what’s gone wrong and how to fix it. “You had a nightmare, and it scared you, but you’re safe now. We’re okay. You’re okay.”
Cas twists his head to look at Dean. He grips his hand over his chest. “Are we?”
“Yes.” Dean kisses the side of Castiel’s face, a little fluttering thing that, in spite of everything, is lovely. He says it like verbalizing it will make it true. “We’re okay.”
— — —
They stay for a long time at a motel on the beach.
It’s one of those that was built on stilts to avoid the dangers of high tide in hurricane season, and it’s painted a weatherbeaten greyish color. The doors all have seashells with the room number on it. Inside, the rooms have a thin layer of sand ground into all the carpets. Everything smells aired out and empty. Dean is delighted.
They spend hours walking along the beach. The weather is perfect—sunny and windy and gorgeous. Dean becomes very interested in collecting seashells, while Castiel gets to reconnect with his love of the ocean. He sinks down low into the water so that just his eyes poke over the salty water, remembering the world when there was life nowhere but in the water—fish that would crawl out and become humanity. Would become Dean, who is reading a book on the shore. Dean who laughs at the way Castiel sinks into the water and calls him a hippo.
They’re happy. They’re so happy.
“Y’know, I only ever went to the beach once, before I died,” Dean confides in him one morning as they drink their coffee with toes in the sand. “When I was a kid—Sam was probably six or seven—Dad had a hunt about an hour out from the beach in South Carolina. It was the dead of winter but we begged him to take us anyway. We just went for the day, and it was freezing, but—” Dean shrugs. He looks down at his coffee mug. “Sam and I had fun. We loved it.”
Castiel watches the side of his face. “Do you miss him?”
“Who?”
“… Sam.”
Dean glances over. “Yeah. Yeah, ‘course I miss him.”
“You’ll see him again,” Castiel says.
“Yeah?”
Castiel doesn’t know why, but he feels like a liar when he takes Dean’s free hand and says, “Yes. You will.”
They spend that whole day in the sand and surf together, pushing one another into the water and building elaborate sandcastles. Dean laughs more than Cas has ever heard him. Castiel wonders absently how he could have ever doubted that this was Heaven.
They finally go inside when the sun starts to set, exhausted and leaning into each other. They track sand into their room. They take a shower together, soaping one another up with over-zealous hands. The sand sloughs off of their bodies and collects around the drain.
When they’re finished in the shower, they dry off with scratchy white towels. The salt water and sea air has done something to Castiel’s hair that makes it wave and curl, and Dean seems fascinated. He plays with Castiel’s hair until Cas finally bats his hands away and takes him to bed.
Dean is asleep in Castiel’s lap almost as soon as they climb into the rumpled, well-loved bed. Cas is still awake. He thinks about getting his book—he’s reading On the Road— but really, he just wants some background noise he can doze to that won’t wake Dean up. Carefully, he reaches over Dean to snag the television remote from the bedside table. He turns the old television on.
The movie playing is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , which they just watched not too long ago. Cas flips the channel. The movie is still playing, but it’s a different scene. He flips it again. Same movie, different scene. Again, and again, and again, Castiel changes the channel to find the exact same movie. There’s nothing else to watch. Nothing else seems to exist.
Gingerly, Cas slips out from underneath Dean’s sleeping body. The light from the tv flickers and makes strange shadows on the walls. He goes to the bookshelf and pulls a book out at random. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. He pulls out another one. One the Road by Jack Kerouac. Every book that comes off the shelf is On the Road .
He looks at the copy he’s reading where it’s laying face down on the tiny table in the kitchenette. He’s near the end. But now that Castiel thinks about it—and the thought is trying to slip away from him. He squeezes his eyes shut. Does he know the ending of the book? Has he read it before?
He isn’t sure. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been here in this motel. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since Dean came to Heaven. Why can’t he remember?
Castiel looks around the room. He looks at Dean, the rise and fall of his chest, the mess of his shower-damp hair. The setting sun makes his skin shine. If something were wrong, Cas thinks, Dean would know. Dean would have felt it. And if Dean is fine—if Dean is happy—then Castiel is overreacting.
He turns the television off and goes back to bed. He crawls under the covers and pulls Dean into his arms. Dean smells like clean sunshine. He makes a small sound against Castiel’s chest as he readjusts.
Dean and I are real , Castiel thinks, closing his eyes. This is real. That’s what matters.
— — —
It is strange to be on the beach and not see any other living thing. There are shells, but no evidence of any creatures that live within them. There aren’t any birds, though Castiel wakes up every morning to the sound of seagulls calling to each other. Even in the water, there’s nothing. There aren’t even sand dollars.
Castiel takes a walk along the water one morning while Dean dozes. Their motel is the only building they’ve seen since settling here, and the entire beach is untouched by any evidence of life. In some way, it reminds Cas of how things were in the very beginning, before humanity. In others, it unsettles him. The beach is an ecosystem that should be teeming with life—it shouldn’t exist without thousands of different varieties of flora and fauna.
He does enjoy his walks. He and Dean love spending all of their time together, but they still need to be alone every once in a while. Castiel is frankly impressed with their mutual ability to recognize that the brief separation isn’t any comment on the quality or happiness of their relationship. They’ve come a long way, in that regard..
Cas has walked about as far as they’ve ever gone down the beach when the ambient sound of crashing waves suddenly stops. He looks out at the water in confusion. It’s still moving and churning. Waves are still hitting the sand. But it’s silent. There’s no noise at all.
Castiel looks around at the silent world. And then, the sky disappears.
There’s a void where there should be clouds. There’s nothing where the sun should be shining down on him. Total absence.
Until this moment, he’d forgotten what happened in the motel room window in the desert—how many days ago was that? He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. His memory is failing him. Something is wrong. The sky is gone.
He walks back to the motel in the uncanny silence. Halfway there, he blinks, and the sky has returned to normal. But the water—that stays quiet.
When he gets back to the motel, Dean is just waking up, sipping at coffee and watching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid . He’s in just his boxers. The blankets are kicked to the end of the bed.
Castiel is comforted by the absolute mundanity of him. “Dean.”
“Woah, Cas, you okay?” Dean sets his coffee down. “You look freaked out.”
And Castiel knows he should just tell him the truth. Lies have gotten him nowhere in his life. But Dean’s been so happy here. He’s soaked up so much sunshine that his freckles are more numerous than Cas has ever seen them. He laughs all the time. Cas doesn’t want to take that from him until he knows for sure what’s happening.
“Yeah,” Cas says. “I’m good.”
Dean searches his face. He doesn’t quite seem to believe Cas, but he doesn’t push it. “Well, I’m glad you’re back. Come here, you can catch the end of the movie.”
— — —
They do leave, eventually. Castiel couldn’t say why. One morning, Dean wakes up and says, “You ready to move on?” And he is. So they go. They drive for a long, long time before they stop again.
They finally end up at a motel tucked down a dirt road in the mountains. Everything is green and lush, and when Castiel steps out of the car, the air smells fresh. The air is thick, like it’s about to storm. Clouds are dark and getting darker in front of the sun. Dean tilts his head up into it and takes a deep breath.
“God, I love that smell,” he says.
The motel is painted a dingy yellow on the outside, but the blinking neon stay awhile sign in the window is welcoming in what promises to be bad weather.
“Want me to grab the key?” Dean asks.
“Actually,” Cas says. “I can get it. I want to see if we can stay in Room 3.”
“Why?”
Castiel shrugs, hoping to appear nonchalant. He’s sure this will amount to nothing. He’s sure this is just his own history coming back to haunt him. “We’ve been in Room 2 this whole time. I thought we might as well try something new out.”
Dean gives him a look, but doesn’t push it. “Okay, man. If you care that much.”
Castiel walks into the office. It smells old, unused. Inexplicably, it seems to be log cabin themed, with cheap wooden paneling lining the walls. There’s a fireplace with no fire burning inside of it, and an ugly fur rug. The front desk has an ancient computer on it, one of the first personal models Castiel remembers from Earth, the kind that’s the same shape and weight of a cardboard box full of books. Of course, there’s no one there. It’s a little too warm in here—there’s an old revolving fan by door, and that’s the only sound around.
Castiel feels uncomfortable. Obviously, there’s no one here—there’s not even anywhere for someone to hide if they were—but he has the disconcerting sensation of being watched.
He loops around to the desk. The computer is turned off, and the desk is entirely bare otherwise. No pens, no personal effects, nothing that would be on a desk like this in a real motel.
He opens the only drawer, and there’s a single key in it. It has a little plastic bear keychain that has been labeled with a sharpie to say “#2.” Castiel frowns. He looks around the desk, but there’s no other drawers, even though it feels like there should be. There’s nowhere for any other keys to be tucked away. He thought that trying to break one of their patterns might push whatever is happening here to reveal itself more clearly—if something is happening at all—but apparently that’s not even an option.
He returns to Dean with a sense of deep foreboding.
“So, is it finally time to explore Room 3?” Dean quips.
“There wasn’t a key in there,” Cas tells him.
“There wasn’t a key?” Dean frowns. “You sure you didn’t just miss it?”
“I didn’t see it anywhere,” Castiel says. “I promise, I looked. There are no keys for any room that isn’t Room 2.”
“I believe you.” Dean looks warily at the office. “That’s weird. Should we just—should we try to go inside anyway?”
They both look at Room 3. It’s unassuming. The number 3 appears to be poorly carved out of wood to remain on theme.
Dean tries the doorknob, and it doesn’t budge.
“Okay,” he says. “Maybe we can’t stay in Room 3. That’s fine.”
“But why not?” Cas asks. “Jack and I designed this place. Shouldn’t we be able to do whatever we want? Why would it matter if we wanted to sleep in a different room?”
Dean snorts. “Like you said, you designed it. You’re asking the wrong person.”
“Why do we even need keys? It’s not like we need to be worried about our privacy. What purpose does that serve?”
“And where in the world is Carmen San Diego?” Dean rolls his eyes. “Dude, what’s with the twenty questions? I just want to get inside before the sky opens up and dumps on us.”
Cas is irritated. “Fine. Let’s just get inside, then.”
“Woah, no need to be bitchy.”
“Don’t call me bitchy,” Cas snaps back. Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance. “The entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never left well enough alone. I didn’t realize asking simple questions would be so annoying to you.”
Dean stares at him. “Jesus, Cas. Who pissed in your cornflakes?”
Cas pushes past him, and unlocks Room 2. The bedspread is an ugly buffalo plaid. It smells like mildew, and there’s more of that terribly fake wood paneling. The absolute subparness of the room grates on Castiel’s nerves.
Dean throws their bags down on the ground, like he always does.
“Please don’t do that,” Cas says. “I hate when you throw our things around.”
Dean cuts him a look. “It’s not like there’s anything breakable in there.”
Castiel huffs. This is misplaced anger, he knows that. Dean isn’t doing anything wrong by wanting to be happy in his heaven, and Castiel is just—he’s scared. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. He doesn’t want to forget anything he’s already discovered.
Cas steps over to the window to open the curtains. Outside, it’s begun to rain.
Dean comes up behind him. He slips an arm around Castiel’s waist. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Castiel wants it to sound sharp, but it just comes out tired.
“Are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Cas, you’ve been off lately.” Dean says. “I’m worried.”
“I—I think I just need time,” Cas says. “Before I can talk about it. I need a little time. Can you give me time?”
“I’ll give you anything.” Dean’s voice is so quiet. He kisses the top of Cas’s shoulder. “I love you.”
Affection blooms between them. That’s real, Castiel thinks. That might be the only real thing he’s ever known. “I love you too.”
They stand there by the window for a long while.
“Oh, hey!” Dean says all of a sudden. “There’s a pool here!”
— — —
The next afternoon Dean decides to go for a swim. Castiel promises to join him later, but begs off.
“I’m going to take a nap,” he says.
Dean laughs. “Man, Heaven’s made you sleepy.”
He kisses Castiel before he leaves, and Cas commits the sight of him in his swim trunks to memory.
Cas waits until Dean is in the pool, and then, quietly and carefully, he leaves their motel room. He goes into the office.
The computer, an old model, boots up immediately. Like it was just waiting for Castiel to come behind the desk. The screen is a fuzzy black, and at the top left, there’s a blinking green line. Castiel feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He lowers his hands on the keyboard. He types, where are we?
Immediately, the computer populates the next line of text.
You’re in Heaven, Castiel.
The office is still silent. In fact, there’s no sound at all except for Castiel beginning to type again with shaking hands.
Who is this?
I have a better question. Why do you feel like you need to ask?
I don’t think this is Heaven. The words feel blasphemous as Castiel types them.
The cursor blinks. Cas stares at it.
That’s your problem, Castiel. You’ll never be able to have something good in your life without trying to tear it all down, will you? You’ll always doubt. You’ll always have questions.
Stop toying with me. Who is this? Why are you doing this to us?
I’m not doing anything to you but giving you peace. It’s been so hard, hasn’t it? Why can’t you just let yourself enjoy the simplicity of routine? Why can’t you just enjoy a quiet life?
And then, before Castiel can respond:
Dean does. Dean is happy here. Do you really want to take that from him?
Cas takes a sharp breath.
Dean wouldn’t ever want to live a lie. Not after what we’ve been through.
Are you sure about that? He seems happy to me.
And then, a horrifying, frightening thought occurs to Castiel. He doesn’t want to think it, let alone see it in front of him. But he has to know.
Is this the real Dean? He types. Or is it a trick?
The computer doesn’t respond.
Tell me.
Would it make you feel better if he was an illusion? The words slowly appear on the screen. Would you be more likely to stay here if you knew you weren’t condemning Dean to a false life? Or is that worse? To live a lie?
Cas recoils from the computer as if it’s burned him. He powers it down before whoever is talking to him can respond. His hands are shaking. His grace rattles in his ribcage. Until now, he hasn’t considered that Dean himself might not be real. His stomach turns violently, as though he’s about to vomit. Surely I can’t vomit in Heaven, Cas thinks hysterically. I’m an angel.
He staggers out of the office into the bright sunshine. Distantly, he can hear what sounds like a bird, but can’t possibly be. There are no birds here. There is no life. Empty building after empty building. Wide open spaces with nothing in them.
There’s a strange splashing sound from behind the building, and Castiel is immediately on alert. Quietly, carefully, he rounds the motel. The texture of the grass feels wrong under his feet.
“Dean?” he calls out.
There’s no response.
Castiel barrels around the corner, but there’s no danger, of course. Dean is in the pool. He’s swimming across the length of it with strong if not exactly artful strokes. The sound is the splashing of his body in the crisp, chlorinated water. Castiel can smell it, the chlorine.
Dean doesn’t seem to realize Castiel is there. Cas walks over to the edge of the pool, his hands in his pockets. He stands there and admires the way that Dean’s body cuts through the water like a knife through softened butter. Like the water knows he’s coming and moves out of his way. Castiel has always admired that about Dean: the way he moves his body with absolute surety. The beauty of it.
Is it possible this isn’t the real Dean? Castiel stares at the way the muscles of Dean’s back flex with his movements. Could this be a projection? A shade? He thinks over their time here—wherever they are—and the possibility that all of it had happened with something that wasn’t actually Dean is a horror.
Is it worth it? The computer had asked. Castiel isn’t sure how to answer.
With another splashing sound, Dean surfaces. His hair is plastered to his forehead, and he wipes at his eyes with the back of one hand, hanging on to the scratching concrete edge of the pool.
“Hey, Cas.”
“Hello, Dean.” Castiel looks down at him. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to do this. He doesn’t know how to make a decision that’s not really a decision at all, not when everything here is shrouded in uncertainty.
Dean squints into the sunlight. He’s so beautiful. Castiel can feel his soul—how could that be false? Who could imitate that?
“Are we okay?” Dean asks warily. “I know you said you need time, I know, but I just—I don’t know.”
Castiel keeps looking at him. Then, he lowers himself slowly to the ground. He sits on the edge, and lets his legs dangle into the pool. His shoes fill with water. His slacks swirl around his legs. Dean laughs.
“Dude, what are you doing ?” he sputters.
“We’re okay,” Castiel says. Because they are. They can be.
Dean moves to get between Castiel’s legs. His hands rest on Castiel’s thighs. All the sun they’ve been getting in the past weeks— or years, Castiel thinks, we could’ve been here for decades and not known it —has not just brought out Dean’s freckles, but given him a deep tan. It makes him look younger.
“I love you,” Dean says. “I know I can be a dick. But I just—I want us to be okay, y’know?”
“I do. I know.” Castiel takes Dean’s face in his hands. Water droplets catch on his skin.
“Dean,” he says. “Can I ask you something?”
Dean turns his face just enough to kiss the side of Cas’s thumb. “Anything, sweetheart.”
“I asked you once, if you would rather have peace or freedom.” Castiel lets his eyes roam back and forth across Dean’s face. “Let me ask you again. What do you want, Dean? Peace, or freedom?”
The whole world is silent. The bird sounds are gone. There are no cars on any road. There’s nothing but the gentle lapping of water.
“Why are you asking me that?” Dean says. His face twitches with anxiety, a movement so small no one else might notice—but Cas does. Castiel always notices, when it comes to Dean.
“I… something happened, Dean. Something isn’t right here.” Castiel knows how he must sound. Furtive and terrified, paranoid like a man who can’t learn to just enjoy what he’s got. Like an angel who can’t stop disobeying. “The computer in the office—
“What are you talking about?” There’s an edge of frustration in Dean’s voice. “Cas, you keep saying shit like this, but it doesn’t make sense. What are you—”
“We’re not in Heaven,” Cas says. “We’re not.”
Dean pulls himself away from Cas with a scoff, and turns away to lift himself out of the pool.
“Okay, I can’t do this,” Dean says angrily. “I don’t know why you’re doing this.”
“Something’s not right.” Castiel follows Dean’s movements with his eyes. “Can’t you feel it?
“We’re in Heaven,” Dean says. There’s an edge of that old authoritarianism in his voice. “That’s all I feel.”
Castiel gets up, too, so they’re standing face to face. Both of them are dripping water down onto the concrete. The early evening sun is shining down on them like a spotlight.
“If we’re really in Heaven,” Castiel says carefully. “Where’s Sam?”
Dean recoils like Castiel’s slapped him across the face. “What?”
“Where’s Sam? Shouldn’t he be in your Heaven? Wouldn’t your mother? And Bobby?” Cas says desperately. He steps closer, trying to get in Dean’s space, trying to force him to feel the urgency of the situation. “Why are we alone up here? Where is everyone we love?”
Dean’s face shutters closed so quickly, it’s stunning. Castiel hasn’t seen him do that in a very long time; the withdrawal is the worst kind of familiar.
“I’m going inside,” Dean says. He clears his throat. “It’s too hot out here.”
Castiel reaches out for him. “Wait, Dean—”
“Don’t,” he says sharply. “Just stop.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“But you are,” Dean says rawly. “Don’t you get that? You and I, we’re finally—we’re finally together. We’re happy. Why the hell are you messing with that? Why?”
And it clicks in Castiel’s mind. He’s surprised at himself for not seeing it sooner.
“You do feel it,” Castiel says slowly. “Oh.”
Dean screws his eyes shut, and his hands are balled into fists at his side. He’s so obviously suffering, that Cas can’t help but reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. The touch causes a thin tremor to run through Dean’s body. Then he’s crying.
“Cas,” the word heaves out of him. “Cas, I finally have you. And you have me. I don’t—I don’t want to lose you. Oh, fuck, I can’t—” Dean turns away, and Castiel’s hand falls off of his shoulder.
“Dean, talk to me.”
“I have to go inside. I need a minute.”
“Dean—”
Dean disappears around the side of the motel, water trailing behind him. Castiel watches him go.
— — —
Castiel knows to give Dean space. He stays by the pool until his pants and shoes and socks dry. He stays until the sun goes down, and the only light in the motel—the lamp in Room 2—goes out.
Castiel steps quietly into the motel room. Dean is on his side facing away from the door. Cas slips off his clothes and changes into a pair of Dean’s sweatpants. They’re too tight around his thighs, but they’re comfortable. They remind him of Dean.
He slips into bed. He can feel that Dean is awake, but doesn’t say anything.
“Cas?”
Dean’s voice wobbles outward in the quiet a long time later. Castiel, who hasn’t gotten close to sleep, turns his head to look at Dean. He’s curled on his side, face half obscured by his arm. A sliver of moonlight is coming in through the blinds, and the light cascades right across Dean’s face.
“Dean—”
“I’m so sorry,” Dean says. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“You’re right. We’re not—” Dean takes a shuddering breath. “This isn’t Heaven. I feel it. I’ve been feeling it. I just—I didn’t want to admit it.”
Castiel moves closer, drapes his arm over Dean’s waist.
“Because I thought—if we get out of here, something bad will still be happening. We’ll have to fight. And—and God, who knows if Sam and—and Jack are okay. But if I was wrong, and we just stayed here… I thought that might be better.” Dean turns his face fully into the pillow. He begins to cry, and even the muffled sound is hard for Cas to hear.
“It’s okay, Dean,” Castiel whispers. “I don’t blame you.”
“But you should.” Dean says tearfully. “I should’ve told you—I should’ve told you something was wrong. I made you—I made you do it alone. I didn’t—I’m so sorry, Cas.”
“I’m sorry, too.” Castiel slips a hand under his shirt, so that his hand rests on the bare skin of Dean’s back. The closeness is comforting. “I wish—I wish we could just be at peace. I want that for us.”
Dean looks at him. “We’ll have it,” he says, his voice rough with emotion and a sudden anger. “Now that—now that I know what it can be like, I’m not losing it. We’re not losing it. I don’t care what I have to do to get out of here, I’m gonna make it happen so we can be together and happy, and—and fucking free. I want us to be free.”
“I want that, too,” Cas says softly.
“It can’t keep us here forever. It can’t.”
“It’s weakening.” Castiel hopes he’s right. He thinks he can feel that he is. “An illusion like this requires an incredible amount of power, and given what I’ve seen—I think that whatever is keeping us here can’t do it for much longer. I think it’s starting to fall apart.”
“Good,” Dean says vehemently. “Good, because one way or another, I’m getting us out of here. I don’t care what I have to kill.”
“Dean,” Cas runs a hand through Dean’s hair down the back of his neck. “You’re just a man. I’m nowhere near what I once was. We have no weapons. We have no power.”
“Hey, we’ve done it before.” Dean gives him a wry smile—it really does feel that way, like a gift. “You and me, making it up as we go and tearing the world down. We can do it again.”
Castiel searches Dean’s face, looks for any doubt, any uncertainty. This, it seems, Dean believes whole-heartedly.
“You’re real,” Castiel whispers, because he doesn’t think he could bring himself to say it louder. “This isn’t a trick. You’re real.”
Dean’s face is wide-open. His soul—Cas can feel it, the ragged edges, the supernova of light in the very center, hidden away behind scar tissue and fear. That soul couldn’t be replicated.
“I’m real, baby.” Dean kisses him, and his lips are slightly chapped from the dry motel air. Castiel shudders into it. “I’m real. And so are you.”
— — —
Castiel wakes up, and it’s raining outside.
The pounding on the roof echoes through their room, but it’s the only sound. The window unit is silent. The blankets move when Castiel sits up, and those don’t make a sound either. Everything is unnaturally, frighteningly quiet.
“Morning,” Dean says. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, still in just his boxers.
“Is it…” Castiel looks around the room. “Is it quiet, to you?”
“Yeah. Can’t hear anything but the rain. And your voice.” Dean smiles faintly. “C’mon. Let’s get ready.”
So Cas gets out of bed. They cram together in the tiny shower. They pull on familiar clothing. They brush their teeth, they pack their things, they catch each other’s eyes and let their hands linger. They both know that this road trip is about to end. Maybe it should be frightening. Maybe it is. But Cas has Dean with him, so it’s hard to be scared.
The rain is just starting to go from a downpour to a drizzle when they walk out of Room 2 hand-in-hand. The door clicks shut behind them, and the rain stops. Abruptly, they’re not in the woods anymore. Baby is gone, and when Castiel looks over his shoulder, the motel is gone, too. They’re back in the desert, the air dry and hot. And standing in front of them is Chuck.
“Well, well,” he says. “Who would’ve guessed, you’d be a pain in my ass even in Heaven?”
Dean’s grip on Castiel’s hand tightens. “What the fuck do you want?”
“What a fun little reunion this is,” Chuck continues, as if he hadn’t heard him. “It’s been so long since we’ve done something like this, boys. I’ve missed it.”
The voice is right. The vessel is right. But no one could ever capture all the ancient horror and awe of God’s true form. Whatever this is has tried to shroud itself, but on the very edges of his perception, Castiel can see through to the truth.
“You’re not Chuck.”
Not-Chuck’s eyes flash. “You sure about that?”
“I know what God’s trueform looks like, and it’s not you.” Dean looks at Cas in surprise, and maybe fear. “So what are you?”
“I have a few guesses,” Dean says, because he’s never more than a step behind Castiel. “But why don’t you go first, Cas?”
“You’re the Empty,” Castiel says. A surge of triumph rushes through him as he says it. They haven’t had the upper hand at all in this situation, so even a small win feels important. “Pretending to be something you could never hope to be. Again.”
Not-Chuck looks at both of them for a long while. And then he bursts into laughter. Long, wild bouts of it, and it echoes over the absolute silence of the landscape. It’s still so quiet. Dean and Castiel can do nothing but watch.
“Well, congrats, Castiel, you got it!” Not-Chuck exclaims. “Or, at least, you think you did. Because I could actually be God pretending to be the Empty. Meta, right?”
“Spare us the mind-fuck, asshole.” Dean’s voice cuts through the windless air. “Let us out of here.”
“But that’s the trick.” Not-Chuck’s eyes narrow. “Do you have any idea where ‘here’ is?”
“We know you’re the Empty,” Cas says. “We know where we are.”
“No, Castiel, you don’t. You think you know. You’re pretty sure. But you don’t know.” The thing walks closer. It doesn’t move quite right—the stride is off in some disconcerting way, and its steps don’t disturb the sand at all. It’s uncanny. Like the vessel is starting to slowly, slowly come apart.
“I might be the Empty,” it continues, “But I might be Chuck playing games with you. I could be Lucifer keeping you out of his way. Hey, who else have you made an enemy of, Castiel? I could be one of them, too.”
A thin, fluttering ribbon of panic ripples through Cas, because it’s true. As much as he thinks this is the Empty, there’s no limit to the number of people who want to see him tortured. He looks to Dean, and as ever, Dean meets his uncertainty with rock-solid conviction.
“We,” Dean says, “don’t give a shit. Doesn’t matter where we are, doesn’t matter what’s happening or where we’ll end up instead. This isn’t a life. We want to be free.”
“Isn’t that always your problem?” Not-Chuck looks at them with cold, dead eyes. “Every time we get to this point, that’s what you tell me. Oh, we want to be free. We want to make our own choices. What do you think that even means? I made this world, but I don’t control your choices—how is that any different from your lives before this? Everything you know is a playground built for you by those who know better. It always has been.”
“What do you mean, ‘every time we get to this point’?” Dean asks.
“Of course, you’re stuck on that.” Not-Chuck sighs. “You always are.”
Castiel feels a sinking dread. His wings flap with the instinctive desire to flee, but they don’t move. They can’t. “How many times has this happened?”
Chucks makes a ‘who, me?’ face. “What do you mean?”
“How many times have you wiped our memories?” Castiel’s voice rises. “How many?”
“It feels familiar, I bet.”
Castiel blinks, and Not-Chuck is suddenly in the visage of Naomi as Castiel remembers her best: the neat bun and pantsuit, her trueform imposing and powerful. Cas isn’t frightened by her, but he takes a step back in shock at how much it feels like she’s the one with them now. Dean watches them both with wide eyes.
“Oh, Castiel,” Not-Naomi says. “I dug around in that memory of yours so much that it looks like a warzone. Everything blasted away. Craters and wreckage. It’s made things a lot tougher.”
It turns to Dean with a pleasant, ugly smile. “Not like you, Dean Winchester. You made it easy for me. But maybe you like forgetting. I would want to forget, too, if I’d done the things you’ve done.”
“Fuck you,” Dean spits.
“Aren’t you tired?” The thing brings a hand to its forehead, like it has a migraine coming on. “For the love of all things holy, all the two of you have ever done is irritate me. And whenever I make the mistake of assuming I’ve destroyed any fight left in you, that you’ll finally just stop… you wake up again.”
“How long have we been here?” Castiel asks.
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” Not-Naomi smoothes down its blazer with a frown. “I don’t want to have to do this again. But you leave me no choice. If you’d just give in, I could—”
“Alright, I’m tired of listening to you spout bullshit,” Dean snaps. “Let’s cut to the chase: you’re weak. You can’t hold us here forever. We all know that. So quit with the intimidation tactics and let us out.”
In a mili-second, The Empty projects Anna. She smiles. Her eyes bore into Castiel like Dean isn’t there.
“He came to rescue you, Castiel. That’s why you’re both here. He loves you, I can see it, and you love him.” Her trueform—it’s so much like how Castiel remembers it. The familiarity of her grace makes his eyes sting with terrified grief. He could almost believe this is really her. That his sister is here “All I want is to rest. You two can be happy here. Now that you know—you can be happy here. I can make a place for you to be happy.”
Castiel looks at her. Dean is still holding onto his hand like they’ll be ripped away from each other if they let go.
He and I are the only real thing, Castiel thinks.
“I’m sorry,” Cas says, because he knows it isn’t really Anna, but he’ll never stop being sorry for what happened to her. As he speaks, the ground begins to shake. Dean jolts beside him. “I’m sorry. But there’s no going back. Dean and I can’t stay here. We won’t.”
“I just wanted it to be quiet.” Not-Anna’s voice is deepening and warping—Castiel thinks they must be hearing the Empty as it truly is. Everything around them quakes. The sky is falling. “I wanted what I was owed, and I wanted it to be quiet.”
“Let us go,” Dean says. His voice is almost gentle. “Let us go, and it’ll be quiet again. We won’t bother you.”
“If I let you go,” The Empty says. Anna is an empty vessel, a barely-there veneer. The world is getting darker around them, like someone is dimming the sun. There’s a roaring in Castiel’s ears. The flaming wheels within his grace spin rapidly at the shifting of a reality. “How will you know it’s real? I might just keep you here. I might wipe your memories again.”
Dean and Castiel look at each other as the world collapses all around. Something passes between them—a steel line of certainty. Commitment.
“We’ll take our chances,” Dean says. He squeezes Cas’s hand and shifts even closer to him. “We’ve been through this before, right? So we’ll find our way out. You’ll keep getting weaker. We won’t be here forever.”
“I only wanted to rest.” It’s a lament, an expression of enormous despair. The sound of it is a scream and a whisper. “I only wanted to rest.”
The world is tumbling around them. The desert sand shifts and shifts beneath their feet. Castiel hangs onto Dean’s hand; he won’t let go no matter what happens.
I love him. That’s real. He loves me. That’s real .
And then—
It’s over. The landscape is gone. They’re standing in the void Castiel remembers from his first time in the Empty. A vast, vacant space with no one there but he and Dean. And at the very farthest edge of Castiel’s line of sight, there’s a pinprick of light. It’s so small, but it’s there.
“Do you think—” Dean looks to the light. “Do we go toward it?”
“I—I think so.” Castiel takes stock of his grace, flexes his wings. He feels unrestrained. It’s clear, now, that there had been something holding them back. He feels a lightness that he hasn’t in a long, long time. “I think it’s a way out of here.”
“And if it’s not—”
“Then we’ll figure it out.” Castiel looks at Dean. Feels his hand in his. Feels himself smile. “You and I always manage to break free. It might take a little while. But we will.”
Dean grins. He looks tired, and scared, but Castiel thinks that he also looks like a man deeply loved. And a man in love.
“Then let’s go, sweetheart.”
Castiel looks toward the light. He doesn’t feel afraid. He feels Dean’s hand in his, and he feels his unrestrained grace beside Dean’s blazing soul, and those things make him sure: they’ll be okay.
“Let’s go.”