Chapter Text
Listen, here's the thing. Cas died, Chuck zapped everyone gone: Then Dean, with Sam and Jack, saved the world. Jack became a new god, who then brought everyone back except Cas, and Dean did not cope well. He did some months of drinking yada yada and bit other things, and then there was this “mild” incident with rebar through the heart thing. There was a lot of crying, lots of words, lots of feelings between him and Sam while he was playing shish kebab. All in all, it really was a good chick-flick moment with the whole shebang, and Dean was ready to go. Really, really ready to go. You know, die, kick the bucket. But then Jack made his divine heavenly intervention, and Dean did not die, which made Sam happy but not Dean. So there “might” have been some heated words said like “No! NO! You don't get the right to poof down here and meddle with my dying! You are just like Chuck!” or “No Sam, that's not love. The kid does not even know what love is, or he would bring Cas back!!!” or “Just watch me!!”
So after that, Dean went a bit bat shit crazy, and a new kind of hell broke loose for Dean. He tried to drive himself off to a cliff with an Impala (!), just finding himself sitting back in the bunker’s garage surrounded by toy cars, Impala included! Or shot himself, but then found himself holding a kid's water pistol. With a kitchen knife, it turned out to be a plastic movie prop.
You start to get the picture? And what did Dean do then? He tried to leave. Sneaking out from the bunker just to be hauled back by Sam, with Eileen! Oh, yes, Eileen is, by the way, “living” with them now, correction, with Sam. Not with “them” because Dean declared (maybe a bit childish tantrum-like) that he won't be living in the bunker, which did not stick, because Sam and Eileen (again), but whatever.
And, that went down a couple of rounds until Sam kind of put Dean on a leash; upgraded the bunker’s locks and wards with Jack(for crying out loud!), preventing Dean from leaving. Did some sticky location tracking hoodoo mojo magic (just in case) that beats GPS by the way, and now Dean is on house arrest like some bloody (not) horny teenager.
So Dean plays (very grumpy) opossum for a couple of weeks. (Not like that! Jack, remember!) But, you know, just to go with it, so he could calm his brother and his (I can kick Dean's ass) girlfriend down. Which resulted in lots of thinking, sober-ish thinking, as the current universe's ruling entity, aka Jack, missed beer with his meddling list. Guess you can’t mess with beer (HAH! + finger flip upstairs), but then again, whiskey is on that list. Which sucks, WHICH means Dean’s kind of on a not-wanted (rehab) diet.
And to avoid Sammy and touchy-feely talks about Cas. Or what happened in the dungeon. Or him acting like a berserk before and after the rebar incident, and how he is now, Dean starts prowling around the bunker at night. Not that he sleeps much anyway, but as long as he eats, which he knows Sammy is keeping an eye on and does not turn to stinky caveman, he's left alone. Which makes him do (again) more thinking and prowling, and that's how Dean ends up studying the bunkers wards. Not that he could do much about them or even recognise all the sigils (thanks, Jack + finger flip, again), but he knows demon wards. Easy to scratch them out of commission, with the exception that it does not do any good, as no demons are allowed on upper levels to piggyback out from down under (+ he kind of doesn't want to become a demon condom after he did it with Michael). Besides, Rowena is now Queen of Hell, and she's Jack's favourite “auntie”, so they are kind of buddy-buddy train with “let's keep Dean doing anything stupid” things. The Mark of Cain option is not available anymore, and not much luck going downstairs to get his soul tarnished, once again, because of Rowena. Also, him drinking demon blood is also out of the question; 1. It's gross, and where would he get that much 2. It was more like Sammy's thing anyway.
So moving to plan E (?) equals empty. Dean got empty ideas the next couple of nights, which means a good old panic attack while feeling trapped, and he loses one good night, but he keeps working on it. Also, he needs a plan for what to do when he manages to get out. Jack won't let him die (or Rowena, depending on which way he's going after this). So what if he would find Chuck, make him a demon, gank him, send him to goo town in exchange for getting Cas back. He bets that Empty (the goo entity) would love that. Or, if not, make a deal with Empty to gank Dean (after Chuck), and Dean the Demon would be in Empty with Cas, and Jack could not do anything about it. Once again, one happy goo monster and a win-win scenario for Dean. He just needs to figure out how to get soul to soul tango with a demon without a condom part (that did not come out right, use condoms people!). Anyway, can you have a profound bond with a demon?
So Dean goes and does what he hates the most. Research. But desperate times, yada yada, and he almost even likes it. It keeps him occupied without unhealthy thoughts for about a week. The plan is to summon and become a demon without Sam and Eileen (and Jack and Rowena) knowing. Dean hits a breakthrough when he remembers Lily Sunder and how she used her soul to fuel Enochian magic. Not that they have anything else in common, which Dean is not thinking (like going “bit” cuckoo after their angel “friends” die). There's no need to start (stupid) panic attacks (again). After all, Cas had said Dean's soul was the brightest he had ever seen. Must be good for fueling some magic.
So he figures things out, after all, it’s the Men of Letters Bunker where Dean is (so not) living. Besides, Dean has a brain (occasionally) like (not) now, because now he needs to be in one place that is BIG nono for Dean and where Sam least expects him to be. The Dungeon. Where Cas (don’t think about it) did “the thing” (still not thinking about it!).
So Dean might go a bit bender with beer, which reminds him of a certain angelic “friend” being annoyed by the human habit of urinating and who once drank the whole liquor store just to feel something. But Dean makes it… to the dungeon (not into.. never mind) and all goes surprisingly smoothly. So Dean burns some of his soul to fuel summoning, gets him the lowest-level demon (because Dean is not brainless), needs to fly under Rowena's radar anyway, also stupidity helps a lot (from the demon's side), and he's now soul-buddies with a demon, which means that Dean is demon-ish and is running the show, with cool demon powers. After that, the locks are easy peasy. Wardings don’t even flear to recognise him, which does tickle his hunter's instinct, but he ignores it quickly. One more magic trick with soul as a fuel, and he's “pretty” sure that he's now free from Sam's GPS tracking system. First things first, get the wheels. Also, Dean could use a pie (just as an afterthought).