After the last piece…I, er, tried to write a happy story. Beta'd by Miss Elucidation.
His affairs are as close to being in order as they ever will be—or ever have been; all of the kids—seven of 'em, last count—were off on hunts he'd dug up from god knows how old newspapers; the oldest one, Beth Ann (more woman than girl now, even though no matter how many streaks of gray in her black hair, she'd always be the snot-nosed kid who'd fallen into his arms when he pulled her from a ghoul's dinner table) could damn well run the Roadhouse on her own now, and practically had been for three months since Sam went.
(Dean had almost laughed when he found out it was from heart complications. Who'd've thought after all the bitching and moaning Sammy had done about cholesterol and eating right that he would be the one with high blood pressure?)
It had damn near killed him then and there to write away his baby, but Rob was a great kid and his favorite nephew. Well, his only nephew, to be fair, but he's pretty sure he can also pick him as favorite, since Dean's sure he'd be his favorite even if he had a million nephews. Besides, the kid knew his way around a car—since his weekends at Uncle Dean's had been spent fixing whatever namby-pamby flower-child shit Sam and Ellie had been teaching him—and Dean trusts him with her as much as he'd ever trust anyone, he guesses.
The Singer-Winchester Salvage Yard was going to Krissy, because Dean liked the kid (again, more woman than kid now) and because she's as big a nerd as Sam ever was, and that's who had to run the salvage yard.
If you were a hunter and you needed info, or just plain needed a hunt, you went to one of two places—Sam's Roadhouse, or Dean at the salvage yard.
Yeah, Dean had pretty much been doing research since that hellhound had taken a chunk out of his leg, and man, would Bobby have laughed his ass off if he'd seen Dean limping around the yard. You deserved it, idjit, he'd say, for all the times Dean had told Bobby to just deal with it. Being out of action after somewhere close to sixty years in the field kind of royally sucked.
But there was a whole new generation of dumbass kids who watched their brothers get dragged into closets and never come out, so Dean had stuck around a while to try and make sure some of them lasted as long as he and Sam had.
But Sam is dead, for real and good and as healthily as it's possible to die, and he's probably floating around on some cloud with Ellie and Jessica and maybe even Madison, and Dean finished that book on angels he'd been writing up and mailed it out to Max, who'd promised he'd get it copied and sent out to as many hunters as needed it—because they were not gonna let those feathery dickbags get on with their Apocalypse party just because the Winchesters were too old and crotchety to stop them. It's got all the standard demon killing stuff in it, plus some tricks with banishing sigils and holy oil, and as much Enochian as Dean can remember, which isn't a whole lot but if he really tries he can still hear a gravel-dark voice murmuring ancient words. (He never really tries. It's been a long time, and he's tired of remembering).
The kids would be fine, with Mary Beth and Erik taking care of them now, and Dean hadn't exactly settled down so it wasn't like he had kids of his own to worry about. (But damn it all if the dumb mothers who came running to him every time something said boo under their beds didn't feel like flesh and blood).
So he goes upstairs, and it takes him a fucking long time to do it, because the leg with the chunk taken out of it doesn't bend right at the knee, and he opens a chest at the foot of his bed. He puts on a faded trucker cap and brushes aside some mothballs—which make everything smell like shit, but there's not a ward on earth that's managed to keep those bitches out, so mothballs it is—and pulls out a trench coat folded like a solider's flag. He puts it on, flexing his arms to loosen the stiff fabric, and it smells like lake water and a little bit like ozone. There's a silver charm in the pocket, that belonged to a girl with gold hair and a bright smile, and Dean limps back down the stairs. He takes his favorite shotgun, and makes sure the Colt and Ruby's—there's a bitch he hasn't thought of in a while—bowie knife are locked up tight, and goes into the yard.
He climbs into his baby for the last time, and drives into a city and takes out two full grown trolls before one manages to clip him just a little too hard in the head as it bleeds out. So yeah, he took the sons of bitches down.
Death doesn't hurt. She's a pretty girl with bobbed black hair, and he grins when he sees her and she matches it.
Finally, she tells him, and he says, Hey, haven't I saved your life before?
She says Me and everyone on earth, and when she takes his hand he can feel the stiffness melting from his joints, his skin sliding back into place across tight muscle, and he can bend his knee again.
He does it, man, he goes towards the light, wondering if his shared heaven with Sammy is waiting for him, because fuck it all, if anyone deserves a heaven it's the two of them.
It's not the heaven he saw before, as it happens. It's the original Roadhouse, and when he looks back Tessa is gone and all he sees is a dirt road behind him, and in front of him the people he loves.
When he sees Sammy, who's young and tall and has stupid long hair again, and they hug for maybe the fifth time in their lives, and the amulet presses between them. Sam slides it off from around his neck and places it over Dean's head and tells him not to trash it this time, since it took a ton of favors to get this up here. Then Sam hands him a set of keys and Dean notices his baby parked in the lot, gleaming and perfect as he left her down on earth.
And yes, Ellie and Jess and Madison are all there and all seem to be getting along, and Dean gives Sam the Nod of Approval and Slight Jealousy. Gabriel's there too, for some reason, and he's hovering so close to his brother that Dean actually had to kind of elbow him out of the way.
Then there's his Mom, and god, she smells like freshly baked pie, and he shakes hands with his dad, because frankly they aren't there yet, but maybe after an eternity or two they will be, but he hugs Bobby and tells him he's so damn glad to be out of that salvage yard, because if another dumbass kid came waltzing in thinking he could kill a demon with some salt and holy water Dean'd be forced to kick his ass straight back out the door. And Bobby laughs, and it sounds fantastic, and Dean shakes Karen's hand politely while Bobby tells him he's an idjit.
Then Ellen slaps him, and then Jo slaps him, and then both of them are hugging him and crying, and he's sure as hell not crying because that's where he draws the line. Jo is as beautiful as the day she died, and she leans up and whispers in his ear, I'm glad you picked later, before she runs off into the Roadhouse, the wooden steps creaking as she hops up them.
She returns a moment later, her arm linked through the elbow of a man in an ill-fitting suit, who's stumbling before her because when Jo decides you're going to do something, you damn well do it no matter how much you don't want to.
Dean stares at Cas, and Cas stares at Dean, and for a moment neither of them move. It's been a hell of a long time, and Dean's almost (but not quite) forgotten the color of Cas' eyes, and he realizes Cas doesn't quite look like Jimmy Novak anymore, because this body was never Jimmy's. Then Cas asks for his coat back, and Dean slides it off and hands it over silently, and then Cas is apologizing and kissing him and the I'm sorry's are coming fewer and fewer between the kisses until Cas has shut up entirely, because Dean forgave him so long ago he's forgotten why he was ever mad in the first place, but he thinks it had something to do with being young and stupid and stubborn.
He realizes it's gone quiet when Sam breaks the silence with a wolf whistle, and without turning, Dean manages to peg him with his keys.
When he realizes he actually hit him, Dean grins and says I'm batman.