I would like to thank everyone who read, reviewed and/or favorited my last story. Also, a warning: this doesn't have the happiest of endings. But I think it fits well enough. I would really appreciate any constructive criticism! Even if you just tell me what you did or didn't like, please review! And thanks in advance for reading (if you do decide to read, that is). ;)
Oh yeah, one last thing: they definitely are not mine. But if they were... (that would be my disclaimer, in case you couldn't tell.) I've always wondered about the relevancy of these things. I mean, if one of us actually did own Supernatural and made money from writing these stories, why would they post it for free on a fanfiction website? Anyway. Please enjoy!
"Despite all new inventions and modern designs, fads and fetishes, no one has yet invented, or will ever invent, a satisfying substitute for one's own family." —Dr. Stuart E. Rosenberg in his book, The Road to Confidence
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As a youth who lost his mother and the house he had grown up in to a fire, Dean developed an intimate understanding of what "home" truly is. He lived out of dozens of motel rooms, apartments, cabins, and even squatted in a few places. Some nights the Winchesters were forced to sleep in their beloved Impala, parked covertly in an abandoned lot or on a quiet street.
Sure, the living conditions couldn't exactly be considered first-class, or even suitable for children, but they made it work, took it all in stride. For Dean, losing someone so significant at such a young age imparted the importance of treasuring what you have while you still have it, and doing everything in your power (and then just a little more) to keep it that way.
Which is why Sam had always been Dean's. Dean's to protect. Dean's to provide for. Dean's to love.
Dean's to let go.
But for exactly sixty seconds, he didn't have to.
For that single minute, they had been together again. Brothers again. No monsters, no masks, no demons, no devils, no angels. Nothing and nobody but Sam, Dean, and the Impala.
And even when Michael returned from his Holy-Fire-Molotov-banishment-thing, for forty-six more seconds, Sam has still been Dean's Sammy, the no-so-little-anymore brother capable of making his own choices and deciding his own fate. Living his life his way.
But all too soon, Sammy had willingly fallen into the Pit and dragged Michael down with him.
All too soon, Sam was gone.
And Dean was alone.
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There are not words to describe how difficult it was for Dean to do nothing but sit and stare at the open distress and fear on Sam's features caused by the future he faced. Unable to do more than blink, the big brother in him had tried to convey any sort of comfort. Sam nodded his understanding. Dean should have known. After all they had faced, their conversations went far beyond the limitations of mere spoken language.
Then Michael had shown up.
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The gusts of air caused by the pull of the passage to the Pit were strong and whipped at Sam's clothes and hair, enticing him to fall back.
Dean could barely hear the exchange between Michael and Sam, the wind howling in his already ringing ears.
He caught the gist of it though. Michael was nothing if not adamant to be the perfect son.
And Dean, Dean was so proud of Sam. Proud of how every trace of doubt, every trace of discomfort and unease had been wiped from Sam's features instantly upon the archangel's return. Proud of the way Sam didn't let Michael talk him down and out of the fight. But most of all, Dean was proud of Sam because his baby brother had grown before his eyes and discovered what he needed to do on his own, and then defended that choice in the face of one of the strongest beings in Creation.
And then Sammy had looked back at Dean. One final look to last a lifetime. One look to convey what the two brothers had been trying to tell each other for their entire lives and never seemed to be able to these days.
Thank you for raising me, for being there for me, for trusting me, for never giving up on me. Please forgive me. I'm doing this for you. And also: Know that I will always love you.
Message composed, sent, and received. Sam's eyes had closed and his arms spread wide, ready and willing to do what he had to do. Dean's heart caught in his throat.
Adam's arms grabbing onto Sam just as he had begun to fall had given Dean simultaneous feelings of false hope and dread. Before he could even consider the possible outcomes, Sam had reciprocated Michael's move and pulled them both into Hell.
To Dean, it seemed as though they fell in slow motion, allowing his eyes one final glimpse of the little brothers he could never see again.
A flash of light, then the hole in the ground closed, the wind stopped racing, the rings reappeared where Sam had tossed them onto the grass. The sudden silence and stillness was both deafening and earth shattering. But Dean barely noticed. He was beyond feeling, numb in ways he had been only once before.
As quickly as his beaten body allowed, Dean crawled to the rings and stared down at them, willing the hole to reopen so he may rejoin his family. Knowing that he never could.
God only knew what those two furious, self-righteous wing-endowed bastards were doing to Sam and Adam, taking out their anger on the brothers at being trapped for all eternity in an especially reserved box of the Pit.
Dean prayed—no, he refused to pray to a God that had allowed, had planned, for this to happen—that the archangels' wrath would be brief, that Sam and Adam would be spared the pain and torment Dean himself had faced in Hell for thirty years. Or worse, the unspeakable atrocities he had committed in his final decade of damnation.
He sat there for what seemed like days—but in reality could only have been five minutes—driving himself deeper into despair, when the unforgettable flutter of wings that accompanied the arrival and departure of an angel breached his broken shell of a body.
He turned and felt surprise, if that was even possible.
Castiel's stoic face looked down at him, not even a hair out of place.
But that was impossible. Lucifer had…had blown his own little brother into a million pieces, scattering the younger angel's blood and guts across the cemetery. There was no coming back from that, right? Especially for a second time.
He had to know this wasn't simply a hallucination caused by the concussion that he was just beginning to feel. "Cas, you're alive?"
The angel's tone was gruff as always yet gentle, quieter as if in respect for the sacrifices made only minutes earlier. "I'm better than that." Castiel reached down with two fingers and placed them on Dean's forehead in what had become a familiar gesture.
Powerful healing angelic grace flowed through Castiel's fingers and into Dean, erasing any sign of the beating that had occurred under Lucifer's—not Sam's, never Sam's—hands.
The implications of Castiel's return spurred Dean's thoughts as the last Winchester stood. It couldn't be, but the question was demanding to be answered. "Cas, are you God?"
The corners of Jimmy's mouth turned up in what could only be a small, sad smile. "That's a nice compliment. But no. Although I do believe He brought me back." The angel turned from Dean then, walking toward Bobby's cooling corpse. "New and improved."
A tentative hand he barely recognized as his own ghosted over Dean's face, feeling for wounds no longer there, with no trace they ever were. Its action was halted when Dean noticed Castiel kneeling beside Bobby. A cracking sound, and then—
A breath. Bobby was alive.
With everything that had happened, Dean was stunned that he was able to feel even an inkling of relief as Bobby sat up and stared at Castiel with wide, confused eyes.
The twice-revived angel left Bobby to allow him to readjust to life, and Dean remembered the slight weight in his palm. The rings. And what they represented.
His brothers had gone into a place Dean had sworn he would never follow nor breach.
They were separated for all eternity.
How was he supposed to live with that?
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The drive back to Bobby's was silent save for the soothing hum of the engine and the breathing of a man and his angel sitting in the front seat. Sam's seat.
The question appeared in his mind's eye out of the blue and burned his tongue as it left his mouth. "What are you gonna do now?"
The longing in Cas's tone was not exactly surprising, but still unexpected. "Return to Heaven I suppose." Go home. I can finally go home.
"Heaven?" Lucky you.
"With Michael in the Cage, I'm sure it's total anarchy up there."
"So what? You're the new Sheriff in town?"
The smile on Castiel's face made Dean's eyes sting. "I like that, yeah. I suppose I am."
"Wow." Dean is almost upset that he expected otherwise. He understood, but he was still kinda pissed. "God gives you a brand new shiny set of wings and suddenly you're his bitch again."
Quick to defend himself and the Creator that granted him life for a third time, Castiel replied, "I don't know what God wants. I don't know if He'll even return. It just… seems like the right thing to do."
But Dean isn't quite finished. "Well if you do seem Him, you tell Him that I'm coming for Him next." Unlike you, I have no home. Because of Him.
"You're angry." The tone suggests Castiel is confused as to why, reminding Dean of a simpler time when the angel was new to his dealings with the Winchesters, still completely faithful, absent any trace of doubt.
Dean deflated. "That's an understatement."
"He helped." Dean scoffed at that, but Castiel persisted. "Maybe even more than we realize."
"That's easy for you to say. He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where's my grand prize? All I got is my brother, in a hole!"
Although Castiel had been living like one for a some time, he still was not human, especially after God granted him life and gave him the keys to Heaven. He didn't, couldn't understand. "You got what you asked for, Dean." I did not ask for this. Anything is better than this.
"No Paradise. No Hell. Just more of the same." Why don't you understand, Cas? This is not the same. It will never be the same.
"I mean it, Dean. Which would you rather have? Peace? Or freedom?"
And then he was gone. Just like Sam. As though he expected Dean's answer and did not need to hear it.
Angels. Cocky bastards.
Dean spoke to empty air. "You really suck at goodbye's, you know that?"
But honestly, was it so wrong for Dean to want both?
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Bobby may have been family, but his house was not home to Dean.
After replacing the windshield of the Impala, Dean knew that it was time to go. He couldn't stay there anymore. "Promise me."
Soon he had hugged Bobby goodbye, and then he was on the road once more. But he still wasn't at home.
The Impala was Dean's girl, his Baby, the only one in his life that had never left him of her own volition. Sam had claimed more than once that Dean held more love for the car than his own brother, all in jest, of course.
And it was true; the Impala reserved an important spot in both Dean's life and in his heart. But not the most important part.
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Was merely existing supposed to be so painful?
Just the thought of what two furious archangels could be doing to their vessels, Dean's little brothers, was enough to send him speeding back to Stull in order to join them. But he couldn't. He had made a promise.
A promise that was normal life on a silver platter, everything he'd never had the time to dream of before. And it was all his. But he didn't want it.
Dean didn't want the dream house with the manicured lawn and the picket fence or the barbeques or the going to football games or the 2.3 kids or the perfect housewife. Not without his little brother around to share it.
Lisa's house… it was nice, but it would never be home. Because they say "home is where the heart is." And Dean's heart was in Hell. Does that make him homeless, too?