Throughout all civilisations and all times, stories behind the stars can be found. Stories and honour, of glory. Stories of famous battles and blood soaked wars.
Stories of pain and triumph. Stories of sacrifice, and of love.
Stories of all things that made someone who they were, and then immortalised right there in the sky, for all to behold.
Dean used to look up at the sky when he was still small and imagine what life had been like for the people hundreds of years in the past, who had lived under those same stars. Sometimes he had wondered what life would be like for the people who would come after him, still under the same stars.
He was once told that the shapes the stars made in the sky were images of people whose story became the stars.
He used to wonder why people had felt the need to give the stars a reason to exist; why they created stories to justify them. Dean had thought it strange that people and places were created or given to the stars, but no stars were created or given to people or places.
When he had grown up, he of course had finally understood.
For some reason incomprehensible to Dean, the human race as a majority wanted to live forever - to have a part of them live on - for people to remember them.
They wished to find something to hold onto and stay there until time stopped.
Dean didn't want that; had never wanted that. He could think of nothing worse than to live forever, to spend all of time suffering through this life he had found himself in.
He understood that.
What he now didn't understand was how people could possibly want to spend forever in the sky, their stories of personal pain and endless terror remember forever, and never lain to rest.
All he had ever really wanted was to protect his family, and upon failing that, for it all to end. All of it - for everyone. That would be it, no more suffering, no more pain. They could never be separated again - because they knew that even Death couldn't do that.
Dean hoped that in this last moment, he could finally get his wish. But he found that it was harder to let go than he thought.
They were all dead. Everyone he ever knew, everyone he ever loved.
And now Dean was dying, too.
Everything hurt, but he could feel nothing.
The room was so clear to him, but he couldn't see anything.
There were so many things inside him, but he was so empty.
He knew exactly what had happened, but he didn't understand any of it.
All he wanted to do was to scream; to cry out. But all he could do was gasp painfully.
Blood seeped from between his lips and spilled down his cheek, dripping onto the floor, collecting in a small puddle.
He let out a little sob and tried to move his head to the left slightly. His eyes fell upon an enormous dark wing etched out across the cold stone floor. Dean couldn't see the other one, but remembered the sensation of burning and screaming and pain as it had seared across his chest when the angel had died.
He didn't really want to see what he saw next, but he couldn't stop himself from looking.
Lying next to him, in the center of the burnt charcoal wings, was his angel. Bruised, bloody and so utterly small looking. It wasn't right. Dean didn't want this for him. For any of them.
Castiel was his best friend. He'd made his mistakes, as Dean had made his own, but he couldn't find it in himself to blame him. Not then; not now. Not after everything they had given for each other - not after everything that they meant to each other.
He was the only friend that Dean had ever managed to keep, and he's failed him now, alongside everyone else. He whimpers.
Reaching an arm out, Dean's fingers brush across the bridge of Castiel's nose. His shocking blue eyes were closed. He looked like he could be sleeping. He wished that to be true so badly.
A silver blade protruded from the angels' chest, its clean and gloriously shining hilt mocking Dean, and dispelled any illusions he had wished for.
He gasped, and then a small sob escaped from where he was trying so hard to keep it all in, and he slowly traced his fingers down his angels nose, until they slipped off. He expected his fingers to hit the hard stone floor, but instead they fell onto something soft, and Dean wrapped his hand around it, clutching to the trench coat with the little strength he had left.
He never wanted to let go.
He whimpered again.
A small sound came from somewhere to his right.
"...Dean...?" it was a feeble sound, quiet and dry. He'd never wanted to hear anything like it in his life. And yet, he could never have wanted to hear anything else.
Dean rolled his head over, away from his broken angel, and there, down next to his right knee he could see Sam. His little Sammy.
He didn't want to see after that.
Blood was running down from his hairline. Blood was coming from one of his ears. Blood was pooling around his waist where his stomach was barely being held in by his torn hands. Blood was everywhere. His leg was bending in an unnatural way, and he could see bone poking through along one of his shoulders. His breathing was laboured, rough and haggard, coming from a broken chest.
"Sammy..." blood gurgled from his lips again, and splattered down onto the stone. Sam looked up at him, wincing, the effort causing him pain.
"Sammy, no..."
Dean couldn't handle seeing his brother like this. His baby brother. He didn't want it to end like this. It couldn't end like this. Dean had promised him - he'd promised them all that it would all end well.
All his life he'd promised people that it could end well. And every time he promised that to someone he cared about, it backfired.
And now they were all dead.
Dean knew that he was a curse upon every god forsaken thing he cared about, but he tried so hard to protect them anyway. With words of assurance and certainty, he had done his best to convince them that everything would end well.
This wasn't ending well.
Dean supposed it was ending just like everything else he'd ever done. In a mess.
Everyone he loved was dead. All his life. They all died.
For all the people he saved in his line of work, he was bad at saving the people he cared about.
But then there was Sam.
Still alive, but barely holding on.
The one thing that he'd had all his life, and it was slipping away.
Again.
So many times that he had failed to protect his brother, and here he was, failing him again, for the final time.
Dean didn't think that there'd be another chance for them this time.
This was it.
"Sammy..." he reached out his hand, and Sam reached out with his. They met halfway, fingers lacing together, and holding on tightly.
Dean let himself have this moment with his brother.
He had his angel on one side, and his baby brother to his other. Dean tried to convince himself that it would all be fine.
But then Sam's heavy breathing became quiet, and the room went silent. His fingers went slack, and Dean stilled, terrified.
"...Sammy...?"
No answer. Everything was quiet.
A tear leaked from Dean's eye and dripped onto the floor, mixing with his blood.
He gripped his brothers fingers tighter, willing them to squeeze back.
They never did.
It took him a moment to realise that he was crying. He didn't understand why. He couldn't feel anything. Just the numbness.
He couldn't live without his brother. It wasn't living.
And then he felt something inside him get heavier, and he supposed that he wouldn't have to.
Dean's eyes slid closed, his grip on Castiel's coat and on Sam's hand never loosening, his last thought a determination to never let them go.
A crack running along the ceiling shifted and dust fell through onto the stone. Dean's eyes moved up, and through the split, he could see the night sky. Stars flashed bright, and in that moment he could finally understand why people wanted so badly for their last moments to be preserved.
Because these last moments weren't pain. Not like he'd thought. All Dean could feel now was a hollow sense of satisfaction. It confused him - but it was there.
No more pain, no more nightmares. Just forever with his brother and his angel.
One final tear dripped into the blood.
And then he stopped breathing, too.
A small boy of about six years of age sits on the wet park bench behind his house, staring up at the night sky, searching for a particular set of stars.
He remembers having talked to a man in the park earlier that day, who told him that the stars in the sky painted pictures of the past. He had said that there were stars out there for everyone's past. He had said that there was a special set of stars out there just for him, too. He'd looked very serious when he said this, when he'd knelt on the ground, looked him in the eye, and told him that most people had stars given to them, but that he was special, and that some extra special stars had been created for him.
The man had been very certain about this.
As the boy sat wondering what his special stars looked like, something flashed brightly in the sky, and when he turned to look properly, he found that a hundred new stars had appeared from nowhere, and were spread across the night. The boy gasped and stood up to inspect them closer.
These new stars made out a very detailed picture, and he could barely understand where they had come from.
In the sky he could see three men made of stars. The one on the right had beautiful star filled wings. The one in the center had a large, bright, shining star where his heart would have been. The shape of the one on the left was scattered with stars, and he and the one in the center were holding hands. The one with the star heart was clutching onto the clothing of the one with the wings.
They looked like they were sleeping.
It was beautiful, and from somewhere inside, it brought the boy a sense of fulfilment. It went right over the child's comprehension, but the picture of the three men didn't make him sad, like he somehow thought it should. Something deeply buried inside him that he didn't understand stirred at the image in the stars, but settled again as the new stars winked out one by one, until there was nothing left but the old ones.
He was left standing in the dark, staring at the space in the sky where the picture had been, and couldn't help but think that he had just seen his set of special stars.
A soft feeling inside of him brought him to believe that it was, and he wondered why he was so special that he had his own stars. He wondered why his stars seemed so peaceful, when every other story behind a star he knew of had a horrible ending.
"Dean?"
He was startled from his thoughts as his mother called his name.
"Dean, it's time to come inside now. It's getting very late, and we don't want you to be staying up all night."
Dean looked up toward the house, and could see his mother, her long blond hair falling over her shoulder, leaning out of the window, smiling at him.
"Remember that Uncle Bobby and Auntie Ellen are coming over early tomorrow morning, and they're bringing little Jo, so you have to be nice and rested."
"Yes, mama."
"And around noon, Castiel and his brothers will be arriving, and you know what they are like." She gave him another small smile.
"Yes, mama."
"And then in the afternoon all the other guests will be arriving, and it will be a very long day, so you have to get as much sleep as you can tonight."
"Yes, mama."
He fidgeted nervously, and she noticed.
She smiled at him "Dean, I love you, and you're going to have a fantastic day tomorrow."
Dean rubbed his small hands on the sides of his pants and looked down at his feet. He wasn't so sure.
"What if it doesn't turn out well?"
His mother crooked her head to one side.
"Dean, it will be perfect. Everyone will be there to support you. Me, your father, little Sammy, all your friends."
Dean looked up at his mother framed in the light from the kitchen window. She was so pretty.
"All my friends will be there?"
"Yes, Dean."
"Everyone I love?"
She smiled "everyone you love will be there."
"And it will turn out well, and they'll be happy?"
"It will turn out well, and they will be happy, Dean. And so will you."
Dean's tiny smile lit up his whole face.
"Yes, mama. I'll come inside."
He cast one quick look back at the sky, in hopes of seeing the starry image again, but he didn't, and turned toward the house, his little legs carrying him as fast as they could up the back porch and through the door.
In cover of shadow and darkness, a tall man watched the small boy be embraced in his mothers arms through the open kitchen window.
He had watched as the boy looked up into the sky, and saw the stars that were created for him. He knew the boy wouldn't understand exactly what it meant, and that he probably never would, but it was very important that he showed him that picture of his past.
The Winchesters as they had been, and everyone who had later become a part of that family, had given so much for their fight. To save people. To hunt monsters. They had all been very familiar with pain.
But sometimes, enough is enough, and you had to remember the past - but let go of the grip it has on you, and just move on.
For their legacy and who they were would live forever in the stars, their last moments preserved, but here on Earth, they too, could have the life they'd always longed for, surround by everyone they'd ever loved and lost.
And the tears could finally stop falling.
Their job was done.
And this was peace.