Celebrations are for drinking, aren't they? At least, that's what Dean was told by the date on his lock screen, right after it punched him in the gut.
Cheers, he thinks to himself and empties his glass. To the bartender, he mouths, "Another."
He doesn't dare say it aloud, in case his loud voice gets lost halfway out. That is what mostly-numb tongues stuck in mostly-numb heads tend to do with words.
The bartender, for the last time probably, falls for his smile, polite and bright, that steals the attention away from the clarity missing from his eyes. In the next round, the big sign about law and no drinks for drunks will win. But Dean's not that drunk a patron yet, is he?
Not drunk enough, for sure. Not drunk enough to forget.
"Bad day?" the bartender asked him when he came in, still with a wallet thick enough to count.
Having an anniversary, he almost said before he stopped himself and ordered a drink instead.
But that was hours ago, back when she eyed him with keen curiosity, not with careful judgment. Back before the bad day changed into the hopeless one without him moving an inch. Or has it been this hopeless from the start? Hasn't he been like this from the very night, the very moment?
Yet somehow, it hadn't hit quite as hard as today. Not during the funeral, not in the days after when Dean threw himself into the hunt for the devil junior and any case he could score along the way. Not when he still waited and hoped Cas would come back somehow.
Sometimes he would even forget. Not for long, not completely. When he managed to keep himself busy enough, the thought, the very concept of Cas being dead, would slip his mind. In those moments—before the realization would come knocking him down—nothing in the world seemed any different. Dean went on slicing and dicing, eyes on the job, mind at ease. As any time Cas simply wasn't there. Just for a few seconds, it was just Cas's time off, as it would so often be, weeks, months at a time.
But today, there is no fooling himself, try as might. Today has got this specific flavor of grief when it's long since the shock wore off, mixed up with too big a dose of melancholy of the special date. What a toxic combination he got there.
Funny thing is, if he'd ever been asked, Dean would need a minute to remember the date when he first met Cas. Of course, it was right after Cas pulled him from hell, but that, in Dean's book, was hardly worth celebrating, and he was never into anniversaries and holidays anyway.
If anything, those could only be mourned. All his life, he has felt the silence that each year would creep on his family in the fall, saw how it would later paint Sam's eyes with pain he tried to hide. Dean made sure that the dates that hold memories are nothing but numbers on the pages of the calendar, so they cannot fester and rot and turn into nothing but dull aches deep inside the chest.
Like people do.
"I think you've had enough," a voice tells him, somewhere above his head.
He never even asked for more. There's still a sip of whiskey sitting in his glass, if a little blurry.
Dean rubs his eye with the back of his palm. "I'm fine," he says, not caring how slurred it comes out, this time. He couldn't fight it anyway. He's no strength left in him for even the smallest battles.
There are a few ways this could go; at least two of them end ugly. And all of them end pathetic. But then, he's there already, isn't he? A pathetic, grieving fool.
Greedily, he downs the rest of his booze and, in swift, yet careful movements, slips off his stool. Owes kept balance to luck rather than to skill.
The night air greets him with a smell of fast approaching fall and the chill that shrouds his face the moment he opens the door. The wind, though refreshing, exciting every last hair at the back of his neck, does little for his missing sobriety. When he sets one foot in front of the other, until the pavement turns to the gravel parking lot, turns to dry, dusty ground, it's all on him.
He doesn't get far.
Before the last of the noise from the bar disappears, he stops at the fork in the road. He licks his lips and lifts his finger to go eenie-meenie-miney-moe on it, 'cause the memory's too vague and all he knows is that one way leads to Sam's bitching about him going AWOL, the other leads only to more of the dusty road and forks and nowhere.
And that neither of them can take him home.
There is no home, not anymore, not when Cas is—
"Son of a bitch," Dean blurts out.
He shuts his eyes, trying to will the world to ease on the spinning. It won't, it never does. It just goes on and on and on and on no matter how many loses Dean counts, how many goodbyes he doesn't get to say, how many corpses he burns.
"You son of a bitch!" Dean yells, head darted to the sky. The stars, blurred, sparkle at him from up high. What a beautiful night have they got here for their special day. But it's not the stars he yells to, or the sky or Heaven. He's got no one in Heaven who could listen. "What? You think this—this is okay?"
Cas can't hear him, of course he can't. If he could, he'd come home by now. A prayer would have been enough.
But Cas can't hear prayers now, because he's dead, fucking dead, more dead than he ever was, it seems. Though maybe Dean just has to wait a little longer, just a few days, months, years—
"Do you think this is funny? I'm not fucking laughing!"
Maybe Cas can still come back like he always does. Like he's done so many times, even long after Dean's lost all hope that he would. Maybe Dean just hasn't tried hard enough to find him, to bring him back. Maybe he should have.
Tears well up behind Dean's eyelids but he won't let them fall.
"What do you want me to do Cas? What do you want?"
They still fall.
"Why'd you have to come and make me—"
They drown him, choke him, remake his voice into their own liking.
"Why'd you make me love you and then fucking died?"
The word doesn't hurt when it falls out of Dean's mouth. It doesn't feel like much, at all, said too late. What hurts is the silence afterwards, but that will always be there, now, always aching with the remorse it carries. Always heavy with the weres, taken for granted and the could have beens that Dean let pass him by.
"D'you want me to move on?" he asks, as if that was an option. "To forget? Go back to before—?"
He swallows, head buried in his hands. There is no going back, there never was.
Not after Cas came and carved a Cas-shaped hole inside him, not after Dean's gained the best friend he's ever had.
Not after Cas fell in so many ways and Dean only fell in one.
Not after Cas rebelled against everything he's ever known and Dean was the one to grab him by the coat and drag him down with him.
Not after Cas brought Dean a new life and claimed a part in it for himself, became a constant.
And if there was a way, Dean wouldn't take it.
"Nine years, Cas," Dean whispers.
No longer a roar, no longer for all of Heaven to overhear. This is just for them, for Cas's ears only.
"It's been nine years, to the date, today. And I've loved you for so much of it."
But Cas can't hear him. Of course.
Dean wraps his jacket tighter around his body and picks a way, not sure where it'll lead him and if he'll manage to follow. Not sure of anything anymore except for the one thing he's wasted, thinking he and Cas had all the time in the world.
"Nine years," he repeats to himself and lets out a bitter laugh. "Well—just short of."