Hello again. So here is the beginning of the story. I hope you like it.
Also this story does cover the subjects of suicide and depression, though anyone who has read my other stuff will know I do like a happy ending so have no fear about that. I hope it doesn't upset anyone.
Anyway on with the story.
Disclaimer: I don't own Supernatural.
Dean lay on the hood of the impala sipping his sixth and last bottle of beer with his gun at his side as he stared up at the night sky and his favourite song 'Chasing Cars' played on repeat from his stereo. He wondered if there truly was a heaven as he had believed, and if so if he was looking down on him as he was looking up. Did he know how Dean felt? Did he care?
A year was a long time, well almost a year, 5 minutes left now. But to Dean it had seemed like a lifetime. A lonely isolated lifetime which he couldn't continue. Not without him at his side hence the gun in his place. He hoped there was a heaven, he hoped he would see him again but he didn't have much faith in it. Even if heaven existed he would probably be going to hell, but it would be better than this existence without him. Everything had its time and place, and his was almost up. But he still had five minutes of it left. They say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes. He didn't want to relive it all in a fraction of a second, so instead he turned his mind back now, turning back the clock to that night 1 year and five minutes ago first.
One year and five minutes ago...
Dean was sleeping when his phone blared out the guitar rift he had as his ring tone waking him. He thought of ignoring it and rolling over, it was bound to be something stupid, but what if it wasn't? It could be something serious. So with a groan he grabbed his phone and answered it without looking at the caller I.D. He wished he had never answered that call, in fact he wished he had never answered his phone again.
"Dean." Said a voice that was barely recognisable down the phone making Dean blink himself more awake.
"Gabriel, what's up?" He asked his voice still groggy and filled with sleep even as his brain registered that Gabriel calling him was most definitely not normal.
"it's Castiel Dean. I..." Gabriel tried to say but he chocked on the words making Dean sit up straight with a deep pit of dread in his stomach, no, nothing could have happened to him he wouldn't let it.
"Gabriel, what?" Dean asked knowing that he really didn't want his best friends brother to answer that question.
"He's... He's been lost at sea." Gabriel finally managed to get out in a whisper, as if he said is quietly enough it wouldn't be true.
Dean couldn't believe the words. No it wasn't possible, because Cas was fine. He was out there and he was fine. He was just sailing up to his family's house up the coast for god sake. How could he have got lost on a route he had travelled so many times before? He had sailed round the globe, this trip was nothing for him, nothing.
"No." he finally managed to get out in a strangled voice. He wouldn't believe it.
"We're not giving up Dean. We'll find him, but I... I thought you should know." Gabriel replied down the line having gained some control over himself in the face of Deans denial.
"No." Dean said once more before hanging up his phone.
He lowered his hand into his lap, the phone still clutched tightly in it, and he just sat there, staring at the wall of his bedroom refusing to accept the words that Gabriel had spoken. He sat there as dawn broke bringing light into his room. He sat there as the sun's rays streamed through his window. And he sat there as it moved across the sky, not moving, not thinking of anything. Because it couldn't be true. He was fine, Cas would be fine. He couldn't imagine a world in which he was not at the other end of the phone. Not across the hall in his room of there shared apartment. No because that world did not exist. Castiel Novak was fine.
It wasn't until the evening that his brother finally found him. Sam had been contacted by Deans work to find out why he hadn't turned up, Sam had no idea. So he tried calling his brother and it rang out to voice mail, he guessed Dean had been out the night before and was sleeping it off so he left it. But when he still wasn't answering that evening Sam got worried. As such he made his way to his Dean and Cas' apartment to find out what had happened. Upon picking the lock and entering he found Dean. Sitting as still as a statue on the bed, his face as pale as it could go. It scared Sam.
"Dean? Dean, what's wrong?" He asked rushing to his brother who finally turned to look at him. That look would haunt Sam for the rest of his life. His brothers eyes were dead, all the life gone from them as if his soul had departed and all that was left was the empty shell of who he used to be.
"Dean?" Sam asked more cautiously.
"Cas... Cas... he's gone." At that Sam watched on in horror as his brother broke down and curled up into the foetal position as he cried, tears streaming down his face. And all Sam could do was wonder what had happened to his brothers best friend as he did his best to comfort him.
For days Dean would speak to no one. Living in his own little world where Cas was fine. It was a week after his initial phone call that Gabriel arrived at the apartment, let in by Sam, he made his way to Deans room, refusing to look at the one across the hall which his brother had made his own.
"Dean." He said gently from the doorway. At his voice Dean turned with hope in his eyes and Gabriel hated that he was a bout to crush that hope into fine power. He wasn't in much better condition than Dean himself, but someone had to keep it together for the family. Sort the search, which had now been concluded... arrange the funereal.
"Sorry Dean. We found the boat, it was wrecked, there was no way anyone could have survived that." Gabriel said still in his gentle voice as he sat on the edge of Deans bed.
"But, Gabe...no." at that Dean threw himself into the arms of one of the few people who could understand just what he was feeling.
"I know Dean, I know." Gabriel replied as tears poured from his eyes and he held his brothers best friend trying to offer a comfort that he knew to be hollow. There was no comfort, nothing that would take away the pain of losing Castiel. He was the best of them and now he was gone.
The funereal was held three days later. They hadn't recovered a body, so instead they buried an empty coffin, and as Dean watched it descend into the muddy depths he felt something inside him break. The wall he had constructed so long ago and built upon every day of his life fell apart and crumbled to dust in his mind and he finally saw what he should have seen all along, but no he saw it now, when it was too late to do anything about it. Because it was as he watched the empty coffin descend into the earth just as his best friends body had descended to the bottom of the ocean he realised that he was a fool. Because he was in love with Castiel Novak and had always been. But it was too late now. Too late for them all.
And in a hospital in a distance, isolated and small ocean-side town a dark haired patient opened his very blue eyes for the first time since he had been brought inside, having been pulled out of the ocean by a fishing boat. Blinking he looked around the stark white room and the bleeping machines when suddenly a pretty redhead appeared in his line of sight.
"Hello, you had us scared there for a while. I am Anna your nurse, Can you tell me your name?" She asked with a sweet and gentle smile to him.
At that the man opened his mouth to answer but it was then he realised that no, he couldn't, for he had no idea who he was. That thought sent a panic through his body and with a gasp of breath he slid back into unconsciousness, but just before the black took him he saw an image in his mind of greens eyes looking at him with love and happiness, accompanying them was one word. Home.