Dean found himself at the planetarium. It was always closed on Sundays. He had the key though, so he let himself in. The place had been recently cleaned, and the smell of Windex was still in the air. Dean turned on the program and let the stars pop into existence. Left the narration off this time and just watched the sky.
Denab appeared and Dean said, "Wish you were here." Dean spoke quietly to the sky and to Cas. "Just so you know, I'm not moving on. I don't want that." The lower region of the sky glowed green. It was the part of the program where the narrator talked about the Aurora Borealis. He wondered if he could just stay here, avoid the whole mess. They could handle this on their own, right? "I want to believe that you'll come back, but I know that isn't in the cards. I don't even know why I'm talking to you now. You can't hear me."
He felt frustrated by the whole thing. He had managed to avoid the misery for years. Well, not entirely, but it was at least contained and controlled misery. He felt like Claire showed up and suddenly the cap was removed from the bottle of soda after it had been well and truly shaken. Dean let his mind wander over memories, trying to find one that would make things easier. No memory of Cas though could really do that. Thinking of him was a constant reminder of the losses, the emptiness that lived in him, and the way that life would always be for him from now on. Sometimes he let himself dwell because he loved Cas and wanted to cling to the moments. Sometimes he let himself dwell because he hated himself and wanted drag himself through the misery. Most days he felt like he deserved the torment. I am to blame. That was the constant mantra that echoed in Dean's mind. He carried the weight of Cas' death and his choices too as if he were solely responsible for them all.
His mind found a dark alley, stars sparking past the darkness overhead. Cas was beating him. Dean's mind turned off the words. He knew them all already. It was the contact that mattered, the memory of Cas drawing his blood forth with each slam of his fists. It was an old memory. It was penance. It was from the first time that he had really given up. The apocalypse was drawing nigh and there was nothing more that he could do. He went off to take care of business, but the snarky little angel of the Lord found him and unleashed a type of wrath that Dean had not expected.
He had played out this moment before. When Cas pressed him to the bricks, Dean closed his eyes tighter, anticipating the next wave of violence. The pounding of Cas' fists into him would be a song of sorts. He'd find forgiveness in the tune. Sometimes though he'd turn the moment into something else. Dreams and memories were funny like that. There were times when the moment had ended in a kiss, raw and desperate. Cas would slam him back harder into the brick and seem like he was there to consume Dean.
Still there were other times when Dean imagined it becoming quiet. Cas pressed against him in the alley staring at him would turn into an abrupt moment of tenderness. His hand would move up to his cheek. His fingers would slowly trace out the shape of the bruises forming there. In a moment he looked sad, like he couldn't believe that his hands had done this. In those dreams, Dean wanted to tell him that it was fine, that it was what he deserved, and that he could take more if need be.
"You're stronger than this." Cas' words breathed past his cheek to his ear. Dean thought that he was going to relive this as a silent memory. Guess not. Talking it is then. More torment for everyone!
He looked at Cas, so close, so real. He was gripping his shirt and jacket in his fists exactly as he had before. Dean could feel the rough brick of the alley wall behind him. His hands pressed to it to keep himself grounded. "I'm not." His words answered Cas and were gritty and desperate.
"You are, Dean Winchester. You've survived worse. Now stop wallowing in this self-imposed misery and get to work." Dean imagined himself opening his eyes more now. Cas was close, still gripping his clothes at his chest, but he looked different, more like his later Cas, more like the Cas that had died and come back a few times. He was a Cas of experience, a Cas that loved him, maybe.
Dean let himself wonder when the change occurred for him. He wondered if he had always loved Cas but just to a different degree. He wondered if Cas' love for him was the same. Did he climb up from the depths of Hell with an increase of devotion forming with each moment. Did it come to him by degrees as he watched Dean struggling through one thing after the next. Dean thought about these things over the years and sometimes he concluded that Cas merely loved him as a brother in arms and nothing more. It was easier to believe that sometimes. Somehow that reality hurt less. Maybe it was because then he didn't have to feel like all of his reservations and secret feelings were kept from someone that wanted them desperately.
He let his mind slip back into the memory that wasn't at all as it had been. Cas settled his head onto Dean's shoulder, releasing his coat from his fists as he did so. His hands fell down to Dean's sides. Dean's hands were still pressed back against the brick. "Of course I loved you."
Dean muttered back. "Yeah, I know buddy."
"No, I loved you, still love you, always will love you." Cas' hands found his and held them at their sides.
"I don't know why I keep doing this to myself. I don't know why I keep imagining that we had this, that we ever moved onto anything even remotely like this."
Cas pressed a kiss to his neck then and lingered there a moment. Dean focused on the warmth of it. His head tipped back a little to give Cas more access. He looked up to the stars. They were bright and not obscured by the city lights. "You're not imagining this," Cas murmured into his neck. It was the stars that set Dean off though. It was their brightness in the city that told Dean that they were unreal, that all of this was unreal.
"I am, but that's okay. Sometimes it's okay to imagine good things." Dean brought his arm up to wrap around Cas' waist.
"I'm not sure how to convince you, but I'm with you, I've always been with you. It might look like the stuff of dreams, but we've had that before and you didn't doubt it then."
The vision shifted and they were on a dock, looking out at a placid lake. Cas was no longer pressed to him. He disliked the shift in the vision. He didn't feel like he had control of it. He looked up at Cas and stood from the seat that he had found himself in. "What just happened?"
Cas reached out to him and cupped his cheek in his hand. "Have faith, Dean. Sometimes good things do happen." He leaned in and kissed him, soft like they had all the time in the world to linger and live. Dean was confused, but he kissed him back, and pushed aside all of the thoughts that were vying for attention. He wanted this moment to just be him and Cas. He pulled Cas closer, digging his fingers into the folds of the eternal trenchcoat. He opened his mouth to him, and Cas deepened the kiss.
When he chose to breathe, the day had turned to night at the lake. The stars shone high overhead. The shoreline was touched with the green light that seemed like the light of the fake Aurora Borealis back at the planetarium. Dean looked down at him, close and real and alive. "I love you." And he breathed in deeply from the cool night air. "I love you." It bore repeating for all the times that passed before, for all the times he hadn't said it. He would repeat it forever if this were only real, if this could ever be his.
They stood together for a moment more before the world in front of him flickered and Cas was gone again. Everything was dark except for the stars that were still projected onto the ceiling. Dean sighed and said aloud, "If only it were real." The stars were moving now, swirling and streaking across the ceiling sky. It was part of the story, part of what was programed. He got up from the seat and moved to the podium. He switched off the projection. The room went dark for a moment, then the house lights came on. He glanced at his phone and saw the time. It was late. Maybe he'll be gone. He left the room and headed out to meet with Paul.
Reverend Carmichael's office was situated behind the church. Dean went to it and paused at the door. He didn't knock right away. He considered leaving. "Damn it all." Dean knocked.
The voice from within called out, "Come in." Dean opened the door to Paul's office and found him seated behind a large desk. His hair was disheveled and he noticeably stiffened when Dean entered.
"Hello. Is now a bad time to drop in?" Dean hoped it was. He hoped that the reverend would somehow see the sense in turning him away.
"No, of course not." Paul motioned for Dean to take a seat in the empty chair across from his desk. "I have to admit, I didn't expect to see you."
"I really don't want to bother you. I mean, if you're busy, just say the word." Dean rushed through his words, practically praying that Paul would wave him off, tell him that they should do this another time.
"Don't be silly. I'm glad you stopped in, whatever your reasons." He smiled and it felt sincere. He ran his hands back up into his hair and smoothed it down a little. "So, what brings you by?"
"I want to ask about your sermons." Dean stopped not sure how to broach the subject. Can one really just ask about something like this. How does it go? Hey have you made any crossroad's deals lately? How much of a prophet are you? Know any witches?
Paul let out a sigh. "Really? I thought you were here to talk about the people that you brought into the church today."
Dean blanched, "Huh?"
"The people, but if you really want to talk about the sermon we can talk about that and meander our ways toward the real subject." He folded his hands in front of him.
"How do you do that?"
"What?"
"You know what," Dean said. He waved his hands out in front of himself in a somewhat prissy manner.
"The knowing what people want stuff?" Paul got up then and walked over to the other side of the desk. He leaned into it, sitting on the edge a bit. He looked down at Dean now, and seemed like he was reading him more.
Dean couldn't look away. The moment, the looming presence of him, reminded Dean of Cas. Their positions reminded him a little of the memory that he had been reliving just an hour before. He got up and moved back toward the bookcase. His hands curled up around the shelf behind him. "What are you?"
Paul came closer to him. "You don't need to be afraid of me." He stood close and reached out slowly to Dean. "I'm just what I seem to be."
"I don't know what you seem to be." Dean squeezed back more into the bookcase. "Are you a prophet?"
"No." He ran his hand up to Dean's chest. "I'm just a preacher." He settled his hand there and stared into Dean's eyes. Dean stared back. He didn't cringe away, didn't close his eyes against what was to come if anything.
"How do you know what people want? Your sermons cater to the individuals in your congregation." Paul's hand slid up to Dean's neck and around to the back. His fingers scratched up into Dean's hair.
"I use to be horrible at my job. I was a preacher that no one wanted to listen to. I was going to be replaced. I prayed about it. I prayed pretty ardently to be honest." He pressed in close to Dean, his chest resting against Dean's own. "And God answered my prayers. He came to me in a flash of light, settled into my form and let me see what was needed. My sermons were better. I could hear what my congregation needed, and I could give them something worthy of their attention."
"You can hear their needs?"
"Yes, it is why you are standing here, and why I am comfortable with our proximity. You seemed to want this." He leaned toward Dean then and was about to kiss him. Before his mouth made contact he froze, backed away. "Oh, I'm sorry."
"Okay."
"I didn't see the rest of it. You aren't like the others." He took another step back and asked, "Who is it that you lost?"
Dean felt his muscles relax a little. He went with honesty. "An angel."
Paul stared at him a moment and then said, "How?"
"I'd rather not."
"I'm sorry, Dean. I misinterpreted your desires. It's been a long time, and I just…" He moved back to his seat on the other side of the desk. He waved Dean back to his seat.
"You seem a lot like him. I may have been sending out mixed signals." Dean moved back to the seat and shifted until he was a little more comfortable.
"You project rather strongly. I'm not sure why you are different. The others that came with you project differently from my congregation, but not as strongly as you do. You are all rather unique."
"That makes sense."
"The girl sitting next to Charlotte projects a bit." Paul folded his hands in front of him. He looked like he was a little more relaxed than he had been before. Maybe the honesty is helping.
"We are not your typical people."
"Do tell."
"Well, Claire is an angel vessel. I am also an angel vessel, but I have not been possessed in that way. I was, for a time, considered to be the 'righteous man.' That would take some explaining so let me just jump ahead to the part where I was also a demon, totally reformed now though." Dean smiled at the look of shock that Paul had on his face. "Is this overwhelming or should I continue?"
"Oh, continue," he said with some confidence in his tone.
"Then there's my brother Sam. He was the tall one on the end. He's also an angel vessel. Except that he did say yes."
"Oh, so is he an angel now?" Paul leaned forward with interest.
"No, and you wouldn't have wanted to have been around him back then either. He said yes to Lucifer to thwart the apocalypse."
"Whoa, are you serious?" Dean just smiled and Paul said, "You're serious."
"Yep. So then Cas, an angel that spent a fair amount of time with us, harrowed Hell and saved Sam, leaving Lucifer behind." Dean cracked his knuckles, seeming to enjoy the down playing of his life's major events. "Moving on. Next to Sam was Alex. She was raised by some vampires and briefly she was turned into a vampire. She too is now reformed."
"Vampires are a thing? That's real?"
"Entirely too real."
Paul reached out his hand across the desk and said, "Could you give me your hand for a moment?"
"Uh, sure. Why?" Dean put his hand into Paul's.
"Sometimes contact helps me read people better." He curled his fingers around Dean's hand and held it. "Continue."
"Well, lastly, there's Chuck, and I'm not sure what to make of him."
"He was hard to read."
"How so?"
"I would get splashes of things from him, mostly just colors and noise. It was like a feedback loop. I started to feel sick during the sermon. If I had gone on much more I'm sure it would have been bad. It was like I wasn't supposed to be reading him or something."
"Hmm, that's odd, but probably explainable. Chuck is a prophet. He also acted as a vessel for God." Now Paul looked rather shocked. His grip on Dean's hand tightened quite noticeably.
"Uh, sorry." He loosened his grip on Dean's hand. His thumb moved gently back and forth seemingly to sooth away the pain he had maybe caused.
"So that covers the introductions." Dean leveled his gaze on him in a more serious manner. "You must know why I'm here then."
"I know that you need me to do something, but I don't know what. I'm sensing that you're nervous about the situation. You want me to decline whatever offer you put on the table. You also keep threading in thoughts of loss and an emptiness."
Dean started to pull his hand back to himself, then he didn't. "Maybe you don't need to be reading quite so much of me."
"Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"It's nice to have some things that are just yours, ya know?"
"Yes. I'm sorry." Paul started to slide his hand away, but Dean held on.
"It's okay. You'll want to get a full read when I tell you what I'm here for."
Paul curled his fingers around Dean's hand again and waited. "I'm ready."
Dean sucked in a breath and said, "God or something supernatural has spoken to Chuck. He has asked us to go to a site that holds a great deal of relevance to us." Dean stopped suddenly angry at himself for downplaying the site. Paul's squeezed his hand in comfort. Dean closed his eyes and pictured the place, the moments before he lost everything. "It's where we lost Cas." Dean felt the memory taking over his mind. He felt the cold chill of it raking over him. He tensed and continued with his eyes closed. "Chuck thinks that we need to go there to help God, like maybe he's there." Dean felt the light in the room trying to break past his closed eyes. He could see dust motes floating in the dark like stars hovering in the night sky. Still he kept his eyes closed. "Claire thinks that we need to go there because helping God might also mean helping Cas."
"You love him. That was the need that I was misinterpreting."
"Yes." Dean was fighting to control his emotions. He wasn't sure if it was just the sharing of the story or if it was the contact with Paul that was making everything so much more intense. "Chuck was given coordinates to the site, and a list of items that we needed to procure. One of the items was 'a man of faith.' I'm not sure that any of us really qualify."
Paul interrupted, "So this is where I come in?"
"Yes."
"But you want me to decline?" Dean chose to open his eyes then and saw that Paul looked a little tired. His eyes seemed heavier than they had when Dean had first entered.
"I don't have a good track record. I lose everyone that I get close to. I never seem like I'm capable of protecting the people that count on me to do so. I don't know what will happen to you if you say yes. I also don't know what you will be saying yes to. In my experience, saying yes is almost always a bad thing."
Paul's thumb began stroking back and forth over Dean's knuckles again. "As it stands, you're just asking me to go with you all to this site. I still have free will. I can get there and say that I've done enough. I can back out and run home screaming if I want."
Dean took a deep breath. "In my experience, even with free will, my people tend to get sucked into things. It's enough to make you wonder if maybe there is no real free will. Maybe it's all been determined, the path we're on, what we'll do."
"I can't believe that. Perhaps efforts have been made to direct our course, but not everything can be so controlled."
"Most days I feel like it is. The angels manipulated my birth, setting off a chain of events that caused my parents to meet and fall in love. So many little steps were taken to move our actions appropriately. I have a hard time believing that we're in control of anything."
Paul sighed, "That's a philosophy for those that feel defeated. I sense that about you. Sometimes it's easier to just believe that the fault in our lives is spelled out in the stars above. That we are on a path written by the heavens with no hope. We can't change what is written, so why try? That is what one says when they've lost too many times to count."
"Sounds like you know a thing or two about loss." Dean's voice dropped low. Paul's hand was warm in his.
"I do. I know my own losses and the losses of those in my congregation. I feel the losses, all of them like they were my own. You can't let your losses crush you though. You can't let yourself believe that it was all for nothing. There's more. There's choice. There's something beyond all of this to hope for."
Dean thought of heaven and cringed. He thought of the endless abyss that he had waiting for him. He thought about the here and now, the endless days and nights without Cas. There's nothing beyond this. There's nothing to hope for. "I'm glad you still have your faith. I've moved past that. My fate is written. I know what will happen to me. I know where this life ends."
"Fuck fate," Paul said. Dean let his hand go and leaned back into his seat. "Uh, sorry."
"Wow, didn't know preachers had that kind of vocabulary." Dean smiled at him.
"Nothing is set."
"It's as set as the stars."
"What do you mean?"
"When my time comes, I've got a reaper that has promised to toss my soul into the abyss. I'll spend my eternity beyond the stars in the empty. There will be no heaven or hell for me there. There will be no coming back. That's my fate. My future is written in the stars." Dean's lips curled up in a look that was wry and also serious.
"Then you must defy the stars. You must fight and live and write the ending you deserve." Paul stood up then. He came to the other side of the desk. "If I've learned anything from the people in my care, I've learned that mankind is capable of great things when we put our minds to it. Sometimes we forget all that we've accomplished when we've thrown away the rulebooks." He reached out to Dean and settled his hands on Dean's shoulders. "Throw out the rulebook Dean. Let yourself have a little faith again."
"And when I fail again, like I have every time?"
"Then you get up and you do it all again, because that's what men like you do." He let Dean go then and moved back to the other side of the desk. He had his back to him. He said, "I'm gonna need to get home. I've got a lot to put in order."
Dean shook his head and seemed to catch up. "Does that mean you're coming with us?"
"Yes. I will need a bit of time. I'll need to get a fill-in for the weeks that I'm gone. Sermons won't happen on their own." He turned back to Dean and smiled.
"You sure? I mean, you don't have to do this."
"I know. I'm making a choice. I trust that you'll accept that this is my choice and mine alone. Whatever happens, it's not on you."
Dean got up then. "I can say that I agree to that, but I know me. If you get hurt, I'll carry that."
"Guess I best not get hurt then. Wouldn't want you feeling all guilty or anything." He waved at the door, eyes holding a splash of genuine warmth. "Get home to your people."
Dean moved back into his space and shook his hand. Paul settled a second hand over the first much like he had the first time that they met. "Thanks, Paul."
"Thank you." Paul smiled a small somewhat shy smile. "Thanks for giving me an opportunity to do something maybe great."
Dean let his hand go and slipped out the door. As it closed in his wake, the sound of it felt something like an end. He let his hands curl up at his sides as he walked away. A little warmth descended upon him as he walked down the sidewalk. It could have been the sun, but the sky was overcast now. Maybe it was the light, and maybe it was happy that Dean's life seemed to be heading down this particular path.
