Chapter 77.
The shopping trip had gone well and Cas had rather enjoyed it. His first few forays into the world of commerce had been stressful and confusing, but he felt he was getting it now. The groceries were neatly arranged in the trunk of his car, the right beers, a few bottles of whisky he had added to the list for Bobby, Mary and Sam, a cherry pie, in case Dean came home and wanted some, sacks of rice and potatoes, various cuts of meat, candy for Jack, heavy on the nougat. He felt he had done a good job.
He sent a text to Sam, "All done, home soon." To Jules he sent, "I love you. Back soon."
He was just getting into the car when Sam's reply came, "Thanks. Drive safe."
A moment later, a row of hearts flashed up from Jules.
He switched on the music. "Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves." sang out as he began the drive home.
"Turtle doves are not white." he said quietly, but he was not overly irritated. After all, one did not "grow" bees. He liked the song anyway. It made him think of Sarah's farm. She had the bees, the apple trees and if she lacked the turtle doves, there were some pigeons about the place.
Dean would hate the song. He'd mutter about "Damn hippies!" and snarl until something with more bass came along. Dean liked to snarl at peace and love. It made him feel that life without either was a choice.
Cas understood that. He felt the same temptation, to dismiss as worthless the things he couldn't have. He had often looked at romantic entanglements with a jaundiced eye, thinking how sad it must be for humans to endlessly long for an improbably extended hormonal high, because that had been easier than thinking how ridiculously unlikely it was that anyone would ever look at him and see a partner in that sense.
His scowling, like Dean's, had seemed a sensible approach, but it had brought neither consolation nor contentment. It had been a mask, behind which he had tried to hide his loneliness. He thought of Jules, kissing him in the night and cynicism seemed a lot less appealing. Maybe there was someone out there for Dean too.
He was pleased with himself for thinking of Dean in the present tense and considering his future; a happier future, perhaps. He was staying positive and being hopeful and Sarah and Jules would be proud of him. It still hurt like Hell to have Dean lost and in peril, but he was holding despair at bay and believing there could be a good end to all of it.
Positive thinking was a lot easier when he knew he would be sharing his bed with Jules, her soft thighs and sighs and nakedness. It helped, too, to know that she believed Dean would return, believed it with all the determination of a religious conviction while he, who had literally been built for blind faith, struggled daily to make himself believe.
Jules called herself an atheist, not because she didn't believe in God, but because, as she had explained, she had no intention of encouraging Him. As an angel, Cas struggled to understand that, but he liked it anyway. Humans didn't always make sense, but he loved that about them. Angels made sense and he had come to understand that this was not a point in their favour.
Cas was enjoying driving along, listening to a variety of songs that would have met with derision from Dean and that Jules would have sung along with, tuneless but enthusiastic, adorable in her dorky delight and every bit as bad a singer as he was. The roads were quiet and the weather fine and he was being useful, taking needed supplies to his family, sustaining them in their long wait for ... He would come home. He had to come home. Without him, even Sam would eventually be worn down to a hopeless wreck and Sam was the strength and courage of them all.
Dean could turn up today. At any moment, Sam might call and say he was home. So often, the only thing needed was to hold on until things could get better and Dean's safe return would be the best thing ever. It would make all the pain and fear and confusion worthwhile.
He was singing "The Times, They Are A-Changing", if his strange lack of coordination with the music could be called singing, when the music ceased to matter, drowned out by such a loud, insistent proclamation from angel radio that he was unable to focus on anything else. Indeed, as the four words formed in his mind and he instantly understood them and felt their impact send his myriad thoughts into oblivion and reduce his whole being to those four terrible words, the universe whose weaving was a part of his very being, into whose warp and weft, he had long been tightly interlaced, ceased to exist. Nothing existed. Nothing was real. He did not exist.
"Dean Winchester is dead."
Then he was standing beside a damaged car, driven hard into the side of a tree, the damage to both extensive, but no damage at all to him. There had been an accident.
Dean Winchester was dead.
The car was not likely to want to continue on the journey and he wasn't sure he remembered how to drive it anyway. His phone was going crazy. Jack was calling him.
Dean Winchester was dead.
Jack would have heard it too. He needed reassurance and comfort and help to face the world without Dean. Sam would be next, howling his pain, needing a cool-headed angel brother to tell him there was something worth living for.
He turned off the phone. He could not help either of them. The worst had happened. Dean was dead. He heard his own voice, screaming in his head. To live on was to die a thousand deaths a day and the others could seek peace in sleep or drunkenness, but he was doomed to eternal clarity and wakefulness.
Automatically, his angel blade slid into his hand. He raised it to his own throat and hesitated. The music was no longer playing, The car was badly damaged. He knew where he was. He knew the direction and distance to the bunker. He knew that the look in Sam's eyes would be a greater torture than the terrible news he had heard. One swift, decisive stab and it could be over. He would end his pitiful, worthless life with one final betrayal of those he loved.
Dean Winchester was dead ... the bastard.
