Dean wandered mindlessly through the gas station looking for something that sounded good. Sam had been nagging him to eat better lately, but food was food in his mind, and more importantly a bag of beef jerky was better than nothing after an all-nighter hunting. Plus, energy drinks had water in them, didn't they?
He wandered over to the register, getting in line behind the man choosing a dozen different lotto tickets. He wasn't in a rush: the hunt was over, finished around sunrise, and at this point he was just headed home. He was happy to let his mind drift while the guy hemmed and hawed about his options, even if it did seem to be annoying the cashier.
Eventually his mind registered the music being piped through the store's shitty speaker system, and a snort escaped. It was "Heat of the Moment," and immediately brought to mind a dozen memories of Sam slamming radios off across America. The guy still couldn't stand the song, even all these years later.
Shit. Sam.
They'd split up to tackle different nearby hunts this week, but set up daily check-ins to make sure neither of them went missing for long. Dean hadn't been paying attention to the time though, and his phone was in the car.
Lotto Guy finally exited, grumbling about his choices already, but Dean wasn't as forgiving now.
"Hello," the cashier mumbled, shooting one last not-quite-glare at Lotto Guy before smiling up at Dean. "Sorry about the wait. Is this everything?"
"Yeah, uh, can you tell me what time it is?"
She looked down at the screen while ringing up his snacks. "11:11. Make a wish!"
Well, he was ahead of their noon check-in time, but... "Huh?"
"Oh! You've never heard of that? I thought everyone knew it."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"If you catch the time at 11:11 you're supposed to make a wish. It's lucky or something, I don't know." She shrugged. "Your total is $15.18."
Dean paid, still confused, and wandered back to the car distracted. As a rule, he didn't make wishes. Ever. He knew for a fact that some wishes DID come true, that given the right ingredients or powers or biology a wish could actually be granted, but it was rarely what you actually wanted it to be. He'd been poisoned by djinn, he'd found magic coins and pearls, and spent enough time with witches to know personally that a wish was a dangerous thing to make. This sounded like a stupid urban legend, but he wasn't about to take the chance.
But if he did want to wish... he'd wish things were different. He DID wish things were different, but privately, secretly, where -- if he was very, very lucky -- the wish would never encounter something that could grant it. He could never make that wish out loud, with real power and possibility. Too much of their lives HAD worked out, there was too much at stake that could be changed without fixing the one thing he wished was different.
No, wishes were dangerous.
No, he'd just call Sam like normal, rub in finishing his hunt first like normal, and go crash in his bed like normal, and their lives would go on from this point like normal.
There was no other choice.
It was nearly a week later, and Sam and Dean were camped out in the library with piles of books. A hunter had called in looking for help figuring out something she'd never encountered before, and it didn't sound exactly like anything they'd encountered either (a true rarity), so they were digging into the Men of Letters archives to see if they could find anything there that wasn't available online. Sam had been trying to catalogue everything the MoL had to make this sort of thing faster, but had barely even started when the request came in.
So, they went old school: grabbed a couple piles of potentially relevant texts and... just started browsing. Dean hated it, but he knew any of those pages could contain the info they needed, so he kept pushing.
Or, he had kept pushing when he simply wanted to quit. Now, though, his eyes were burning and blurry and his back was sore from sitting there so long. He glanced down at the clock: just after 11 -- hell yes he could call it a night. He'd hit the books again in the morning, but for now, he needed a solid 4 to 6 before he could actually absorb any more of this crap.
Sam looked totally immersed still. He'd probably stay up longer, but Dean wasn't going to let that stop him. Another glance at the clock showed the inevitable progress of time -- it was now 11:11 -- and Dean's groggy brain thought, make a wish.
He thought about companionable silence and bad jokes and a take-no-shit attitude. He thought about bright light and dark shadows, about blue eyes and messy hair, about colorful ties and bland trenchcoats. He thought about the warmth of presence and the frigidity of absence. He thought about emptiness, and happiness. He thought about fear and forgiveness and faith and fault. It was all his fault. If it weren't for Dean, he would still be here, still be with them. He wished...
He caught himself before the thought finished forming, glancing quickly over to Sam to see if he'd noticed Dean's distraction. Sam hadn't even moved, and when Dean lifted a hand to wipe his face, he finally noticed how even Sam's breathing had become.
He slammed his book shut, and Sam jumped, tossing his book off his lap and onto the floor.
"C'mon, sleeping beauty," Dean teased, hoping Sam would be too groggy and defensive to notice what had just happened. "Let's hit the sack."
"Wasn't sleeping," Sam protested, mumbling. "Wanna finish this book tonight."
"Finish it tomorrow when you'll actually process what you're reading, dumbass."
Sam glared down at the book for a moment before nodding. He didn't see Dean glance at the clock again (too late now), or grab a bottle to help himself sleep, or notice his agitation at all.
Dean couldn't forget though. He hadn't thought the words, but he'd felt them with every fiber of his being. Jack had once woken him from The Empty through pure force of will or desire or whatever... who said it couldn't happen again?
At first, he kept it casual. He started paying more attention to the time, sure, but only in the sense that he actually processed what he read when he looked at a clock. When he did catch the right time, he kept it simple and straightforward. He thought of free will, and friendship, and trust. No full sentences, no straight wishes: if magic was going to latch on to his wishes, it would only have his hope to work with. Maybe that would be enough.
This lasted maybe a couple of weeks. Then he was looking at the time more frequently, "just to know," trying to catch the right time accidentally on purpose. It worked, of course, allowing him to make more non-wishes. Then some actual wishes: he was starting to slip, starting to use words and sentences.
"I wish you were here, man."
"I wish you'd wake up."
"I wish you'd just... call me from some random highway, like before."
"I wish we'd had more time."
"I wish we'd been able to pull off one more resurrection."
"I wish you were here."
"I wish you hadn't left us."
"I wish you hadn't left me."
From there, the "accidentally" dropped off the map, and Sam started to notice Dean's new obsession with time. He would always disappear right after eleven: in the morning, he'd wander to a different room only to return a few minutes later looking haunted, and in the evening he'd simply go to bed. It was the most regular sleep schedule Dean had ever kept, but that made it all the more concerning for Sam.
After one such morning disappearance, Sam couldn't take it anymore.
"What is going on with you?" he demanded when Dean returned. They were on a case, had been about to head out to interview people, and Dean had put on the brakes to disappear into the bathroom.
"Well, typically when someone goes to the bathroom, it's because they've gotta go to the bathroom," Dean said snidely.
"If you're gonna play that card you should've flushed."
"Hey, if it's yellow, let it mellow," Dean said, quoting a water-saving catchphrase he'd heard once and used as an excuse ever since.
"Gross, dude!" Dean shrugged, but Sam wasn't that easily distracted. "So if I go in there and look in the bowl it's not just gonna be water?"
"Who's the gross one now?" Sam stood up, moving towards the bathroom and calling Dean's bluff. "Fine! No! Don't... don't start checking, man, that's gross."
"You think I want to? What's going on then?"
"It's nothing, Sam. Just... trying to come to terms with stuff." He wouldn't look at Sam, as if his words weren't evasive enough.
"Every day, twice a day, always at the same time?"
"Jesus, man, are you monitoring me?"
"It's not like it's hard! You're on a fricken schedule!"
"Yeah, well, it's my damn schedule, okay? You don't gotta worry about it."
"You're my brother. I'm always gonna worry about you."
Grudgingly, Dean smacked Sam's shoulder in understanding. "It's nothing dude, I promise. You don't gotta worry about that specifically. Okay?" Sam narrowed his eyes but nodded. "Can we get on with it, now?" Dean said, motioning towards the door.
"I was ready ten minutes ago, you're the one who needed personal time or whatever."
Dean sighed and exited the motel room rather than reply. That evening as they changed out of their monkey suits and into pajamas Sam snuck a look at Dean's elbows, just in case. There were no marks -- needle or magical -- which was technically a good thing, but he still wished he knew what happened shortly after eleven each day.
Dean got a little sneakier after that, disappearing before he needed to, or making his wishes quickly from wherever he needed to be at that moment, but he was no less dedicated. He had alarms set on his phone so it would vibrate in reminder just in case he got distracted. So far he'd never needed the reminder, but he felt better having the back up.
Still, it helped Sam lose track of the habit. He watched Dean closely for a couple weeks after their chat, but once Dean broke the obvious indicative habits, Sam had a harder time tracking it. Besides, Dean hadn't been lying: this wasn't something Sam needed to worry about. It didn't affect his work or his health or his attitude. He was still totally normal Dean.
Well, as normal as Dean had ever been.
The only real difference now was... for the first time, possibly ever, he had placed hope in something without cause or reason.
He had no reason to believe his wishes had any power or were doing anything, but he couldn't stop. He couldn't. What if this could work, given enough time or repetition, and he gave up too soon? What if it was his fault that...
He just wished so much. There were so many things he wanted to say. He wished he could say them.
Months passed. They settled into their new lives. No more apocalypses, no more insanely powerful monsters, no more battle royales between heaven and hell. It wasn't easy, necessarily, but it was manageable. It was back to the basics, back to their origins: the family business.
Saving people, hunting things.
It wasn't amazing, but it was a life filled with free will, so it was miraculous. That was enough. It had to be.
It was still enough when Dean was skewered on something in a barn, knowing he was bleeding out and there was nothing he or Sam could do about it. There were no more favors, no more resurrections, no more magic tricks. And he was okay with it. He was so damn tired, and maybe without him Sam could finally get out of the life. Sam had been hinting at wanting to do more with his girlfriend these last few weeks, and while Dean knew his death would destroy Sam for awhile, he also knew she would take care of Sam and pick him back up.
Sam would be okay. He just needed to know it.
Dean thought about all the shit they'd been through together and done to each other, and about all the shit he was about to miss. He thought about family and friendship and fault and forgiveness. He thought about who was missing already. He thought about free will. He wished he'd had it sooner. Maybe things would have been different for him and Sam. Maybe things would have been different for all of them.
He wished all three of them - four of them, really - had been together these last few months.
He wished he didn't have to leave Sam alone now.
He wished things were different.
He wished he had more time.
He wished...
Waking up in heaven was, in many ways, an actual wish come true. He'd expected hell, given what he knew, so this was a huge improvement. It also meant Sam would be up here, and they would have more time. He wished he could tell Sam that, but... he would know soon enough.
And then there was the knowledge that Dean and Sam were not the only ones to get a miraculous invite to heaven. He tried not to obsess over that detail. He had no idea how or when that had happened. Maybe someday someone would tell him. For now, he'd try to be patient.
He was never very good at being patient, though.
After driving across heaven and back, picking up Sam and reconnecting with family without once seeing him, he was getting concerned. Was he not actually here?
Dean wished he'd make an appearance somewhere -- anywhere -- just to calm his nerves.
And then, he turned around to a rustling wind, and... there he was.
"Hello, Dean," Cas said, a small smile on his face.
Dean's knees collapsed under him. He thought about companionable silence and bad jokes and a take-no-shit attitude. He thought about bright light and dark shadows, about blue eyes and messy hair, about colorful ties and bland trenchcoats. He thought about the warmth of presence and the frigidity of absence. He thought about emptiness, and happiness. He thought about fear and fault and faith and forgiveness.
He said the only words he could think of, releasing them like a prayer in a cathedral; "I wished for you." Tears of joy and gratitude and disbelief fought their way past his eyelashes, but he didn't notice. He was numb from shock.
Cas' face opened in surprise and concern, but he quickly knelt on the ground before Dean, their knees touching. He placed his right hand on Dean's left shoulder, gripping him tightly, ready to raise him up at a moment's notice.
"I wished for you too."