Dean would like to think that things change after his prayer to Cas, but they don't. He just hurts more.
Sam notices his change and wonders if he pushed his brother too hard last night. It was the first time Dean more or less acknowledged what was going on between him and Cas. He has no way of knowing that he only helped, that Dean mourning even more now has nothing to do with him. Dean doesn't want to tell him: it feels too private to share with Sam.
But the thing about Sam (bad in this circumstance, good in any other) is that he always tries to fix what he (thinks) has broken.
"So," he starts one morning, catching Dean half-asleep nursing his cup of coffee, "I haven't really apologized about the trip the other day. I know you refuse to talk about it, but I'm not stupid, Dean, and I think I can connect the dots and figure out that something there made you this angry. And, for the record, I'm sorry about needling you about Jack, I'm sorry if I made it worse."
Dean is still too asleep to properly process Sam's words, but Sam has always been an irritatingly morning person, who apparently has no problem addressing his brother deep rooted anger issues first thing in the morning.
"It's not your fault, Sam. You were right, I shouldn't have left him. Father or not, no baby deserves that, and you were right to grill me about that. I'm trying to be better, I swear."
If anything, Sam looks even more worried after that. "Dean, I—Maybe I was a bit too intense talking to you. I didn't mean to imply that you were abandoning him or anything, I just—" Frustrated, he grabs a fistful of hair and scrunches his eyes, the same thing he has done since he was five, Dean thinks. "I was just worried about you, because you were cool with Jack and the next moment you refuse to even be in the same room as him! I just… What happened, man?"
He was too late to say things, is what happened. But Sam already knows that. Everyone does.
"There was this woman," he starts, "at the convenience store. When I took out Jack that night because he was crying, remember? Well, the thing is, she started asking about Jack and shit and then she called him my son, and I swear to you I don't know what came over me, Sammy, but I went and told her he was actually my brother's. My brother, Sam, I called Cas my brother when you and I both know damn well he's not. And then you went and did the same thing and it—it just broke something in me, man. I don't think I've ever been that angry. Not at you or at the lady, but at me. Because I was the one who said it first, because I never actually told him what he was to me."
Sam is silent and completely still, looking at him almost as if Dean is a prey animal that might bolt at any moment. It's not too far from the truth.
Silence descends upon the kitchen and for a second Dean hopes Sam will turn around and they will go on with their lives acting like this never happened.
No such luck.
"You know." Sam's tone is so, so careful, and he lowers himself slowly in the chair in front of Dean. "I figured you must have, I don't know, seen something of Cas in Jack and that's why you ran. Or that maybe you remembered he's Lucifer's son or something. I never imagined something like that. I'm sorry, for what is worth. I didn't know it would upset you so much."
Dean shakes his head mutely. How could have Sam known? In all the years Dean knew Cas, he was barely able to acknowledge this thing between them, so it's no surprise Sam didn't know either.
"It's okay. You couldn't have known what I feel for Cas." Sam tenses minutely but to Dean, who has spent his entire life studying all of Sam's expressions, it might as well have been a written confession. "…Right?"
Sam isn't quick to respond, which doesn't bode well for Dean.
"If you're asking if I knew for certainly that you were in love with him—" Dean flinches at the words, because he's a coward and a hypocrite. "Then no. I didn't even know for sure that you loved him until yesterday. But I know you, Dean. I know you and Cas understood each other in some deep, rare way that I never was part of."
"Funny," he mutters, somewhat angrily. "Doesn't seem to me like we really understood each other. If anything, we couldn't seem to just fucking communicate."
"No, no, I'm not talking about that. It's something deeper, like… Okay, I'm going to get super cheesy here and you're not allowed to storm off or insult me." Dean refuses to agree in case Sam really needs to get a reality check. "But when I say you two understood each other, I mean it at a super base level, like the core of who you are is the same, almost like—like your soul saw his grace and though 'oh, there you are', you know?"
Dean doesn't know. He still asks.
"You're saying Cas and I were soulmates, Sammy?" He doesn't know how he feels about that. On one hand, it's nice to know that he and Cas were made for each other, but on the other hand…
"God, no," Sam interrupts his thoughts vehemently. "You're an idiot if you think that the two people that have fought against fixed destiny the most in the world would succumb to something like soulmates. No, this has nothing to do with God, or Heaven, or Fate, or whoever is up there controlling everything. It's more like—more like choosing each other at every turn, because you care for each other even though you're not supposed to. It's free will, plain and simple."
Dean doesn't know how to respond to that without breaking down in sobs. So he just stays there in silence, drinking his coffee and enjoying the knowing silence shared with his brother. Some piece of him finds peace.
…
At some point, Dean realizes that Jack has spent the first weeks of his life in an unadorned room inside an underground bunker, so he figures he might as well gain some Coolest Uncle Ever points and decorate Jack's room, even though the baby spends more nights in his bed with him than in his own room.
So he decides to make a day trip of it.
He takes Jack, obviously, both because he's still trying to be better for him and because it's his room and the kid should have a say about what goes there. The fact that he can't yet understand nor answer to Dean is irrelevant, Dean's sure the little guy will find some way to telepathically say what he wants. He's a half-angel, after all.
Sam doesn't come. Dean doesn't invite him. He's still learning how to look at his brother without melting with embarrassment after their talk the other day, now that they both now what Dean was sure he would take to the grave.
Dean drives to the nearest Target, which is about two hours away. Sometimes he forgets he lives in the middle of fucking nowhere.
The store, when they finally arrive, is thankfully not packed with people. Dean has also recently realized that the only baby-friendly thing they own is the car seat, so this morning he grabbed in a panic the first piece of stretchy fabric he could find and briefly stole Sam's laptop to learn how to tie it. Back when he was living with Lisa, he saw all her photos with a newborn Ben in his baby sling and it was the first idea that came to his head when thinking about how to exist in the real world with a baby. Before they just carried him, but now having his arms free is going to be a necessity.
Trying to remember how to wrap it around himself in the parking lot of a Target without any help is, undoubtedly, one of Dean's lowest points. He has never been embarrassed like this. Fortunately, the only one watching him is Jack, who doesn't to be caring much about Dean's loss of dignity.
"Alright buddy," Dean says when Jack is safely tucked against his chest. "Ready to do some shopping?"
The baby sling really doesn't suit him in his opinion, but if the looks he gets from a couple of women inside is anything to go by, his opinion is not a universal one. What he could have done with this knowledge a decade ago…
But today he's here for Jack, and he's a bit clueless about what to get him. He never had any problem taking care of baby Sammy, but he also never had to decorate a baby's room. He guesses that some stuffed animals is the best way to start, at any rate.
Stuffed animals have changed a lot in the three decades he hasn't had to buy them. Now they're fucking ugly, for one thing. Dean was planning on buying a teddy bear, two at most, but he doesn't even recognize some of these animals. A dolphin? A pigeon? Dean knows from experience that pigeons are not to be messed with, so he doesn't understand why anyone would want to give one to their infant child.
"Don't look at it, Jack," he murmurs to the crown of Jack's head. "We'll get you a nice looking teddy bear, kid, don't worry."
He still doesn't understand why now penguins are fucking orange, but that's a problem for another day, he figures.
(Dean's sorely tempted to buy Jack a stuffed dinosaur because it's cute and more badass than the penguin, that's for sure.)
After ten minutes of looking through several types or animals and discarding every single one of them because they don't feel right, he figures he's exaggerating. It's a toy, for God's sake, not a bridal gown. He can grab one of them and go.
Frustrated, he half turns to his right—and he sees it. There, right in front of his eyes, like it has just descended from the skies above.
A stuffed bee.
A pale yellow, stuffed bee with the cutest googly eyes ever. Dean doesn't believe in these things, but it almost looks like a sign.
"Look at it, Jack. A fluffy bee, just for you. What do you say? Do you want it?"
Jack does focus his eyes on the bee when Dean shows him, so he takes it as a yes. Even if Jack didn't it, Dean would have bought it for himself.
"Cas would have been such a good parent to you," he says, unprompted, because he's not over it, he'll never be over it. "You know, he loved bees. Watched them, picked their honey sometimes. You know, one time, he even showed up in my car—uh. Maybe we'll leave that story for when you're older."
Jack doesn't seem bothered by this.
"He would have been so sweet to you. Would have bought you all the stuffies in the world, and sang you every night." Dean looks at the child in his arms once more, looks at his blue eyes and feels a pang of melancholy inside him. "He was a dork, so he would have probably called you something like 'little bee', because you're cute and he loved those stingy bastards."
The more he talks, the more clearly he can see the picture inside his mind: Cas, in his pajamas, barefoot in the bunker's kitchen, holding Jack and narrating everything he does, probably because of some dumb reason like 'Talking to a baby makes them have a better grasp of the language, Dean,' and occasionally gazing fondly, so fondly at Jack and asking 'What do you think about that, my little bumblebee?' meanwhile.
Yeah. Dean can picture it with crystal clarity.
"My little bumblebee." It sounds foreign in his mouth, in a voice far too used to cries of pain and screams of violence: something so sweet should have no place in him. It takes a long time to melt the violence of an entire life into the softest kind of love there can be, a love worthy of a child.
Jack seems content with his new name, burrowing closer to Dean's chest. Dean carefully cups the back of his head with one hand and Jack's back with the other, feels him breathe softly under his rough hands.
"Yeah. We're definitely buying the bee."
…
Dean has gone too far with the decoration, he knows. It's not like he lacks self awareness.
But it's only when he has painted two of the four walls of Jack's room in a pale yellow with horizontal black stripes that he really realizes how ridiculous this whole thing is.
Perhaps making bees the only theme for an entire nursery is a bit too much. In his defense, he really has no idea about interior decorating.
"Mistakes have been made. You'll tell me if you get bored of the yellow, right?" he asks while he critically contemplates the painted wall in front of him, until he realizes he's left Jack in the library with Sam because a baby inhaling paint fumes isn't the best thing in the world. He has become so used to Jack's presence in such a short time that it's his default now.
He sighs. He'll have to do this without Jack's input.
The next thing, now that he has had an existential crisis about the walls, is putting the new blankets and sheets on the crib; mercifully, they are a soft lavender and not bee themed. Not this set, at least.
"I don't even know why I spent all that money in these things. It's not like the kid sleeps with me every night or anything," he grumbles to himself, mostly complaining out of habit.
A strange sound comes from the doorway and he turns cautiously, not finding himself too sure of what could be.
It's just Sam, who looks like he's debating between laughing himself hoarse at Dean's decoration, or tear up because Dean is now bonding with the kid or some shit like that.
"You got something to say?"
Sam's face does a funny thing, almost like he's about to choke, but he composes himself quickly.
"So… did you have a theme in mind for the nursery?"
Dean glares at him. Sam is wearing his smuggest grin and Dean wants to smack that off his face.
"Shut up, I know I went overboard. But Cas liked bees and I thought that maybe this would help Jack feel connected to him when he grows," he finishes lamely. God, he's a sap and an idiot. Someone should smack him.
A quiet sniff interrupts his thoughts.
"Oh my God, Sam, are you crying?"
"No!" Short silence. "Yes."
"For fuck's sake."
"Dean, I'm just—I mean this is huge for you! I know you had your reservations about Jack and Cas' death being connected, so the fact that you got over it… I'm just proud of you, is all I'm saying."
Dean doesn't answer, because the truth is that he has not gotten over it. In some part of his mind, those events will always be connected and Jack will always be Cas' killer, no matter how much he comes to love Jack. But this is not Jack's fault: it's on him for not being able to let go.
Jack is a baby whose worst crime was being conceived and Dean just needs to get over his shit.
(He can't, not completely.)
"I was thinking," he says loudly, to interrupt his awful thoughts, "about maybe painting the other two walls blue. And then draw some flowers on them. Kids like flowers, right? That's a thing."
Sam's face softens immediately. "Yeah, Dean, I'm sure he'll love it. Do you know how to draw flowers?"
Dean's brain screeches to a halt. Somehow this particular problem hadn't come up when he was thinking his brilliant plan.
"Uh. I was hoping you would be able to."
"Dean, I suck at drawing."
They look at each other in silence, contemplating what to do next. Jack deserves his flowers.
"Figure it out tomorrow?"
"You got it, man."
They drop it for now. The wall flowers are a problem for another day, he figures. Maybe he can stick glow-in-the-dark starts to the ceiling, while he's at it, and when Jack's older lay with him on the rug (bee shaped, obviously) and tell him all the stories about the stars Cas told him once upon a time.
It'd be nice.
The finishing touches of the room consist of the stuffed dinosaur (of course he bought it) inside the crib and placing the now-white nightstand next to it. Finally, he places a framed picture of Kelly on the nightstand.
He got it from Cas phone, three weeks after he died (when he finally felt strong enough to go through his phone looking for important things Cas might not have yet finished, without breaking down in sobs). It's a beautiful picture, reminds him of the picture of Mary he always carries in his wallet. It's a heavily pregnant Kelly, sprawled over an armchair in a non-descriptive motel; visibly exhausted, clearly happy. She has her eyes closed and the most peaceful kind of happiness written on her face. The afternoon sun filters through the thin curtains, casting a warm glow to the whole scene.
It's a photo taken with love. It's a gift from a mother to the child she will never get to meet.
Dean rotates it lightly until it faces the crib.
Jack will grow up without a mother, but he will know he was loved.
And now comes the hardest part, he thinks. At first, he thought about framing a picture of Cas and Kelly together for Jack's room, but they didn't have one together, at least not in Cas' phone. Running away from the forces of Heaven and Hell does leave little time for selfies.
So he does the best next thing: he hangs the best picture he has of Cas right above the crib. It's a photo he himself took: it's something he keeps close to his heart at all times.
In the photo, Cas is leaning on the hood of the Impala, absentmindedly looking at his hands, positioned in a way that indicates prayer, that indicates offering: palms up, slightly cupped. Dean doesn't know what was going through his friend's mind at that moment, will never know it now, but he likes thinking that maybe he was praying in gratitude, not to Chuck, maybe not to anyone in particular. Not prayer as a plea to an untouchable god: prayer as the earnest wishes of your soul, your deepest sorrows, your most vibrant happiness. Prayer not for a deity, but for oneself; prayer as a way of verbalizing the deepest and most hidden parts of ourselves.
It's a good photo to watch over Jack as he sleeps.
…
Jack is probably going to sleep in his bedroom again, but the little guy at least deserves to see his renovated room.
"What d'ya think? It rocks, right? Don't worry about those unpainted walls, Sammy and I have great plans for them."
Jack's head lolls to his left and that's all the response Dean gets.
"Alright, tough crowd, I get it," he grumbles. Jack is starting to get fussy, so he puts him in the crib. If the guy is sleepy let him sleep, right?
"See that?" He points to the picture on his nightstand. "That's your mama, back when she was pregnant with you and had this huuuuuge belly." He tickles Jack's feet, which makes the baby gurgle happily. "And she loved you a lot, I think. You made her very happy, kid."
Jack blinks at him. Dean caresses his cheek, just for the hell of it. Jack seems to like it anyway.
"Sometimes I forget that Cas isn't your dad. That your father is a truly awful person who I loathe more than anything in the world. He killed my mom, you know? For the second time, I mean. Well, we're not actually sure she's dead, but she got trapped in another dimension with him, so there's like a ninety nine percent chance that she's dead and he was the one that killed her."
"For the most part, I can forget that you're part him, that you're also the thing I hate the most, but I always, always get reminded about it. Sammy did today when I was decorating your room, and it hurt because it always hurts when I remember he's your father. And when I get reminded I hate you a bit more and I hate myself a lot more for it."
Jack only looks at him, his soft blue eyes focused intently on him. Dean still thinks of Jack as an extension of Lucifer, an extension of the devil; but then he looks at him and only sees Cas reflected back at him.
"I'm turning into my father, apparently, which is something that absolutely terrifies me, because my father was an angry bastard who ruined my life and I still loved him. I hated him for it, but I loved him. Still I love him, to this day. And, more than anything, I don't want to be him. I don't want you to grow up thinking that nothing you do is ever enough."
He sits down on the floor next to the crib, with his right arm going through the bars of the crib so he can keep caressing Jack. It's hard for him to talk about this. It's harder even to tell someone else.
"Sometimes I find myself looking at you and hating you for who and for what you are; and other times I hate you because you took Cas away but still, you're also the only thing I have left of him. So yes, I'm turning into an exact replica of John Winchester, whose best idea about parenting was resenting and abandoning his kids. I hate it, hate myself for it. And I hate you, but I love you much more than I hate you. I hate you, but that's not your fault, it never was. You're just a kid, what fault could you have in this? It's mine for being an obsessed bastard who can't let go of the past no matter what, for pushing my anger and resentment onto you when you don't deserve it."
It's ironic how self-aware he has become when his whole life he was nothing but blind loyalty to an absent father.
"My father did the same thing with us, with me. I was a kid when he left us and resented us and hated us, but he didn't care, never cared that we were innocent. In his mind we were a constant reminder of his wife's death and I know for a fact he wished everyday of his life that we would have died if that meant she survived. And sometimes I see myself reflected on that, and I'm sorry."
"I didn't understand when I was younger," he continues, makes himself continue. "Thought fathers were always right no matter what. But now I know that he was wrong. He was the bad guy then, I'm the bad guy now. I'm just repeating his mistakes, doing everything I swore I'd never do." He pauses, weights his next words carefully. "There's an angry man at my house who won't leave, and that man is my father. There's an angry man in your house who won't leave, and that man is me."
(I'm sorry, Jack.)
"I read something," he starts. It's difficult to continue, knowing what comes next. He has never been one for psychology, always dismissed it as some kind of new-age bullshit, but. But. Time ago, investigating for a case of child abuse that hit a little too close to home for comfort, he started reading about this kind of thing. He cried for days after. "A few years ago. Something called 'cycle of abuse' which is basically. Um. My father fucked me up because his father fucked him up because his father fucked him up, y'know? And because of that I'll probably fuck my kids up too. A never ending chain of shitty people deciding that somehow they couldn't be bothered to be better for their children than their parents were for them. Or maybe they didn't know how to be better."
"But anyway," he continues, "the intention doesn't matter because you destroy your kid mentally and emotionally anyway. So. So you have to choose to be better. Choose to love your kid no matter what, and understand that hitting your kid never counts as love, even if you think you're justified because you think they did something wrong. Understand that nothing a kid does is ever bad enough to make you beating them okay. Nothing. But I don't know much else. Don't know how to better myself. I guess that's, like, 90% the reason why I never wanted to have kids. I didn't want them to have the same childhood I did. Didn't want them to grow up afraid of their own father." Looks down at Jack, who calmly blinks. "I'll try my best to not have you hate me. I know I'm not your father, but I don't want to be to you what John was to me. You deserve better than that."
When he looks, Jack is peacefully asleep in his crib. Dean swears to himself he'll do everything in his power to make sure Jack doesn't have to go through the same things he did.
…
It's starting to work, this whole talking about his feelings thing. He still doesn't know how much it counts when the only one listening is a baby too young to understand what's being said, much less the weight behind Dean's words. Part of externalizing your feelings is taking to the surface the deepest parts of yourself, the darkest and most shameful things inside you, and offering it to someone else. It's letting yourself be known without fearing being judged.
He's sadly not going to get acknowledgement from a baby. But at least he's trying.
He's also trying not to feel ashamed of himself when he talks to Sam and remembers that Sam now knows everything. That isn't working out too well.
But they have a routine, something they haven't had in almost four decades. In the mornings, Dean will be the first one up and heads directly to the kitchen to get started on breakfast. Sam will be next, but he'll slip past Dean to do some morning running. Dean cooks until Jack's cries indicate time for the baby's breakfast, and then picks the child up and feeds him his bottle in the kitchen while singing to him softly.
But for now, it's still seven a.m., so the only thing that keeps him company for now is silence.
It's weird, it's all weird. For all intents and purposes, he's now a PTA housewife mom who does nothing all day but cook and take care of their kid.
It's everything he has every wanted; it's entirely fake.
Somehow, whenever he imagined himself leaving hunting behind and starting a regular life (those far in between, private moments where he laid in bed and fantasized about what could never be), he always imagined himself married, or at least in a stable romantic relationship. For the longest time he imagined a feisty blonde with a sweety smile, and then it was Castiel.
It was always Castiel that appeared in these forbidden fantasies.
It doesn't matter now. He will keep dreaming about a life with Cas until his last day, no matter what happens from now on.
He doesn't know how to exist without longing.
Sam, ever the opportune brother, chooses to enter the kitchen the same moment Dean is realizing once again happiness will never be within his reach, a healthy practice he has been doing every day for the last thirty years.
"Smells good in here, what are you making?"
"Do you ever regret every choice you have ever made, Sam?"
Sam is visibly thrown off, taking a moment at the door trying to assess his brother's mood.
"Uh, wow, let's ask ourselves existential questions for breakfast, why not." He clears his throat at a safe distance from Dean, just in case. "I mean, sure, sometimes. Doesn't everyone? And us even more, I think, with the whole several apocalypses thing. Yes, Dean, I sometimes wake up and wish I was a kid again so I could have a do-over. But I know that sadly that's not going to happen. Why?" He looks cautious now. "Are you having any… regrets lately?"
"When am I not?" he snorts humorlessly.
But he doesn't elaborate, doesn't feel like he needs to; so the only sound that can now be heard is the bacon sizzling. Somehow, it feels like his whole life has been this: him, refusing to talk about what's making him miserable, Sam waiting silently in the vicinity, and bacon always there for comfort.
Sam walks up to him slowly, gingerly leans on the table. He doesn't say anything, just waits patiently for his brother to do something. Ignore what he just said, explain himself, whatever. He'll always wait for Dean.
"It's just." Dean starts, and Sam braces himself. "I'm so angry all the time, and I can't help it. I don't know why I'm this way. A rough life, yeah, but I'm almost forty and I can't keep finding external things to put my blame on. Can't just say my life's shit and then continue going through life burning to the ground all the relationships I ever had. Sometimes you gotta accept it's you who has to get better and move on. But I'm so angry all the time. I can't improve because all I feel is anger these days. How do I get rid of it? Where do I put my anger to free myself from it?"
Dean seems to gather himself, preparing himself to continue. Sam remains quiet.
"Yes, Sam, I'm having some regrets lately. I never was honest with Cas for God knows what reason, never told him what I should have, and now I'm just here, stuck with never-ending regrets and stuck with a baby I sometimes can't help but hate because I'm just so angry all the time, so yeah. I'm not in a great place right now."
Dean looks defeated, hunched over the counter with the plate of bacon next to his right hand. Sam's heart hurts for him, knows all too well what this is like.
"I'm trying to forgive myself for things that aren't my fault, and I'm trying to improve myself for things that are. That Dad only taught me rage and resentment is something I couldn't help, but being angry at people for things that aren't their fault, that I can change. I don't want to become Dad, Sam. I can't—can't be what Dad wanted me to be. I'm already enough of a monster as it is."
"Dean, I—I understand, more than you think. John—uh, Dad, well. You know how he was. I don't think I ever saw him express anything other than anger, so it's not surprising you feel this way, because it happens to me too. Sometimes." He pauses. "Sometimes, when I'm really, really angry, not-thinking-properly angry, I only see John in myself, and realize I'm turning into him."
The silence hangs heavy around them for a moment.
"Growing up with him has been… well, no one would know better than you. Made me feel like you were competition, at some points. You followed his every order without question and always did what he wanted. You were the son he had always dreamed of, and I guess I resented you for it sometimes. You were perfect in his eyes, and I was just a monster, the reason why Mom died, we all knew that. I was always too different from you guys. I hated hunting, hated the lifestyle and he never forgave me for it. I never fit in your dynamic."
"What? No way, Sammy, you were his favorite. I was just a—a bodyguard, nothing else. No matter how much I obeyed, he always said that the most important thing was protecting you, no matter what. Nothing I did was good enough because I wasn't his son, Sam, I was just your caretaker and protector!" He tries to calm himself.
It doesn't really work out.
"I understand that resentment towards me because I definitely had some towards you. The worst was when you left for California and the only words he said to me was how I failed you, couldn't protect you well enough that you rather be helpless and alone in the world than stay another minute with us."
It hurts to speak these words, but also necessary.
"Yes, I resented you and I'm also glad in some way to hear that you also resented me because that means that I'm not alone in this madness I can't escape from. But, Sam, Sammy," he cups his brother's face with both palms, "I always loved you too much to let it fester. Those moments were my lowest, the thing I'm most ashamed of. I love you, Sam, and not even our bastard of a father could take that away from me."
"I love you too, Dean, of course. You're my brother, you're like—the only person I've ever looked up to. If, if growing up under John's 'care' had one good thing, it's that I got to grow up with you. I'm sorry I was such a brat sometimes."
"Well, that's what little brothers are for, ain't they? Come on, bring it in."
They hug, which is a very effective way for the both of them to hide their tears. Their sobs, not so much.
"We gotta promise to be better than that, man. We can't let Jack got through that. Okay, man?"
"Yes, yes, of course. He should have something better."
They stay like that for a few more seconds, appreciating the moment. When was the last time they hugged without someone being about to die? None of them can remember. For now, it's quiet and peaceful.
"C'mon," says Dean, disentangling himself. "Let's go wake that little bee up."
Sam's face goes through a whole set of emotions. It'd be hilarious to watch if Dean hadn't said what he has just said.
"Little bee? Where did that come from?" He teases, but he still follows Dean to Jack's room.
"Hey, you know damn well that's what Cas would have called him if he was here and I'm not about to disrespect a dead guy's wishes."
Sam laughs, at him or with him, Dean doesn't know and he doesn't much care. Their voices get lost in the long hallway.
…
For the first time in what feels like an entire life, there isn't any sort of supernatural danger looming over them.
Sure, they're watching Jack (who's almost three months old now, holy shit) very closely in case either he suddenly starts displaying not-so-human qualities or some entity comes looking for him, which Dean is not going to let it happen. He has killed angels and demons before, and he'll do it again.
There's also the Lucifer thing: he's trapped in another dimension for now. No one knows when, if he'll be back.
(Of course he will, because they have always had shitty luck.)
But for now they're enjoying this kind of retirement thing. Dean's crushing the whole PTA mom thing, if he's honest. He's never baked more pies: that's textbook definition for contentment, right there.
He's never felt closer to the Mom he remembers from his childhood.
(He doesn't dare examine that feeling too closely.)
So this whole domesticity thing makes him want to try weird stuff, like family bonding and shit. Today he's going to try an approximation to that, at least. He hopes it doesn't blow up in his face.
"Alright, Jack, are you ready for this?" he asks gently to the baby he's bouncing in his arms.
Jack does nothing more that look at him intently. It's as good a signal as he's going to get.
"Castiel dearest, who art up there in Heaven or somewhere similar," his prayers starts. "Hope you got your ears on, or something. I'm here with Jack because I figured it was time for a little family bonding, right? You wanna say something to Cas, Jack? Say how much you miss him or how I'm the coolest uncle ever?"
Jack merely grabs the finger Dean was using to tickle his nose. Alright then.
"I just wanted to tell you about Jack. He's doing great, man. His lung capacity is out of this world, especially when it's three a.m. and he decides that I've already slept enough." He chuckles now, but actually being woken up by Jack's screams is not a pleasant experience. "He's cute, Cas, you wouldn't believe. The other day he fell asleep in my arms with his thumb in his mouth and I almost started crying. But that has to be a secret between us three, alright? Can't be losing my reputation like this."
He sits on the recently installed armchair in Jack's room, where he now spends most of his time, either feeding Jack or singing to him. Jack seems to like it, at least.
"And he's too young to like much of anything, but he seems to like the hundred bee themed things in his room, so. He takes after you, apparently." Jack gurgles at this, almost in understanding. "Ain't that right, buddy? Gonna be just like your daddy when you grow up. Sweet, weird and very, very handsome." He gently tickles Jack at this, making the baby smile.
"I don't know, Cas." His voice has taken a soft tone, gentler than he has been in ages. "I mean, since you're not going to be here for Jack I just—I thought it'd be good for him to talk to you in some way. To have you in his life. To know his father and talk to him when he needs to. And of course we're gonna tell him about you, man, of course; I'm going to tell him about all the things we did together and all the things you taught me, but also I want to tell you about him. About that maybe you were right and I was wrong about him. Maybe what you saw in him that I was to hurt and jealous to see… Well, maybe it's been there all along and I finally realized it."
Jack continues looking at him, infinitely peaceful and calm. Dean doesn't really want to admit how much that grounds him.
"I want him to be able to talk to you when he feels lost or confused, just like I did. To have him know that you're on the other side listening and caring. Praying to you has become such an important part in my life and I—I want him to have that comfort too, when he needs it. I never was much for praying, at least not to God, but to you? You were my whole faith, man. Still are. And I want Jack to have that too. To know you're watching over him like you were watching over me."
Dean remembers Mary, barely out of her twenties and with long blonde hair cascading down her back, remembers sheets that smelled like lavender but only in winter, remembers flannel pajamas that made you think you'd never be cold again.
Mary had once told him that angels were watching over him. He wants to assure Jack that the only angel that mattered had already been doing so for a long time.
Jack seems now more alert than ever, turning a bit fussy even, so Dean reaches over to the crib and grabs the bee plushie. It immediately calms him down, like it always has done.
"Hey, Jack." His voice is so low it's more a breath than a whisper. "Do you want to tell your daddy how much we miss him? Because we really do, don't we? We really want him to be here with us, reading you a book about how the universe was created or about which is the best element in the periodic table, because he's a weirdo like that and we love him anyway. Tell Cas how much we miss him. Tell him for me, please."
It hurts to talk about this, hurts to make himself aware of what he's missing. But he's not the only one here who's going to feel the absence of Cas in his life: he knows very well how Jack will feel growing up surrounded by the empty space echoes around the death of a parent.
"I miss you so much, Cas. More than I can say, more than I can even understand myself. It's like I don't even know how to—to be without you here. Nothing makes sense, man. Not without you."
The words burn the back of his throat all the way to his lungs, so he decides to stop talking. It wouldn't be the first time he has cried in front of Jack, but this is too personal, too private to share with anyone; even with someone who won't remember it.
I have never wanted anything more than to have you here, he thinks. I don't think I will ever want anything other than you.
Jack looks at him suddenly, with an urgency too foreign for a baby so young. Dean doesn't notice. He's too lost in things that will never be.
But Jack knows this feeling, this longing that emanates from the man holding him. He recognizes it as the same he felt once upon a time inside Castiel.
…
To say that it's dark would imply that at some point there has been light, and that there are things clouded by that darkness. That isn't the case. There simply is nothing.
Absence of everything: light, sound, feeling. It has been this way since the beginning of time, and it will continue to be so even after it ends. Nothingness, after all, does not have to be finite.
It's quite content in its stillness, like an animal might be when it hibernates. But this calm does not precede any storm, nor does it follow one: it exists, silently, by itself. This is something innate to this place, it is its whole essence: there is nothing here, and there will never be. That is, after all, its only purpose. Nothing will ever exist here.
Unbeknown to it, a movement happens inside it. Someone opens his eyes.
