The last thing Dean remembers is the fangs sinking into his throat and tearing it to shreds, hot blood pouring over his chest, his heartbeat racing, pounding in his ears, trying to keep him alive as his vision goes black.

Dean's hand rises to his neck — it's whole, no blood, no ripped skin. It had to be a dream.

He opens his eyes.

He's not in his or a motel bed. He's not curled up all crooked behind the Impala's wheel, his old bones whining for his memory foam mattress.

So he wasn't sleeping. The attack, the pain, it wasn't just a bad dream.

There's a plate of half-eaten food before him, veggies untouched, a typical diner card and a beer bottle. Dean's breath catches in his throat. An angry skull slapped on the back cover of Sam's laptop is staring at him like an epically old déjà vu. He hasn't seen that laptop in ages.

Sammy's sitting behind it, typing furiously, his eyes staring at the screen from under his floppy bangs.

It can't be real. Maybe it's now that he's dreaming. Did he succumb into a coma under hospital tubes and wires or—

Or he's dead.

No.

No, it can't be. Not now.

Please, not now.

Not when he just got his freedom. He didn't even have time to enjoy it. A couple weeks, that was all. What a cruel, cruel fucking joke. And he can't even blame it on Chuck, this time.

He always knew he'd go down swinging, but that was then. That was among the epic pile-up inside his hamster wheel. He would have been fine with that, he really would. If he could go out in a blaze of glory fighting for the world—

But now? They won. He finally had the one thing he wanted, the one thing he never got to taste. He had the open road before him, he had the choice. He kept hunting because he wanted to, for as long as he could before settling down. And he wanted to settle down eventually, he wanted to try so many things. Like loving, again. Like meeting new people and not living in constant fear for them.

Like just being and trying and living.

He hoped for a few good years of that. But he tested his luck too far.

And now he's dead.

Now, his free will is gone too.

He remembers this day, of course he does. Even fifteen years later. It was a fun day, Texas, prank wars.

He reaches up to the beaming fisherman on the wall, pulls the string. Wow, that laughter really is annoying as hell.

Sam's hand snaps up to catch the cord. "If you pull that string one more time I'm gonna kill you."

At least he's in Heaven. That's a good thing, right? Beats downstairs. Beats getting stuck behind the veil and going crazy. So what if he's got a script he's gotta follow.

So what if he only just got out of one hamster wheel only to get stuck in a different one.

He doesn't take his eyes off Sam, hand pulling the string again only for Sam to cut it short again.

"Come on man, you need more laughter in your life," he says. The words coming out of his mouth almost on their own, even if he's the one moving his lips. "You know, you're way too tense."

So this is it, this is his afterlife. A glistening line of glue on his beer bottle, the rehash of the Tulpa case. The rehash of Sam's laughter and of Dean's every word and every action. This is it. At least it's only the good ones.

It's not fair. Not now. He didn't get enough time.

But then, when was anything in Dean's life ever fair?