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janie_tangerineFix-it urgency strikes again.
Title: all you need is love
Pairing/Characters: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Bobby, Balthazar, Chuck. (if you want to see it with Dean/Cas-slash-rose-tinted glasses feel free to.)
Word count: ∼4100
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: coda for 6x22.
Warnings: sort of really cracky premise.
Disclaimer: look at the summary. I don't own SPN, I don't.
Summary: wherein Dean asks God for a sign and God provides one. Even if it's not what Dean would have expected. Or, alternatively, wherein a Beatles song is the key for making everyone happy.
A/N: this has no excuse except that yesterday I was walking around with my mp3, I put All You Need Is Love on and I had the idea and it wouldn't get out of my head. This is eventually way more feel-good than the other fix-it I did but then again read the title.
As Dean sits down on the hood of the Impala, he can’t help thinking that everything is too calm. There isn’t a single noise to be heard in Bobby’s yard, and while the weather is lovely (clear sky, full moon, the air isn’t chilly but not overtly warm), he can’t help feeling crept out and like this is the calm before a pretty fucking bad storm.
He figures that it’s what happens when there’s a new god smiting angels somewhere up in Heaven before he comes down and ‘gives them their last chance to decide where they stand’. Castiel hadn’t made them bow eventually, but he assured that he would be back and then they would have to decide once and for all.
Dean thinks that if he could kick himself for each occasion he was given to avoid this, he’d be a bloody pulp by now. If only he had answered yes when Cas asked him to stick by the one time he asked. It hadn’t been that much of a request, also considering that until then the only crappy thing Cas had done was lying to them. For working with Crowley. Which he and Sam have done for a while, which in retrospective makes them look like complete asses.
Shit. He really can be stunted, when he wants to.
He sighs, putting his face in his hands, and then raises his head up to the sky. This is his stupid last resort, and fuck if he hasn’t thought a lot before trying it, but Bobby is already researching pagan lore on how to kill gods, just in case. While Dean sees it – he can’t help thinking that giving up on Cas right now would be the last betrayal, and after everything Cas did for them, well, he can’t do that. (Not when Sam is okay, and according to him he can stand the memories, and while he doesn’t feel that great for now he’ll live – also Cas had told Dean that he’d fix that, before crashing the wall. Dean isn’t sure that he’s completely over it, but he can learn to be.)
“Listen,” he says, “if you’re somewhere – and I mean the real you, please say something, okay? I can’t let this go without even trying to – he deserves at least that I try to bring him back. And I have no fucking idea of how I should do it, and if you had been here or let yourself be found, he wouldn’t have felt like becoming you. I stopped believing in you when I was ten, and I’m really not sure that you’re that great of a deity, but if you give a shit, please hand me a damn sign, because I’m at a loss here, okay? Please. Just this fucking once. Come on, what would you do in my place?”
Dean feels his eyes burning – he brings a hand up to his face, rubbing them as hard as he can. When he’s done, there are light spots in his vision, and that’s why he thinks that the sheet of paper next to him on the hood isn’t there for the first second.
Then he blinks.
Then he blinks again.
Then he realizes that he isn’t hallucinating – there’s a piece of paper next to him, and it wasn’t there before. Dean takes it with shaky hands. The paper is the normal kind you’d use to print stuff from a computer, and when he turns it over, there’s actually something printed over it. In Times New Roman.
Dean reads it.
Then he shakes his head, reads it again, sure that it’s the fact that he hasn’t slept in three days and he has drunk too much going to his head.
But every way he turns it – it doesn’t change what’s written on the sheet.
You shouldn’t ask yourself what would I do. Or what would Jesus do. Or what would Buffy do, if you prefer something closer to your area of expertise. Ask yourself, instead, what would John Lennon do?
--
“Boy, this has to be the weirdest thing I’ve seen yet,” Bobby says, reading the message over and over. “This makes no friggin’ sense.”
“Tell me,” Dean says, “but it’s not like it changes shit, Bobby. I was outside and asked freaking God for a sign, and that’s what happened. It wasn’t there before, and I closed my eyes for maybe ten seconds. And we’re all seeing it, so I’m not hallucinating.”
“Well,” Sam says, “maybe we should look into it. I mean, wasn’t the White Album about some kind of apocalypse?”
“That was Charles Manson sayin’ it, and it’s not like we aren’t talking about the poster boy for insane. But well. Guess we should just start researching?” Bobby says, raising his hands.
Which is how they end up on the internet checking out all the damn songs John Lennon ever wrote.
“I doubt it’s God,” Dean says after four hours, with a distinct feeling that if he looked in a mirror, he’d see his eyes being completely red. “I mean, what, we should tell him, that God doesn’t exist and he should believe in himself instead? This sounds like shit. And it’s giving me headaches.”
“I doubt it’s Imagine either,” Bobby mutters as he looks through a bunch of lps.
“Nothing from the White Album makes sense either,” Sam complains, and he sounds almost sad about it. Like he really hoped there was some double meaning in some song in that record. Yeah, sure. “I mean, the one about the apocalypse was Helter Skelter anyway and that’s McCartney, not –”
“Sam, come on, don’t be such a dork, if – what?”
Dean never finishes that sentence, because suddenly a piece of folded paper lands at his left, coming in from the open window.
For a second there’s just silence – then Sam stands up and moves behind Dean, and Bobby does too, and Dean takes the sheet, opening it.
There’s just two words printed inside it, always written in Times New Roman.
It’s easy.
“What the fuck does this even mean?” Dean asks, without the energy to make himself sound angry.
“… wait,” Sam says, leaning over Dean’s shoulder and typing into the browser. He does it quickly, and Dean’s vision is too blurry to actually distinguish what Sam’s searching for.
“Oh, shit, I think this is it,” Sam says, and Dean blinks, trying to focus on the screen. He blinks thrice before standing up and looking at the ceiling.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” he asks, and almost on cue, another piece of paper lands into the room from the window.
It reads no.
“All right. Wait a second. All you need is love? Seriously?” Dean says to no one, feeling like this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
“Well,” Sam starts. “Basically it’s like, there’s nothing so hard that any person couldn’t do it, and you just need to be yourself for that, but – well, you need love to do it. It’s not that hard of a message to get.”
“I didn’t need that explained, thanks,” Dean huffs. “I got there myself. Wait, just let me re-read this thing.”
He goes to the screen, lowering the brightness because he can’t take it anymore, and he reads the whole thing all over again trying to do it as seriously as he can.
And it might be that he’s tired as hell, it might be that he’s ready to do whatever it takes and if God says that the answer is in this then it has to be, even if God is a first class son of a bitch. But as he reads it through, something clicks in his head, and he has to sit down on the chair instead of just standing in front of the laptop. Sam is right – it isn’t complicated at all. It’s straightforward. It’s all there. And he thinks about his own missing father and how those three years when Sam was at Stanford and he was hunting alone sucked, because he just wanted his family to be there at least and they weren’t. And since he went to talk to Sam in Stanford they went through a lot of shitty things, and they’ve had a pretty horrible life, and it’s not like Bobby had it much better since he started seeing them regularly again. But it still was better than that because they’ve been through it together. And Cas – it’s not like angels make this great family unit, don’t they?
And shit.
Of course it’s all in here, and damn but he really can be an ass at times.
And if God says that it’s all in here, maybe it’s not too late to fix this. No one you can save that can’t be saved, right?
“I know what we have to do. Or better, I know what I have to do, but I need you two to back me up, okay?”
“Meaning?”
“That this ain’t gonna fly if we start with the mistrust all over again. He did some crappy things. I think he paid for them. And we did them too, and we forgave each other because we’re freaking family and that’s what we do. I’m not saying forgive and forget, but – let’s just let that go for now, okay?”
Sam nods, and Bobby does, too, and Dean decides that he’ll forget about sleeping for now. He can worry about that later.
“Fine. Let’s go in the yard.”
--
Dean takes a breath, sparing a look at the rising sun. The entire sky is tinged with yellow, turning into warm pink hues, which fade into violet and then into blue. He can still see a few stars. He wishes he could appreciate the sight.
No time for that now.
“Hey, Castiel? If you’re not too busy, huh, up there – I think we took a decision. Figured we’d let you know, right?”
There’s suddenly a tension in the air, and it hits him in waves (it’s not that tell-tale rustle of invisible wings anymore) and in a split second Cas is there in front of him. He should say Castiel, because the cold, emotionless eyes meeting his aren’t Cas’s anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Dean can take a cue. He came as soon as Dean called, even if he’s a god and no one forces him, and – and the thing he had asked them to decide about, was professing their love unto him.
It’s really easy.
So fucking easy, indeed.
He wishes he could have seen it before.
“You took a decision,” Castiel says, his voice sounding weird, strange, and Dean swallows, trying to stomach it. He can’t falter now. He can’t.
He breathes, looks up at Castiel, straight into his eyes, and he smiles. Just a bit, but he does, and he sees Castiel’s eyes widen in surprise. Just slightly.
“I did.”
And then he walks up until he’s in front of Castiel and falls down on his knees. He reaches up and takes Castiel’s hands between his own. They’re hot – almost scalding, even. It burns, so much that he has to bite his tongue not to scream, but Dean takes a breath, sucks it up as and looks upwards at Castiel. There’s a crack in the façade, Castiel’s eyes wide, like a kid who just got everything he wants for Christmas and his birthday at the same time, and Dean swallows. Jesus. He was so wrong.
“I am bowing,” Dean says, “but to Cas, not to you.”
Castiel jerks back, his face stoic again, but Dean holds on to his hands and doesn’t let him.
“Come on, Cas, I need to talk to you. I know you’re still in there, souls or not – but even if you won’t come forward… I’m talking to you, okay? And I just wanted to say – Cas, I’m sorry. I took you for granted all along and I was an idiot because I should’ve learned better. And I never realized that there were things you needed which I never gave you, not to mention that I was an ass when you asked for something once. I’m sorry for all of that. I know it might be too late, but I think I know what you need, and it’s not this.”
“You don’t know what I need,” Castiel hisses, but his voice is uneven and he doesn’t sound so high and mighty anymore – Dean chances it. He stands up, not leaving Cas’s hands, and looks at him in the eye again.
“I do. I do because I went through the same thing when Sam was at Stanford. I was an idiot not to recognize it. Because back then I just wanted my family back while I was around hunting things on my own and I felt like a failure because the three of us weren’t together anymore. That’s how you felt, isn’t it? Like no one that’s supposed to give a shit about you does, didn’t you?”
Castiel closes his eyes, and Dean knows that he has hit the target straight and square.
“You just want someone to stand behind you and give a shit about you, don’t you? Maybe punch you in the face when you do stupid things and then take you back anyway because that’s how it goes. And love you no matter what, or am I wrong?” Dean tries not to cringe at how cheesy his wording sounds – but it’s not like he could rehearse that speech, and if it works then he won’t complain.
And then – then Castiel opens his eyes and it’s not Castiel anymore. It’s Cas, written all over his traits. His eyes are wide and he looks like he’s about to cry, and his entire face is an expression of misery. His hands are getting too hot, and Dean thinks his own will start to burn if he keeps on holding them much longer but he doesn’t give a shit – he’ll deal with that later.
“Dean?” he asks, sounding hopeful and miserable and overwhelmed at the same time.
“Cas? Yeah. Yeah, it’s me,” he says, and shit but his voice is this close to breaking. “Listen – I know I should’ve said this ages ago, and I know that you feel like you need to have those souls in there because you want someone, anyone to stay with you, but – please. Let them go. This isn’t you. You don’t need to become someone else.”
“I was never enough before,” Cas says, and it’s the right voice but it sounds so wrong. It’s despair, raw despair, and Dean decides it’s time to go for it. He leaves Cas’s hands, moves forward and wraps his arms around Cas’s shoulders, holding him as close as he can, trying not to think about how it feels like hugging a furnace.
“But you are. You always were. I never told you straight, but I swear you are. And they think that too. They might kick your ass in a short while because you did some shitty things, but I told you – family’s made to kick your ass and take you always back. We failed– I failed you on that. I’d understand if you just went and said no now, but please – let them go and come back. I want you here, not destroying yourself.”
“I don’t even know what I am anymore,” Cas blurts out, and now he looks impossibly hopeful.
Dean doesn’t know how to word an answer for that. He really doesn’t.
Then he realizes that he doesn’t need to find the right words. He already has them, even if they’re not his own.
“Well, then you can learn how to be you in time. What about it?”
“Do you mean this?” Cas asks, his voice so impossibly small, and his body impossibly burning.
“I do,” Dean answers, quietly, and then Cas pushes him away. He’s starting to glow, and then he makes an aborted motion, like folding himself in two. He raises a hand, and then Balthazar appears out of fucking nowhere behind Sam.
Dean can’t worry about Sam catching the other angel before he faints, because he’s too concentrated on Cas. Who has just fallen down to his knees and glowing in earnest, shouting at them to close their eyes. Dean does, even if he doesn’t want that, and suddenly he feels surrounded with heat, like fire was burning through him, and there’s a scratching noise that makes him fall to his knees with his hands over his ears.
When it’s over he opens his eyes, cautiously, realizing that he has cried at some point. His hands look devastated, as if he put the both of them over burning coal. It’s nothing that won’t heal at least, but it still hurts like a bitch. And then he sees that Cas is still on his knees, shoulders hunched, breathing hard. He looks like a rag doll, standing so still, and that’s it, his hands can wait. Dean stands up and moves over to where Cas is before falling down on his knees again and putting a hand on Cas’s shoulder. It doesn’t burn anymore.
“Cas?” he asks, shaking him a bit.
Cas moves his head, raising it and looking at Dean, and damn but it’s all him. He looks older, with a couple more lines on his face, and he stares at Dean like he doesn’t know what to expect.
Dean decides that it isn’t time to hate himself because it’s his fault that Cas doesn’t know what to expect in the first place, and then hugs him again. Cas goes with it without putting resistance, his hands gripping the back of Dean’s shirt so hard that it hurts, and he’s shaking, almost like an addict going cold turkey (and Dean thinks it’s an apt image). Dean just holds him tighter, and if his hands hurt he doesn’t give a shit.
“Hey,” he says, “it’s all good. Or well, it’s going to be. I meant everything I said.”
“How can you?” Cas whispers into his shoulder, and Dean suddenly freezes. “Everything I did – I’m sorry,” he manages, sounding devastated, and Dean just hauls him closer.
“I don’t care. You’re back, we’ll deal with that later. It’s fine. I don’t give a shit, all right?”
And then Dean hears steps behind him; Bobby stands at his side, and Sam and Balthazar kneel behind Cas.
Dean raises an eyebrow in Balthazar’s direction, and Balthazar shakes his head and nods towards Dean’s hands. Dean removes one, cautiously, keeping the other one on Cas’s shoulder, and then Balthazar takes his wrist and it’s healed in a matter of seconds. They repeat the process with the other, and then Balthazar sighs and reaches out, his hand on Cas’s back.
“You know, I should be pissed at you because you killed me,” Balthazar says, and Dean’s eyes widen. Shit, had it got that bad? That must have been why Balthazar never answered their summons when they tried. And damn, now Dean feels half-guilty – it was them dragging Balthazar into it, after all. Cas goes tense in his arms and Dean’s hand reaches up to his shoulderblades, rubbing a circle. “But, you were pretty much off the rails and I can’t say that I didn’t technically betray you even if I did it for your own stupid good. And since I understand that you were smart enough to feel sorry about it and bring me back, I’ll just let this go and say that we’re even, shall we?”
Cas breathes in, surprised, and Dean loosens his hold a bit so that he can turn in his arms and face Balthazar – he keeps his arm around Cas’s waist, though, not knowing exactly why but feeling like he has to.
“We are?” Cas answers, his voice impossibly thin and hopeful. Balthazar just huffs and claps him on the shoulder, rolling his eyes.
“Let’s say I feel particularly forgiving today. And at least he made you reason, so I’ll be forgiving with him as well,” Balthazar says, eyeing Dean, and he doesn’t try to contradict him – he had his share of responsibility here.
“Cas,” Sam starts, putting a hand on Cas’s arm, “I just – I shouldn’t have written you off like that. And well – thanks for bringing me back in the first place.”
“I was going to fix it,” Cas blurts, sounding apologetic, and everyone knows what’s the elephant in the room here – Sam’s wall.
“That’s okay. I fixed myself,” Sam answers. “And I know. It’s good – at least I don’t have to worry about it anymore, do I? Welcome back,” he finishes, and Cas looks so grateful that Dean doesn’t think he can talk right now. It’d be embarrassing.
“Well,” Bobby says, kneeling down and clapping Cas on the other shoulder once, “one thing I’m sure about is that you gave me every possible reason to call you an idjit, but then again considering that you’re friends with those two, you can mope about it together.”
Which is as close as welcome to the family gets with Bobby Singer, and everyone gets it, and then Dean feels Cas leaning back against him, his head in the crook of Dean’s shoulder. He brings his other arm around Cas’s waist, keeping him there, still. He thinks he needs to feel against his skin the proof that he has Cas back, and he’s not going to let go now.
“We’ll get through this too,” he says in Cas’s ear. “We’re good.”
Cas’s hand reaches down, covering Dean’s left one, and Dean lets Cas thread their fingers together. He looks at everyone else’s faces, and as weary as everyone in the yard is, it’s fine.
It really was that easy.
--
Somewhere, Chuck Shurley (or better, God in Chuck Shurley’s visage, but let’s say Chuck for our own sake) is sitting in front of another computer. He’s typing (in Times New Roman), and it’s the real last book of the series. He’ll just send it off to the publisher before conveniently disappearing for good.
He pauses for a second, trying to find a worthy conclusion, because after all the work he put into this story, metaphorically and not-so-much, it deserves at least that.
And so that’s how it ended. Or, that’s how it ends for now, because surely it wasn’t the end for them. But it was the end of a cycle, if we want to call it like that. And as all endings, it was a hard one. Still, there’s always something to learn, and our heroes might all have been more or less thick, but it’s safe to say that they understood at least that, really, all you need is love. It doesn’t get more complicated than that, does it?
He re-reads it, nods hoping that the editor doesn’t change it too much, and saves the file before attaching it to the e-mail he had ready. He presses send. Then he smiles and the chair is empty.
--
The folded piece of paper which lands in Bobby Singer’s yard a short while later goes unnoticed. Everyone is too concentrated on more important matters, and when the message flutters into the air and hits the ground next to the Impala, no one picks it up.
It stays there for a while.
Balthazar finds it two days later. There’s a reason it’s him finding it – Dean is too busy fussing over Castiel, who’s been exhausted since he let the souls go, but no one’s surprised about that. And Sam and Bobby are hovering around and neither of them had a chance to go near the car. Balthazar had just wanted to get some fresh air, nothing else.
He opens the message, frowning at it.
Nothing you can know that can’t be known, nothing you can see that isn’t shown, nowhere you can’t be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
He wonders what did he do wrong to be created by a God who likes to speak in riddles using Beatles songs.
Then he pockets the piece of paper. He isn’t stupid and he gets a cue when it’s put in front of him. He takes a breath, looks up at the sky and gets back into the house – maybe showing that stupid note around will put a stop to Castiel’s moping, among other things.
--
The piece of paper is last seen in Castiel’s hands.
Dean is sure that it has a permanent residence inside one of the pockets in Cas’s coat. He never asks about it. He doesn’t need to. He got it. And he’ll try hard not to mess it up, but considering the way Cas looks at him lately, he’s pretty sure that he’s doing things right.
End.
Title: all you need is love
Pairing/Characters: Dean, Castiel, Sam, Bobby, Balthazar, Chuck. (if you want to see it with Dean/Cas-slash-rose-tinted glasses feel free to.)
Word count: ∼4100
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: coda for 6x22.
Warnings: sort of really cracky premise.
Disclaimer: look at the summary. I don't own SPN, I don't.
Summary: wherein Dean asks God for a sign and God provides one. Even if it's not what Dean would have expected. Or, alternatively, wherein a Beatles song is the key for making everyone happy.
A/N: this has no excuse except that yesterday I was walking around with my mp3, I put All You Need Is Love on and I had the idea and it wouldn't get out of my head. This is eventually way more feel-good than the other fix-it I did but then again read the title.
As Dean sits down on the hood of the Impala, he can’t help thinking that everything is too calm. There isn’t a single noise to be heard in Bobby’s yard, and while the weather is lovely (clear sky, full moon, the air isn’t chilly but not overtly warm), he can’t help feeling crept out and like this is the calm before a pretty fucking bad storm.
He figures that it’s what happens when there’s a new god smiting angels somewhere up in Heaven before he comes down and ‘gives them their last chance to decide where they stand’. Castiel hadn’t made them bow eventually, but he assured that he would be back and then they would have to decide once and for all.
Dean thinks that if he could kick himself for each occasion he was given to avoid this, he’d be a bloody pulp by now. If only he had answered yes when Cas asked him to stick by the one time he asked. It hadn’t been that much of a request, also considering that until then the only crappy thing Cas had done was lying to them. For working with Crowley. Which he and Sam have done for a while, which in retrospective makes them look like complete asses.
Shit. He really can be stunted, when he wants to.
He sighs, putting his face in his hands, and then raises his head up to the sky. This is his stupid last resort, and fuck if he hasn’t thought a lot before trying it, but Bobby is already researching pagan lore on how to kill gods, just in case. While Dean sees it – he can’t help thinking that giving up on Cas right now would be the last betrayal, and after everything Cas did for them, well, he can’t do that. (Not when Sam is okay, and according to him he can stand the memories, and while he doesn’t feel that great for now he’ll live – also Cas had told Dean that he’d fix that, before crashing the wall. Dean isn’t sure that he’s completely over it, but he can learn to be.)
“Listen,” he says, “if you’re somewhere – and I mean the real you, please say something, okay? I can’t let this go without even trying to – he deserves at least that I try to bring him back. And I have no fucking idea of how I should do it, and if you had been here or let yourself be found, he wouldn’t have felt like becoming you. I stopped believing in you when I was ten, and I’m really not sure that you’re that great of a deity, but if you give a shit, please hand me a damn sign, because I’m at a loss here, okay? Please. Just this fucking once. Come on, what would you do in my place?”
Dean feels his eyes burning – he brings a hand up to his face, rubbing them as hard as he can. When he’s done, there are light spots in his vision, and that’s why he thinks that the sheet of paper next to him on the hood isn’t there for the first second.
Then he blinks.
Then he blinks again.
Then he realizes that he isn’t hallucinating – there’s a piece of paper next to him, and it wasn’t there before. Dean takes it with shaky hands. The paper is the normal kind you’d use to print stuff from a computer, and when he turns it over, there’s actually something printed over it. In Times New Roman.
Dean reads it.
Then he shakes his head, reads it again, sure that it’s the fact that he hasn’t slept in three days and he has drunk too much going to his head.
But every way he turns it – it doesn’t change what’s written on the sheet.
You shouldn’t ask yourself what would I do. Or what would Jesus do. Or what would Buffy do, if you prefer something closer to your area of expertise. Ask yourself, instead, what would John Lennon do?
--
“Boy, this has to be the weirdest thing I’ve seen yet,” Bobby says, reading the message over and over. “This makes no friggin’ sense.”
“Tell me,” Dean says, “but it’s not like it changes shit, Bobby. I was outside and asked freaking God for a sign, and that’s what happened. It wasn’t there before, and I closed my eyes for maybe ten seconds. And we’re all seeing it, so I’m not hallucinating.”
“Well,” Sam says, “maybe we should look into it. I mean, wasn’t the White Album about some kind of apocalypse?”
“That was Charles Manson sayin’ it, and it’s not like we aren’t talking about the poster boy for insane. But well. Guess we should just start researching?” Bobby says, raising his hands.
Which is how they end up on the internet checking out all the damn songs John Lennon ever wrote.
“I doubt it’s God,” Dean says after four hours, with a distinct feeling that if he looked in a mirror, he’d see his eyes being completely red. “I mean, what, we should tell him, that God doesn’t exist and he should believe in himself instead? This sounds like shit. And it’s giving me headaches.”
“I doubt it’s Imagine either,” Bobby mutters as he looks through a bunch of lps.
“Nothing from the White Album makes sense either,” Sam complains, and he sounds almost sad about it. Like he really hoped there was some double meaning in some song in that record. Yeah, sure. “I mean, the one about the apocalypse was Helter Skelter anyway and that’s McCartney, not –”
“Sam, come on, don’t be such a dork, if – what?”
Dean never finishes that sentence, because suddenly a piece of folded paper lands at his left, coming in from the open window.
For a second there’s just silence – then Sam stands up and moves behind Dean, and Bobby does too, and Dean takes the sheet, opening it.
There’s just two words printed inside it, always written in Times New Roman.
It’s easy.
“What the fuck does this even mean?” Dean asks, without the energy to make himself sound angry.
“… wait,” Sam says, leaning over Dean’s shoulder and typing into the browser. He does it quickly, and Dean’s vision is too blurry to actually distinguish what Sam’s searching for.
“Oh, shit, I think this is it,” Sam says, and Dean blinks, trying to focus on the screen. He blinks thrice before standing up and looking at the ceiling.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” he asks, and almost on cue, another piece of paper lands into the room from the window.
It reads no.
“All right. Wait a second. All you need is love? Seriously?” Dean says to no one, feeling like this isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
“Well,” Sam starts. “Basically it’s like, there’s nothing so hard that any person couldn’t do it, and you just need to be yourself for that, but – well, you need love to do it. It’s not that hard of a message to get.”
“I didn’t need that explained, thanks,” Dean huffs. “I got there myself. Wait, just let me re-read this thing.”
He goes to the screen, lowering the brightness because he can’t take it anymore, and he reads the whole thing all over again trying to do it as seriously as he can.
And it might be that he’s tired as hell, it might be that he’s ready to do whatever it takes and if God says that the answer is in this then it has to be, even if God is a first class son of a bitch. But as he reads it through, something clicks in his head, and he has to sit down on the chair instead of just standing in front of the laptop. Sam is right – it isn’t complicated at all. It’s straightforward. It’s all there. And he thinks about his own missing father and how those three years when Sam was at Stanford and he was hunting alone sucked, because he just wanted his family to be there at least and they weren’t. And since he went to talk to Sam in Stanford they went through a lot of shitty things, and they’ve had a pretty horrible life, and it’s not like Bobby had it much better since he started seeing them regularly again. But it still was better than that because they’ve been through it together. And Cas – it’s not like angels make this great family unit, don’t they?
And shit.
Of course it’s all in here, and damn but he really can be an ass at times.
And if God says that it’s all in here, maybe it’s not too late to fix this. No one you can save that can’t be saved, right?
“I know what we have to do. Or better, I know what I have to do, but I need you two to back me up, okay?”
“Meaning?”
“That this ain’t gonna fly if we start with the mistrust all over again. He did some crappy things. I think he paid for them. And we did them too, and we forgave each other because we’re freaking family and that’s what we do. I’m not saying forgive and forget, but – let’s just let that go for now, okay?”
Sam nods, and Bobby does, too, and Dean decides that he’ll forget about sleeping for now. He can worry about that later.
“Fine. Let’s go in the yard.”
--
Dean takes a breath, sparing a look at the rising sun. The entire sky is tinged with yellow, turning into warm pink hues, which fade into violet and then into blue. He can still see a few stars. He wishes he could appreciate the sight.
No time for that now.
“Hey, Castiel? If you’re not too busy, huh, up there – I think we took a decision. Figured we’d let you know, right?”
There’s suddenly a tension in the air, and it hits him in waves (it’s not that tell-tale rustle of invisible wings anymore) and in a split second Cas is there in front of him. He should say Castiel, because the cold, emotionless eyes meeting his aren’t Cas’s anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Dean can take a cue. He came as soon as Dean called, even if he’s a god and no one forces him, and – and the thing he had asked them to decide about, was professing their love unto him.
It’s really easy.
So fucking easy, indeed.
He wishes he could have seen it before.
“You took a decision,” Castiel says, his voice sounding weird, strange, and Dean swallows, trying to stomach it. He can’t falter now. He can’t.
He breathes, looks up at Castiel, straight into his eyes, and he smiles. Just a bit, but he does, and he sees Castiel’s eyes widen in surprise. Just slightly.
“I did.”
And then he walks up until he’s in front of Castiel and falls down on his knees. He reaches up and takes Castiel’s hands between his own. They’re hot – almost scalding, even. It burns, so much that he has to bite his tongue not to scream, but Dean takes a breath, sucks it up as and looks upwards at Castiel. There’s a crack in the façade, Castiel’s eyes wide, like a kid who just got everything he wants for Christmas and his birthday at the same time, and Dean swallows. Jesus. He was so wrong.
“I am bowing,” Dean says, “but to Cas, not to you.”
Castiel jerks back, his face stoic again, but Dean holds on to his hands and doesn’t let him.
“Come on, Cas, I need to talk to you. I know you’re still in there, souls or not – but even if you won’t come forward… I’m talking to you, okay? And I just wanted to say – Cas, I’m sorry. I took you for granted all along and I was an idiot because I should’ve learned better. And I never realized that there were things you needed which I never gave you, not to mention that I was an ass when you asked for something once. I’m sorry for all of that. I know it might be too late, but I think I know what you need, and it’s not this.”
“You don’t know what I need,” Castiel hisses, but his voice is uneven and he doesn’t sound so high and mighty anymore – Dean chances it. He stands up, not leaving Cas’s hands, and looks at him in the eye again.
“I do. I do because I went through the same thing when Sam was at Stanford. I was an idiot not to recognize it. Because back then I just wanted my family back while I was around hunting things on my own and I felt like a failure because the three of us weren’t together anymore. That’s how you felt, isn’t it? Like no one that’s supposed to give a shit about you does, didn’t you?”
Castiel closes his eyes, and Dean knows that he has hit the target straight and square.
“You just want someone to stand behind you and give a shit about you, don’t you? Maybe punch you in the face when you do stupid things and then take you back anyway because that’s how it goes. And love you no matter what, or am I wrong?” Dean tries not to cringe at how cheesy his wording sounds – but it’s not like he could rehearse that speech, and if it works then he won’t complain.
And then – then Castiel opens his eyes and it’s not Castiel anymore. It’s Cas, written all over his traits. His eyes are wide and he looks like he’s about to cry, and his entire face is an expression of misery. His hands are getting too hot, and Dean thinks his own will start to burn if he keeps on holding them much longer but he doesn’t give a shit – he’ll deal with that later.
“Dean?” he asks, sounding hopeful and miserable and overwhelmed at the same time.
“Cas? Yeah. Yeah, it’s me,” he says, and shit but his voice is this close to breaking. “Listen – I know I should’ve said this ages ago, and I know that you feel like you need to have those souls in there because you want someone, anyone to stay with you, but – please. Let them go. This isn’t you. You don’t need to become someone else.”
“I was never enough before,” Cas says, and it’s the right voice but it sounds so wrong. It’s despair, raw despair, and Dean decides it’s time to go for it. He leaves Cas’s hands, moves forward and wraps his arms around Cas’s shoulders, holding him as close as he can, trying not to think about how it feels like hugging a furnace.
“But you are. You always were. I never told you straight, but I swear you are. And they think that too. They might kick your ass in a short while because you did some shitty things, but I told you – family’s made to kick your ass and take you always back. We failed– I failed you on that. I’d understand if you just went and said no now, but please – let them go and come back. I want you here, not destroying yourself.”
“I don’t even know what I am anymore,” Cas blurts out, and now he looks impossibly hopeful.
Dean doesn’t know how to word an answer for that. He really doesn’t.
Then he realizes that he doesn’t need to find the right words. He already has them, even if they’re not his own.
“Well, then you can learn how to be you in time. What about it?”
“Do you mean this?” Cas asks, his voice so impossibly small, and his body impossibly burning.
“I do,” Dean answers, quietly, and then Cas pushes him away. He’s starting to glow, and then he makes an aborted motion, like folding himself in two. He raises a hand, and then Balthazar appears out of fucking nowhere behind Sam.
Dean can’t worry about Sam catching the other angel before he faints, because he’s too concentrated on Cas. Who has just fallen down to his knees and glowing in earnest, shouting at them to close their eyes. Dean does, even if he doesn’t want that, and suddenly he feels surrounded with heat, like fire was burning through him, and there’s a scratching noise that makes him fall to his knees with his hands over his ears.
When it’s over he opens his eyes, cautiously, realizing that he has cried at some point. His hands look devastated, as if he put the both of them over burning coal. It’s nothing that won’t heal at least, but it still hurts like a bitch. And then he sees that Cas is still on his knees, shoulders hunched, breathing hard. He looks like a rag doll, standing so still, and that’s it, his hands can wait. Dean stands up and moves over to where Cas is before falling down on his knees again and putting a hand on Cas’s shoulder. It doesn’t burn anymore.
“Cas?” he asks, shaking him a bit.
Cas moves his head, raising it and looking at Dean, and damn but it’s all him. He looks older, with a couple more lines on his face, and he stares at Dean like he doesn’t know what to expect.
Dean decides that it isn’t time to hate himself because it’s his fault that Cas doesn’t know what to expect in the first place, and then hugs him again. Cas goes with it without putting resistance, his hands gripping the back of Dean’s shirt so hard that it hurts, and he’s shaking, almost like an addict going cold turkey (and Dean thinks it’s an apt image). Dean just holds him tighter, and if his hands hurt he doesn’t give a shit.
“Hey,” he says, “it’s all good. Or well, it’s going to be. I meant everything I said.”
“How can you?” Cas whispers into his shoulder, and Dean suddenly freezes. “Everything I did – I’m sorry,” he manages, sounding devastated, and Dean just hauls him closer.
“I don’t care. You’re back, we’ll deal with that later. It’s fine. I don’t give a shit, all right?”
And then Dean hears steps behind him; Bobby stands at his side, and Sam and Balthazar kneel behind Cas.
Dean raises an eyebrow in Balthazar’s direction, and Balthazar shakes his head and nods towards Dean’s hands. Dean removes one, cautiously, keeping the other one on Cas’s shoulder, and then Balthazar takes his wrist and it’s healed in a matter of seconds. They repeat the process with the other, and then Balthazar sighs and reaches out, his hand on Cas’s back.
“You know, I should be pissed at you because you killed me,” Balthazar says, and Dean’s eyes widen. Shit, had it got that bad? That must have been why Balthazar never answered their summons when they tried. And damn, now Dean feels half-guilty – it was them dragging Balthazar into it, after all. Cas goes tense in his arms and Dean’s hand reaches up to his shoulderblades, rubbing a circle. “But, you were pretty much off the rails and I can’t say that I didn’t technically betray you even if I did it for your own stupid good. And since I understand that you were smart enough to feel sorry about it and bring me back, I’ll just let this go and say that we’re even, shall we?”
Cas breathes in, surprised, and Dean loosens his hold a bit so that he can turn in his arms and face Balthazar – he keeps his arm around Cas’s waist, though, not knowing exactly why but feeling like he has to.
“We are?” Cas answers, his voice impossibly thin and hopeful. Balthazar just huffs and claps him on the shoulder, rolling his eyes.
“Let’s say I feel particularly forgiving today. And at least he made you reason, so I’ll be forgiving with him as well,” Balthazar says, eyeing Dean, and he doesn’t try to contradict him – he had his share of responsibility here.
“Cas,” Sam starts, putting a hand on Cas’s arm, “I just – I shouldn’t have written you off like that. And well – thanks for bringing me back in the first place.”
“I was going to fix it,” Cas blurts, sounding apologetic, and everyone knows what’s the elephant in the room here – Sam’s wall.
“That’s okay. I fixed myself,” Sam answers. “And I know. It’s good – at least I don’t have to worry about it anymore, do I? Welcome back,” he finishes, and Cas looks so grateful that Dean doesn’t think he can talk right now. It’d be embarrassing.
“Well,” Bobby says, kneeling down and clapping Cas on the other shoulder once, “one thing I’m sure about is that you gave me every possible reason to call you an idjit, but then again considering that you’re friends with those two, you can mope about it together.”
Which is as close as welcome to the family gets with Bobby Singer, and everyone gets it, and then Dean feels Cas leaning back against him, his head in the crook of Dean’s shoulder. He brings his other arm around Cas’s waist, keeping him there, still. He thinks he needs to feel against his skin the proof that he has Cas back, and he’s not going to let go now.
“We’ll get through this too,” he says in Cas’s ear. “We’re good.”
Cas’s hand reaches down, covering Dean’s left one, and Dean lets Cas thread their fingers together. He looks at everyone else’s faces, and as weary as everyone in the yard is, it’s fine.
It really was that easy.
--
Somewhere, Chuck Shurley (or better, God in Chuck Shurley’s visage, but let’s say Chuck for our own sake) is sitting in front of another computer. He’s typing (in Times New Roman), and it’s the real last book of the series. He’ll just send it off to the publisher before conveniently disappearing for good.
He pauses for a second, trying to find a worthy conclusion, because after all the work he put into this story, metaphorically and not-so-much, it deserves at least that.
And so that’s how it ended. Or, that’s how it ends for now, because surely it wasn’t the end for them. But it was the end of a cycle, if we want to call it like that. And as all endings, it was a hard one. Still, there’s always something to learn, and our heroes might all have been more or less thick, but it’s safe to say that they understood at least that, really, all you need is love. It doesn’t get more complicated than that, does it?
He re-reads it, nods hoping that the editor doesn’t change it too much, and saves the file before attaching it to the e-mail he had ready. He presses send. Then he smiles and the chair is empty.
--
The folded piece of paper which lands in Bobby Singer’s yard a short while later goes unnoticed. Everyone is too concentrated on more important matters, and when the message flutters into the air and hits the ground next to the Impala, no one picks it up.
It stays there for a while.
Balthazar finds it two days later. There’s a reason it’s him finding it – Dean is too busy fussing over Castiel, who’s been exhausted since he let the souls go, but no one’s surprised about that. And Sam and Bobby are hovering around and neither of them had a chance to go near the car. Balthazar had just wanted to get some fresh air, nothing else.
He opens the message, frowning at it.
Nothing you can know that can’t be known, nothing you can see that isn’t shown, nowhere you can’t be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.
He wonders what did he do wrong to be created by a God who likes to speak in riddles using Beatles songs.
Then he pockets the piece of paper. He isn’t stupid and he gets a cue when it’s put in front of him. He takes a breath, looks up at the sky and gets back into the house – maybe showing that stupid note around will put a stop to Castiel’s moping, among other things.
--
The piece of paper is last seen in Castiel’s hands.
Dean is sure that it has a permanent residence inside one of the pockets in Cas’s coat. He never asks about it. He doesn’t need to. He got it. And he’ll try hard not to mess it up, but considering the way Cas looks at him lately, he’s pretty sure that he’s doing things right.
End.
