Chapter Text
Dean slams on the gas hard. The stolen car roars in exhaustion, kicking up dirt along the way. He rolls the window down, not caring about the dust flowing in and out. Not like it could make his face any dirtier than it already is. Not like any place on Earth can get any dirtier than the place he just came back from.
The night road stretches ahead, wide on both sides. Empty. No sight of another human being, not a single passing car. Frogs croak loudly in the fields along the road.
Dean just stares at the road, and drives. Like it's the only thing he can think of. It's the only thing he can still trust himself to do, without breaking anything, or losing anything, again.
He drives on the freeway from the hundred-mile wilderness in Maine, to west, to south, to anywhere the road leads him to. He drives, so he doesn't need to think, or talk, or eat, or sleep. As if, if the road can continue stretching and the driving can last long, then all the things he left behind, all the things he just lost, might never catch up.
---
They still catch up. Of course they do. The images and sounds and smells of that filthy place. The memories of everything that happened in the past year. They catch up to him, close in around him, like a snake coiling its prey before swallowing it whole while it's still alive. Dean is the prey, the meal of a serpent conjured by his own brain, made from that bitter, bloody thing called "memory".
"Dean --" He remembers Cas calling his name. Desperate. His eyes on him. His hands in his. His whole life and trust and everything he carried, all put in the hands they held together. Dean saw it all in Cas's eyes, heard it all in his voice. Dean grasped him tight, and didn't let go.
Their palms were slick with blood and sweat. Every inch of his muscle in Dean's arms and back screamed in stretched strain, the stress sharpened into pain quickly, but he didn't let go. He didn't. Cas's full weight leaned on him, depended on him. So Dean held him tight, just as desperate, as if the whole world rested in the hand he held, because it might as well was.
And then, it stopped. The weight disappeared. The hands loosened. They stepped over the portal together, Dean remembered agonizingly clearly, he fell onto the solid ground of sweet Earth, and two feet besides him where Cas should be, there was only a blast of bright light, and then, there was nothing.
He heard Cas scream, whether it's his human voice pitched too high or his angel voice shrieking, he couldn't tell. All he saw was the silver flare of Cas's grace exploding in front of him, torn apart at the moment of passing. His final cry broken, his last sound painful. He yelled for him one last time, then he was not there anymore. Nowhere to be found.
Cas had mentioned too damn many times they had no idea if the portal would allow an angel to pass, but they'd agreed to try, together. And they did. But just like every other long shot in their bloody lives -- the bleak hopes, the only plans -- it didn't work. They never do.
Dean yelled Cas's name, shouted until his throat hoarse. He would have torn reality a hole right then and there if he knew how, just to tear open the portal again, to see if Cas had fallen back into the Monsterland. He would've jumped back into the place to get Cas back, he swore, just like he had told him, the bottom line was, they were going home together, and he wouldn't leave if Cas is not here with him.
But promises are empty, swears fall into nothing. He is here, and Castiel is not.
Dean stares hard at the front of the windshield, gazing at the road so hard and rigid without blinking that it starts making his eyes watery. Cas should be here, by his side, riding shotgun. They should be going home, together.
Dean punches the wheel, swearing, cursing. The first hint of sunrise emerges at the end of the road, piercing right into his eyes. He blinks at the sudden light, the golden color looks nothing like Castiel's grace, but light is light. Dean blinks again, the dry eyes finally gather enough moisture at the corner that tears threaten to fall.
Dean wipes his eyes roughly with the back of his hand. The dampness mixes with the dirt and dried blood still caked on his skin, making a mess. He presses harder on the gas, urging the car forward, as if he's rushing toward a destination, as if he knows where to go, or where to find Cas.
"You are not dead, Cas." Dean growls at the empty road ahead. He's not gone, he knows that. Just blown away by the portal, or something like that. I'll get you back. Dean promises. I found you in Purgatory, I'll find you again.
The car rumbles forward in a loud engine moan, speeding down the road that is slowly lighting up under the newborn sun.
---
All of Sam's cellphones are offline. Dean tries every single one that he can remember, but pretty much always gets a robotic voice telling him empty service or empty number, barely even any having Sam's recorded message playing out, asking for a voicemail. He tries his own old cells too, no difference.
It takes three days to track Sam down again. Patterns and old habits die hard, traces scattered around like breadcrumbs. He rolls into the small town of Kermit, Texas, parking in front of a white-fenced house.
Thin white curtains with laces half cover the room. He glances inside.
Sam stands with a woman, holding her close. The two of them are kissing, gently. Most of the time, they are simply holding each other, his hands on her shoulders, hers around his waist, their foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's breath, like people slow dancing to an old classic waltz.
Dean looks at this white-picket-fence apple-pie life they used to joke about, sometimes dream about, never once truly believed could be theirs.
He drives away. Leaving the house in his rearview.
They even have flowers with small purple blossoms in the garden, poking out between the fences, oblivious to the early winter chill of October.
Dean leaves town after midnight -- but not before he sneaks into the garage and drives away in his Impala. The Baby was covered under a neat canvas. The keys hung by the garage door.
You get a home now, at least let me have mine. Dean thinks as he settles into the familiar driver's seat, reversing onto the road, wondering for a minute how long it will even take before Sam notices the Impala isn't where it was. For a brief moment, he wonders if this is exactly how Cas felt, seeing him with Lisa right when he was knee-deep in trouble but not having the heart to knock on that freshly painted door.
You don't knock on a door like that, not with hands that can never wash clean of layered, dried bloodstains.
He leaves the town under a starry sky, the road empty and vast, like it always is these days.
---
There is still work to do. There's always work, somewhere. Monsters, ghosts, something dark, something evil, something lurking in the night, waiting to tear people's hearts out or drink their blood dry.
Dean is good at finding things in the dark. But this time, he's looking for something in the light. Something bright and glaring, fluffy and feathery, something -- someone -- holy and angelic. The angel.
As much as he would say angels are nothing more than monsters with good PR, as many times as Cas has explained he doesn't have a harp, it seems that when he thinks of Cas, he still can't help but picture some shiny halos and wings in places he can't see. The same image he had in his mind at four years old, every night when his mom told him angels were watching over him. So that's what he looks for.
It starts turning into a routine. Dean gets into the habit of picking up a piece of newspaper at breakfast and reading through it over coffee. Then he sits in the cafe for the whole day, going through people's mention of angelic encounters online. He scans and scrolls, reads and looks, squints at the words of the witnesses and illustrations from so-called visionaries, thinking, if any of these can be a sign of Cas. If any of them can be luckier than he is, and has a glimpse of Cas while he cannot.
Then he drives, and reads, and asks around if there is anything strange and holy happening, anything like sudden increased heat, or bright light and thunderous sound. And he orders more papers. More coffee. Then he hits the road again.
The days and roads are muffled together. Dean distantly realizes he might be getting as bearded and dirty as he was in Purgatory, and he decides he doesn't care. He punches the word "angel" into the laptop search bar again.
---
There are some pagan gods in Wyoming, some werewolves in Michigan, and then some more pagan gods in Colorado. Dean takes care of them.
He had hoped maybe some of those pagan gods could have enough juice that he could negotiate to use. But at the end of the day, none of them are anything more than a bunch of bloodthirsty sons of bitches. Dean buries his knife in their chests or cuts their heads off, whatever works.
Blood from gods and creatures splatters across his face. Dean gets so used to it now he doesn't flinch or blink.
Some of these days, Earth feels no different from Purgatory. Full of ugly things, and none of the one he's looking for.
He still prays every night. And he drives on.
By November, he has cleaned out a nest of vampires in Washington and killed a nasty specter in Missouri. Winter is falling onto him fast. But the cold is the last thing he's worried about.
The first snow catches him when he's in Rocky Mountain, Colorado, trying to take a shortcut through the state, when a blizzard nearly buries half the car. He ends up staying in a tourist center on the waist of the mountain, stuck with a group of chatty tourists too dumb to travel without checking the weather report. He stares out the window at the roaring snow painting the whole world white and blank. Separated from the rest of the world.
There was no snow in Purgatory. Or rain. Or sun.
Everything was just gray and bleak, the trees half-dead with only trunks left standing, the ground covered in the dirt of corroded skeletons.
So at least, if nothing else, the snow is a good reminder this really is Earth. Dean watches the strong wind blow snowflakes as large as his palm against the glass, adding layers after layers. The view is soon blocked by the thick cover of snow and ice.
"No, I'm telling you, it's true, there are yetis in these mountains. Legends say they only come out in storms like this, feeding on lost hikers. The snow hides their tracks too well so they are super difficult to find, but we still managed to snap some photos." Some distant chatter reaches his ear. Dean focuses on the bitter coffee in his hands, trying to tune out any talk of new monsters or myths. He isn't really in a hunting mood right now.
Cold seeps in through the gaps of the windows.
He hears laughter from the crowd, whatever photo that guy is showing around, the rest of the group isn't buying it. A young woman's mocking voice is loud enough for him to hear from across the lobby:"This can't possibly be a Bigfoot print, Hector. What do you take us for, idiots? Look at the footprint, it's not even barefoot, might as well be a size-hundred dress shoe. Unless you're saying yetis start wearing suits and dress shoes now?" The crowd bursts into laughter.
Dean ducks his head and takes another sip of his coffee that's already gone cold. Cas used to wear dress shoes. It's been a long time since he saw him in the suit though, with everything so messed up and he ended up in a hospital gown that even got carried over into the other side of the portal. Dean finds himself missing that suit and that funny little backward tie.
He doesn't realize a tiny little curl has started pulling on the tip of his lips.
It's been too long. The last time they were both themselves, it feels like years and years ago. Decades even, so it feels. Before Purgatory, before broken Sam, before the Leviathans, or Raphael. A long, long time ago, when he could still straighten his ties, and tell Cas he's "also an FBI", only to watch the badge get displayed upside down.
God, how he wishes this were still then.
His lips drop entirely. He drinks another sip of coffee. It's gone completely cold.
"If you don't believe the photo, I guess you won't believe what I saw with my own eyes, then," the man that must be Hector insists, voice rising over the lingering chuckles that haven't died down. "I swear to God, the day I took the photo, I saw a yeti way bigger than any on record. Must've been at least sixty feet tall, and the weirdest thing was its color. Not like the usual white yetis, this one was beige. And it stood so straight, if I didn't know any better, I might say it was a giant in a trench coat."
Dean jerks his head up so fast the movement even startles himself. He jumps to his feet, marches towards the group, and grabs the man by the collar before he registers what he's doing. "What did you say?" he growls right into the man's face.
Hector stutters. "Chill, man. Just some story time. I was telling the ladies about the other night on the mountain. Just so happened to see this weird-ass yeti."
"The trench coat, what did it look like?" Dean shakes his collar. The man is practically lifted to his toes like a cat caught by the scruff.
"Are you crazy? I don't know, just a trench coat! I mean, it's probably nothing, lights and reflections or something," Hector protests, pushing at Dean's shoulder.
Dean lets him go. "And you said he was on top of the mountain? In a snowstorm like this one?"
" He ?" Hector snorts, flattening his wrinkled clothes. "Yeah, sure. On the highest top, standing next to a big fire pit with cooked human meat, dancing with other lady yetis!" The group of tourists erupts into louder laughter.
Dean turns around, walking straight toward the door.
"Sir, it's too dangerous to go outside in this weather!" One of the staff members calls after him.
Dean doesn't look back. "I'm going," He says.
---
It's freezing cold outside. In fact, "freezing" is far too weak a term for this temperature. Any word that could describe this weather has already been blown away by the blizzard and frozen into the ground.
The snow has piled up and sealed the door shut. He has to climb out through one of the highest windows near the ceiling. The building is mostly buried under the unprecedented storm -- the fiercest and most sudden one that ever hit in all the recorded history, according to those people back inside.
Dean can feel every inch of his skin losing heat fast, he might only have minutes, or seconds, before his body is frozen into some ice sculpture. He may -- extremely likely -- be literally frozen to death, if he's not buried alive first.
But knowing what he knows now, there is no way he's just going to sit inside and do nothing. He could fight through Purgatory from one end to the other, certainly he can survive some snowstorm in Colorado.
Dean steps into the blizzard, and starts walking toward the mountaintop, where the rumors point. The snowflakes are as sharp as angel blades, cutting him bloody, but there is no dripping blood. Even the sliced veins freeze shut the moment they're wounded. The pain is sharp in the first minute, but numbs quickly. He doesn't feel like walking in the icy water anymore, more like boiling water. The cold burns hot. He knows some temperature sensors in his body must have been failing. But he can't care about that right now.
He can't see anything, there is nothing other than a whole complete blinding whiteness in every direction, with all kinds of different shades of pale. He pushes one step after another, but can't tell the difference between each step. He wonders if he's really moving uphill, or just repeating the same motion in the same place.
The storm grows fiercer when the top is nearer. The trees thin out, the snow darkens in color. Dean widens his eyes as far as they'll go, scanning the sky, the ground, the woods, the mountain. Searching the whole world for a glimpse of a color that doesn't belong to the white. Looking for a footprint, or a hint of beige.
"This is suicide, Dean." The voice, so familiar it aches, cuts through the storm, sounding up somewhere close by.
"Cas?" Dean spins around, turning sharply toward the sound.
"Dangerous, reckless, and stupid. You could die here, buried alive, and I'd never find you or your corpse again, you ever think about that?" Cas's voice, scolding. Sad.
"What?" Dean stills. Thinking, then tries, "You're not real, are you? I'm hallucinating."
"Hypothermia can lead to highly vivid and realistic hallucinations. It's been scientifically tested and confirmed." "Cas" steps out of the storm, standing in front of him. In his clean trench coat and straight suit, the blue tie tilted and backwards at the front. Hair unbelievably disheveled yet unmoving in the wind. Eyes as blue as the deepest sea and the clearest autumn sky. The view of the Angel of the Lord as he remembers from the first time they met, the look he forever dreamed about among all the other looks that came after.
"Cas," Dean murmurs, reaching for him, fingers catching nothing but snowflakes. The snow doesn't feel cold anymore.
A sad smile curls his lips as he looks "Cas" in the eyes. "I've been looking for you, Cas. Promised I'd find you and bring you home. But looks like I can't even keep that promise, I'm sorry."
"Cas" has a smile just as sad as his. "You're dying, Dean," He tells him, something he already knew. And then, "I won't let that happen. I can't."
Dean can't really think straight right now, can't fully process the meaning of the words. The cold has made his brain as sluggish as his hands and feet, everything working slower by the second, just like the gradually fading sound of his own heartbeat.
That is when the view in front of his eyes changes entirely. Dean blinks slowly, struggling to understand what he's seeing.
It is as if the storm is split into two halves, like a curtain being drawn open on an opera stage. To his left and right, snow and wind rage on, but right in front of him, in the center, a figure as tall as the sky emerges, stepping toward him slowly. Each step slams into the ground, shaking the earth like the giant from the Jack and the Beanstalk story.
Dean wants to step back, to look up, to speak. There are so many things he wants to do, instinct screams at him to run or fight, but his body is too frozen to move. So he just stares, feeling the newly risen adrenaline pumping fast, forcing his heart to beat harder. His brain struggles to parse the sight before him. The reality looks surreal.
The figure wears a long trench coat that reaches his knees -- tail of the coat taller than the highest trees in their surroundings. Dean looks up, lifting his head as far as his frozen neck allows, but still can't see the figure's face, can barely make out the hem of the coat whipping in the storm. He gasps, his sound caught in his throat.
It is Cas. Undoubtedly, impossibly, it's Cas. But it is so unlike Cas, not in any form Dean has ever known. Not in any history or legend. But it is Cas, for sure. He just knows.
Dean would recognize him anywhere, in any form. Not just by the trench coat, but by the presence. The weight of his gaze falling on to him even if he can't see his eyes; the warmth of concern radiating from his body, practically melting the snow and ice around them. And most of all, who else would ever like this, always come to him at the moment of dying. Hell is the first time, Green Room the second, Dean has long lost count of how many more there were.
"Cas." This time, Dean really is smiling. Dirt and snow and the smear of blood streak his face, making every small movement ache, but he's smiling anyway, wide and stupid.
He steps forward, but Cas pulls back. A thunderous sound rolls from above, as if it comes straight from the sky, low and deafening, like the wrath of the Greek gods befalling on Mount Olympus.
But it's not the sound of rage, or warning. Dean can't understand the syllables, but if he knows Cas at all -- which he does -- then he knows: this is his own name. He would know his own name in every single tongue Cas has ever spoken, and the tone would remain the same.
Dean takes another step forward, carefully, but Cas's figure takes another step back. One step, and he's a hundred feet farther. The blizzard around them roars to life once more, returning to its full intensity and fury. But closely around Dean, a small pocket remains calm and warm, protected from the storm, like a shimmering bubble in space, glowing gold and silver, the color of Cas's grace.
"What's wrong?" Dean manages, his voice swallowed by the wind the moment it leaves his mouth.
Cas makes another sound, just one word, not "Dean", certainly not "Hello".
"No, no, no, no! Cas!" Dean yells, desperate, instinctive. "Wait! Don't! Not 'Goodbye' again! Not so soon! Stay, please!"
Cas turns away, stepping aside. That is when he sees it. A tear in the space behind him, like a massive ugly wound of the reality standing vertical, gaping open like Sauron's evil eye glaring down at the earth. Gray and black smoke coils at the edge like windblown curtains, more ominous than when gates of Hell open. The blizzard pours straight out from the center of the rift, and God knows what else has come through that hole, or what is on the other side.
Cas must be holding it back with his body -- this enormous body he has now, however that happened.
"Cas..." Dean hates it he can't do anything, especially when he knows exactly what is about to happen next. It's the same nightmare that he's been having for ages, over and over, after the day the Cage opened, after Cas walked into the river. The same horror he feared every single night in Purgatory. And it seems, with Cas, it's just gonna keep replaying in reality.
Dean forces himself to run, willing his frozen legs and body into motion, trying to close the distance between them. He pushes as fast as he can. And Cas takes another step back, putting another hundred feet between them. Then another.
Cas is right in front of that huge tear in the dimension now. Bright light starts leaking from him, seeping into the opening, weaving across it like needle and thread mending a tear in fabric, closing it bit by bit. His body dissolving into the light.
"Please..." Dean begs, so quietly that even he can barely hear it. Cas's figure begins to fade, light dimming, the hole shrinking. But just before it's completely stitched shut by the bright light of grace, a slender thread of light detaches from the rest, flying toward Dean.
Dean watches it, dazed, not realizing his eyes are so teary that the light of the grace blurs and smears like soaked watercolor. The thin thread of light lands on his forehead, touches his skin, and immediately sinks in.
Warmth floods him from head to toe, like the best hot shower he could ever hope for in this moment, chasing out the last remnants of the storm's cold from his body. The exact same feeling as whenever Cas touches him, and heals him.
Dean looks up again. At the place where the tear of the space once was, there is now only a smooth stretch of open sky and air. There is no nasty thing from another dimension, there is no blinding light of needle and thread.
There is no Cas, again. Not even a sign to prove it wasn't a dream. Except for the lingering warmth still flowing through his body.
The raging snowstorm dies down, like the last drops of water sputtering from a faucet during an outrage. Then it stops completely. The world is fixed, at least this part of it, he realizes belatedly, when the tear is mended, when Cas is gone.
He stares at the sky as it clears. Blue as crystal. He blinks hard.
A piece of fabric drifts down from the middle of the air, slowly floating to the ground, landing on the snow. Beige-colored, trench coat texture, torn and bloodstained.
Dean picks it up, puts it into the chest pocket closest to his heart.