Bron-Yr-Aur
Jun. 7th, 2017 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ramblingmanSam Winchester hadn't known what to expect, heading back into the house that James Novak had rented on the edge of the lake. More death, certainly, to match the loss and tragedy that he had witnessed outside, and a child, born to a mother already dead. Someone should have been with her, but Mary had come to the rescue of her sons, and now she was...
No.
Sam didn't have time to process that yet.
He found Kelly lying dead, her glassy sightless eyes raised toward the ceiling. There was no blood. If anything, she looked peaceful, and Sam experienced a fleeting hope that wherever she was, she was beyond the reach of such pain. He had seen so much death recently that Sam felt hollowed out by it. Standing over Eileen's body, Crowley killing himself for them, watching Castiel die in front of his very eyes...
No.
Sam didn't have time to process that yet.
Quietly, channeling all the calm he could muster, Sam laid his hand over Kelly's face, closing her eyelids. She was still warm beneath his fingertips. Had it only been minutes? It felt as though the grief had doubled up on top of him, suffocating, stretching mere moments out into hours. Sam could only imagine how Dean must feel--could only imagine it, and press on, startled by a noise in the next room.
No, not startled. Startled would imply that he didn't know that there was someone else in the house. But he had expected a baby, an infant. Even Cas - even Lucifer - had expected a newborn, not a creature capable of walking on two legs, his feet charring the floorboards. Even less likely, in Sam's mind, was the potential that he would find a naked young man crouched trembling in the corner of the dark nursery, with his arms wrapped around his body, his eyes reflecting that same eerie glow that had possessed Castiel so very recently.
This was the Nephilim. This was "Jack". Jack was big. And Jack's smile was so very disturbing, it set Sam's nerves even more on edge than they already were.
Sam couldn't help but be aware of how delicate this situation was. If Jack had been a child then there would have been time to get to know him, teach him, show him the world. Even with all the power he had, Sam was sure that it would have worked out fine. But Jack had been born into a dangerous world where his two protectors - his pseudo and actual parent - were both dead. With the power available to him, being born fully formed was probably the safest way there was to stay alive.
If Sam posed a threat, he was pretty sure Jack could turn him into a stain on the floor with a thought. So he raised his hand up in the universal sign of placation, lowering his shoulders just a little in order to reduce his imposing height.
Jack might be a newborn, but he could already walk. Sam knew enough about the supernatural by now - knew better than most - than to think the Nephilim wouldn't understand him, or guess his intentions if he meant ill. It was fortunate for him that he didn't. He held Jack's gaze, still keeping his hands raised, and said softly:
"I'm Sam Winchester. I promise, I'm only here to help. Let me help."
Jack didn't move or speak. For a few moments, all he did was hold Sam's gaze across the room. Finally, he opened his mouth, only to make a strange scratchy noise with his throat. Then, clipped but coherent, he spoke:
"I know who you are, Sam Winchester. You wanted to keep... To keep my mother alive."
"That's--" Sam paused, then nodded, carefully keeping his gaze solid through each movement his head made. "That's right. We only wanted what was best for your mom. She really loved you, Jack. She...she sacrificed her life to try to keep you safe, to keep you whole, the same as my mom did when I was a baby."
Sam's smile was hopeful. Jack still hadn't moved away from the wall, but he looked thoughtful, even despite the unsettling smirk still fixed on his face. Obviously empathy hadn't come in the package.
"I remember her," Jack finally said, and he unpeeled slowly from his hiding place. Sam kept his eyes resolutely on Jack's face. "Mary. She was here. But she's lost now."
Sam paled. He was right. Their mother was gone. With those few simple words, Jack had struck him right to the heart. They'd only just made up with their mom, told her that she could come home. Sam had been about to know the kind of family that wasn't on the road all the time, hunting for something or running from something else. At least, that was what he had hoped for.
But these things had a way of slipping through his fingers. That was why, like Dean, he'd given up on the idea of ever being free of this life. Oh, he was proud of it too, proud of the man he'd become, but loneliness was franchised with its success. Getting even never made watching beloved friends and family dying any easier to bear. The lost opportunities, an absence of any future that wasn't spent with a gun or a knife in his hand--Sam would always be in mourning for those things, even if he accepted them as the cost of living the life they lived.
The truth was, he'd accepted it a long time ago. Who else was going to keep the world safe from things like this? Things like Jack?
"I know," Jack said, beaming at Sam. "We should go find her."
-----
Dean Winchester was in Hell.
He'd been to Hell before. He'd been whipped and burned and eviscerated, put back together and ripped down the middle all over again. But that was nothing to the pain he felt now. Ever since he'd suffered the pain of having his humanity crammed back into his body by Sam one needle at a time, he had felt it more acutely than he ever had. The fragility that loomed just beneath the surface, his dependance on having something and someone other than Sam in his life.
Dean had always known what he was. He was a brother, a father, a mother. He had helped Sam mourn a woman that he had only met the once, and when they had lost their father as well, Dean had stepped in once again, like he had in all the times before, to pick up the slack. He'd fed him, clothed him, sold his soul for him, been Death for him--killed Death for him. Sam was strong enough now. Sam was free. Sam didn't need his brother to fight his battles for him any more.
And Dean had seen hope that now, when that happened, there would be something left for him to come home to.
Cas. His mom. Family. That was what Dean lived for, ultimately. Without them he was empty; purposeless; broken. He felt it more jarringly than he could stand, like he'd been ripped open again, gutted, and left completely hollow inside. He couldn't even sustain his own weight, crumbling to the ground beside Castiel, staring up at the sky not because he was praying for help, but because he imagined the stars would come crashing down next. His world had been crumbled to dust in two seconds. Or three. Or hours. He didn't know. Time failed to be a constant.
When he looked back down at Castiel, he was still dead. Worse, now that he was looking down, Dean could see the black wings that had been scorched into the earth in every direction. He reached out into the sand, felt it burn his fingers where he touched the grains, but didn't care, scooping through them as though by disrupting the image he could undo the truth right in front of him.
"Cas."
Dean's voice was little more than a croak, and he moved his hands to Cas' shoulders next, shaking him gently, then roughly.
"Cas. C'mon, man. You can't... You can't do this to me. I need you."
But Castiel didn't stir. He didn't move. He didn't budge even as Dean lifted him off the dirt and pulled him against his chest, wringing his lifeless body tight against him. Within moments Dean was rocking, sobbing, his face buried in Cas' neck, begging him not to be dead in between his breathless sobs.
He told himself it wasn't just Cas, it was everything. After everything he'd been through, things had been looking up. Dean had been opening himself up to the possibility that maybe, maybe, the future had something in it for him. In a moment it had been ripped away, and Dean had never known quite how much he needed it until now. Until it was gone.
He was wrecked by the time he heard Sam calling to him. His brother was standing next to a teenager wrapped in a blanket, not that Dean could tell as much in his current state. His face was puffy, his eyes stinging and strained from the tears, and he could barely focus on the pair of them.
"Dean," Sam repeated. Who knew how many times he'd said it already, but this time he said it as he crouched down beside his brother, trying to disengage him from the angel's dead body. Sam was matter of fact about it.
"Dean, let him go. This isn't even Cas any more. It wasn't even his body. He's gone, Dean."
But Dean was having none of it. He wrenched Cas tighter against his chest, and pulled away from his brother. Sam tried again. This time he spoke more softly, trying to encourage Dean to surrender rather than force him to.
"Dean. Jack's offered to help us find our mom. Do you understand? He's going to take us to find her, you and me. But first, you have to let Cas go."
Dean managed wry, agonized words, then, looking fiercely up at Sam. "I thought you said it wasn't even Cas any more, Sam?"
Sam wasn't having any of it. He had the heavy duty weaponry on his side. "Does that mean you don't want to save mom?"
That wasn't true, was it? Of course Dean wanted to rescue their mother, but didn't he even get a chance to mourn? Cas was his...his best friend. Maybe more. Well, no. From now on, he'd never be anything more than that. He was dead, and that was as far as their relationship would ever go. Missed opportunities, and Dean's heart - only so recently pieced back together - had been ripped out of his chest all over again.
This time, he knew, there was no coming back. This time he was done with letting people in. It only ever guaranteed that one day he would have to watch them die.
Cas would never know how Dean felt. He would never know that he loved him too.
Because wasn't that, ultimately, what had gone unsaid? Cas had said it, right to his face, so jarringly that those words had crept their way into Dean's dreams for weeks afterwards. Cas loved him. Dean had told Mary. She knew. But Cas? Cas had died never knowing. He would never know, because where did angels even go when they were dead? Was there a Heaven for angels, or was there just emptiness; blackness; an unloved nothing?
The teenager's words snapped him out of his reverie. It was as though the kid had read his mind.
"He's in paradise. It's what he wanted."
Dean blinked blearily at Jack, and twisted ever so slightly on the ground to look at him. He didn't relinquish Castiel.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's what he wanted. A world without pain and misery, anger or war. Castiel is in paradise. It's all that he's ever wanted."
Dean didn't even feel himself stagger to his feet, but a second later he was swinging a fist toward Jack's face when Sam tackled him in the side, knocking him heavily to the ground. He held Dean down as he fought to try and get back up, roaring in anguish, waiting him out before he shouted at him.
"Are you stupid? You're going to punch a Nephilim in the face? I mean. What? What do you think that was going to achieve, Dean?"
Dean wasn't done. He writhed underneath Sam, glowering up at Jack. "Bring him back! If you're so powerful, bring him back!"
"But he's in paradise," Jack repeated, confused. Dean yelled again, and kicked, and Sam reluctantly let him go, knowing that the fight would go out of his brother as common sense clicked in. He couldn't fight the Nephilim even if he wanted to.
"Besides," Jack continued. "While I could bring him back, I don't have the power to do both that and open a door to another universe. You would be condemning your mother to my father's mercy."
Dean stared, the fight gone out of him. Son of a bitch. What kind of choice was that? Bring Cas back and cut him off from...what? The angel version of a Heaven? Or rescue their mom from certain torture at the hands of Lucifer. It wasn't a choice at all. And yet, by making it, Dean's hand was being forced. He had to decide--
"The door," Sam said, abruptly, and Dean was jolted out of his self pity by the certainty in his brother's voice. Like it was his decision to make.
Dean scrambled back to his feet, so he could at least try to stare his brother down. "What the hell, Sam? Aren't we even going to discuss this?"
"What's there to discuss?" He shrugged, and looked at Jack rather than Dean. "Look. Either you trust me to make choices for us, or you don't, and this one's obvious. Cas is gone, Dean. And bringing people back--when has that ever done us any good? But mom is still alive, trapped out there, and we owe it to her to try and get her back."
But Sam wasn't done yet. He looked back over his shoulder at Cas' body, now crumpled at an awkward angle from the way Dean had scrambled to his feet, then fixed his gaze back on Dean once more while he delivered the killing below.
"Unless you think I should go run over another dog?"
Dean felt like his legs had been cut off at the knee. Purgatory. Sam was talking about Purgatory, and how angry Dean had been when Sam hadn't come looking for him. Now, Mary was the one trapped in another dimension. And Dean had a choice: he could patch up the dog, or they could go looking for their mom.
Except Cas wasn't a dog. He was family.
Dean didn't answer until he was back at Cas' side, lifting the angel in his arms, grunting as he took the dead weight against his chest. He staggered as he got up to his feet, grateful as Sam reached out to steady him.
"Just give me a minute," he told him, brokenly.
He was surrendering to inevitability, giving up the man he loved so that they could go and rescue their long lost mother all over again. But Sam was right as much as he was very, very wrong. Cas was a Winchester, and as far as Dean was concerned, he deserved at least a token effort to bring him back to life.
Sam stepped back. Jack was still smiling, though he looked between Sam and Dean almost with confusion, seemingly with no idea what they were doing. Dean paid no attention, but he heard Sam explaining behind him:
"When someone we love dies, we grieve them. Dean just needs... He just needs a minute to grieve. Let's just wait for him, okay?"
Jack said something else, but Dean wasn't listening. He was already halfway back to the Impala, opening the passenger side expertly with one finger and his entire left leg. Gently, he lowered Cas inside, propping him carefully as though he were sleeping, before crouching down beside him, one knee almost in the footwell as Dean looked up at him.
"I know this isn't ideal. You deserve...you deserve so much better than this. God, you deserve at least to have a goddamn hunter's funeral. You've earned it."
He rubbed tears out of his eyes, determined not to fall apart again and make this any more difficult than it already was.
"I don't have the words, man. If I did, I'd tell you. I'd tell you how much it meant to me that you were always there when I needed you the most. And that it's...that it's okay. That I forgive you. That I..."
He shook his head, and looked back over at Sam and Jack, feeling the strain of the limited time they had. He didn't have time to write Cas the epitaph he deserved, and he couldn't fix it. They'd gone out on a fight, and while Dean had promised that they'd make up, that wasn't the same as actually doing it. He reached up, nervously, and carded his fingers through Cas' dark hair.
"I'm going to come back for you, and do this properly. I promise. I love you, Cas."
Dean stared, just for a moment, expectantly, as though he expected Cas to open his eyes when he told him how he felt, as though with those four words the skies would open and Chuck would come down and say "I'm sorry I screwed with your lives, here's your reward." But nothing changed, and even when Dean leant up in the dark privacy of the car and pressed a kiss against Castiel's still, cold lips, nothing changed. No Disney music started playing. Absolutely nothing changed.
Cas was still dead, and Dean's heart was still broken.
Running his hand down Cas' chest, Dean intended on arranging Cas' coat so it wouldn't get caught in the jamb. What he found instead was something hard, tucked just inside, in the breast pocket of Cas' shirt. Wordlessly, Dean fished it out, emotion swimming over him when he realised what it was.
The Zeppelin tape he'd made for Cas bore the wounds of his death. A triangular hole had been slammed through the plastic by the angel blade that had pierced Cas' heart. The plastic was melted around it, as though by a fierce heat. And yet, lovingly, Dean put the tape in his own pocket before he stood back up, speaking conspiratorially to Cas as he did.
"I'm only borrowing this for the same reason I gave it to you. So I have something to remember you by. It's yours, and I'm going to give it back. I swear."
Applying just enough pressure that the mechanism clicked into place, Dean closed the passenger side door, and returned to his brother.
-----
No.
Sam didn't have time to process that yet.
He found Kelly lying dead, her glassy sightless eyes raised toward the ceiling. There was no blood. If anything, she looked peaceful, and Sam experienced a fleeting hope that wherever she was, she was beyond the reach of such pain. He had seen so much death recently that Sam felt hollowed out by it. Standing over Eileen's body, Crowley killing himself for them, watching Castiel die in front of his very eyes...
No.
Sam didn't have time to process that yet.
Quietly, channeling all the calm he could muster, Sam laid his hand over Kelly's face, closing her eyelids. She was still warm beneath his fingertips. Had it only been minutes? It felt as though the grief had doubled up on top of him, suffocating, stretching mere moments out into hours. Sam could only imagine how Dean must feel--could only imagine it, and press on, startled by a noise in the next room.
No, not startled. Startled would imply that he didn't know that there was someone else in the house. But he had expected a baby, an infant. Even Cas - even Lucifer - had expected a newborn, not a creature capable of walking on two legs, his feet charring the floorboards. Even less likely, in Sam's mind, was the potential that he would find a naked young man crouched trembling in the corner of the dark nursery, with his arms wrapped around his body, his eyes reflecting that same eerie glow that had possessed Castiel so very recently.
This was the Nephilim. This was "Jack". Jack was big. And Jack's smile was so very disturbing, it set Sam's nerves even more on edge than they already were.
Sam couldn't help but be aware of how delicate this situation was. If Jack had been a child then there would have been time to get to know him, teach him, show him the world. Even with all the power he had, Sam was sure that it would have worked out fine. But Jack had been born into a dangerous world where his two protectors - his pseudo and actual parent - were both dead. With the power available to him, being born fully formed was probably the safest way there was to stay alive.
If Sam posed a threat, he was pretty sure Jack could turn him into a stain on the floor with a thought. So he raised his hand up in the universal sign of placation, lowering his shoulders just a little in order to reduce his imposing height.
Jack might be a newborn, but he could already walk. Sam knew enough about the supernatural by now - knew better than most - than to think the Nephilim wouldn't understand him, or guess his intentions if he meant ill. It was fortunate for him that he didn't. He held Jack's gaze, still keeping his hands raised, and said softly:
"I'm Sam Winchester. I promise, I'm only here to help. Let me help."
Jack didn't move or speak. For a few moments, all he did was hold Sam's gaze across the room. Finally, he opened his mouth, only to make a strange scratchy noise with his throat. Then, clipped but coherent, he spoke:
"I know who you are, Sam Winchester. You wanted to keep... To keep my mother alive."
"That's--" Sam paused, then nodded, carefully keeping his gaze solid through each movement his head made. "That's right. We only wanted what was best for your mom. She really loved you, Jack. She...she sacrificed her life to try to keep you safe, to keep you whole, the same as my mom did when I was a baby."
Sam's smile was hopeful. Jack still hadn't moved away from the wall, but he looked thoughtful, even despite the unsettling smirk still fixed on his face. Obviously empathy hadn't come in the package.
"I remember her," Jack finally said, and he unpeeled slowly from his hiding place. Sam kept his eyes resolutely on Jack's face. "Mary. She was here. But she's lost now."
Sam paled. He was right. Their mother was gone. With those few simple words, Jack had struck him right to the heart. They'd only just made up with their mom, told her that she could come home. Sam had been about to know the kind of family that wasn't on the road all the time, hunting for something or running from something else. At least, that was what he had hoped for.
But these things had a way of slipping through his fingers. That was why, like Dean, he'd given up on the idea of ever being free of this life. Oh, he was proud of it too, proud of the man he'd become, but loneliness was franchised with its success. Getting even never made watching beloved friends and family dying any easier to bear. The lost opportunities, an absence of any future that wasn't spent with a gun or a knife in his hand--Sam would always be in mourning for those things, even if he accepted them as the cost of living the life they lived.
The truth was, he'd accepted it a long time ago. Who else was going to keep the world safe from things like this? Things like Jack?
"I know," Jack said, beaming at Sam. "We should go find her."
-----
Dean Winchester was in Hell.
He'd been to Hell before. He'd been whipped and burned and eviscerated, put back together and ripped down the middle all over again. But that was nothing to the pain he felt now. Ever since he'd suffered the pain of having his humanity crammed back into his body by Sam one needle at a time, he had felt it more acutely than he ever had. The fragility that loomed just beneath the surface, his dependance on having something and someone other than Sam in his life.
Dean had always known what he was. He was a brother, a father, a mother. He had helped Sam mourn a woman that he had only met the once, and when they had lost their father as well, Dean had stepped in once again, like he had in all the times before, to pick up the slack. He'd fed him, clothed him, sold his soul for him, been Death for him--killed Death for him. Sam was strong enough now. Sam was free. Sam didn't need his brother to fight his battles for him any more.
And Dean had seen hope that now, when that happened, there would be something left for him to come home to.
Cas. His mom. Family. That was what Dean lived for, ultimately. Without them he was empty; purposeless; broken. He felt it more jarringly than he could stand, like he'd been ripped open again, gutted, and left completely hollow inside. He couldn't even sustain his own weight, crumbling to the ground beside Castiel, staring up at the sky not because he was praying for help, but because he imagined the stars would come crashing down next. His world had been crumbled to dust in two seconds. Or three. Or hours. He didn't know. Time failed to be a constant.
When he looked back down at Castiel, he was still dead. Worse, now that he was looking down, Dean could see the black wings that had been scorched into the earth in every direction. He reached out into the sand, felt it burn his fingers where he touched the grains, but didn't care, scooping through them as though by disrupting the image he could undo the truth right in front of him.
"Cas."
Dean's voice was little more than a croak, and he moved his hands to Cas' shoulders next, shaking him gently, then roughly.
"Cas. C'mon, man. You can't... You can't do this to me. I need you."
But Castiel didn't stir. He didn't move. He didn't budge even as Dean lifted him off the dirt and pulled him against his chest, wringing his lifeless body tight against him. Within moments Dean was rocking, sobbing, his face buried in Cas' neck, begging him not to be dead in between his breathless sobs.
He told himself it wasn't just Cas, it was everything. After everything he'd been through, things had been looking up. Dean had been opening himself up to the possibility that maybe, maybe, the future had something in it for him. In a moment it had been ripped away, and Dean had never known quite how much he needed it until now. Until it was gone.
He was wrecked by the time he heard Sam calling to him. His brother was standing next to a teenager wrapped in a blanket, not that Dean could tell as much in his current state. His face was puffy, his eyes stinging and strained from the tears, and he could barely focus on the pair of them.
"Dean," Sam repeated. Who knew how many times he'd said it already, but this time he said it as he crouched down beside his brother, trying to disengage him from the angel's dead body. Sam was matter of fact about it.
"Dean, let him go. This isn't even Cas any more. It wasn't even his body. He's gone, Dean."
But Dean was having none of it. He wrenched Cas tighter against his chest, and pulled away from his brother. Sam tried again. This time he spoke more softly, trying to encourage Dean to surrender rather than force him to.
"Dean. Jack's offered to help us find our mom. Do you understand? He's going to take us to find her, you and me. But first, you have to let Cas go."
Dean managed wry, agonized words, then, looking fiercely up at Sam. "I thought you said it wasn't even Cas any more, Sam?"
Sam wasn't having any of it. He had the heavy duty weaponry on his side. "Does that mean you don't want to save mom?"
That wasn't true, was it? Of course Dean wanted to rescue their mother, but didn't he even get a chance to mourn? Cas was his...his best friend. Maybe more. Well, no. From now on, he'd never be anything more than that. He was dead, and that was as far as their relationship would ever go. Missed opportunities, and Dean's heart - only so recently pieced back together - had been ripped out of his chest all over again.
This time, he knew, there was no coming back. This time he was done with letting people in. It only ever guaranteed that one day he would have to watch them die.
Cas would never know how Dean felt. He would never know that he loved him too.
Because wasn't that, ultimately, what had gone unsaid? Cas had said it, right to his face, so jarringly that those words had crept their way into Dean's dreams for weeks afterwards. Cas loved him. Dean had told Mary. She knew. But Cas? Cas had died never knowing. He would never know, because where did angels even go when they were dead? Was there a Heaven for angels, or was there just emptiness; blackness; an unloved nothing?
The teenager's words snapped him out of his reverie. It was as though the kid had read his mind.
"He's in paradise. It's what he wanted."
Dean blinked blearily at Jack, and twisted ever so slightly on the ground to look at him. He didn't relinquish Castiel.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's what he wanted. A world without pain and misery, anger or war. Castiel is in paradise. It's all that he's ever wanted."
Dean didn't even feel himself stagger to his feet, but a second later he was swinging a fist toward Jack's face when Sam tackled him in the side, knocking him heavily to the ground. He held Dean down as he fought to try and get back up, roaring in anguish, waiting him out before he shouted at him.
"Are you stupid? You're going to punch a Nephilim in the face? I mean. What? What do you think that was going to achieve, Dean?"
Dean wasn't done. He writhed underneath Sam, glowering up at Jack. "Bring him back! If you're so powerful, bring him back!"
"But he's in paradise," Jack repeated, confused. Dean yelled again, and kicked, and Sam reluctantly let him go, knowing that the fight would go out of his brother as common sense clicked in. He couldn't fight the Nephilim even if he wanted to.
"Besides," Jack continued. "While I could bring him back, I don't have the power to do both that and open a door to another universe. You would be condemning your mother to my father's mercy."
Dean stared, the fight gone out of him. Son of a bitch. What kind of choice was that? Bring Cas back and cut him off from...what? The angel version of a Heaven? Or rescue their mom from certain torture at the hands of Lucifer. It wasn't a choice at all. And yet, by making it, Dean's hand was being forced. He had to decide--
"The door," Sam said, abruptly, and Dean was jolted out of his self pity by the certainty in his brother's voice. Like it was his decision to make.
Dean scrambled back to his feet, so he could at least try to stare his brother down. "What the hell, Sam? Aren't we even going to discuss this?"
"What's there to discuss?" He shrugged, and looked at Jack rather than Dean. "Look. Either you trust me to make choices for us, or you don't, and this one's obvious. Cas is gone, Dean. And bringing people back--when has that ever done us any good? But mom is still alive, trapped out there, and we owe it to her to try and get her back."
But Sam wasn't done yet. He looked back over his shoulder at Cas' body, now crumpled at an awkward angle from the way Dean had scrambled to his feet, then fixed his gaze back on Dean once more while he delivered the killing below.
"Unless you think I should go run over another dog?"
Dean felt like his legs had been cut off at the knee. Purgatory. Sam was talking about Purgatory, and how angry Dean had been when Sam hadn't come looking for him. Now, Mary was the one trapped in another dimension. And Dean had a choice: he could patch up the dog, or they could go looking for their mom.
Except Cas wasn't a dog. He was family.
Dean didn't answer until he was back at Cas' side, lifting the angel in his arms, grunting as he took the dead weight against his chest. He staggered as he got up to his feet, grateful as Sam reached out to steady him.
"Just give me a minute," he told him, brokenly.
He was surrendering to inevitability, giving up the man he loved so that they could go and rescue their long lost mother all over again. But Sam was right as much as he was very, very wrong. Cas was a Winchester, and as far as Dean was concerned, he deserved at least a token effort to bring him back to life.
Sam stepped back. Jack was still smiling, though he looked between Sam and Dean almost with confusion, seemingly with no idea what they were doing. Dean paid no attention, but he heard Sam explaining behind him:
"When someone we love dies, we grieve them. Dean just needs... He just needs a minute to grieve. Let's just wait for him, okay?"
Jack said something else, but Dean wasn't listening. He was already halfway back to the Impala, opening the passenger side expertly with one finger and his entire left leg. Gently, he lowered Cas inside, propping him carefully as though he were sleeping, before crouching down beside him, one knee almost in the footwell as Dean looked up at him.
"I know this isn't ideal. You deserve...you deserve so much better than this. God, you deserve at least to have a goddamn hunter's funeral. You've earned it."
He rubbed tears out of his eyes, determined not to fall apart again and make this any more difficult than it already was.
"I don't have the words, man. If I did, I'd tell you. I'd tell you how much it meant to me that you were always there when I needed you the most. And that it's...that it's okay. That I forgive you. That I..."
He shook his head, and looked back over at Sam and Jack, feeling the strain of the limited time they had. He didn't have time to write Cas the epitaph he deserved, and he couldn't fix it. They'd gone out on a fight, and while Dean had promised that they'd make up, that wasn't the same as actually doing it. He reached up, nervously, and carded his fingers through Cas' dark hair.
"I'm going to come back for you, and do this properly. I promise. I love you, Cas."
Dean stared, just for a moment, expectantly, as though he expected Cas to open his eyes when he told him how he felt, as though with those four words the skies would open and Chuck would come down and say "I'm sorry I screwed with your lives, here's your reward." But nothing changed, and even when Dean leant up in the dark privacy of the car and pressed a kiss against Castiel's still, cold lips, nothing changed. No Disney music started playing. Absolutely nothing changed.
Cas was still dead, and Dean's heart was still broken.
Running his hand down Cas' chest, Dean intended on arranging Cas' coat so it wouldn't get caught in the jamb. What he found instead was something hard, tucked just inside, in the breast pocket of Cas' shirt. Wordlessly, Dean fished it out, emotion swimming over him when he realised what it was.
The Zeppelin tape he'd made for Cas bore the wounds of his death. A triangular hole had been slammed through the plastic by the angel blade that had pierced Cas' heart. The plastic was melted around it, as though by a fierce heat. And yet, lovingly, Dean put the tape in his own pocket before he stood back up, speaking conspiratorially to Cas as he did.
"I'm only borrowing this for the same reason I gave it to you. So I have something to remember you by. It's yours, and I'm going to give it back. I swear."
Applying just enough pressure that the mechanism clicked into place, Dean closed the passenger side door, and returned to his brother.
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