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“Had a damn good run, didn’t we?”
They’re the first words that either of them have spoken in hours.
Cas shifts in his seat. He reaches down, squeezes Dean’s hand. It’s frail, a little wrinkled, thin skin spread across sharp bone. He swallows; Dean hears his throat click. He looks up at him, furrowing his brow.
“We did,” Cas says finally, meeting his gaze. Those same wide blue eyes, the same look, even after all these years. Like Dean’s the only thing that’s ever mattered.
Dean gives him a smile, dropping his gaze to the bedside table when Cas smiles back. An old photo stares back at him, one that had taken them several tries to get right, with Dean struggling to set the timer and Jack hardly ever looking at the camera. They’d finally gotten one, though, of the four of them, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, smiles on all their faces. Cas and Dean in the middle, Sam to Dean’s right, Jack to Cas’s left. Dean’s gaze hovers over Sam.
“He knows?”
Cas nods.
Dean swallows. “He’s good?”
Cas leans forward in his chair, laying his other hand on top of Dean’s. “He’s happy.”
“Happy.” Dean huffs a laugh, rubbing a hand over his chest. “I’ll be damned.”
“It’s the very least what you both deserve.”
Dean closes his eyes, breathing in deep and letting it out slowly. He thinks of Cas. Of the day they saved him from the Empty. The day Chuck gave him his powers back. The day they said secret vows to each other one night after a rugaru hunt, and Sam’s knowing smile when they’d returned home.
He thinks of Jack. Of the first time he ever drove the Impala. The first time he went on date. He thinks of his inquisitiveness and kindness. He thinks of how the three of them raised a kid seemingly pre-destined for evil to be one of the most empathetic people he’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.
He thinks of Sam. Oh, does he think of Sam. He thinks of the Sam he saved from the nursery all those years ago, the Sam who ditched school and a loving girlfriend to help his family. He thinks of the Sam who saved his life numerous times. The Sam who beat Lucifer. The Sam who saved the world.
Sam died peacefully in his sleep just a few short years ago, with his wife by his side. He was happy. Dean was happy for him.
Dean opens his eyes. Cas looks at him, and he knows. They both do.
“It’s time.”
Cas lets out a shaky breath. “Yes.”
Dean blinks up at him. Cas’s eyes are glassy, his lips slightly parted. He looks the same as he always has, the same as he always will. A picture frozen in time.
“You gonna be there when I wake up?”
Cas’s face contorts, eyebrows drawn together, eyes downturned in the corners. He tilts his head, leaning in closer, holding Dean’s hand between his own and pressing it to his lips as he speaks.
“Of course.”
Dean smiles and squeezes Cas's hand. He closes his eyes, and finally lets himself sleep.
----
When he opens his eyes again, Dean squints against a bright light. It fades slowly and he blinks, chasing away the black spots in his vision. There's a old door, light streaming underneath, knob old and tarnished. He reaches out it, turns it, and steps inside.
It's Rocky's.
Soft music from the jukebox fills the space, but Dean's focus is drawn to the man sitting at the bar, two chilled beers open in front of him.
Sam turns, laying an arm across the bar. He looks like his old self, devoid of wrinkles and gray hair. He smiles, sliding one of the beers to the stool beside him.
“There you are. We've been waiting.”
Dean's breath hitches and he swallows. Something in his periphery catches his eye and he looks over, seeing his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. His meets a wide- eyed gaze, a smooth face with faint freckles. A face he barely remembers. A face he hasn't seen in forty years.
He slowly reaches up, watching his reflection, and touches his cheek with a hard bob of his Adam’s apple. The skin feels as smooth as it looks, with some peach fuzz to go with it. Dean takes a step back and looks down at himself, almost laughing when he sees his old body. He’s wearing clothes he hasn’t worn in ages, old hunter flannel with jeans and thick boots. Dean feels...young, light, like him again. His hands look strong, not withered and trembling with the effort just to hold a damn cup of coffee. Dean almost wants to unzip himself just to see-
“Dude, do not look at your junk with me here,” came Sammy’s voice again.
Dean snaps his head up, blinks, and grins. It’s a little wobbly, and his eyes are blurry, but he walks up to his little brother slowly and stops just a few feet from him. He looks at him- really looks at him- and swallows past the lump on his throat. So many memories come rushing back his knees almost buckle. His death had been hard, of course, but not surprising. Few hunters got to grow old like they did. Settle down. Have families. Sam passing in his sleep had been a miracle.
Dean finally slides into the barstool next to Sam and wraps his fingers around the beer. It’s cold and Dean bets it never gets warm.
“So,” he says, voice rough and unsteady, “this is…”
“Heaven,” Sam nods, taking a casual sip of his beer. As if he isn’t sitting in a bar in Heaven, looking 40 years younger, in a bar that doesn’t really exist. Then again, he’s had some time to get used to this.
“You, uh…” Dean licks his lips, running his thumb over the cool glass of the bottle. “You said ‘we’. Who, uh…”
“Everyone,” Sam chuckles softly, setting his beer down with a quiet thunk . “Bobby, Charlie, Kevin, Jo, Ellen, mom...dad.” He shrugs and turns in his seat, bracing an arm over the bar. “But I wanted some time with my brother first.”
Dean clenches his jaw and nods, his throat bobbing. He can’t think of all their faces right now. It’s too much and of course Sam knows that. Knows he wouldn’t have been able to handle all of them at the start, at once. That’s the real reason Sam insisted he go first and Dean is grateful his brother knows him so well.
“How are you...here?” Dean asks, finally looking up, taking in the face he hasn’t seen in years. Decades. “I thought in Heaven everyone stuck to their own little piece of paradise.”
Sam shrugs, rapping his knuckles on the worn wood of the bar. “Let’s just say you have it in with an angel who apparently has a lot of pull around here. Plus, I think Chuck kinda owes us one.”
Dean’s eyes suddenly glance around sharply, searching for that familiar blue tie and trench coat. Cas isn’t there, though, and Dean tries to push away the flutter of panic in his chest. Cas promised he’d be here when Dean “woke”. He’ll be here.
“Sammy, it’s…” Dean huffs and scrubs a hand down his face, then finally pulls Sam into a tight hug. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”
“You too,” Sam says roughly, patting Dean on the back hard. The hug probably lasts longer than it should, but fuck if either of them care.
“How-how you been?” Dean asks, pulling away and finally taking a chug of his beer. It’s perfect.
“Really...really good,” Sam laughs, tucking some hair behind his ear. Dean doesn’t have it in him to poke fun at the length. Yet. “I kinda thought I’d get bored, you know? But...I dunno, man. It’s nice to just...be. Peaceful. Nice to know it’s finally done for us. Whatever happens down there...it’s up to the next generation now.”
Dean nods in understanding. Despite them “retiring”, a hunter never really stops . They slow down, sure, but never stop until their bodies just physically couldn’t keep up anymore. Or something ate them. Either way. Sammy and Eileen had married, moved into a beautiful house, had a kick-ass daughter and a dog. But even through that, Sam had still helped out where he could. Researched cases for other hunters, found cases and hunters to take care of it. Even joined a case every once and a while, but that had been rare.
Dean had taken longer to pass the mantle, so to speak. Habits die hard and all that. Him and Cas took over the bunker, made it a sort of way station and safe house for any hunter- or victim- in need. It was Cas’s insistence that finally made Dean give up active hunting. It had been surprisingly easy once he did. Domesticity had never been something Dean ever thought he could have, but with Cas...well, the angel always made things easier. And it helped that Cas always found interesting ways to keep Dean occupied.
He had always felt a bit anxious, though. Waiting for the next apocalypse, the next big bad to come and fuck everything up. Sam is right. It’s nice to know he’s done now. He can rest, knowing that all those nasty monsters aren’t his problem anymore.
“You think we taught him well enough, then?” Dean asks, spinning the bottle against the wooden bar.
“He's got this,” Sam says reassuringly. “And even if we didn't… Cas is helpin’ him. When he needs it.”
“Cas.”
“Yeah.” Sam looks over at him, tapping a finger against his bottle. “He was with you, there at the end, wasn’t he?”
Dean looks down at his glass and smiles, huffing a laugh. “Yeah. ‘Course he was.” He raises his head and catches Sam’s eye, finding his brother smiling softly at him. Dean coughs once and clears his throat, looking back down as he fingers the Cosmic Cowboy label on his bottle. “He, uh...he said he’d be here.”
“Dean.”
Dean snaps his head up, and there he is.
Cas is standing at the other end of the bar, with a case of Grackle stout in his bare arms. He’s wearing a Rocky’s t-shirt and jeans, his hair tousled and swept to the side in the way Dean had come to love over the years.
Dean slides out of his seat, grinning.
“Cas.”
Cas smiles widely, complete with eye crinkles, and sits the case on the top of the bar. Dean starts over to him and Cas rounds the bar, his arms wrapping around Dean’s waist when Dean throws his arms around him.
“It’s really you,” Dean murmurs into his neck, eyes swimming.
“I told you I’d be here.”
Dean swallows and closes his eyes. He thinks about how he’s never felt more at home, more content, more happy than he does at this very moment, finally getting to live peacefully with his brother and the love of his life. With all the people that ever made his life worth anything.
With the person who made him realize his life was worth something.
“I love you, Dean.”
Dean lets out a gasping sob masked inside a laugh. “Love you too, Cas.”
Dean pulls back and touches a hand to Cas’s cheek, then claps him on the shoulder, squeezing softly. He looks back at Sam and runs a hand down his face, wiping away stray tears. He quirks a smile, tilting his head.
“End of the line, eh, boys?”
“I like to think of it as the beginning,” Cas says sagely, pressing his lips together into a smile when the brothers look at him.
Sam smiles, cheeks dimpling, and shrugs. “Nothing ever really ends, does it?”